#and shallan my disaster bi queen!!! she's everything to me!!!

[tbookblurbs]

The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson (Stormlight Archive #1)

4.75/5 - Kaladin my beloved!!! Shallan my beloved!!! Jasnah my crazy weird older sister!! truly my love for this book knows no bounds; fewer pace issues than I remember; really solid start to the series

Minor spoilers for Words of Radiance!

Truly I forgot just how much happens in this book. 1200 pages of straight insanity.

Anyway, I do think this is a very intriguing entry into an epic fantasy. Everything that Mistborn does well in the introduction to its magic system, Stormlight does with more finesse and tWoK is truly a masterclass on character introduction.

I also appreciate how rich each of the side characters feel. Each of them clearly have conflicting motivations and independent goals and they never feel like they only exist to prop up our central POV characters. They challenge not only the characters' beliefs on what is right and wrong, but the beliefs that we, as audience members, absorb from reading in specific POVs.

More than the side characters, whom I love dearly, I just cannot heap enough praise on the characterization of both Kaladin and Shallan. To have two characters, both so clearly traumatized, and show them reacting to that in different ways and having that play on their strengths and weaknesses, flaws and skills, is something very rarely undertaken and even more rarely pulled off. The tension between a character who is so open about their feelings and their failures and another who seeks to hide her past and parts of herself is such a delightful payoff in WoR.

Furthermore, I do enjoy the little pictures and interludes that Sanderson includes. In my opinion, the addition of these small things really elevates the novel from his past work and makes it feel very lived in. Just because we're focusing on the Shattered Plains and Kharbranth because our main characters are there does not mean that those are the only places with things going on. I found it really refreshing to be reminded that this is a large world and our story takes place in only a small part of it.

Docked 0.25 of a point because I always find that Dalinar's sections drag on a bit. No shade to him, I just don't particularly care about his sections at the beginning, especially when they're sandwiched between Kaladin and Shallan POV chapters. However, they are necessary for understanding the plot/stakes and they help the plot marinate a little bit. An epic can't be an epic if it doesn't take a while to tell.