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lizziestudieshistory · 3 years

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Books of 2021: The Way of Kings - Brandon Sanderson

I have a few things to acknowledge here before we get into the proper review - this is REALLY LONG and VERY CRITICAL. I promise you I do genuinely love The Stormlight Archive, but if you are someone who doesn’t like to see criticism of Sanderson or Stormlight, then please don’t read this.

This review has spoilers for The Stormlight Archive - you have been warned.

I’ve made no secret of my love for the Stormlight Archive - it’s my favourite ongoing fantasy series. I’ve also avoided reviewing it, and I’ve been putting it off since I first read it back in 2016 (could be 2017? It was a while ago.) How could I review something I love so much? How do I approach reviewing a 1,100 page epic fantasy novel? I just didn’t know. To be honest, I still don’t. I adore this series, it’s become part of my identity - if you asked any of my friends what’s Lizzie’s favourite book they would probably say Stormlight. Maybe Lord of the Rings but that’s a different kettle of fish.

I’ve reread The Stormlight Archive annually for the last five years. I promise myself I won’t reread it and let myself come back in anticipation for the next book. I’ve failed miserably every year. And these aren’t small undertakings - they’re each 1,000 pages and there’s four of them now! For context I usually only read 2,500 pages a month.

So, I’ve finally decided to review these doorstoppers dressed up as fantasy novels. These reviews are mainly for myself, they’re going to be self indulgent, long, and focus on what I want to discuss like characters, structure, and prose - rather than reviewing the things I should probably talk about (like the actual plot…) I want to work through all the things I love about this behemoth of the modern fantasy genre, but also focus on its flaws. The praise for Sanderson is everywhere, so I want to work through my honest opinion of these books, work out why I love them, and I’ll invite you on this journey of self discovery with me.

Structure

I’m yet to work out why I’m starting with structure but we are, I guess it helps with the framing. In case you’re reading this having not read The Way of Kings, each book in the Stormlight Archive is made up of 5 main parts that follow major viewpoint characters, and the parts are split up with small interludes that expand the worldbuilding, follow important secondary characters, or foreshadow future moments. Everybook is centred on a key character - in The Way of Kings it’s Kaladin - who we follow in the present day as a major viewpoint character and explore their backstory through a flashback sequence. Each book also has a prologue which retells the assassination of the Alethi king, Gavilar Kholin, and an epilogue from Wit.

Firstly, this book takes FAR too long to get going and even longer to get into as a reader. I’m not joking when I say there are FIVE introductory chapters: the prelude, a prologue, Cenn’s second prologue (technically the first chapter but it’s a prologue), Kaladin’s introduction, and Shallan’s introduction. It’s too much. We’re jumping around, nothing really makes sense, and we’re not sure how these characters are related. They could be taking place in different worlds for all you know on a first read.

When I first read this book I was a lot more patient with long introductions and multiple false starts - I had the time to dedicate to getting into the story. I could, and did, forgive the THREE false starts to this story before we get to Kaladin’s first chapter. However, the opening structure of this novel is a mistake. If someone gives up in this section I honestly don’t blame them - if I was reading this for the first time in 2021 I probably would too.

The prelude and prologue are both excellent. The prelude in particular is weird and confusing but also sets up a clear mystery and sense of the sheer scope of this story. Szeth’s prologue, the first time we see Gavilar’s assassination, is flawed but still wonderful. The fight scene needed a bit of cutting, for my tastes, and I think the introduction to the magic system is clumsy - there’s far too much obvious info dumping and it needed some serious editing, especially as the complicated use of the magic that Szeth uses is barely relevant in this book. However, I think the Herald’s giving up the Oathpact and a magical assassin is great! They’re a bit weird and you’re not sure what’s going on, but it’s engaging.

Then there’s Cenn. Poor, innocent Cenn. I’m sorry but he’s completely unnecessary. Independently of the rest of the introduction to the Way of Kings Cenn’s chapter would be a pretty good prologue as he’s there to set up our main hero Kaladin from an outside perspective. We love Kaladin and Cenn’s chapter is fine for establishing him as a typical fantasy hero – he’s a warrior, cares about the people, and so forth.

However, Cenn’s chapter in the context bogs down the opening too much. It’s too long, not particularly relevant, and adds yet ANOTHER prologue to this already enormous book. Cenn’s chapter offers nothing to the reader that we don’t learn later on in the text when the content of Cenn’s chapter makes more sense. We even see the exact same sequence of events from Kaladin’s perspective in a flashback! Not having Cenn’s chapter would add more interest to Kaladin’s character and add more weight to the flashback sequence because we wouldn’t have met Kaladin at his peak (sort of…?)

Kaladin’s flashbacks aren’t that engaging as it is, he’s a fairly standard fantasy hero from a small village who ends up leaving his happy family to go to war. So leaving a small mystery around him in addition to ‘how did he become a slave’ would help with my engagement. It would leave me wondering how reliable is Kaladin as a narrator, is he really as good with the spear as he claims? I wouldn’t know but Cenn’s chapter removes all the mystery apart from ‘how does Kaladin become a slave’. It needs to go to make Kaladin more interesting and cut down on some of the unnecessary page count.

While we’re at it… Just cut out ALL the interludes in this book, except for the Szeth through line. I KNOW they are here for the Cosmere connections and to foreshadow things much later in the series. However, new readers and Stormlight only readers don’t know this and, quite frankly, they SUCK. In later books the interludes make sense but here they add so much tedious, pointless crap to an already bloated book. They’re too much and add next to nothing – other than seeing Szeth lose it as he kills people, that was fun (in a disturbing, creepy way… Can you tell I like Szeth?) Either this stuff needs to be relevant to the book we’re in now, or painfully obvious that we’re coming back to this stuff in later books. I still don’t know why we got Ishikk’s interlude with the Worldhoppers, and I completely forgot Nan Balat had an interlude. I’ve read this book 5 times… THAT IS HOW POINTLESS THEY ARE! Sanderson should weave the necessary foreshadowing into the main text, intersperse the perspectives we do need for THIS story into the main sections, or cut them out. When I get to the interludes I physically sigh and sometimes put the book down - now I just skip everything but Szeth - but on a first read they’re really off putting.

