Review: Brandon Sanderson – The Way of Kings

The Way of Kings
Brandon Sanderson

A war rages across the Shattered Plains and the home city of Roshar, with 10 high princes fighting separately for wealth. Our main characters are of varying kinds – a soldier reduced to slavery, a girl trying to return her family’s wealth and a lord with a sudden leading into madness.

This novel is told from a number of perspectives, and this usually urks me. I still felt irritated with this, because really, it could have been written mostly (particularly Shallan’s) in seperate parts. I didn’t have trouble keeping track of the story threads, but I did feel myself rushing through certain sections to get to the next mention of my favourite characters (mainly Kaladin).

Yet another debut magic scheme comes to life in this novel. To me, one of the best things about Sanderson’s work are the unique magic systems. This one involves Shardplate and Shardblades, and people who can infuse themselves with stormlight. I don’t detect any similarities to anyone else’s magic systems, and that’s unique by itself.

Brandon Sanderson has become more ‘mainstream’ since being responsible for completing Wheel of Time. In fact, the reverse of my copy of the novel basically compares this new set of novels to those. Which is unfair, Brandon Sanderson is more than capable of keeping things amazing.

Oh, I should mention that this comes as two separate parts, which I suppose could be read separately if need be. I read them in quick procession, but that was because I was lucky to be given both. If you aren’t sure you will like this novel (if you don’t, what’s wrong with you?!?), you can just buy the first one. It wraps itself up nicely, but I can see why it is broken up, as no one would want to cart around the size of the novel it would be,

5 stars from me (were you really expecting anything else?). I couldn’t put it down, and kept losing myself into the novel and losing a couple of hours of my time.