The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive, #1) in Bibliophiles Anonymous

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Feb 05, 2025 Theo Yassa rated it really liked it

stormfather, lore wise this is shaping up to be an absolute cracker of a series. branderson has started weaving politics and secret societies into this work that is exciting and sets the stage for some great connections and “oh shit” moments.

once again, a banger of an ending/cliffhanger, but that does not excuse the poor layout of the book, hence the no 5 stars. In the mistborn trilogy, I chalked this template up to it being his first real go at writing fantasy, but he should have enough experie stormfather, lore wise this is shaping up to be an absolute cracker of a series. branderson has started weaving politics and secret societies into this work that is exciting and sets the stage for some great connections and “oh shit” moments.

once again, a banger of an ending/cliffhanger, but that does not excuse the poor layout of the book, hence the no 5 stars. In the mistborn trilogy, I chalked this template up to it being his first real go at writing fantasy, but he should have enough experience by now to maturely tie together a book (it feels like a first draft, where he is writing down everything that comes to mind and then realizes he has a word limit and just spams information towards the end) without saying nothing for 500 pages and then cramming everything into the last 50. and you cannot excuse this as “worldbuilding,” because 1. much of the information does not actually add to a cohesive or nonrepetitive image of the setting (i think there were 10+ different paragraphs in several different chapters explaining the different types of currency) and 2. building up your characters is as important, if not more, to the picture as explaining a magic system etc. the first half of this book gave little more depth to the main characters other than: Szeth doesn’t like killing people, dalinar is washed, kaladin is sad when people die but likes fighting more than being a surgeon. this with the exception shallan, who is just spectacular and so interesting and incredibly relatable, reminiscent of shai in tos. something happened in between the mediocrity of sarene (elantris) and the disasterclass that was vin (mistborn) and shai/shallan, idk maybe branderson felt the touch of a woman or went outside or just simply locked in, but he suddenly learned how to write multidimensional female protagonists which is just awesome. a real display of improvement in wok, not just shallan, but jasnah and navani (mommy) are simply awesome and unique and intriguing characters. (luke will disagree bc he is a misogynist)

airsick lowlanders are gonna flame me for giving a branderson novel 4 stars, but branderson is not the almighty and thus is not immune to critique. the errancy in this fatass book does not take away from the spectacular parts of the work. it goes without saying that plot wise, fight wise, twist wise, etc. it is unmatched, but what really struck me was the depth of character growth and introversion and resolutions (albeit much of it happened in the last quarter of the book) that was somewhat missing from other cosmere books. great stuff, words of radiance! next. ...more

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Feb 06, 2025 Nate Nigrin rated it it was amazing

Verdict is in, Branderson cooked up something absolutely delectable with this WoK. Some may say that it’s too intricate a recipe, but flavor doesn’t come easy. Ask Rock.

I found myself enthralled not only during the signature Sanderson finale, but all the way through Roshar’s thorough worldbuilding. Yes, I care about the intricacies of the currency and the flora and the fauna of the world. Yes, I want said details of the landscapes explained repeatedly. Yes, I want random interludes explaining r ...more

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Feb 02, 2025 Matt Osgood rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fiction, cosmere

Everything I expected and more. I started reading Sanderson’s books 6 months ago. I had heard a lot of hype around his books especially the storm light archive. I am a big wheel of time fan so I was tempted to go for the epic series. Ultimately I decided to read Mistborn Elantris and The Emperor’s Sole first. Those books blew my socks off so I had high expectations coming into this series.

This book is daunting for sure but what I learned from reading Sanderson’s other novels is that almost no d ...more

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