To finish up with my complaints about the structure, and this is a big one for me - why do we have huge chunks of this book without major viewpoint characters? I’m biased here but Dalinar is probably the most important POV character in the story because he introduces the real stakes of the story. He has the groundbreaking visions of the past, he is the viewpoint we get into the politics of the war, he is the character who does and continues to have the most impact on the development of the story on his own.Yet, we don’t meet him until we’re 190 pages in…

Sanderson alternates Shallan and Dalinar’s chapters between the five different parts and that means they vanish for 400 pages at a time. Why? I ended up caring about them right as we’re about to lose their viewpoint again for the next part. We needed to see the three major POV characters interwoven together throughout the five parts, not randomly dropped and picked back up again. The structure of this book was a mistake.

Okay, I promise I do actually like this book…

Worldbuilding

Something I do love is the worldbuilding of Roshar, and I usually don’t care that much about worldbuilding. I can really appreciate good worldbuilding, especially on the history side of things, but for most novels it’s just fine? If I roughly know what’s going on with the world then we’re good, I can just get on with the story and not worry about it. However, Roshar is genuinely beautifully built! It takes A LOT to get me to visualise a world as I’m not a visual reader. I can feel the atmosphere, get to know characters, but can I imagine a face or setting? No.

There are three fantasy worlds that have allowed me to actually see the world and it’s landscape: Middle Earth, Discworld, and Roshar. The bleak, storm weathered landscape of the Shattered Plains is so embedded in my mind it’s ridiculous, the only place I can picture more is the Shire – and Lord of the Rings has a film to help it!

Now, to be fair it’s hard for me to separate the worldbuilding in The Way of Kings from the rest of the series, so I now have 4,000 pages worth of worldbuilding in my head… However, it’s certainly strong and I distinctly remember having a vivid image of understanding this world, the atmosphere, landscape, and so forth, on my first read. Although it did take me until Oathbringer to realise that everything, except humanity, was basically a crab… (I think that was just me being dense.)

I do think Roshar needs much more of its history to be expanded on. We don’t have much between the Last Desolation (don’t ask me to spell it's in-world title!) and it shows at times. I don’t expect something on the level of The Silmarillion for Roshar, however, I do think we need to see something more substantial in the period between the Desolations and the present day. We know about the Recreance, the attempted takeover of the Vorin Church, and the Sunmaker? That’s 4000 years! To put it into context it’s the distance between us and Jesus’s birth TWICE, it’s like we know about the end of the 11th Dynasty of Egypt, the Reformation, and the British Empire in our own history... We need to find a balance, especially as we get so much development of science in the later books. More history please - but this is a personal issue and a series wide problem, not just The Way of Kings.

Magic System

Now, this is controversial for Sanderson, but I’m going to skip this for now. This review is already well over 1,000 words long and I’ve not even started on the meat of the novel yet. The magic system isn’t really fleshed out in The Way of Kings, we only really know stuff about the Windrunners (in an abstract kind of way) and the very basics of the Knights Radiant in general. So I’m going to discuss the magic when I get around to reviewing Words of Radiance, Oathbringer, and Rhythm of War, basically whenever I have the energy and more space.

Safe to say I actually really like the magic system in the Stormlight Archive. I usually dislike hard magic systems (I think I’m the only person who dislikes Mistborn’s Allomancy - while very well developed, it’s a bit silly and is far too much for my tastes...) as they often take some of the wonder, mystery, and excitement of fantasy out of the story for me. However, I think surgebinding is a fun system and there is a lot more of it for use to discover, preserving some of that mystery. Oh and, if you were wondering, I would be a Skybreaker!

Prose

Okay if you read the structure section and were wondering - why is this woman still reading these books, you’re in for another head scratcher.

If you’ve ever talked to me about literature you’ll know that there are two things I look for in a really good book: characters and prose. Now characters are something Sanderson does phenomenally well in the Stormlight Archive, but that’s not something you can tell 100 pages into a 1,000 page tome. You have to sit with the characters for a long time and give the author some page time to familiarise you with the people you’re following. If you trust him, Sanderson pulls off some stunning character arcs, especially in the long term and I’ll talk more about characters later on (or you can just skip this section? Up to you really!).

However, prose is something you notice immediately, and Sanderson’s is…utilitarian at best. At worst it’s abysmal. These days I’m very picky about prose, a utilitarian style is fine but a book is unlikely to become a new favourite of mine without good writing. This doesn’t mean I want or expect the writing to be flowery or elaborate, but it does mean I want, and appreciate it when, the prose suits the tone of the narrative and world. I must acknowledge that I’m in a (vocal) minority here, a lot of people either don’t notice Sanderson’s style or like it - I certainly didn’t mind it when I first read ther series - so this is definitely a subjective opinion but one I’m certainly not alone in.

Nevertheless, for me Sanderson’s prose is overly simplistic, repetitive, and very American. Okay so the American is probably only noticeable if you’re not American. However, I’m used to fantasy having a certain Britishness to the writing style, even when the author isn’t British, but to me (as a Brit and fantasy reader) the Americanisms are painful at times… There is no way in hell I’m ever going to acknowledge that aluminium is aluminum no matter how many times Sanderson uses it!

Yet it goes beyond a spelling issue because, let's be honest, in this day and age American English is widely spoken and regularly used in fantasy literature - you can’t escape from it as much as I want to. It’s in the style of writing and construction of sentences. The entire narrative reads like an American has decided to tell me a story using their colloquial, everyday speech. It’s a deliberate choice on Sanderson’s part to make things accessible and digestible, and for some people this works. I do think he has a fantastic style to get readers in, especially readers who are getting to grips with high epic fantasy as it’s one less barrier to entry in an already difficult novel. But it does mean rereading isn’t always the best experience and sometimes the writing can jar me out of the story.

