The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

[pat5150]

This isn't Sanderson-specific, and I hope it comes out as friendly and curious rather than hostile, but: Way of Kings is over a thousand pages, and is the first book of a planned ten-part series. How much is packed in to each of those pages? It's hard for me to see how you could spread a story across 10,000 pages without monstrous padding.

Oh, it's padded, no question.

I'd say the book is about 300 pages too long...

Patrick

[Spring Bass]

I submitted five questions and since I prefer to focus on non-plot issues, I think it'll be interesting to see how Brandon answers my questions, especially since one of them has to do with faith and his stories.

Does it touch on the general lack of overt sexuality, either implied or shown? That was something I found a little weird at times in The Way of Kings, although he does throw in a prostitute or two (and the main three are over-worked and probably too tired for sex).

I think I've been ruined by GRRM, Bakker, and Richard Morgan. Sexuality seems more weird now when it's not in the fantasy books I read.

[Larry.]

Does it touch on the general lack of overt sexuality, either implied or shown? That was something I found a little weird at times in The Way of Kings, although he does throw in a prostitute or two (and the main three are over-worked and probably too tired for sex).

I think I've been ruined by GRRM, Bakker, and Richard Morgan. Sexuality seems more weird now when it's not in the fantasy books I read.

Not directly, as the perceived lack of hardcore goat fucking (or fucking of any being or self) is not something I spend much time thinking about. Some stories lend themselves to that, others don't. In this one, I didn't find the lack of hardcore fucking being explicitly shown to be a hindrance to the story.

[Spring Bass]

Not directly, as the perceived lack of hardcore goat fucking (or fucking of any being or self) is not something I spend much time thinking about. Some stories lend themselves to that, others don't. In this one, I didn't find the lack of hardcore fucking being explicitly shown to be a hindrance to the story.

I agree.

On a different subject, I like the way Sanderson can really get down and specific both in his world-building, and how the world sort of "naturally" works. It makes it very easy to visualize what worlds such as, say, Rosher might look like.

[Returned]

I've finished this book within 2 days. A real page-turner. And yeah, the lack of sex and excessive violence was noted by me, however I wasn't bothered in the least by it. It's just reading different works, which I don't mind.

I'd like to respond to someone here that mentioned the voidbringers. I don't think the Parshendi are the voidbringers, I think Sanderson is playing a trick on us here. If you'll see, you'll notice that Kaladin fighting the Parshendi at the end of the book noted that they were quite honorable, not attacking the weak/wounded and such.

Does that sound like a race of blood-thirsy warriors with intent to wipe out mankind, to you?

[Gabriele]

Got the bad boy today. :) After reading about it online, I expected a book suitable for use as weapon, with an unreadably tiny font that will finally force me to get glasses, but I have to say while the book is substantial (and prettily made), the font is very readable and I have some books better suited as weapon*. WoK is about the size of Dust of Dreams and thus still in the normal range of hardcovers.

* The winner here would be the 6 kg catalogue to the three Varus Battle exhibitions in Germany last year. I had the 'fun' of hauling that around in my travel luggage for a few days. :D

[MattL86]

I got this book thursday and finished it the other night. I enjoyed it a lot, more so than anything I've read in a good while, and it's definitely for me Sanderson's best book so far. There's a few things that stood out at me:

1. More publishers should try to do books that look visually like this. I was completely biased going in that I was going to like it. It just looks so nice, it's almost impossible to not have a positive first impression. And a lot of the time, the mood you approach a book in dictates a lot of how you will percieve it.

2. The books a bit too long, and while I can't say it bothered me at all, it didn't NEED to be that long. Without mentioning anything spoilerish, the characters tend to spend chapters making decisions, then relapse, then spend more time making the decisions again. While it reads fine, the book could have easily lost 50,000 words and still been about the same experience I imagine.

3. No sex or swearing, that's sort of what one expects going into a Sanderson novel. I thought he did a better job of not appearing to dance around it in this book than in others. In mistborn I couldn't help feeling he was deliberately avoiding speaking about mature themes, but this one read much more naturally even if the content was about the same.

