Oathbringer

by Brandon Sanderson
1242 pgs  (Stormlight Archives series #3)

I feel like I should be more embarrassed than I am to admit how excited I get for each book in Brandon Sanderson’s “Stormlight Archive” series. I don’t dress up as a character from the series to go buy the book at midnight release parties or anything, but I do count down the days as the release date approaches. I believe my excitement is justified though. Sanderson is one of my all-time favorite authors, and of all the different series he’s writing, this one is my favorite.

Each installment in the series now comes in longer than the Old Testament, which means there’s A LOT of stuff going on in each book. There are dozens of major characters, there’s no shortage of action, and each of the major and minor story arcs are compelling on their own. To then add all those to a world as fascinating and unique has Sanderson has built, and to incorporate a magic system unlike anything I’m confident has ever been written, makes me feel like maybe I should be spending months making a costume to wear to the midnight release parties for the books.

I don’t think it’s a good idea to attempt any substantive review of the book. If you’re not already reading the series, there’s just too much going on to do it justice. And if you are reading the series, I’d be too concerned about spoilers. So, I’m not going to even try. 

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Words of Radiance

by Brandon Sanderson
1080 pgs  (The Stormlight Archive #2)

To give you an idea of just how far down the fantasy-geek-rabbit-hole I've descended, I decided I needed to reread The Way of Kings before starting Words of Radiance. That's saying something when each book is over 1,000 pages long. But I did it, and I'm glad I did. It had been about 3 ½ years since Sanderson wrote TWoK and with that much time having passed, I would have been spending a lot of mental energy trying to recall what happened in it while reading book 2 and I wouldn't have been able to enjoy it like I did. That being said, Sanderson has said that there won't be that much time between books going forward, which I'm going to hold him to. I will not let myself become the type of person that rereads a series from the beginning every time a new installment comes out--hopefully.

I'm not going to provide any type of summary of the book. It doesn't make sense to try to do so in my opinion. While it's a huge book, it's only a small part in a much bigger story that Sanderson is writing. Its scope is remarkable and Sanderson does a masterful job of telling it. Lots of times the downfall of large books like this is in their pacing. They take too long to get moving (Clancy) or they have repeated lulls in the story (Hugo). But Sanderson avoids those pitfalls by quickly jumping back and forth from multiple viewpoints to his story. He's also using each book to tell the backstory of a different central character. This way you don't get bogged down early in the series with the history of each of the main characters. In TWoK we learned Kaladin's story, in WoR we learn Shallan's. I'm hoping that book three will tell Szeth's--the assassin in white.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★

The Way of Kings

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
1007 pgs  (The Stormlight Archive #1)

I don't normally read long fantasy series - The Lord of the Rings is probably the longest one I've read. Epic fantasy for me has always brought to mind a series of gigantic books written over multiple decades, consisting of a phone-book-size list of characters to keep track of. It also seems to be read by a certain type of reader that stereotypically doesn't get exposed to sunlight regularly, subsists on a diet of energy drinks and hostess snack cakes, for recreation, attends conventions dressed like their favorite Star Wars/Star Trek/comic book character, and engages in things like this.

That being said, I love Brandon Sanderson's books. So far he's written two stand-alone fantasy novels and a trilogy for adults. All of them have been fantastic. He's also completing the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, but I haven't read any of that (for reasons already mentioned.) So when I learned that he was going to undertake to write his own epic fantasy series, I thought I'd give one a try. I'm glad I did. The Way of Kings is an excellent book. It is gigantic at just over 1,000 pages long, and according to Sanderson, it'll be the first of ten books in the series. So I feel like I've made a significant commitment that will not end until I'm somewhere in my fifties. But having read this book, I'm okay with that and I look forward to what's to come.

The Way of Kings is definitely epic in scale. It consists of multiple systems of magic that are each original and extremely well thought out. It introduces several key characters, each with a captivating story line. Sometimes when I read books with multiple key characters, I get irritated when the story line shifts from one character and goes to another one because I find some characters more interesting than others. That wasn't the case with this book. Each one of the main characters and their individual story arc was so captivating that I didn't mind leaving one to go to another.

I guess I now need to come to terms with the fact that I'm a reader of epic fantasy. Apparently I'll need to stock up on Twinkies and learn how to LARP.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★