Book Review: The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Do yourself a favor and get introduced to The Stormlight Archive. You're welcome.
Obligatory disclosure: this is my first book by Brandon Sanderson.
WOW! What an incredible book!
This book lays out an insanely huge world with so many details, cultures, magic systems, and more. I was really impressed by how well he tells the story without dumping a ton of new information on the reader. The whole thing is just so beautifully structured and woven together.
"The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon."
The characters have so much depth; Sanderson really gives us good background information into who these people are, their motives, etc. It felt as though he spent a good portion of this book setting up the board, and then starts moving the pieces around as the world starts to make sense. I loved seeing the characters we know, who spent so long on their own in different worlds, finally start to gather and their stories unfold.
The pacing felt consistent, too. Occasionally I felt like "whewww this book is so long" but it really paid off and got me where where I needed to go.
"This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again."
I’ve had several people tell me how nuts I was for starting this series without any context to Brandon Sanderson’s writing or other books. I did just fine. Don't be afraid to jump straight into a new story - Sanderson does a great job setting up this world in a way where you don't have to read anything else beforehand. I'll get around to Mistborn eventually, promise.
This was a five star read for me. Thanks to @noahsbriskreviews for starting the read-along last month and nudging me to finally start this series. So good.
I've already started the next book, Words of Radiance. Off to the races!
Rating: ★★★★★
Book Summary
- Title: The Way Of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1)
- Author: Brandon Sanderson
- Genre: Fantasy, Epic Fantasy, High Fantasy
- Who Should Read It? Anyone looking to read one of the best fantasy novels written in a long time.
Synopsis: Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.
It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them, and won by them.
One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.
Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.
Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.