4. His portrayal of religions and athiesm was really quite good I felt. He's a religious author, and the book has a fair bit of discussion on religious themes, but he never came across as pushing a point. I might almost have thought he was an athiest if I didn't know better. There were no strawmen, no one sided arguments. It helps that the religion of the book is an invention as well, but I thought this was one of the more neutral books to deal this much with religious themes.

[Spring Bass]

I've finished this book within 2 days. A real page-turner. And yeah, the lack of sex and excessive violence was noted by me, however I wasn't bothered in the least by it. It's just reading different works, which I don't mind.

I'd like to respond to someone here that mentioned the voidbringers. I don't think the Parshendi are the voidbringers, I think Sanderson is playing a trick on us here. If you'll see, you'll notice that Kaladin fighting the Parshendi at the end of the book noted that they were quite honorable, not attacking the weak/wounded and such.

Does that sound like a race of blood-thirsy warriors with intent to wipe out mankind, to you?

That doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't the Voidbringers (although the creatures in the opening prologue were described as gigantic, and the creatures that Dalinar fought against in the flashback sounded more like shadow-crab-things). The "official" history/mythology of the world may be wrong.

It wouldn't be the first time that Sanderson has done something like that. Inaccurate history was a big part of the Mistborn Trilogy.

[Humble Asskicker]

I've started reading the book now and I'm about 200 pages into it. I'm really enjoying it so far.

My impressions up to this point:

Positives - A vivid, sprawling world that is vastly intriguing. Sanderson excels at creating a vibrant and believable setting. His best trait, however, is in writing intensity and generally 'cool' scenes. I find that Kaladin's story, which is amply provisioned in this, is by far the brightest and most entertaining. His character is also suitably fascinating.

Negatives - As someone mentioned earlier, Sanderson does not do witty well. Characters like Shallon, who are supposed to be clever and have witty retorts, come off as incredibly lame, and sometimes just asshole-ish. Passages such as (in response to the comment "Young miss, you're like a morning sunrise, you are!") "'Like a sunrise? By that you mean entirely too crimson' - she pulled at her long red hair - 'and prone to making men grouchy when they see me?'" are just wince-inducing.

That sounds fatally awful (the whole scene is like that, with the other characters laughing hollowly at her "jokes"), but fortunately when Shallon is not being a wit, her story is actually interesting. The short of it is, while humor can definitely enhance a book, this is absolutely a huge weakness for Sanderson, and I'm sure that alone would turn a lot of people off.

Another thing - the curse "Storm" is laughable. "Storm you!"? C'mon. I get where Sanderson is coming from, but 'storm' as an obscenity doesn't work nearly as well as "the Light burn you" and such.

These are the worst of Sanderson's flaws, and they are infrequent. The overall story is very good otherwise. You just need to be able to get past those rough patches - hard as that can be with some of them - and the book will entertain the hell out of you.

I hope that Sanderson drops the wit from now on and emphasizes the intensity, as he truly shines there.

[Curethan]

Another thing - the curse "Storm" is laughable. "Storm you!"? C'mon. I get where Sanderson is coming from, but 'storm' as an obscenity doesn't work nearly as well as "the Light burn you" and such.

Yeh, that knocked me right off the page.

Also, does Kaladin remind anyone else of Jack from Lost?

[Switchback]

see, things like "storm you" and "light" as curses have never bothered me. i'm suspending disbelief as it is when i read fantasy novels, so recognizable curse words are nothing I need. as long as the story stays consistent with them, after several instances i have no problem recognizing "storm you" as "fuck you", and it never gets me out of the story....

[Trencher]

Negatives - As someone mentioned earlier, Sanderson does not do witty well. Characters like Shallon, who are supposed to be clever and have witty retorts, come off as incredibly lame, and sometimes just asshole-ish. Passages such as (in response to the comment "Young miss, you're like a morning sunrise, you are!") "'Like a sunrise? By that you mean entirely too crimson' - she pulled at her long red hair - 'and prone to making men grouchy when they see me?'" are just wince-inducing.

That sounds fatally awful (the whole scene is like that, with the other characters laughing hollowly at her "jokes"), but fortunately when Shallon is not being a wit, her story is actually interesting. The short of it is, while humor can definitely enhance a book, this is absolutely a huge weakness for Sanderson, and I'm sure that alone would turn a lot of people off.

