I hesitated to read this because the series is not complete and because I had started to read a sample and wasn't all that impressed with the beginning. This held true for the first 20% of the book. I really was expecting more from Sanderson after reading Mistborn and the WoT finale.

There were 3+ story lines plus the prologue and for a long time no hint what they have to do with each other - for a new series ... difficult. I couldn't grasp the world visually (there are drawings later on, that helped): everything made of Stone and a bunch of Crustacean animals? Also I didn't really like the characters: some hopeless slave with suicidal thoughts, a thieving dishonest scholar with a talent for drawing & a paranoid king and his overly honorable uncle with delusional visions of the past plus his son who wants to send dad into retirement? ... Not to forget the "Assassin in White" compelled to kill ... and the loads of humanoid Darth Maul crawfish (or so I imagine the Parshendi) None of them are particularly sympathetic. I really had a hard time identifying with any of the characters at first.

So yes I gave the book still 4 stars, because last night I read until 4a.m. to finish the last chapters, because sometime around a third of the book things started making sense, because characters became intriguing and because I really wanted to see how Kaladin was going to ... well I won't spoil anything. I finally started getting a grasp of the world ... I have to deduct one star for the weak beginning but I can now see where this epic is going and it is epic.

So give it a try ... I am really looking forward to reading the sequel.

Re-read this April 2015. I have to update my rating to 5 stars. After reading Words of Radiance and this one again.