Hardcover, 1008 pages
English language
Published March 31, 2010 by Tor.
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of The Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.
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 …
From #1 New York Times bestselling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of The Stormlight Archive begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.
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.
The result of over ten years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.
Speak again the ancient oaths:
Life before death. Strength before weakness. Journey before Destination.
and return to men the Shards they once bore.
The Knights Radiant must stand again.
I can understand why this is one of the most popular fantasy series in the world.
I had never read anything by Brandon Sanderson before this book, although I had heard of him. It would be impossible not to have heard of him given his recent Kickstarter in which he promised fans four new books over a year and brought in $41 million. Who needs publishers when you’ve got a fan base like that? And yet, Sanderson still publishes traditionally as well. Normally this kind of success would send me running away with the screaming heebie-jeebies because I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to like the things everyone else likes, not to mention being a latecomer to anything. But in the interest of trying to understand what all the fuss is about, I thought I would give at least one Sanderson novel a try. I selected this winnebago of a book because it seemed to be his most popular and not in the middle …
I had never read anything by Brandon Sanderson before this book, although I had heard of him. It would be impossible not to have heard of him given his recent Kickstarter in which he promised fans four new books over a year and brought in $41 million. Who needs publishers when you’ve got a fan base like that? And yet, Sanderson still publishes traditionally as well. Normally this kind of success would send me running away with the screaming heebie-jeebies because I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to like the things everyone else likes, not to mention being a latecomer to anything. But in the interest of trying to understand what all the fuss is about, I thought I would give at least one Sanderson novel a try. I selected this winnebago of a book because it seemed to be his most popular and not in the middle of a series.
To cut this short, I enjoyed it. When I was fifteen, I would have loved it and instantly gone on to read the next two dozen books. It’s epic fantasy of the modern stripe, although Sanderson brings some of his own biases and ignores some of today’s trends, namely in his gender role segregation. He’s good at putting his characters through the wringer; in this book, Kaladin in particular goes from heartbreak to heartbreak until finally winning the day, but even then you know he’s still going to be losing something. I’ll give him a B- for worldbuilding, although there’s enough complications between how the “priests” tried to rule the world in the past and are now pariahs in leadership councils to the “play” of war by the competing nobles who sit around in their nice camps going out for small skirmishes rather than engaging the enemy. My biggest issue with the worldbuilding came from the magic system, always a hard sell for me as I tend to like my books logical, and the stormlight (and the armor, weapons, and fabrials) all seem to be rather deus ex machinery.
I likely won’t continue the series. There’s too many other things out there that I need to read. But I fully understand the appeal. I have a friend in my writing group, Peter Sartucci, who self-publishes an epic fantasy series, and his books have the same kind of appeal as these, although he has yet to achieve the same kind of success. I suspect it’s because he’s too nice to his characters (something I’ve told him in workshop), although he’s getting better at making his lead hero suffer. If you’ve run out of Sanderson to read, though, you might give his books a try.
I got more out of this one book than all the (seven) wheel of time books I've read.
But I still hated it... The so praised world building has a lot of parts that didn't make any sense. At least to me. I understand the ideas that went into it but I think it has some logical flaws. (Eg men rule but don't know how to read?) Also the fighting scenes, how do you fight an enemy for years and years without ever capturing and questioning one? Nothing is known at all about the mysterious enemy at all after all these years? And they haven't adapted their strategy all this time to actually try and win in a greater scale? The hero is so concerned about honor, but the way he acts, especially regarding the enemy I found horrible. Don't want to spoiler anything but the armour - wtf? And then, its so long without much happening at all. Yes some character development I guess but kaladins story …
But I still hated it... The so praised world building has a lot of parts that didn't make any sense. At least to me. I understand the ideas that went into it but I think it has some logical flaws. (Eg men rule but don't know how to read?) Also the fighting scenes, how do you fight an enemy for years and years without ever capturing and questioning one? Nothing is known at all about the mysterious enemy at all after all these years? And they haven't adapted their strategy all this time to actually try and win in a greater scale? The hero is so concerned about honor, but the way he acts, especially regarding the enemy I found horrible. Don't want to spoiler anything but the armour - wtf? And then, its so long without much happening at all. Yes some character development I guess but kaladins story just goes on and on and on and on. I didn't like he female characters at all and found them quite unrelatable. Won't be reading book 2 I guess.
The Way of Kings was in general a pretty decent read once I got into it, and by the end (a rather extreme cliffhanger) I was sufficiently invested that I quite wanted to know what happens next, and would certainly have read the next book in the series if I'd had it available.
That said, it suffers in several points, most notably that it positively oozes with Straight White Male Author Disease. The book is glaringly, painfully cisheteronormative, to the point where it's seriously uncomfortable to read in parts: the sort of thing you'd expect from a 50s sci-fi novel you read mainly out of academic/historical interest, not from a contemporary fantasy which hopes to be taken seriously.
I'd read the rest of the series if I had it available; I might even seek it out, as long as I didn't have to pay for it. But I'd be seriously …
The Way of Kings was in general a pretty decent read once I got into it, and by the end (a rather extreme cliffhanger) I was sufficiently invested that I quite wanted to know what happens next, and would certainly have read the next book in the series if I'd had it available.
That said, it suffers in several points, most notably that it positively oozes with Straight White Male Author Disease. The book is glaringly, painfully cisheteronormative, to the point where it's seriously uncomfortable to read in parts: the sort of thing you'd expect from a 50s sci-fi novel you read mainly out of academic/historical interest, not from a contemporary fantasy which hopes to be taken seriously.
