The Way of Kings
I had been planning to hold off on Brandon Sanderson's epic Stormlight Archive. It's supposed to be 10 books long, and only two of them are published so far. I didn't want this to turn into the sort of situation where I wait so long for the next book that I end up giving up on the series altogether. Waiting until The Wheel of Time was completed worked well for me, and I had planned to apply the same principle here.
But in reading Sanderson's other works and blog, I eventually started to realize that the Cosmere isn't really something to be read series by series. It's large and intricate and he's building it as he goes. It makes more sense to read all of his book in publication order to pick up on the clues (and then go read some more on the internet because other people do a better job of spotting and explaining those clues). Besides which, I needed something long to get me through the move so I wouldn't be tempted to go buy more books while we were still unpacking (this almost worked).
It took me a long time to get through this book. That's partly because it's over 1200 pages long. But it's mostly because I had a hard time reading it in snips and snatches, which is how I usually approach books. I couldn't read this one 5 minutes at a time between the rest of life. I had to carve out larger chunks of time when I could really sink in to this book. It's the sort of story - and world - that demands a lot of attention. It rewards it, too. Probably in ways I haven't even begun to discover.
Sanderson has created a stunning and completely alien world. One where oversized crabs take the place of horses, plants recoil into shells to protect them from the tempests the regularly ravage the world, and magic, of course, exists in ways that people have largely forgotten. But now it's being rediscovered, just in time for the end of the world.
Against this incredible back drop are a number of fantastic characters. Kaladin, who reaches rock bottom as a slave and slowly claws himself, and his fellow slaves, back up to a life of dignity. He has the help of a spirit named Syl, who's sort of a cross between Navi and Tinkerbell and one of my favorite characters.
Then there's Shallan, my other favorite character. She's young enough to think the world is a simple place that can be solved, that morality is black and white, and that she's somehow justified in robbing the most powerful woman in the world to save her father's reputation. Her slow realization that it doesn't work like that, and her next set of decisions, have me incredibly excited for the next book, which delves further into her backstory.
There's also Dalinar and his son Alodin, the only honorable men in a den of greedy, selfish, power-hungry princes, who are determined to restore honor and unite their country. Somehow. And finally, the mysterious Szeth, who talks about being honorable, but who unquestioningly does whatever his master tells him to.
These characters start the book in disparate corners of the world, but are slowly being brought together by the end. I hope their paths cross sooner rather than later, preferably in the next book as it's the only one published yet. This one barely gets them started down their paths to world salvation (or possibly destruction).
Sprinkled through all of this are one-off chapters from other characters around the world, which offer fun glimpses of other countries and cultures. And probably have tantalizing foreshadowing that went right over my head.
This book also deals more explicitly with the larger Cosmere than any previous book, though I'm mostly looking those bits up on the internet. It's been too long since I first picked up Mistborn for me to remember all of the details and it would take too much time to go back and revisit all of Sanderson's previous works. But once I have a more complete picture, and the rest of the books are out (so, like, 20 or 30 years from now) it should be a lot of fun and incredibly rewarding to dive back into this world and see all the connections I'm surely missing now. In the meantime, I'll plow ahead with the story as Sanderson releases it.
But in reading Sanderson's other works and blog, I eventually started to realize that the Cosmere isn't really something to be read series by series. It's large and intricate and he's building it as he goes. It makes more sense to read all of his book in publication order to pick up on the clues (and then go read some more on the internet because other people do a better job of spotting and explaining those clues). Besides which, I needed something long to get me through the move so I wouldn't be tempted to go buy more books while we were still unpacking (this almost worked).
It took me a long time to get through this book. That's partly because it's over 1200 pages long. But it's mostly because I had a hard time reading it in snips and snatches, which is how I usually approach books. I couldn't read this one 5 minutes at a time between the rest of life. I had to carve out larger chunks of time when I could really sink in to this book. It's the sort of story - and world - that demands a lot of attention. It rewards it, too. Probably in ways I haven't even begun to discover.
Sanderson has created a stunning and completely alien world. One where oversized crabs take the place of horses, plants recoil into shells to protect them from the tempests the regularly ravage the world, and magic, of course, exists in ways that people have largely forgotten. But now it's being rediscovered, just in time for the end of the world.
Against this incredible back drop are a number of fantastic characters. Kaladin, who reaches rock bottom as a slave and slowly claws himself, and his fellow slaves, back up to a life of dignity. He has the help of a spirit named Syl, who's sort of a cross between Navi and Tinkerbell and one of my favorite characters.
Then there's Shallan, my other favorite character. She's young enough to think the world is a simple place that can be solved, that morality is black and white, and that she's somehow justified in robbing the most powerful woman in the world to save her father's reputation. Her slow realization that it doesn't work like that, and her next set of decisions, have me incredibly excited for the next book, which delves further into her backstory.
There's also Dalinar and his son Alodin, the only honorable men in a den of greedy, selfish, power-hungry princes, who are determined to restore honor and unite their country. Somehow. And finally, the mysterious Szeth, who talks about being honorable, but who unquestioningly does whatever his master tells him to.
These characters start the book in disparate corners of the world, but are slowly being brought together by the end. I hope their paths cross sooner rather than later, preferably in the next book as it's the only one published yet. This one barely gets them started down their paths to world salvation (or possibly destruction).
Sprinkled through all of this are one-off chapters from other characters around the world, which offer fun glimpses of other countries and cultures. And probably have tantalizing foreshadowing that went right over my head.
This book also deals more explicitly with the larger Cosmere than any previous book, though I'm mostly looking those bits up on the internet. It's been too long since I first picked up Mistborn for me to remember all of the details and it would take too much time to go back and revisit all of Sanderson's previous works. But once I have a more complete picture, and the rest of the books are out (so, like, 20 or 30 years from now) it should be a lot of fun and incredibly rewarding to dive back into this world and see all the connections I'm surely missing now. In the meantime, I'll plow ahead with the story as Sanderson releases it.
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