/lit/ - Literature

>>19419514
The Way of Kings, The Stormlight Archive #1 - Brandon Sanderson (2010)

The Way of Kings is the tenth Sanderson novel I've read and the twenty-seventh work overall. As with his other works, the writing is serviceable and meant for wide appeal. This isn't meant to be read for its prose. This is one of the longest books I've read where I didn't mind that it was overly long and meandering. It wouldn't suffer much from losing hundreds of pages. I wouldn't call it engaging so much as enticing. For some there may be insufficient plot progression for well over a thousand pages.

The Way of Kings is one of the most videogame inspired books I've ever read. There are many books that are closer to videogames, but they're emulating rather than being inspired. The book is completely filled with the logic, character archetypes, and tropes of RPGs. There's especially a lot that seems to be from Final Fantasy. I haven't the slightest problem with that. I love RPGs. If you don't think you'd like a videogame aesthetic, then this may not be for you, though clearly many people do like it. However, that may also limit the overall appeal of the series.

In terms of the three primary viewpoint characters I liked Dalinar, Shallen, and Kaladin in that order. I don't like Kaladin even though he's by far the most popular character. The narrative arc for his character development seems obvious. His archetype is one that I dislike. I hope I'm wrong. I didn't really care for his childhood chapters, but that's more a general issue than a specific one with dual timelines.

The book ends by tying off its immediate plot threads, so it may be possible to satisfied with only reading this one, but that seems strongly doubtful unless you're the sort of person who'd be fine with only finishing the first disc of a ten disc game and not playing any of its downloadable content. There's a lot of random lore and references that seem to be the narrative equivalent of backtracking in a game to earlier areas later on when the characters have more resources. Probably some stuff won't make any sense for a few books at least. There was a lot more focus on being in singular locations for characters than I expected there would be. An adventure novel this is not.

The Cosmere excites people too much regardless of the valance of their feelings. Its supporters think of it as a puzzle and want every possible morsel. The detractors dislike that they feel forced to read more than they want to get the entire story. To me the Cosmere is a marketing ploy masquerading as bonus content. Maybe eventually it'll be relevant when/if there's significantly more crossover content. When/if that happens there'll probably be a lore book published detailing all the connections for more profit, called something like The Cosmere Codex.

This is a solid fantasy novel inspired by videogame RPGs that puts easily accessible fun above all else while providing an illusion of depth.
Rating: 4/5