I'd read the rest of the series if I had it available; I might even seek it out, as long as I didn't have to pay for it. But I'd be seriously reluctant to recommend it to others, except in dearth of other reading material.
Sanderson does an amazing job building the world of Roshar and establishing well rounded and thought out characters. An absolutely incredible first entry into the series, it had me hooked by the end of the first chapter. Definitely pick this up, if you're a fan of fantasy you wont regret it!
I haven't been this hooked on a story since I read Isabel Allende's Kingdom of the Golden Dragon back in my early teenage years. I'm already mad that I started such an epic story that is only 4 books into a 10 book series.
Brandon Sanderson builts fantastic worlds and stories. The Stormlight Archives starts slow, but it is worth the time. Just trust the author, most oft the worldbuilding blossoms in the later books
I'm not sorry I read it, I liked the world-building, but I don't know if I can make it through 11 more books in this series!
Holy shit can Brandy write an action scene. And build a world.
Time taken to read: 24 hours 30 minutes
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Literally every single story line was captivating circling around the theme of honor, "the way of kings." God. What a perfecting title for this book. Every single main character exemplifies the theme of honor in some way. The way Brandon brings up "Life before death" in the book hits every single time it comes up.
If I had to choose a favorite character, it would definitely be Kaladin. His sections just hit soooo fucking hard man. God. I love everything about his story and character, his struggle, his childhood, his demons, and he even gets the badass anime transformation scene at the end of the novel that had me so fucking hyped. GOD. I loved it so much.
Kaladin's dad gave me thors vibes, very "You have no enemies" vibes.
Dalinar would be my second favorite character …
Time taken to read: 24 hours 30 minutes
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Literally every single story line was captivating circling around the theme of honor, "the way of kings." God. What a perfecting title for this book. Every single main character exemplifies the theme of honor in some way. The way Brandon brings up "Life before death" in the book hits every single time it comes up.
If I had to choose a favorite character, it would definitely be Kaladin. His sections just hit soooo fucking hard man. God. I love everything about his story and character, his struggle, his childhood, his demons, and he even gets the badass anime transformation scene at the end of the novel that had me so fucking hyped. GOD. I loved it so much.
Kaladin's dad gave me thors vibes, very "You have no enemies" vibes.
Dalinar would be my second favorite character because his struggle with "the way of kings" and conflict between culture and the right thing.
Strangely enough, my third favorite character isn't the third POV character, but is instead Jasnah because she's cool and based.
ALSO THE WORLDBUILDING. Just so good.
MY BOY HOID (who I didn't give a single shit about until this book) FINALLY GETS SOME FREAKING CHARACTERIZATION BEYOND WORLD HOPPER. Also he mentions sigzil is done being his apprentice or whatever but I looked it up and he's not in any of other cosmere books I've read so idk what the point of that was, maybe just a "Hey heads up, this guy is also going to be a worldhopper" ?
AND THE ENDING. God showing up to Dalinar was so hype. It sounded to me like he was hyping up something about the cosmere when the lights were going out across the stars and he mentioned stuff about the origin of humanity? In the context of that, it sounds like "unite them" refers to humanity spread across the stars. He mentions "Conviction" like it's another god with reminded me of "ruin" and "preservation" from mistborn.
God there were so many hard hitting quotes in this book.
“Life before Death.
Strength before Weakness.
Journey before Destination.”
“And so, does the destination matter? Or is it the path we take? I declare that no accomplishment has substance nearly as great as the road used to achieve it. We are not creatures of destinations. It is the journey that shapes us. Our callused feet, our backs strong from carrying the weight of our travels, our eyes open with the fresh delight of experiences lived.”
“Somebody has to start. Somebody has to step forward and do what is right, because it is right.”
“Death is the end of all men! What is the measure of him once he is gone? . . . The end is the same. It is the path that separates men. When we taste that end, we will do so with our heads held high, eyes to the sun.
“This world, it is a tempest sometimes. But remember, the sun always rises again.”
Loved the elaborate introduction of the characters at the start. E.g. Shallan who is witty in an incredibly cringe way - extremely well written!. The world is weird/ novel - but Sanderson doesn't use the trope of the wide eyed ignorant hero - but instead lets the reader discover tidbits on their own. Like there is no soil or grass - except in a small country in the far west. Plants move and react to people (and storms).
Story is solid - character development believable.
Very long but very enjoyable read. Best fantasy novel I've read in a long time. Story is not rounded though - continued in the next book in the series.
Epic slow burn fantasy that ruminates on trauma, the horrors of war and what it takes to overcome our propensity for treachery. Somehow Sanderson has managed to cram in: a pending climate apocalypse, a war started for vengeance but dragged out for financial gain and political expedience, a society segregated by sex and eye colour (what) with strict caste systems, an ancient esoteric conspiracy that makes Qanon seem reasonable and all the usual heroic tropes you'd expect as well. As long as you don't expect any quick answers and appreciate its deliberate pace, it rewards with lots of character development and juicy dilemmas to ponder and regular super powered action sequences. There's so much in here, and yet it also feels like the tip of the iceberg, a world we've barely begun to explore that might be ripped apart before we get the chance. Big millennial feels.
The Way of Kings is a worldbuilding masterpiece. Its characters are rich and internally complex, their stories are fascinating, and their motivations compelling (even when you disagree with them). The single exception to this is the Shallan arc.
This is not because Shallan is a bad character, but because she's a decent character surrounded by great ones, and because it takes too long for her arc to connect to the main story.
I highly, highly recommend reading this book, and most of this author's other works.
Amazing! I enjoyed this book so much, from world building to climatic twists. I am so excited to read the next in the series
