Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Book Review - "The Way of Kings" by Brandon Sanderson

Being a Wheel of Time and Mystborn fan, I recently got to meet Brandon Sanderson and pick up a copy of "The Way of Kings." It's book one of the Stormlight Archive and is 1,001 pages long.
Cover Art, without all those pesky words.
I will try to review it, without giving away any spoilers. It is a fantasy novel that takes place in a medieval-like setting, but does not take place on Earth. That's not a spoiler, by the way.

First of all, the book is very good. Easily one of the most enjoyable books I've ever read.
The cover art is amazing, as you can see above, and doesn't give away any of the plot (thank goodness). Right away, it delves into the beliefs and magic use of different cultures, but not in a dull, textbook kind of way. It gets right down to business, with a lot of action and character development.
The book follows a number of characters, with each chapter, more or less, dedicated to one of them. The characters feel real, with real motivations, and real faults (unlike some of Sanderson's earlier work) and are generally likeable. I actually cared what happened to them.
There's plenty of moments where I gasped while reading it and had people staring at me. The ones who were avid reads smiled, knowingly, but other people looked at me like I was crazy. As it is book one of a series, the overall plot is not one hundred percent clear, but it is very entertaining.
If you have any interest in reading it, I recommend picking it up. I highly doubt you will be disappointed.
Buy it, read it, love it.
One word of warning: You may lose sleep due to not wanting to put the book down.

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