The Way of Kings

The Stormlight Archive, Book 1

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer

Length: 45 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

From number one New York Times best-selling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of the Stormlight Archive, begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the 10 consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where 10 armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of more than 10 years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths:

Life before death.

Strength before weakness.

Journey before destination.

And return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.

Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson:

The Cosmere

The Stormlight Archive:

• The Way of Kings
• Words of Radiance
• Edgedancer (Novella)
• Oathbringer

The Mistborn trilogy:

• Mistborn: The Final Empire
• The Well of Ascension
• The Hero of Ages

Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series:

• Alloy of Law
• Shadows of Self
• Bands of Mourning

Collection:

• Arcanum Unbounded

Other Cosmere novels:

• Elantris
• Warbreaker

The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series:

• Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
• The Scrivener's Bones
• The Knights of Crystallia
• The Shattered Lens
• The Dark Talent

The Rithmatist series:

• The Rithmatist

Other books by Brandon Sanderson:

• The Reckoners
• Steelheart
• Firefight
• Calamity

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2010 Dragonsteel Entertaiment, LLC (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

It doesn't get any better than this!

I gave up on the Robert Jordan Wheel of Time series by Volume 5 so never got to Brandon Sanderson’s concluding contributions to that series. My first books by Sanderson were those of the Mistborn Trilogy. I was totally captivated by the story and its writing. I avoided The Way of Kings because of its Audible 2 credit price but finally caved because I had lusted so long for something so good as Mistborn. I should not have delayed. The Way of Kings was well worth the price and promises to be one of the best ever series by Sanderson or any SF/Fantasy author. This is Book 1 of the Stormlight Archive.

Coming in at over 45 hours on audiobook or over 1000 pages in print, for some TWoK might seem too lengthy. Personally, for me, it ended all too soon. The book was totally gripping and absorbing. I could not put it down. The writing contains wit and charm, adventure and philosophy, comedy and pathos. It’s all there, a wide range of human thought and emotion. While constructed of multiple arcs, the writing is completely straight forward, accessible and easy to follow.

I became totally invested in each character and cared for everyone of the good guys and even some of the bad ones. One of the most interesting characters, one named Szeth, is a peace-loving believer in nonviolence but is also an ultimate, ninja-like assassin who hates to but is forced to kill and cries each time that he does. How’s that for a crazy mixed-up contradiction. Frankly, I think that Szeth is a metaphor for many of us and our behavior. But among my favorite and central characters were a peasant, apprentice surgeon named Kaladin and a spren named Syl with whom Kal has a rather magical and symbiotic relationship.

Spren appear throughout the book. They were for me various types of conscious energy or spirit-like entities that were part of or associated with almost everything on the planet including specific kinds of thoughts and emotions, wellness and sickness, life and death. They particularly seem to appear when “change” happens and it is at least at this point in the series difficult to know if they are responsible for, contribute to or are just present when changes in anything from one’s health to the weather occur.

Speaking of the weather, the environment and particularly the atmosphere of the planet and how the geology, flora and fauna have evolved within the influence of extreme weather is integral to the storyline. The book describes and develops half a dozen interesting and well defined fictional races. Wars exist on the planet among them over the power and dominance brought by the magical weapons known as Shardblades and Shardplates. And, while war is one of the central themes of the book, descriptions of battles and war do not dominate the narrative.

What came across most movingly, uniquely clear and beautifully written were the two human qualities of love and compassion. I do not think that those two attributes have ever been more deftly portrayed than it is in this book. Some of my other favorite SF/Fantasy writers including Dan Simmons and Peter F. Hamilton while brilliant in almost every other respect, fail to adequately communicate those two essential qualities of our nature. Other authors talk about it, their characters go through the motions and maybe say the words but I just do not always “feel the love” in their writings like I do in reading this book. The humanity and heroism portrayed by some of the characters in TWoK were strikingly remarkable. It is another one of those attributes of Sanderson’s writing that makes everything more real and capable of eliciting emotions within the reader.

Magic abounds in the book and all of it seems to make sense if ever magic can be made sense of. It was once said that any technology sufficiently advanced will appear as magic and this is that kind magic, magic that can almost be but not quite understood. There is plenty of adventure and excitement contained within the pages and Kate Reading and particularly Michael Kramer bring it all to life. Yes, this is the same duo that narrated the Wheel of Time saga. Their talent was well highlighted there but I believe even more so in The Way of Kings.

