The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

[nickg]

I accept all of these. But its still unbelievable. 95% of the book are about how real the things are. Killing hundreds in shardplate without being hit several times is just impossible in close combat vs soldiers.

At least Rand al'thor practiced for months, maybe year, before becoming sword master. Kaladin goes from newbie to master in few days. Read (or reread) Elantris - same thing happens, people getting used to super forces in minutes

Now, I horrified by possibility that next book ending will be more of the same - main heroes winning alone, single-handedly. After these battles, in 1st book! - what more can we expect?!

I'm overreacting, but the book was so good till the end :)

To be fair, becoming a sword master after months, or a year of training is ridiculous also.

[Datepalm]

Fuck it, I can't take it in silence anymore. I'm 89% through this book, i've been reading it for somewhere in the excess of 3 months, i've finished 15 other books in that time, and today on a perfectly innocent busride something snapped.

Plot wise, nothing has happened that couldn't have been described in about a hundred pages, but neither has that enormous wordcount gone to characterization or worldbuilding - the characters are still cutouts and the worldbuilding is confusing without being in the slightest interesting - sometimes i'm not sure if i'm reading Way of Kings or my macro economics textbook if i'm tired enough. Kalidan is the Gariest Stu i've ever read outside of fanfiction, unredeemed even by a budding class conciousness, especially when Dalinars interminable narrative spends all its time fawning over trite noblesse oblige concepts and the bloody thing is called Way of Kings, (and I really want his whole merry crew of forelock tugging grateful proles to die. or possibly kill him. whatever works. Not to mention bloody fucking Tinkerbell.) The dialogue is regularly making me cringe, the gender politics are weird but simultaneously boring, the allegory, if its there, to...racism, I assume?...neither powerful nor subtle, plot conveniences and bits of background regularly come out of nowhere as if by hovercar and the prose just makes it past servicable.

I have never spent so much time reading a book I liked so little about. Its like its data with so much mass its begun to behave like an object and now has Newtons laws apply to it. I haven't got an opposing force great enough to stop myself reading it.

I don't mind Shallan and Jasnah, if only their whole story could have been cut by about half lengthwise, Shallan behaved like she wasn't an annoying 12 year old and her background and motivations given some actual depth and gravity rather than us just being informed that this is terribly important and the only way, and maybe the city or the minor characters like the King or the flirty would-be assasin getting enough development so Shallan dosen't have to keep having the same hackneyed 2 bit philosophical conversation over and over again, poor girl.

The assasin-in-white was also kind of interesting, I guess, but there too this whole approach, which I think was attempting to be "gradually building up a mysterious characters background through intriguing hints and organic-to-the-plot bits and pieces of information", but in practice was "failing to build it up by dropping the same hint again and again, chapter after chapter, at odious repetetive length", eventually began to wear thin.

And, I swear, I meant the previous two paragraphs to be the 'stuff I liked'.

[Mjolnir]

It's weird: I like the book, or at least I like many things about the book, yet I have difficulty actually disagreeing with anything you say. I think it scores a lot of points for scope with me; I applaud its ambition and the world Sanderson's created, even if said world doesn't always come across the best way [confusing worldbuilding hints with no baring on this volume, etc].

Oh, Kaladin's class-consciousness: I'd say Kaladin's class-consciousness is quite developed -- or, oh, are you meaning that even though he is class-aware he's still boring you? I remember he was my least favourite character -- he just seemed too much the expected thing too much of the time, and since he felt so much like that expected fantasy hero those occasions when he rejected his role only felt like postponing the inevitable [and also holding up the plot]. Which, yeah, I think the all this could've happened in a hundred pages thing might be a bit exaggerated, but certainly I thought the middle was too slow. It's not even so much any objection I have to a specific part of the book pacing-wise, so much as that, when I reached the end of those thousand pages, I didn't feel that, progression-wise, I'd read a thousand page book. Not by a long way. It felt as though the story had spent so long hauling all its equipment into place that it was leaving off just when things were starting to get interesting [and the end was interesting, for me. It just should've been the middle, as opposed to the end.]

