White Sand is a novel with many spelling mistakes with a quite fun plot about restoring the power of the sand mages. If you like political maneuvering go for it. Some neat fight scenes with the sand magic. A lot of betrayals and secret dramas and secrets and quirky characters. The native culture is pretty awesome but the foreign ones are rather undeveloped, and the female representative not great. So, excellent plot action, a setting that needs some work to fully come together, and a small number of very strong characters. Thought by many to be the better of the two novels (White Sand, The Aether of Night.)