This was one great book and the only downside is that Sanderson is so prolific with his other literary pursuits that the sequel to this one is long overdue and the Audible rendition even longer than that.

Very Detailed.

It definitely earned a five star rating, as sweeping epic fantasies go. Sanderson takes us into the heads of each individual protagonist, and many of the 2nd level characters. The quotes are both creepy and portentous, as well as overdone and vague. The secret behind their harvesting is terrifying.

This book starts with a quick dramatic plot point, and then ebbs and builds, slowly, until the last five or so hours, where everything gets tied together, and presents a promising setup for book 2.

Brandon Sanderson's writing style, in this book, reminded me of Robert Jordan's; where you'd have these intricate meandering progressions, and suddenly a plot twist would rattle the storyline. I feel it's worth the two credits, and regret waiting for the next book in the series, but at least we're guaranteed it will be out before The Winds of Winter.

I'm not the biggest fan of Kate Reading's narration. Something about the way she draws out the words 'eyes' and 'oaths'. She has a great voice and she would be good for a single pov novel, and for R. Jordan's books, since his female characters are all so similar. She's not the best at diversifying her voices, or at male voices, so it's sometimes hard to tell who's speaking. Probably, it's just me, and I'm sorry I couldn't give the book a 5 star narration, as it deserves.

THANK YOU BRANDON SANDERSON (AND KATE / MICHAEL)

Waiting for next Wheel of Time and Song of Ice and Fire...(not holding my breath)

Been through Codex Alera, Saga of 7 Suns, Sword of Truth, Mistborn, Prince Roger, Discworld, Deathstalker, etc. etc. etc.

Looking for another long series.

Spent a LONG time on one that ... I finally gave up on when I saw this.

This is just what I needed - a book I can't put down - one that has made it again a NECESSITY that I have my ipod for my daily 1 hour plus drive. Since I'm not finished yet, the 5 stars may be premature, but I don't care. This book is GOOD.

Brandon Sanderson really, really, REALLY knows how to write. Can't wait for the next WoT book, and now, can't wait for the next in this series.

A great listen

I finished listening to the book this morning. The narration by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer is outstanding. Arguably the best narrators you could find. I enjoyed the book very much and I strongly recommend it to anyone looking for 46 hours of good reading (listening).

Kate Reading is hard to endure!

Michael Kramer is a bit dry, but you get used to his voice and can settle in for a listen. however, listening to Kate Reading nearly drove me insane. I wanted so badly to skip her narratives, but I knew the story would suffer for it. so I gritted my teeth and bore with it.

Angst ridden, but ends really strong

It is so much easier to write a review on a book you completely love or hate than for those you have mixed feelings about. I'm sure that's part of the reason most Audible reviews are often on the extremes. At 45 hours for the FIRST of TEN planned books, a listener is making a major commitment with this audiobook so, although most of the posted reviews for The Way of Kings are RAVES, this is a book that calls for reviews across the spectrum and some listeners may want more information before downloading. So, I'll brave the slings and arrows to explain why, although The Way of Kings deserves to have a wide audience, it might not be for everyone.