In places it’s too simple and colloquial, so much so the writing becomes clunky, clumsy, and unrealistic to the world he’s creating, especially in descriptive passages and dialogue. It reads like Sanderson could have used more lyrical or formal writing but deliberately chose not to - at the detriment of the prose. This is particularly noticeable with characters like Jasnah Kholin. Jasnah is a princess, brilliant scholar, and political mastermind, she’s known for her poise, elegance, and intelligence. Yet she often speaks like an everyday 21st century American and other characters who haven’t had the same education or training as she has? I can’t believe this for a moment, her dialogue is so egregious in places that it’s like I’ve been hit over the head with my own book! I physically cringe when she says things like ‘“scoot over here”’ (chapter 70, p.1083). WHY is Jasnah talking like this?! It doesn’t make sense to me – Shallan maybe, but Jasnah? No. It doesn’t fit with what we’ve been told about her character.

(Just as an aside, I loathe the word ‘scoot’ – it should be burnt from the English language as an abomination!)

Part of the issue with this is Sanderson usually doesn’t distinguish between the character's voices, both in the dialogue and prose. Most of the time if you dropped me into a random section of the Stormlight Archive with no context I honestly couldn’t tell you who’s speaking or narrating without the signposts Sanderson gives us. This isn’t a huge issue as he’s writing in third person limited, and with context and the chapter icons we know who we’re following. However, it does mean we don’t have any idea of character voice – in the general prose, internal narration/thought, or speech. What’s the difference between Kaladin’s dialogue and Jasnah’s? I have no idea from the sentence construction or speech patterns. Certain descriptions of how characters speak help to differentiate (Jasnah is commanding, Shallan squeaks, Kaladin grunts, etc.) but from their speech patterns I wouldn’t have a clue.

All of this comes back to Sanderson’s overly simple and Americanised style. It’s his choice and it does work for many people, but personally it doesn’t always work with the characters or story. I’m not expecting him to write like Robin Hobb or Guy Gavriel Kay, but some finesse and awareness of character would be appreciated, especially if it helped to differentiate character voices.

I’m also going to throw this out as a very personal issue because I’m not sure where else to put it… Sanderson has the worst sense of humour I’ve ever had the misfortune to read. The comedic moments are occasionally amusing… However, Shallan’s puns are worse than my Dad’s jokes. Every time she says something apparently ‘witty’ and someone else remarks how clever and funny she is I want to hit them... At best she’s mildly amusing, at worst she’s cruel. It’s never funny. (This only gets worse with Lift, I almost DNFed the entire series because of the Lift interlude in Words of Radiance. And don’t get me started on Lopen.)

Characters

At last! Something I genuinely love and the reason I read these books! Sanderson has created some of the best characters in modern fantasy in this series and they are the only reason I’m still going. I like the worldbuilding and plot, but I adore the character work in this book and the series as a whole. The characters are generally so good that, even when I dislike them, it's because I dislike them personally, not that they’re badly written characters! Usually I love Sanderson’s characters though, even when they’re incredibly flawed (looking at you Dalinar!) because he’s particularly good at complex character arcs.

Szeth – I love Szeth, slightly irrationally for how much he’s in both this book and the series as a whole, but he’s one of my favourite “secondary” characters in the series! Szeth is actually the character who made me fall in love with the series in the first place, which feels weird to say because he only has five or six chapters in the entire novel. However, a magical assassin with a strong, if morally dubious, sense of duty and obligations? Sign me up! The opening prologue from Szeth’s perspective is wonderful - it’s far too info-dumpy but it’s highly engaging and one hell of a way to open the series.

What really intrigued me about Szeth was his role as the interlude throughline character for The Way of Kings. His internal conflict between his obligation to follow the Truthless’ laws and his personal morality is fascinating. Szeth’s character development has been one of the highlights of the entire series for me, especially as we explore his personal morality, questioning of power, and commitment to law and justice. This conflict is one of the reasons I love the Skybreakers in general and I sincerely hope we get to see more of this (and their conflict with the theoretically similar, although realistically very different, Windrunners) in book 5. However, Szeth is a promise that Sanderson hasn’t kept yet. So much has been built up around his character and we haven’t explored him properly (as of Rhythm of War) and I’m mad about it! He’s an incredibly interesting character, morally and thematically, and I hope Sanderson can live up to the hype he’s built up around him in the first four books of the series.

Kaladin – Okay the real reason we’re all here, the shining beacon of the Stormlight Archive, everyone’s favourite heroic bridgeman: Kaladin Stormblessed. Confession time – I didn’t love Kaladin the first time I read The Way of Kings. Don’t get me wrong I liked him but I’m generally not a massive fan of underdog superhero narratives. (I’m still not a fan of Bridge Four in general for the same reason, I would apologise but I’m not sorry…)

Kaladin spends most of this novel running bridges for Highprince Sadeas on the Shattered Plains. Unjustly enslaved by a corrupt member of the aristocracy, Kaladin is fighting to keep himself and his bridgecrew alive during one of the most pointless “wars” I've read in a fantasy novel - the pointlessness isn’t actually a criticism. He’s facing systematic oppression and disregard for human life, as well as battling his own depression and forming a bond with a spren named Syl (I absolutely adore Syl! But I want to talk about her in my review for Words of Radiance.)

So… I’ve always been frustrated with Kaladin’s fundamental drive to save people and take responsibility for people’s deaths, even when there was nothing he could have done to save them. This book is probably the worst for it out of the four currently published and I just found it a bit much because I personally struggle to relate to his attitude. This level of personal responsibility is a completely alien concept to me, at least to this level, and it’s Kaladin’s entire thing - his driving personality trait - and I just didn’t get it. Kaladin and I are very different people and for a long time I really struggled to relate to him on the same level everyone else seems to in this book. It also didn’t help that the main plot around Kaladin running bridges, struggling with his depression, and trying to keep his men alive is very repetitive… So when you’re in the midst of it and struggling to connect quite so deeply with Kaladin this book can become a slog - yet, the pay off for his struggles is so satisfying and it is very much worth it for making the end feel earned.

