Book Review: The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archive #1), by Brandon Sanderson

This is the first book I've read by Brandon Sanderson.  It was highly recommended to me, so I bought a copy a while back but had not gotten around to reading it.  The same had happened with Richard Jordan's Wheel of Time series - I bought The Eye of the World and then never got around to reading it.  I recently learned that WoT was going to be an Amazon TV show, so decided to read EotW.  It was a little on the slow side, but I enjoyed it.  After telling a friend this, he said the Stormlight Archive by Sanderson was better.  So, The Way of Kings ended up being the next book on my reading list.

I have to say, the size of this book was intimidating.  At around 1,252 pages (mass market paperback edition), this was easily the largest book I've ever read - and I've read some big ones.  Battlefield Earth, Under the Dome, 11/22/63, The Stand (interesting that the last three of these are by the same author, Stephen King) - these are all at least 200 pages shorter in length.  The only novel which comes to mind which is actually longer would be War and Peace, and perhaps Les Miserables.

I found the first chapter, the prelude, to be very interesting - a few characters speak at the end of a battle against mysterious beasts, and they refer to many unknown things.  And then, the novel proper jumps more than 4,000 years into the future (kind of like EotW, but I don't recall an indication of how far into the future things were supposed to be - hundreds of years, at least, I would think).  The first chapter starts with an assassination which is underway, and it is pretty action filled.  And then after this, things slow down for a bit - but they remain interesting.

The viewpoint changes between a handful of different characters, engaged in different areas throughout the world.  In some cases, a viewpoint character only appears a single time in the book - usually in one of the "interludes", and sometimes it will be a few hundred pages before you revisit a particular character again.

The pattern of storytelling is linear for most of the characters, but it isn't for at least one.  For example, for this character, we start in the present, then jump ahead eight months, then visit different periods some number of years in the past, and then ultimately revisit a critical event that spans a gap in the story for this user, finally revealing events the reader has been wondering about for hundreds of pages.

In many ways, this story reminded me of James Clavell's novel Shogun, where the author throws Japanese words at the reader that they are expected to remember them later on.  The same is true here, but in this particular case it isn't about language, it's learning about the world that Sanderson has built.  We hear mysterious names for all kinds of things:  Voidbringers, Spren, Heralds, Radiants, Soulcaster.  The list goes on and on.  In many cases, explanations are given for many of these things, but in others it's just the tip of the iceberg - I imagine there is much more to be revealed in coming volumes of this series (#4 out of ten is getting released in November, 2020).

The level of world building here is staggering - reminds me a bit of Neal Stephenson's Anathem, which, if I remember correctly, was MOSTLY world building, with not much meat to the main story, until things started to get really interesting towards the end.  But, The Way of Kings is interesting - all the way through.  Complex story lines that become related when you least expect it.  Incredible depth to the characters.  Interesting and varied cultures.  Surprises, shocks, plot twists, mysterious events - there's plenty of all of these.

I think the oddest thing is the Spren.  These were confusing to me for a while.  At first, they appear to be a manifestation of emotion, or in some cases, other things.  We do gradually learn that they are much more than that.  From things I've seen about the world of The Stormlight Archive, we are just starting to see the beginning of the magic system, which already appears involved, and will be getting more complex in later volumes.

This was a fantastic read, and a great story.  I'm really looking forward to continuing the series.  Highly recommended!

As always, I'm interested in hearing from my readers.  If you have read this series, I'm interested in what you think.  Please feel free to comment.