The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson is the first book in The Stormlight Archive. This was my fourth time reading this book. I wanted to read it before reading The Rhythm of War.
I used my normal format when I did my third read through, so for this review, I want to focus on things that stood out after four read throughs.
First: Kaladin is freaking awesome! I can read this book a million times, and I will still love every word of his arc. This arc (in and of itself) is on the same level as that of Jaxom and Ruth and Rand al’Thor.
Second: Shallan’s arc gets progressively more annoying. I actually like Shallan as a character, but that is in spite of this book’s arc. First, Shallan was the character who taught readers a Rosharan economics lectures, and that is brilliant world building, but it’s not why I read Stormlight or Sanderson.
Third: No matter how annoying, the most rewarding details are in Shallan’s arc. For those who have read RoW, her arc still has little connections that make RoW more interesting.
Fourth: As progressively annoying as I find Shallan (again, just in this particular book), I find Adolin comparatively more endearing. There is indeed a scenario in which Adolin actually becomes my favorite character. If I really had to sit down and contemplate it, he might already be my favorite. Dalinar is up there. What about Kaladin?
Fifth: Kaladin was awesome in this book. He becomes epically awesome in Words of Radiance, but the last two books really tested my patience with Kaladin. I get his character flaw. As a service member with many friends who have PTSD, I completely understand, but fantasy is typically an extreme. I’m glad Kaladin (as reported by Sanderson) has turned the corner, but seeing Kaladin at his best makes me more frustrated. I’ll probably do a comparison between Kaladin’s downward arc and Rand’s. Both are similar, and maybe some will feel differently than I do, but here I’ll say that when Rand was falling into despair, I felt sad for him. I understood his pain and hoped he’d find a way through. With Kal, I simply got more and more annoyed, and that’s not good. I’ll probably even feel more strongly about this as I read Words.
Sixth: This book currently lands at third best in the series for me. Shallan’s arc alone is enough to bring it down, but I also acknowledge I have RoW higher (number two) at the moment than other readers might. I was talking to my brother who made some good points. He wasn’t such a fan of the science lesson in the middle of RoW that is Navani’s arc. I liked the science of the arc (if not the character decisions and reasonings). So again, a lot of how these books rank for readers will greatly depend on how much they like world building.
Overall: Any book I read more than once is (at worst) very good. If I read it every time a new book in the series, I hope that speaks for the quality of the story overall. This book still had me sitting in my car for 20 minutes simply because I didn’t want to stop listening to it. It’s that powerful. I honestly hope to start reading this series with my sons soon, but my wife will want to finish reading every napkin Tolkien ever sneezed on first, which I can probably understand (it’s her favorite series).
Thanks for reading,
Matt
M.L.S. Weech 