Shallan is ... yeah. I want to like her storyline, but there're things holding me up. The aforementioned twelve-year-old thing, for one. But there's also the humour, which is very subjective. I don't say that Sanderson can't do humour, because I think sometimes he is successful, but he slips it in really quite often and a lot of the time it feels forced, like he's trying too hard to be witty. A character thing of Shallan's, perhaps, part of her awkwardness. But it can be painful. I'm kind of hoping we'll get Jassnah's more mature perspective to complement Shallan's in future books.

Dalinar does something right at the end that impressed me a lot and improved his arc. But, again, it's right near the end.

So yeah: I can't disagree with you, but I know that I'll totally read the next one. Because I liked some of the setup, found the world cool, and was intrigued by the ending. It's just frustrating because, well, because I'm still waiting for shit to get real, and by the end of a novel that's a thousand pages long I really really shouldn't still be doing that.

[Datepalm]

Yeah, I am going to finish it, I suppose, if only becuase everyone says the end is the best bit, and its entirely possible i'll pick up the next one if the end does redeem it a bit. I started it knowing I wanted a big, chewy fantasy with lots of layers and theories and so on, and that it's delivered. Its just done it soooo badly.

Shallans humor just contributes to her coming off like a twee, precocious child. She seems to belong in an Enid Blyton book or maybe an all-american cereal commercial. Which is a shame, since she's in the middle of a rather good ethical dilemma and has a sudden betrayal and an assasination attempt and generally goes through a lot of interesting stuff, its just the characters are so shallow, and its so dragged out, they somehow manage to leech all the drama out of it. When a person a main character trusts nearly kills her to assasinate a person she admires but also considers betraying, my reaction shouldn't be 'ah, ok, that explains the jam.'

Kaladin and class - taken in isolation, he's ok. But even as he's decrying class opression, Sanderson is rebuilding it with the horrible dynamic of Kaladin as super saviour messiah guy vis the bridge crew - an ever so folksy band of misfits without individual personalities. The worst bit though is Dalinar - everytime I accepted that, yes, Saderson is really taking this "A king must lead his people with wisdom, blah, blah" crap seriously, a more insipid, classist, piece of tripe quote came along, and I had to start convincing myself all over again it wasn't meant to be satire.

[AverageGuy]

Yeah, I am going to finish it, I suppose, if only becuase everyone says the end is the best bit, and its entirely possible i'll pick up the next one if the end does redeem it a bit.

Honestly, the things I like about the end still seem to fall under your criticisms. At best, maybe two or three small things don't.

[Datepalm]

Honestly, the things I like about the end still seem to fall under your criticisms. At best, maybe two or three small things don't.

Done! I'm done! I finished the book a few hours ago, and found myself doing what I did the day I left the army - took a very long hot shower and thought about the rest of my life.

That out of the way, I actually rather liked the ending. It helped retroactively give a point to some of those endless meandering plots that only seemed to exist to give the characters something to do and had some stuff actually happen and things change. Still not fond of Kaladin though.

Am I the only one who assumed from fairly early on that this is actually an in-disguise science fiction novel? The armour and stuff sounds very exo-suit (theres an illustration someplace that looks very sleek and mechanical too), the ecology is clearly alien, rather than fantasyish, theres explicitely some sort of quantum thing going on with the Spren and the visions turn out to be sensory immersion recordings - more hologram Leia than mystical visions from god, to my mind.

[Mjolnir]

Congratulations on finishing! It is an achievment!

Dunno how many places I've seen this cliche, but it seems to be a thing in a lot of epic secondary world stuff that commonfolk must speak all down-home, mi'lord. Sanderson buys into this hard, and I think it brings the bridge crew down and makes them seem more folksy than they otherwise would. [Course, then there's Erikson, who swings very much the other way and has every soldier you look at sideways spouting "to be or not to be" or some shit, so pick your poison I suppose. I personally am not allergic to either per say, but both might get annoying if overused.] This and the lack of individual personalities for most of the bridge crew is really all that's wrong with them, for me personally, [though I do like Rock; I know he's silly but I can't help myself; he added most of the entertainment in those sections]. I lay the problem squarely at Kaladin's feet, personally: he's too awesome. Yes he has those crippling angstfest, but I don't think writing of the deeply personal kind like that is Sanderson's strength in this book -- he struggles with the domestic stuff too.

