Book Review: The Way of Kings

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

I was in the mood for an epic, time-consuming high fantasy so I could stop thinking about all the problems in our own world and start worrying about someone else’s. I’d liked the Mistborn series, and this series has even more rabid fans, so I thought I’d take the plunge, even though at 48 hours of audiobook for just ONE of this ten-book series, this is quite the investment.

If you liked Game of Thrones but wished there were more characters, more religions, and more nations to keep track of, Brandon Sanderson may be your guy. This series has even more detailed, varied, and nuanced worldbuilding than Mistborn did. The entire weather patterns of the world are different from Earth’s, and those climatological differences have impacted the flora and fauna. Pretty cool.

There are three main plots to follow in this book. Dalanar is the uncle of the current king, and Dalanar has been so changed by his late brother’s passing that he’s given up drinking (except in moderation) and has decided to live his life on the straight and narrow based on the eponymous Way of Kings manuscript that his late brother was into. This doesn’t go well among his peers, who are by and large like the douchiest “work hard, play hard,” property-flipping, crypto-shilling frat boys who ever clogged your social media feeds with their get-rich-quick schemes, except that they also have swords and armor that make them pretty much superheroes.

The second plot, and by far my favorite, involves Paladin … er, I mean “Kaladin” who is a talented spearman and surgeon’s apprentice who, through a series of betrayals by the nobles of his world, is now a wretched and scarred slave given the almost-certainly-fatal task of running siege equipment during their endless war. Kaladin has a companion, a glowing sylph-like spirit who tries to keep him out of despair. Kaladin’s natural heroism rises, and we get to see the familiar and beloved story of a good leader making heroes out of a ragtag batch of rapscallions.

The third plot involves Shahan. I think that’s her name. She’s a nerdy redheaded artist who has gone to try to get a famous princess to be her graduate mentor. Shahan’s secret plan is to steal the princess’ priceless relic and swap it for a nearly identical one Shahan has that’s broken. One of the problems with this is that Shahan starts to really like the princess, and has a moral conflict about stealing from her. However, if Shahan doesn’t do this, her family will be destroyed. Cool. Cool.

The worldbuilding is the best thing about this book. I loved the spren and the different magics and even the weird details like women in one country always hiding their left hands (and of course how there are basically titty bars where the women take their gloves off because the men find that scandalous and hot.) The characters are a lot better developed in this book than they were in the Mistborn series. I see strong parallels between Kaladin and Kelsier, but at least in this series there’s room for nuanced characters even if they aren’t good at killing people.

But this book definitely takes a patient reader (or, listener, in my case). Trying to keep track of the backstory and the history and all the quotes and details feels like attending a graduate-level seminar. Where another author would say “meanwhile, someone was still looking for the assassin,” Sanderson has a scene with a whole new locale, new cultures, and new, named characters to let you know that someone is still looking for the assassin. Scenes with no apparent context are abandoned, only to be referenced a book’s length later. The plot with Shahan and princess Yasna stops at what seems to be a hard ending midway through the book and is only touched again at the very, very end. I thought maybe he’d abandoned her as a not-relevant subplot. But no, she’s important.

Still, it’s really refreshing to root for good guys who are really good guys. I already started the next book. I guess it’s worth the info-dump of names and history to see paladins kick ass and take names.




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