However, my issues with connecting to Kaladin is definitely on me and this is by no means to say Kaladin is a badly written character, I’ve always admired how well Kaladin is drawn in this book. Within a few chapters I understood who Kaladin is, and really loved the conflict he had with his depression and role as a fantasy hero. It's beautifully painful to watch and, even when you’re a bit ambivalent about Kaladin, you really care about whether he and Bridge Four are going to survive the bridgecrews – and the climax sequence with Kaladin becoming Stormblessed again at the Tower is still one of my favourite moments in the entire series!

However, on this reread of the series I had a completely different experience to what I’ve had on previous reads, and a lot of this is down to Rhythm of War. I don’t want to say too much here because it’ll involve spoilers for Rhythm of Warm but having seen Kaladin confront his, as Ron Weasley would say, “saving people thing” and really struggle to keep functioning as Stormblessed, I was so much more on board with this book. Rhythm of War’s much more personal approach to Kaladin really helped me understand him as a person, not just the underdog hero. The struggle with his sense of self, the way his depression impacts his ability to act, and the way he’s moving forward in Rhythm of War let me appreciate the character work for Kaladin in The Way of Kings. The struggle, graft, and determination, especially given his mindset, is much more admirable when I can strip away the focus on doggedly protecting everyone no matter the personal cost.

Kaladin and I are very different people, but that’s okay and I’ve come to appreciate him a lot more in the last 7 months. Now I can happily adore him alongside everyone else, and not just nod along with the rest of the fandom because I understand he’s objectively a well written character. Also Kaladin’s mental health rep is some of the best I’ve seen in an epic fantasy series. However, I would approach this book, and series, carefully if you’re sensitive to depression.

Shallan – confession time round two: I hate Shallan. I really loathe her on a deeply personal level. And I’m still bitter about it because I used to love her, when I first read this book she was my favourite character! This was partly due to relating to her and partly due to my frustration with Kaladin. However, as I read Words of Radiance I grew uncomfortable with her and by Oathbringer it became a full on HATED of her…and it’s never gone away.

I first met Shallan when I was a shy 18-year-old, budding historian and scholar. I got Shallan, I loved her plotline, and found Khabranth a lot more interesting than the endless bridgeruns with Kaladin (sorry Kaladin!) I connected with her because she represented (projected) a lot of what I was at the time - and still am today, just an older version of that person. She was the main character that really drew me into the story - yes I loved Szeth and thought he was brilliant, but Szeth is largely absent from this novel and Shallan is the main female lead.

And then I got hit in the face by the infamous Words of Radiance “Boots” chapter, and I immediately got iffy vibes, then there was the Chasm sequence, and so many other moments that made me uncomfortable. I’ll avoid spoilers and, for now, just say I got hit in the face by Shallan’s innate privilege, her causal abuse of social rank, and complete lack of social and self awareness. To top it off the narrative gives her no consequences for this and even rewards her for her behaviour, rather than making Shallan work through the issues around classism (something I, as a Brit, am hyper aware of and it SHOULD NOT under ANY circumstances be ignored, especially with Kaladin’s narrative running parallel to Shallan.) However, this is later book issues and a major dropped theme that I’m fuming about, but I still found I liked Shallan in THIS book when I reread the series.

Not this time.

There are moments in The Way of Kings where we can already see Shallan’s privilege and complete disregard of anyone who is remotely lower than her in the Vorin hierarchy. The scene with the book merchant stands out. No one in that scene is innocent, and I’m much less annoyed by it than I am at the “Boots” scene, however, it shows an early form of Shallan’s complete inability to reflect on her own behaviour towards those with less power than herself. She’s casually abusive and manipulative, but no one really calls her out on it. The few moments when someone does confront Shallan about it, and the narrative consistently forgives her because Sanderson allows her to come across as the victor in each of the arguments. This isn’t to say Shallan’s causal abuse of the Vorin social system shouldn’t be present in the book. It’s actually very realistic, in our world white people (especially white women) have behaved like Shallan for centuries. However, what does matter is the narrative framing. However, I’ll dig into this when I get to reviewing Words of Radiance because a lot of my planned review for that book is centred around this issue.

I’m also resentful that Shallan’s character in The Way of Kings is a complete lie – we don’t know her at all, but not in the same way as Dalinar? We KNOW something is off with Dalinar, we KNOW he was a terrible person and a warmonger from the way people talk about the Blackthorn – but Shallan’s reveal largely comes out of nowhere in some respects and I HATE that the person I loved so much 5 years ago was a complete lie. I’m a bitter person and I will continue to hold a grudge until Shallan dies or the series ends, whichever comes first.

Jasnah – my problematic QUEEN. Is Jasnah a shitty person? Yes. Do I love her anyway? Yes. Difference is I knew Jasnah was shitty from the start… I like problematic characters, I just hate being lied to (*cue insincere smile at Shallan*)

Jasnah is a difficult character to talk about in this book because we don’t know much about her other than her public persona, however, she’s a large part of why I love it so much. I just like brilliant women who would kill me, okay? It also helps that she's an historian, I have a soft spot for murderous historians. I’ll talk more about Jasnah when I review Oathbriner, hopefully that won’t be in another 5 years…! I just wanted to highlight that I do love a female character in this book!

Actually on the topic, Sanderson is still a shitty author for female friendships – he has included more female characters in Stormlight but why are there no female friendships that aren’t rooted in backstabbing and lies?!

Dalinar – if Jasnah is my problematic Queen then Dalinar has to be the problematic King. Dalinar is my favourite Stormlight Archive character. I could wax lyrical about what a BRILLIANT character he is. You may not like Dalinar, you may not forgive him, but you have to admit he is the best written character in ANYTHING Sanderson has written, and one of the best in modern fantasy. Nevertheless, much like Jasnah I’m going to wait until I review Oathbringer before I talk about Dalinar because I can’t do him justice without his flashbacks. However, I will tell you a story about the time I first met Dalinar Kholin.

So, I first read The Way of Kings on my commute back and forth to Worcester Cathedral because I had a work placement in the Cathedral’s archives. I’d been doing this commute for months and reached the point where I knew when to get off the train by feeling, no need to check the stations (this is relevant).