Dalinar: I did a bit of eye-rolling, I admit, but probably less than you, only because I new some of Sanderson's style going in and new he was very interested in nobility and leadership etc. There's a certain attitude toward honour, and leadership [and by extension kingship, I suppose], namely that it can be a good thing from the top down, so long as the dude [and it is a dude, thus far at least] in charge is truly noble of heart, that you just have to grit your teeth and take and I was able to do that. In the kind of story Sanderson is telling there are people who are plain and simple awesome, which is more fantastical than the highstorms and the spren in its way.

On the science-fictioniness: Wow, I hadn't really thought of it that way and it's a good point. The influence I was focused on with the shardplate and the lashing in particular was actually anime. I'm sure Sanderson's watched some anime in his day -- he's part of the first generation of North American writers that's probably grown up with ready access to at least some, and the plate screams mecha to me.

[Spring Bass]

Am I the only one who assumed from fairly early on that this is actually an in-disguise science fiction novel? The armour and stuff sounds very exo-suit (theres an illustration someplace that looks very sleek and mechanical too), the ecology is clearly alien, rather than fantasyish, theres explicitely some sort of quantum thing going on with the Spren and the visions turn out to be sensory immersion recordings - more hologram Leia than mystical visions from god, to my mind.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised.

The armor certainly seemed anachronistic in the flashbacks and Prologue. The latter describes guys wearing shiny shard-plate armor amidst normal people wearing wraps and carrying bronze spears.

As you said, the ecology is pretty alien. Only humans and a few animals seem to be familiar, and yet completely different from the rest of the world's flora and fauna, all of which are adapted to the perpetual highstorms.

The whole "forced out of the afterlife Tranquiline Halls" might be a reflection of that as well.

EDIT: I might be wrong about that, though. I found an interview with Sanderson about Way of Kings:

JO: You have stated elsewhere that your story is about a world recovering, a world that has fallen from the height of its power. Why did you choose to set your story in such a setting, what about it makes it an appealing place to write about?

BS: Several things. There’s a real challenge in this book because I did not want to go the path of The Wheel of Time in which there had been an Age of Legends that had fallen and that the characters were recapturing. Partially because Robert Jordan did it so well, and partially because a lot of fantasy seems to approach that concept. But I did want the idea of a past golden age, and balancing those two concepts was somewhat difficult. I eventually decided I wanted a golden age like existed in our world, such as the golden of Greece and Rome, where we look back at some of the cultural developments etc. and say, “Wow, those were really cool.” And yet technologically, if you look at the world back then, it was much less advanced than it is now, though it was a time of very interesting scientific and philosophical growth in some areas.

[AverageGuy]

Am I the only one who assumed from fairly early on that this is actually an in-disguise science fiction novel?

Yes. It definitely reminded me of similar things done by McCaffrey, Williams, Modesitt. Hearing about "Voidbringers" throwing people out of heaven, the hints that this very advanced armor and weapons were given to people by a more advanced society, all made me think: alien origin. Even Zelazny SF to a point, Lord of Light has the main character pseudo-Buddha projected into an energy cloud which he views as heaven; I was wondering if the Heralds weren't doing something similar and shoving their consciousness into the Highstorms, only it was a traumatic experience instead.

[Datepalm]

I lay the problem squarely at Kaladin's feet, personally: he's too awesome. Yes he has those crippling angstfest, but I don't think writing of the deeply personal kind like that is Sanderson's strength in this book -- he struggles with the domestic stuff too.

I really hated the flashbacks, and actually started speed reading through a few, which I usually never do with fiction. And there was actually some interesting stuff in there, but it was just all so...obviously all about leading Kaladin to exactly where the author wanted him, and at such drawn out length, and without any decent characterization. (The brother in particular...again, Kaladin steps in to save the sweet simpleton. we get it already.)

that you just have to grit your teeth and take and I was able to do that. In the kind of story Sanderson is telling there are people who are plain and simple awesome, which is more fantastical than the highstorms and the spren in its way.