Most of my criticism is regarding pacing and editing. At 1007 pages this book is certainly a great per word value, but you could easily pare out 25% of the verbiage without losing any of the wonderful world-building, character development, or plot. Sanderson paints vivid pictures quickly and his sentence structure is terse. I like that he lines out a planet complete with weather systems and detailed flora and fauna, a wealth of anthropological and evolutionary data, an unusual and interesting religious structure, a unique monetary system, and a thorough sociological portrait with such concise language that he neither bored me nor overwhelmed me with the descriptions. Sanderson seems to trust his reader/listener to absorb the descriptive sketches and flesh out his/her own imaginary stage. Strangely the opposite is true with the characterizations and plotting. The most intriguing character in this missive is Szeth, the assassin who weeps, even though (or maybe because) his story line is the least detailed. The majority of the book focuses on Highprince Dalinar Kholin and the slave Kaladin, both men being exceptionally moral and conflicted people. I liked both characters a great deal, but the angst and the constant internal battles of these two characters started to wear very thin with me. How many times does Dalinar have to awake from a prescient dream and agonize about his own sanity and how many times does Kaladin have wallow in survivor guilt before Sanderson thinks I understand who these men are, how they came to be this way, and that they are clearly both On A Mission. (I truly lost count of the repetitions of these internal battles.) Dalinar speaks often about the journey being more important that the destination, but when the journey is so exhausting that you forget where you were headed, the destination may deserve a little more emphasis. Sanderson is a good enough writer to keep me from getting bored during the many hours of listening, but the narrative often loses plot focus so it was easy to get distracted or simply turn the book off for a while. I felt like Sanderson forgot that people read fiction (especially fantasy) to have fun! There is little humor, a lot of angst, and very slow plot development in most of the mid-section of the book. I was even more frustrated about this when I got to the seventh and final download for the book because everything turns around and you see that Brandon Sanderson is able to write great action sequences and totally engaging plotting when he wants to. The last few hours of this book are unforgettable and completely changed my mind about it. I would rate the first 6 download sections a solid 3 stars, but the ending of this book is STELLAR and strong enough to push up my overall rating. If the entire book or even a larger portion of the book had had the dramatic tension of the last section, I would have been totally enraptured by The Way of Kings.

Michael Kramer and Kate Reading are both good, experienced narrators. I have heard each them perform better in other books, but I suspect the long sections of little action make this book challenging for narrators who are well-versed in reading more tension-laden narratives. I counted off a bit in performance also for differences in pronunciation of names between Kramer and Reading; it is confusing and distracting and the audio production company should have fixed that.

If The Way of Kings were a stand alone book, my issue with the lack of editing probably would count for less. But if Sanderson writes 9 more volumes like this one to complete The Stormlight Archives, I won't be able to stick with him. Not only will he wear me out, but I might not even live long enough to see the end. The first volume was published 8/2010 and the second volume, Words of Radiance (just the title makes me think that book will be LONG), is not due out until 3/2014. At that rate, the final volume will not be out until about 2041!! Ultimately, I would recommend The Way of Kings to those who enjoy a total immersion worldbuilding experience (and plan to be around for 30 more years). But, if taut storytelling is high on your list or you don't have the patience to wait 30 years for the end of a story, this may not be the best choice.

Too fantastic and imaginative for me

I ranked this book high because my opinion is admittedly, very subjective, and I don't want to damage the ranking without a better reason. Still, I thought I'd warn others who may have tastes similar to mine...

I listened for a little over eight hours before stopping. The story and world are a bit confusing, but overall, the writing seemed good and well thought out. The problem for me is that the world is so foreign. It's a hard thing to put into words - how a world like Middle-earth or the Wheel of Time can seem digestible, but others seem, I don't know, too far out.

There are creatures made of stone, other creatures with 14 legs or six legs - some of them as big as houses. Strange battles happening everywhere, for reasons that I never understood. There are also really odd customs. For instance, it's shameful for men to read or for women to show their "safe hands." Currency takes the form of glowing spheres, and buildings (at least some of them) seem to have been constructed using a form of magic-based alchemy.

The world is plagued by legendary violent storms, but somehow, they don’t seem all that violent when they pass – up come the shutters and everyone moves on. Magic can be drawn from special light, which begins leaking out of its wielder soon after taking it in. I could go on and on (and on and on – really), but whew! This one lost me.

If you like really fantastical fiction, you'll probably love it. But, if there's a gray, hard-to-describe line that you have as much difficulty explaining as crossing, you may want to find something else.

Nothing personal Mr. Sanderson, I love your work on The Wheel of Time.

An Extra Star for the Narrators

I've heard a lot of these narrators, and they are two of my favorites. The production of the audiobooks I've listened to with them reading, including this one, is really high. The text is pretty good too, although I found this really painful to get into to. The author needs to make the characters more interesting and sympathetic more quickly. He eventually gets there, and then it's gripping, and a pleasure to hear the story read by the resonant tones of Michael Kramer. I would say this book was not as good as the first Mistborn book, especially because this one seems less original. All those quibbles aside, there's a good chance I'll continue with the series.

Good narrators but

They could have agreed on how to pronounce certain names. Other than that, good performance.

Sanderson wins again.

Brandon Sanderson has become my favorite author with this book. Be warned that for about 15-20 minutes while the book starts off, it will talk of things that make no sense, but they are explained soon.