I was on my commute home, and as I was walking to the train station I started part two. I met Adolin and he was fine. I was a bit confused because this was a whole new perspective and set of characters, but I was doing okay. (Yes I was walking and reading, no I do not recommend this arrangement for health reasons.)

And then I met Dalinar. As I got on the train we got into his own head, with the mystery of the visions just starting, the hints towards his complicated relationship with Elhokar, and the amazing fight with the Chasmfiend. Bearing in mind I was automatically doing my commute through this – I’d become so invested in Dalinar, I missed my transfer on the train. I’ve never done anything like this before in my life. I’m paranoid about it! But I was so engrossed in this aged general, who was potentially going mad, that I missed the stop on my train and didn’t even notice until we hit Birmingham New Street.

I was so in love with Dalinar Kholin that I travelled to the wrong city… And my love for him has only gotten stronger*.

Conclusion

Overall I have a complicated relationship with The Way of Kings, and The Stormlight Archive in general. I love this series, I particularly adore the characters and character work Sanderson is doing as the books continue. However, it is severely overhyped. There are a lot of flaws in this book, especially with the writing and structural aspect of this novel. It’s poorly paced, clumsily written, and lacking finesse. For me Sanderson is an okay writer but a wonderful storyteller. As a storyteller he’s made a huge contribution to the fantasy genre and I’m here for the major improvement he’s made in popularising more complex character work and the inclusion of mental health representation. We’re just seeing the start of this shift in the fantasy genre and I’m excited to see where Stormlight and fantasy are going to go with this movement.

However, as a writer he has a long way to go in improving his craft of writing. These are big books, and I will often forgive mistakes with narrative structure in books of this size because they are so huge. However, this doesn’t mean we shouldn’t acknowledge them when reviewing the novel. Mistakes were made, especially in The Way of Kings, and are still being made but Sanderson has been slowly improving with the later books.

There’s a lot to love in The Stormlight Archive - the worldbuilding is insane, the characters are incredible, and the plots are gripping. I love them, and I will continue to eagerly await the next installments! But they’re far from perfect, and that’s okay. Sanderson has captured the imaginations of thousands of fantasy readers and I would highly recommend you give these books a go, despite my critical review. This is a fabulous time to be a fantasy reader and The Stormlight Archive is one of the most exciting reasons to be reading the genre!

*Dalinar and I are going to be on thin ice if Sanderson continues with his character as he did in Rhythm of War, but again I’ll address that when I review Rhythm of War.

#the way of kings #the stormlight archive #brandon sanderson #cosmere #book review #kaladin stormblessed #dalinar kholin #jasnah kholin #szeth son son vallano #not tagging a certain character because last time I had really nasty comments #i promise i really do love this book #i'm just critical of everything I read these days #especially when I've read it five times

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the-girl-in-chains · 2 years

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1, 41, 44, and 95 for the Let's get personal ask game!

Omg hi! I feel like a celebrity just said Hi tbh, I love your blog ❤

1: 6 of the songs you listen to most?

A hard one but here's some from the current rotation!

You could have been the one- Coasts

You Had Me- Joss Stone

Private Party- India Arie

Heavy- Peach PRC

Melancholyism- Super Whatevr

Chateau Lobby #4 - Father John Misty

41: What was the last book you read?

As you know, this is almost always a Stormlight novel since I'm always rereading those baddies lol but I'm actually on a Folklore kick right now so it’s The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy tales- Pantheon Books 1944

44: What was the last film you saw?

The Last Letter from Your Lover- I’ve watched it like 4 times this month because I am unhinged

95: You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere. You have to depart right now. Where are you gonna go?

I already said Ireland in the last one so my next pick is Greece, specifically the Arcadia region. There is so much amazing history and folklore there from the home of Pan to the King of Arcadia/Lykon. I love places where the land remembers you know?

#Asked #answered #asked/answered #rika answers

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deer-knight · 3 years

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I love asking questions about people lol, so sorry if this is really weird. Where'd you get the archery/sword experience? Have you been backpacking? If so, where's your favorite place you've been? Some of you favorite books/authors? What's your favorite part about teaching/working with kids?

alright, i wanna honor these questions with proper responses, so i’ll just tag this as a long post and y’all can deal with it :P i’ve bolded the different questions so you can read whatever you’re interested in. ARCHERY: i started fashioning self-bows and arrows in my parents backyard (which was just about 3 acres) when i was 11, just going on what i knew bows and arrows to look like. i shot at trees and rocks and i’d do it for hours and hours after school. my parents are strongly anti-weapons and the only reason i ever got into archery beyond my backyard bows was because of my grandfather, who gifted me a longbow for my 13th birthday and brought me for a few lessons with a junior olympic coach he happened to know. then armed with some proper equipment and a couple of lessons the rest of it was just practicing in the backyard at primarily self-made targets of foam and cardboard.

and i practiced religiously. nearly every day, for at least an hour or two, i’d be out there. i briefly joined an archery range the following year, and nearly outshot everyone at the first tournament, despite being the only one under the age of 30, which i am proud of to this day.

i continued my practice and love of archery up through high school and uni, but gradually fell out of consistent practice just cause i no longer had the space once i moved out of my parents place. i’ve taught archery for girl scouts and now teach primarily primitive archery at work. so in essence, i’ve come full circle - back to self-bows and shooting at trees in the woods.

SWORDPLAY: most of my swordplay experience is from modern olympic foil fencing, which i did from age 13/14 to about halfway through uni, which is when i discovered sca rapier fighting. somehow i managed to convince my parents it wasn’t at all dangerous or violent (which it technically isn’t - it’s really quite tame, at least if you don’t fence sabre). i mostly fenced foil, but my high school team was tiny, and i filled in wherever bodies were needed, so i learned a bit of everything. i did however break my ankle when i was 16 during a fencing bout, which required surgery. i couldn’t walk for 6 months, but i was back at it again as soon as i was cleared, and having good footwork became my top priority.

as for sca rapier, i was at a local renaissance faire and saw one of their fight demonstrations. i noticed that the techniques looked awfully similar to épée fencing, but the swords looked far more beautiful and certainly more substantial as weaponry. needless to say, i was intrigued. i asked their table how to get involved, and i started attending their practices the very next weekend, never to pick up a foil again. i’ve been fighting with my local group and learning from my sca peers ever since.

since then, i’ve received my award of arms in large part due to my rapier dedication, i’ve won one local rapier championship, and ranked 15th in my very first large scale tourney last year, one with close to 80 participants. at work i teach kiddos the basics of swordplay, using foam swords i constructed of pool noodes, pvc, and duct tape.

