A review by gengelcox
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I had never read anything by Brandon Sanderson before this book, although I had heard of him. It would be impossible not to have heard of him given his recent Kickstarter in which he promised fans four new books over a year and brought in $41 million. Who needs publishers when you’ve got a fan base like that? And yet, Sanderson still publishes traditionally as well. Normally this kind of success would send me running away with the screaming heebie-jeebies because I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to like the things everyone else likes, not to mention being a latecomer to anything. But in the interest of trying to understand what all the fuss is about, I thought I would give at least one Sanderson novel a try. I selected this winnebago of a book because it seemed to be his most popular and not in the middle of a series. 

To cut this short, I enjoyed it. When I was fifteen, I would have loved it and instantly gone on to read the next two dozen books. It’s epic fantasy of the modern stripe, although Sanderson brings some of his own biases and ignores some of today’s trends, namely in his gender role segregation. He’s good at putting his characters through the wringer; in this book, Kaladin in particular goes from heartbreak to heartbreak until finally winning the day, but even then you know he’s still going to be losing something. I’ll give him a B- for worldbuilding, although there’s enough complications between how the “priests” tried to rule the world in the past and are now pariahs in leadership councils to the “play” of war by the competing nobles who sit around in their nice camps going out for small skirmishes rather than engaging the enemy. My biggest issue with the worldbuilding came from the magic system, always a hard sell for me as I tend to like my books logical, and the stormlight (and the armor, weapons, and fabrials) all seem to be rather deus ex machinery. 

I likely won’t continue the series. There’s too many other things out there that I need to read. But I fully understand the appeal. I have a friend in my writing group, Peter Sartucci, who self-publishes an epic fantasy series, and his books have the same kind of appeal as these, although he has yet to achieve the same kind of success. I suspect it’s because he’s too nice to his characters (something I’ve told him in workshop), although he’s getting better at making his lead hero suffer. If you’ve run out of Sanderson to read, though, you might give his books a try.