Lol, yes, interesting way to approach it. Harrison Bergeron much, I suppose. I think I could take that approach, especially if the characterizations were stronger, and just accept that this is what he's trying to explore and go with it, bu; philosophically, Sanderson keeps trying to have too muc of his cake and eat too much of it, to my paticular world view. Theres class tension, but its resolved by getting a better king. Theres endless decrying of violence and war, but still that detailed anime-like relish in cool weapons and awesome fighting techniques and super warriors who kill thousands. Ruminations on the role of a supreme leader that decisively and with apparently no irony end with 'Oh, it wasn't about honor and respect and putting yourelf in other peoples shoes at all! I should treat everyone like petulant children intead! go me! now, to teh sexxing!'

I did gain a bit of respect for Dalimar keeping the promise to Kaladin though. Here, particularly in the approach to violence, I think the characters might be better than the author sometimes. I did just finish the Heroes though, which does this critique with actual sincerity and all round so much better, so maybe i'm jaded.

On the science-fictioniness: Wow, I hadn't really thought of it that way and it's a good point. The influence I was focused on with the shardplate and the lashing in particular was actually anime. I'm sure Sanderson's watched some anime in his day -- he's part of the first generation of North American writers that's probably grown up with ready access to at least some, and the plate screams mecha to me.

Yeah, me too, but while i'm not exactly an anime expert (my sister is though, at least by local standards. She sneaked into an anime class at her art school once and ended up getting the lecturer to change the curriculum.) mecha seems to fit firmly into SF for me anyway. The visuals and the fighting in particular seem really anime - the lashing fighting technique with its manipulations of gravity (that was actually one of my favorite things, genuinely original and well used.) everythings color coded, down to peoples multi-colored hair, and the spren are totally...drawn on.

The notion that he's thinking about Greece and Rome though....he does know they kept slaves, right?

[Horatz]

Way of kings would totally work as an Animé.

Datepalm: Absorbing a shard is very much like ascending in the SG Universe, too.

To me it appears like Sanderson tries to do something simmilar with WoK what Akiyuki Shinbo did with MGLN.

[Shryke]

The notion that he's thinking about Greece and Rome though....he does know they kept slaves, right?

I'm not sure what this has to do with his point. He says he's thinking about Greece and Rome in the sense that they were seen as Golden Ages by the people who came afterwards, but at the same time the Greeks and Romans were in many ways less advanced then the people who looked up to them.

[Shryke]

Anyway, I just finished reading this. Very "eh" imo.

It's got some neat enough parts, but ultimately it feels so terribly terribly generic. Twice over. It reads like a slow moving boiler-plate generic epic fantasy novel. And the bits that actually stray from those conventions just feel like standard Sanderson generic stuff that I've already seen in every other one of his novels. Just knowing both epic fantasy and, say, Mistborn I can see most of what's coming. "This guy will be this, a twist of some sort will happen here, this thing they think they know will turn out to be wrong" and so on. (Mistborn, by contrast, at least had an original plot and setting and such that mean even if I read it after his other works, it'd still stand out more)

Not terrible by any means, but nothing really special. It feels like he shoved 2 generic things together and instead of getting something new or interesting, we end up with a product that's just different kinds of generic mixed together. From the book, his comments on him wanting to write this series for awhile make alot more sense. It feels very much like his turn at the late-90s post-WOT epic fantasy which means it ends up feeling awfully "been there, done that".

It's also a bit slow moving. I don't mind really getting to know the characters and everything, but it really felt like very little happened. But it didn't feel like any chapters or anything were useless. I don't know, felt padded. Like it took too many words to say something whenever it got around to saying something.

Some good character stuff in there though. Even Kaladin, who should feel 100% cookie-cutter, at least comes off a little more interesting. Although his ending in the book is so much more generic then it needed to be. Hopefully, with this only being book 1, this gets shaken up a bit more in the future.

Also, Sanderson's habit of stopping midaction scene for repeated incredibly clunky info-dumping about how X works or why Y works this way or the like is really really terrible. And the thing is, it's mostly in this book. Mistborn wasn't nearly this bad after the first fight scene which had the obligatory "assume the reader just picked up this book without reading any of the others in the series cause he's a fucking idiot and thus needs to have everything explained to him again" thing.