BACKPACKING: no, i haven’t technically been backpacking, but i love hiking and i’ve covered most of my local peaks. ^_^

FAVORITE BOOKS/AUTHORS: this has been a difficult and shifting thing of late, as academia crushed my adolescent love of reading and i took a long break from reading for pleasure post-uni.

that said, the kingkiller chronicles by patrick rothfuss and the stormlight archives by brandon sanderson were my absolute favorites in high school, and having reread them recently to try and rekindle my relationship with reading is a difficult thing. they are not the perfect books i romanticized them to be, but i don’t think i can dismiss entirely the good they did for me as a depressed teen. i loved the storytelling, i loved the worldbuilding, i loved the quality of the writing and they way it let me escape for a while. would i recommend the books to anyone today? probably not. i’m searching for better ones.

it’s likely i simply didn’t notice the misogyny or lack of queer representation as a problem because it was what i understood to be normal, and being a daft and obliviously closeted trans queer kid, the only thing i knew how to do was repress and avoid conflict.

i don’t know if i can call those books my favorites anymore. i’ve thanked them for their comfort when i needed it, but i’ve let them go. for now i’m on the hunt for books i can actually see myself represented in.

FAVORITE PART OF TEACHING/WORKING WITH KIDS: hm. i think it would have to be their creativity - the way they ask questions, their curiosity and their different ways of figuring stuff out, and beyond all - their gorgeous imaginations.

there are certain kids who, like me, really just want to learn, to soak up every bit of all they touch and see and hear, and to never stop trying to get better at the stuff they love. one of my students got their first coal using a bow drill this fall, after having tried for years but never quite being strong enough. a new student struggled to cross a fallen log that spans a shallow ravine, too scared of falling off to walk it like a balance beam. they worked at it for a while, crawling out on their butt or hands and knees and then backtracking when they got too scared. by the end of the day they could walk across it, still some fear in their eyes but the confidence of practice in their chest.

i love when kids come back from their “sit spot” (20 minutes of quiet time alone in the woods) to report that they had made a new friend in the form of a tree or a fern or a squirrel that sat near them on a stump for a while. sometimes their new friend has a name and a story, sometimes they don’t. sometimes they were visited by the fairies or the voices of the wind.

and sometimes they take a foam sword to the face and they cry, their arrow doesn’t fly as straight or as far as the others, or they say mean things to one another to protect their own pride and insecurities. sometimes they cut themselves while carving or they get clotheslined by a tree branch, and sometimes they bicker and argue about who did what, and that’s part of it too. we ask them what they notice in their bodies, how they feel and we figure out what those feelings mean and where to go from there. that’s beautiful too.

so, it’s all my favorite. i couldn’t ask for a better job. i’ll most likely do this forever :P

thanks for the questions! i’ve tagged all “about me” kinds of questions with “& lore” so if you want to ask a question but don’t know if i’ve already answered it, check there first! my about me page also has some basic stuff there ^_^

cheers! &

#long post #& lore

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libralita · 4 years

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Title: Dawnshard

Author: Brandon Sanderson

Summary: Dawnshard follows the story of Rysn, the Thaylen merchant whom we've seen before in the Interludes of the first three books of the Stormlight Archive series.

Rating: ★★★★★

Review:

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Anyways.

DAWNSHARD!

I feel Rysn’s pain. I too find stuff most unimaginably boring interesting.

Oh no, something is wrong with Chiri-Chiri.

“A few anxietyspren, like twisting black cross shapes, appeared around Rysn.”

Huh, interesting.

“She’d already sent a request via spanreed to someone she thought could help with Chiri-Chiri.”

*Narrows eyes* Who?

“her eyebrow jewelry tinkling softly”

Roshar is so weird. (Edit: Understatement of the goddamn decade)

“The king wants to meet this Dalinar Kholin and see these Knights Radiant for himself.”

Man I should have reread these books. Oh well. Goodluck Dalinar.

It’s very interesting that now Navani is Queen of Urithiru. So Dalinar is King? WAIT WE’RE IN URITHIRU! AHHHH!

“She was an intimidating woman with her Alethi height, her black and grey hair done in intricate braids atop her head and woven with glowing sapphires.”

Nah, she’s a mom. I wouldn’t be surprised if she tries to mother you.

Rysn Ftori. Did we know her last name?

“Finally the queen stopped, focused on the chair at the rear of the room, then pulled her chair over and sat before Rysn. It was a small gesture, but appreciated. Rysn didn’t mind when people remained standing in her presence, but there was a certain thoughtfulness in the way Navani situated herself so they could discuss at eye level with one another.”

As stated, Navani is a mom.

Oh, I think we read about this in Oathbringer.

The Prince of Liafor???

The Rock of Secrets. I see Brandon wasn’t trying too hard with this name.

“As the months had passed, Rysn had begun to truly grasp the strategic importance of Stormlight as a fuel both for fabrials and for the Knights Radiant. Beyond that, the enemy had creatures—known as Fused— who used the Void’s own Light. Chiri-Chiri fed on that just as eagerly as Stormlight.”

Hmmm…yeah…

…………………I kind of ship Lopen and Talik. I don’t know how to feel about this. Brandon is creating some very odd ships this year. (If you haven’t read the RoW previews, trust me, there’s a weird one)

““It’s politics. The annoying kind.”

“There’s another kind?”

No.

YAY RUSHU IS COMING ALONG!

“She owned it. She commanded it. But at least according to maritime tradition, it was not hers”

This reminds me of how Navani sees herself as not an artifabian (I’m not even going to bother look up the correct spelling for this)

“Radiant the Lopen”

PFFFFFFFFFFFT

““Lopen,” Rushu said as she worked, “you should not be tormenting Brightness Rysn with your prattling.””

