Leonard wants to bequeath his tattooed skin to the National Gallery of Australia. He has been almost completely inked by one of Australia's best contemporary artists, but he is a canvas that nobody wants. Strange things start happening to Leonard, Darwin's moth, a tattoo from his calf, flutters around him one night, he wakes with a Cold War gas mask on his head, Mao Tse Tung appears in his bed. Tattoos from his skin come alive before him and he becomes more convinced than ever that his skin is truly precious.

After bursting onto the fantasy scene with his acclaimed debut novel, Elantris, and following up with his blockbuster Mistborn trilogy, Brandon Sanderson proves again that he is today’s leading master of what Tolkien called “secondary creation,” the invention of whole worlds, complete with magics and myths all their own. Warbreaker is the story of two sisters, who happen to be princesses, the God King one of them has to marry, the lesser god who doesn’t like his job, and the immortal who’s still trying to undo the mistakes he made hundreds of years ago. Their world is one in which those who die in glory return as gods to live confined to a pantheon in Hallandren’s capital city and where a power known as BioChromatic magic is based on an essence known as breath that can only be collected one unit at a time from individual people. By using breath and drawing upon the color in everyday objects, all manner of miracles and mischief can be accomplished. It will take considerable quantities of each to resolve all the challenges facing Vivenna and Siri, princesses of Idris; Susebron the God King; Lightsong, reluctant god of bravery, and mysterious Vasher, the Warbreaker.