I'll probably pick up the second one from the library again, see where it goes. But I'm rather disappointed all in all. I liked Sanderson because more then alot of other young author's I'd seen, he seemed to be improving visibly. He wasn't the best debut or anything I'd seen, but he was pretty good and at least getting better. I was expecting bigger things from him then what we'd already seen. Way of Kings feels very much like he's plateaued already.

[Datepalm]

I'm not sure what this has to do with his point. He says he's thinking about Greece and Rome in the sense that they were seen as Golden Ages by the people who came afterwards, but at the same time the Greeks and Romans were in many ways less advanced then the people who looked up to them.

In the sense that whatever thematic thing hes trying to get across vis leadership/authority/heirarchy/duty/violence/class/race is somewhere between an incoherent blob and actively offensive, and adding reference to Greece and Rome to that whole stew is, from my POV, doing it no favours whatsoever in figuring out what the hell he was going on about for a thousand pages. My own fault for not taking a ' the author is dead' approach, I suppose. This book probably would have been improved a lot (though possibly not to the point of being good) if all the conciously thematic bits had simply been removed.

[Shryke]

In the sense that whatever thematic thing hes trying to get across vis leadership/authority/heirarchy/duty/violence/class/race is somewhere between an incoherent blob and actively offensive, and adding reference to Greece and Rome to that whole stew is, from my POV, doing it no favours whatsoever in figuring out what the hell he was going on about for a thousand pages. My own fault for not taking a ' the author is dead' approach, I suppose. This book probably would have been improved a lot (though possibly not to the point of being good) if all the conciously thematic bits had simply been removed.

But he's not connecting those two ideas at all so I can't figure out why you are. His reference to Ancient Greece/Rome has nothing to do with the themes of leadership and what not in the book. The two things have nothing to do with each other, either in his interview there or in the book. You are really reading something into this stuff that's just not there.

Although it seems you were most offended because of political leanings as the idea of a "just King" or what have you doesn't at all square with Marxist or the like beliefs.

[Bronn is God]

I think that as long you accept another story about unwilling heroes

Then I think I am done here.

I never liked "hero saves world" books and I never will. Kaladin isn't as interesting as the Bridgesquad with Kaladin as their leader is. Shallan is pretty boring - I am amazed how I read page and page about nothing and am forced to sit back and wonder "morality" when Jasnah kills some peepz. Dalinar: damn boring. I think Sadeas has the potential to become the most interesting character, and I like Wit, but thats about it.

I have only given up on 1 other book so quickly (Hyperion - I realized I cant stand sci-fi) so 600 pages into Way of Kings, I give up.

[Datepalm]

But he's not connecting those two ideas at all so I can't figure out why you are. His reference to Ancient Greece/Rome has nothing to do with the themes of leadership and what not in the book. The two things have nothing to do with each other, either in his interview there or in the book. You are really reading something into this stuff that's just not there.

Dalinar is drawing his philosphy stuff from said golden age, and what I couldn't figure out throughout the book was how uncritically we were supposed to regard said golden age. Is Dalinar really getting deep truths that will be the backbone of the series morality from his visions or is he being deluded? The book seems to takes the 'way of kings' seriously, but the 'Way of kings' is trite and hypocritical in the context of the war and Kaladin's story. So i'm not sure what to think.

Although it seems you were most offended because of political leanings as the idea of a "just King" or what have you doesn't at all square with Marxist or the like beliefs.

Well, duh. But its not something I would be offended by if there weren't class issues in there in the first place. If it was just about being a bad king or a bad king, I could handle it, but its about being a bad king or a good king WHEN theres an obviously racist and reprehensible heirarchy in place at the same time. Good King/Bad King only works with otherwise happy peasants.

[Thefalconemperor]

I liked it, it grew in me after a while. I appreciate a lot writers' efforts to build and mantain very long series, and even more when there is a lot of wordbuilding involved. It's not without flaws though... the whole thing feels a bit derivative from Mistborn, Shallan is downright boring and the book is a hundred thousand words longer than it should be.

[Xanrn]

Rand Al'thor didn't learn to be a master swordsman in a couple of months.

He remembered the 300 or so years of Lews Therin being a Master Swordsman in a couple of months.

[Norvard]

What kind of climate does this story mostly take place in? Thinking about reading but Ive very particular about my natural scenery... I like cold northern lands with epic forests.