Rushu! How dare you question the Lopen!!

““Brightness Rysn shouldn’t have to crack jokes at her own expense in order to make other people comfortable with their personal insecurities.”

“Yup, true,” the Lopen said. “She shouldn’t have to.””

Oooooooooooooooooooooooooo

“Two halves of a ruby, containing two halves of the same spren, can be made to move in tandem with one another”

…TWO HALVES OF THE SAME SPREN. PARDON?!?!!

I’m assuming that if you can get a ship to move fast enough then a spanreed will work. Much like Brandon has said that time bubbles can work at a certain speed. Plus y’know, Roshar is constantly moving, we just don’t feel it.

“It’s why the motion and curve of the planet don’t influence spanreeds.”

Or y’know, I’ll just be fucking WRONG.

“That . . . didn’t make much sense to Rysn.”

Same.

I’m guessing that Nikli is a worldhopper. From where though? I don’t really trust Nikli right now though. Hmmm.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NIKLI IS ONE OF THOSE CREMLING THINGS NONONONONONONONONONONONOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

WHAT MEAN YOU ONE OF THESE…SWARMS KNOWS DALINAR “I know he will destroy us”

From the dustjacket of Way of Kings:

“The last is the highprince, a warlord whose eyes have opened to the past as his thirst for battle wanes.

The world can change. Surgebinding and Shardwielding can return; the magics of ancient days can become ours again. These four people are key.

One of them may redeem us.

And one of them will destroy us.”

So Dalinar will Destroy the Sleepless.

“Plus, Yelamaiszin said, we should have compassion for those we must cull. It is good you like the humans.

Must we cull them though? Nikli replied.”

Oh, the Sleepless gotta cull humans. Fucking great. AHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Is it just required that every single novella is going to have these fuckers in them?

“When the swarm that had become Nikli had been Separated, it had already contained hordelings evolved for this subterfuge. Nikli had further evolved them, and was now certain that the body didn’t need the tattoos to cover the seams in its skin”

Wat.

Also who’s Arclomedarian? Now I need to go reread Edgedancer to see who that guy was. Oh? Who are the true traitors? It’s probably Hoid.

“where they would either fall to the winds or enter the realm of the Sleepless.”

Man, if I was on that ship, I’d take drowning over finding that. Let’s notttttt.

“This was sent to another vote, and Nikli’s bodies— the distant ones, not on the ship—all vibrated with anticipation.”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“Can block a Shardblade, Rua tells me, if it’s thick enough. They get it from Soulcasting, though only a few can make it, so it’s pretty rare”

Y…you can soulcast aluminium? Holy fuck.

No Lopen! You belong with Talik. He can capture that Tsundere heart.

Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?

As someone who has read Mistborn, you don’t want a dramatic end of the world. It causes essential crisis.

“More spren than animal, they were somehow able to magnify peace and confidence.”

Like…rioting?

““No,” several voices said from the crowd—but she couldn’t see who. “That’s bad luck!””

Nikla…

“Storms. It was as if . . . as if the body had been made up of cremlings.”

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

“no more real than things like the gloomdancer or sea hags from Thaylen mythology”

Well, I’m sure these things don’t exist.

“Hmmm? Oh, no I was napping during that.”

I do love Rushu.

So…Huio…created…flying machines. Motherfucker.

I can’t believe Roshar has hove chair before cars. Also HOVER BRIDGES LET’S GOOOOOOOOO.

Nikli…what are you doing?

Rushu is a soulcaster! Wild.

“Regardless, I demanded that Navani send me with either a Shardblade or a Soulcaster to get through.”

You fucking what mate?

“Strange, to think how optimistic she’d been only a short time ago.”

That tends to happen with Brando Sando books. One moment the characters are on top of the world and next everything is crashing down.

The sun being shattered into pieces? Well that can’t be good.

“She counted the shards in her mind, over and over, feeling a reverence to the number.”

Ten or sixteen?

“It looked vaguely like an enormous grub with a wicked beak of a face. It had spindly arms running all the way along its body, and had reared up so it was mostly vertical, using its pointed limbs like spears to try to skewer the sailors beneath.”

Again. Roshar. Fuck off.

“The Mother of Machines,”

Thirty emerald broams says the back of the book has something about the Mother of Machines on it.

“I . . . have no idea what any of that means,”

Me reading half of this book.

“And in truth, those treaties were made with other gods. I had hoped the Gods Who Sleep Not would be similarly bound, but now I am not certain.”

OTHER GODS? WHICH ONES?!

GOOD JOB HUIO!!!

“We wish to avoid losing control of a force that could destroy the cosmere.”

Odium? Just don’t let any love struck teenagers near it and you’ll be fine.

“As I and my kind are not native to this planet, we prefer the term ‘hordelings.’”

W…Where are you from?

This reminds me of Skyward.

I am sure that Rysn will not be able to employ it. How many books do we have left?

“And then eventually, they were used to undo Adonalsium itself. . . .”

YOU FUCKING WHAT?!

Rysn, you’re going to get a visit from an asshole. Be prepared and good luck.

I can’t for Arc 2 where we get so BIG CHIRI-CHIRI.

Interesting so Rysn will never become a Radiant.

“Regrettably, there has been a conflict on the beach with some of our more . . . specialized hordelings,”

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

“You have Remade yourself.”

Remade? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Oh no. Lopen noooooooooooooo.

Who needs a Hover chair when YOU CAN RIDE A CRAB DRAGON! SUCKING ALL THE STORMLIGHT! WIELDING THE DAWNSHARD!

“Was it . . . brighter than usual? Why did the colors in her room look so exceptionally vivid all of a sudden?”

Idos Domi! What heightening are you?

I was not expecting this. My thoughts are currently just on the floor, screaming. Brandon, you cannot just drop lore on me like this.

