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

Great Story!! Cons: slow start & poor narration

Very angry & frustrated listening experience. I learned to appreciate Michael Kramer's performance but Kate Reading CHANGED THE PRONUNCIATION of a key character's name 3/4 through the story!!!! How the hell did this pass editing? It did not help matters that I'd already grown distasteful of her repetitive tone and inappropriate cadence for a narrative story. She reads as though each line is poetry, punctuating the same parts of every sentence with the same tone of voice. This may be great for reading prose but it quickly grew tiresome having to listen to such a repetitive rhythm, and toward the end of the book I was groaning each time the chapters switched from Kramer to Reading. Fantastically gripping and imaginative story once you get past the lengthy slow start though. just wish Kramer had gone it alone.

And for those who move on to the 2nd book Words Of Radiance...Be prepared for Kate Reading's cringe worthy, horribly over exaggerated French(??) accent for the sailor character Yalb -- a bizarre and unprecedented switch from the totally normal accent she'd given him in The Way of Kings. WHAT IS HER ISSUE???? Stormfather help me get through this...please prove that the story is worth her torture

The woman narrator’s cadence is unbearable.

She always uses the down/up inflection on the last word in the sentence, drives me crazy. Do yourself a favor and skip the audio version this time.

Sanderson & Kramer brilliant. Reading unlistenable

I'll get this out of the way because it pains me to write this - I tried many times to wrap my head around Kate Reading's phonation and cadence but it was so unnatural that it routinely broke immersion. She intonates words the way an early computer speech program would. It may seem pedantic if you're just reading reviews but if you listen you will see what I mean.

Overall the entire story and the chapters read by Kramer are truly phenomenal. My favourite work of Sanderson thus far.

Loved the Book, One Glaring Narration Issue

I loved this book. Of course it was a little slow at first, but that's to be expected when background information is being given at the beginning of any long novel. The characters are well developed and you care about what happens with them. I got a little tired of the jumps back and forth in time, but that was only minor. The glaring flaw was in the narration. Michael Kramer and Kate Reading do a great job and unlike other reviews I have no problem with their style. Toward the very end of the book though the pronunciation of Sadius was changed by Kate Reading to the point where I was asking myself if a new character had been introduced somewhere that I missed. I soon figured out who she was talking about, but it's one of those little things that grate on the nerves every time you hear it. It doesn't seem too much to expect that pronunciation of names be consistent throughout an entire series let alone a single book. The producers should be embarrassed to put out a final product with such an amateur flaw. Audio books should be edited as properly as written books.

Wow - 45 hours long and leaves you wanting more!

I have become a big fan of Brandon Sanderson's work and this new series does not disappoint. He has created another interesting world full of rich characters and I can't wait for book two.

The same narrators from the Wheel of Time series re-unite with Sanderson to create another winner. Mistborn, Warbreaker, Elantris, and now this work vaults Sanderson to the top of my must-read list. This book is so good I will gladly listen to it again as a refresher when book two comes out!

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 enjoyable (but a slight warning)

I really, really enjoyed this book. The performances and story easily in my top five favorite Audible titles.

I was was introduced to Sanderson by listening the Mistborn series (which I enjoyed). Sanderson is very good at making his characters three dimensional as well as bringing his settings to life. He creates a full background and mythology for his characters that give a fullness to the experience of his stories.

The performances here are top notch. I significantly preferred the sections performed by Michael Kramer but both narrators fit their main characters well and do a great job of creating separate, distinguishing voices for their characters.

HERE'S THE WARNING: This book does not have a complete ending. I hadn't realized that book two isn't out yet. When I finished this book, I was ready to skip all of the other titles on my listening list and go straight into the next book. I've listened to enough preexisting series (Dresden Files is a good example) that I expected to continue the story when this book left me hanging. I know I'm spoiled and I'm whining a bit but hurry up! I was already feeling extremely impatient waiting for Rothfuss's next Kingkiller Chronicles (another don't-miss-it series with a similar epic feel to Sanderson's) but now I've definitely become a whiny-baby.

The book does have a partially satisfying ending but, like most series premiers, it leaves many things unresolved and many questions unanswered. This book is still on my list of must-listens but be prepared to long for book two.

AMAZING!!! (from a non-fantasy/sci-fi fan)

I was pressured to download this book by a sci-fi loving boyfriend and sister. Since it was so long, and only one credit, I went ahead. I expected to let it sit in my library to get them off my back, but instead started listening to it while in traffic one morning. I stayed in my car for an extra 20 minutes in the parking lot because I couldn't get enough! I have seen some reviews that say the entire book is character development. Aren't all stories? The narration was incredible - as was the recording (although Kate and Michael pronounce one of the main characters names differently at the very end of the book which was a little confusing at first). I cannot wait for the next one!

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.

Best fantasy book EVER written!!!

Any additional comments?

If I could give more stars I would. I am a fan of Brandon Sanderson's other works, along with the wheel of time series. I also have listened to 'A Song of Fire and Ice' series, 'Harry Potter', 'Twilight', 'The Dark Tower', 'The King Killer Chronicles' and several other fantasy series type books. This one is by far the very best. There is not even a close second. Can't wait for book 2 to come out.

Fantastic

Brandon is probably the best writer of Epic fantasy in the world! He creats and draw you in into an dark and wellconstructed world.

The story and characters are captivating and you cant stop listning. The Narrorator is also the King of dark Epic fantasy and suits Brandons books perfectly! Really makes you belive in the story and characters.

Mixed narrator quality

The female reader has incredibly annoying inflection. No emotion, weird upswing on the end of the sentence.

Great opening work.

It takes a good chunk to get into it, but it flowers out into an interesting and dynamic story, leaving you loving the characters.

The biggest downside here is both of the narrators, most of the male parts are a little monotonous, but luckily good writing prevails through. For the female narrator I agree with how robotic and impersonal she comes across. Making almost no distinction between male or female speakers in her parts.

Obsessed

Dang. Been a while since I've enjoyed a book this much! It's just epic, can't get enough!

Perfect

The pinnacle of fantasy and one of Brandon's best works to date. Takes a long time to get into and has a steep learning curve but trust me, it is worth every word.

Blown away

Kate Reading and Michael Kramer are beyond incredible, and Brandon Sanderson is a genius.
The story takes a while to get you hooked, but once you are, you're never leaving. Phenomenal performance.

The book is amazing

I haven’t read the entire story but I have loved it so far.
If I would described the book in three words it would be I couldn’t stop.

Amazing

Great narration and a really exciting story. Bought the next book! I absolutely love Sanderson.

A story full of imagination and mystery

This book is absolutely fantastic. It is so full of details, creativity, adventure and relatable characters. The more I listen to this book the more curious I am of the world Brandon Sanderson has created. Sanderson really has taken fantasy to a whole new level with a world that is completely original. The voice actors are also very talented and make it easy to understand diologue between different characters and make the story come to life. Really recommend this book to anyone who enjoys fantasy books with a touch of mystery.

Great book, but...

why on Earth does every hero have an American accent and every villain has an exaggerated upper class British accent, even when they're from the same region?