#dawnshard #Brandon Sanderson #Stormlight Archive #cosmere #reviewsdaytuesday

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anemonereadssometimes · 4 years

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Top 15 characters from books I’ve read in 2020

Yes I know it’s only been six months. I’ve read 27 books, which is way more than last year, love me some having graduated college and actually have free time. This list was Not Easy, the order changes by the day, and this year was a lot of rereads but I saw this idea and I thought it looked fun so here I am. Without further ado:

1. Kaladin (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)

I love my too honorable, depressed, protective boy. He tries so hard all the time, and he attaches and loves everyone. He tries to give everything and more of himself to save and it might not be healthy but I relate so hard lmao. I just love him so much. He’s grumpy as hell and takes too much responsibility but goddamit he cares.

2. Jesper Fahey (Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo)

I just.... I love Jesper. His charisma shines through the pages. Jesper is the type of person I want to be, full of life, and sharing that with other people.

3. Inej Ghafa (Six of Crows)

Strongest person ever, I want to be her or I want to marry her, I’m not sure which. Every word she says is thought through, and she is deliberate, and reflective, and physically, emotionally, and mentally strong.

4. Fire (Fire by Kristin Cashore)

My favorite character from a book I’ve loved for ten years. I reread this book probably once a year, and my love for Fire only grows. She’s immensely reflective, strong, and soft at the same time. She gets to be both. I also love the strong woman who is kind and compassionate and loves children, because loving and treating children well and being strong/ having power are not mutually exclusive. She’s just wonderful, and I never get sick of watching her grow confident in herself and grow outside of her shadows, becoming something reforged. Also she’s beautiful.

5. Wylan Van Eck (Six of Crows)

Hhhhhhh okay I am wylan. I know this. I know that’s why I like him. He’s the parts of me I like lmao. He’s smart, confident when in the right situation, and just honestly the sweetest. When it comes to it, he’s brave, but he feels like everyone around him is leagues above him. Also he loves Jesper which like, yeah dude I feel that.

6. Sophie Hatter (Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones)

Sophie is mean as hell and I appreciate that honestly. She’s no nonsense and clever and wonderful. Hella strong character, I love every conversation she has with people. She also has the tendency to fall into repetitive thought patterns which is a mood.

7. Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch (Carry On by Rainbow Rowell)

Ah Baz. Loved this boy for years. We’ve run across another book I reread a lot. Baz is dramatic as hell, has a mean streak, but fiercely protects those in his circle. I am not him, and I sure as hell wouldn’t agree with him on everything, but I respect him as a mage and as a person. Also he makes me cry.

8. Sylphrena (The Stormlight Archive)

God I love Syl. I can’t believe she’s this low on the list tbh but she’s the cheerful counterpart to Kaladin. She’s an honorspren, so not a person exactly, but more of an idea, which is hella cool I wish I was an idea. She’s badass and she cares so much about Kaladin, and about doing what’s right by people. She’s kind and I got to watch her grow her consciousness and intelligence. One minute she is having a philosophical discussion with Kal and the next she’s pretending to be a rock, or sticking people’s shoelaces together. That’s a duality I can relate to and respect.

9. M-bot (Skyward & Starsight by Brandon Sanderson)

M-bot is not a person either, he’s an AI and I love him. M-bot made me cry my eyes out, actually I think every character on this list so far has made me cry except Sophie, and that’s because Howl’s Moving Castle is kind of a light book and I love that. Anyway M-bot is a sarcastic little thing and I love him. His lines are the funniest, but he also cares a lot, and is also runs a spaceship so like that’s awesome.

10. Spensa (Skyward & Starsight)

Spensa is probably my favorite character that I spend the whole book yelling at. Jk, not the whole book, but she does frustrate me. She’s so impulsive, but man she tries so hard and feels so much and I’m a sucker for characters that care. She’s a good egg, go read Skyward.

11. Eric R Bittle (Check, Please by Ngozi Ukazu)

Another character that’s made me cry! This one multiple times! I grew up alongside Bitty in a way, going through college at the same time he did, and weirdly coming out around the time he did as well. Feels like he’s been there with me, and I got to watch him mature and beat his own demons. I’m so proud of him and I squeal every time I see him. He’s such a stinking sweetheart.

12. Simon Snow (Carry On)

Ah yes, another idiot whom I love. But he cares so much!!! He loves with his whole self, he doesn’t do anything by halves. He throws himself headlong into everything, and he may be reckless and stupid sometimes but I love him.

13. Howl (Howl’s Moving Castle)

I listened to the audiobook version of this book, and I honestly think that cemented my love of Howl. The Howl voice the voice actor does is marvelous, and many of his lines had me cackling in public. He’s brash and grumpy and selfish but I love him anyway. Helps that he’s funny as hell.

14. Nina (Six of Crows)

Ninaaaaaaaaaa another character to get mad at, since she has a tendency to do stupid things, but she always does them for the right reasons. She’s badass, and she gives love to her friends freely. She also doesn’t know how to shut up and I love that. Also have a mentioned she’s badass? And beautiful???

15. Calcifer (Howl’s Moving Castle)

Fuckin’ hilarious. 10/10 jokes, the voice actor’s voice was also very good for calcifer. He loves to pretend he doesn’t car but he does. Also in the second and third books he’s hella badass which is cool.

Honorable mentions in no order:

Kimmalyn (Skyward)-sweetest bby, I love her

Shallan (The Stormlight Archive)- haven’t liked her every step of the way but she’s such and interesting character holy crap

Dalinar (The Stormlight Archive)- army general, has killed lots of ppl :/ but he’s so invested in change and doing good, and he pushes himself so hard. Love the way Brandon Sanderson writes everyone morally gray. Good stuff.

Penny (Carry On)- brash as hell, damn smart, will kick your ass, does not have time for you, kinda unlikeable, wait I’m describing book hermoine wait could it be that I loved hermoine in my formative years and now I love the carry on version of her? Mmm not surprising.

#the stormlight archive #carry on #six of crows #the graceling trilogy #howls moving castle #skyward #check please #my post #kaladin stormblessed #jesper fahey #inej ghafa #lady fire #wylan van eck #sophie hatter #baz #simon snow #calcifer

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