I just ordered this book and haven't read it yet, but your comment here reminded me of a recent tour I took of the Ford Theater in Washington D.C. Booth decided to shoot Lincoln during the funniest line of the play from "Our American Cousin" to allow the laughter to mask the sound of gunfire.

From WIKI

...The play's most famous performance came seven years later, at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. on April 14, 1865. Halfway through Act III, Scene 2, the character Asa Trenchard (the title role), played that night by Harry Hawk, utters a line considered one of the play's funniest:

"Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Well, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal you sockdologizing old man-trap..."

During the laughter that followed this line, John Wilkes Booth, a famous actor who was not in that night's cast of Our American Cousin, fatally shot President Abraham Lincoln. Familiar with the play, he chose this moment in the hope that the sound of the audience's laughter would mask the sound of his gunshot. He then leapt from Lincoln's box to the stage and made his escape through the back of the theater to a horse he had left waiting in the alley.

The tour guide recited that line to a packed theater and was met with dead silence. What was funny then, was not in the slightest now. What was really funny was just how unfunny it seems today.

When I read fantasy, I allow the world to be on a different level than our modern one. I can assume lines like Sanderson's are funny or witty in that world and have no problem that they are not in ours.

[MattL86]

Shallan's wit is the worst part of the book for me as well. I generally hate witty dialogue in most books. It always sounds scripted, not off the cuff and spontaneous.

I'm halfway through The Black Prism and the humor is suprisingly good. Kip has a lot of one liners and big mouthed retorts, but they work great. Every guy has had THAT friend, the funny, sometimes obnoxious, chubby guy that hangs in your group and draws stares. The kind of guy you would find annoying if he wasn't for some reason your friend already. Anyway, this book is one of few exceptions for me 9Lynch comes to mind as another).

[Old Nan]

"Sockdologizing old man-trap" is awesome. "Storm you" is not.

[Humble Asskicker]

see, things like "storm you" and "light" as curses have never bothered me. i'm suspending disbelief as it is when i read fantasy novels, so recognizable curse words are nothing I need. as long as the story stays consistent with them, after several instances i have no problem recognizing "storm you" as "fuck you", and it never gets me out of the story....

As I said, I understood where Sanderson was coming from. Sometimes that works (eg "burn you," and to a lesser extent "frack," though more for the cheese factor), but "storm you" is flat-out egregious. Have you tried saying that out loud? Could you imagine a movie in which characters, during a dramatic moment, screamed "storm you!" at each other? It's really pushing the limits there.

When I read fantasy, I allow the world to be on a different level than our modern one. I can assume lines like Sanderson's are funny or witty in that world and have no problem that they are not in ours.

That may work for you, and if it does, great. For me, I don't think it's a mark of talent when the audience has to go out of their way to tolerate scenes in a book. I like Sanderson's works well enough, but I'm not going to defend his faults.

And the premise of going with some species of lameness just because "their world is different than ours" seems way too permissive. You could apply that to anything. Does the romance seem artificial? Maybe that's just how it works in this particular fantasy land. Did X dramatic scene come off as false and dull? Maybe that's what serves as exciting in this fantasy land...etc.

I think it's appropriate to call a spade a spade in this instance. I'm lauding Sanderson for his virtues (the bridgemen scenes are fucking cool as shit, for example), but call him out for the vices as well.

[CryHavoc]

As I said, I understood where Sanderson was coming from. Sometimes that works (eg "burn you," and to a lesser extent "frack," though more for the cheese factor), but "storm you" is flat-out egregious. Have you tried saying that out loud? Could you imagine a movie in which characters, during a dramatic moment, screamed "storm you!" at each other? It's really pushing the limits there.

That may work for you, and if it does, great. For me, I don't think it's a mark of talent when the audience has to go out of their way to tolerate scenes in a book. I like Sanderson's works well enough, but I'm not going to defend his faults.

And the premise of going with some species of lameness just because "their world is different than ours" seems way too permissive. You could apply that to anything. Does the romance seem artificial? Maybe that's just how it works in this particular fantasy land. Did X dramatic scene come off as false and dull? Maybe that's what serves as exciting in this fantasy land...etc.

I think it's appropriate to call a spade a spade in this instance. I'm lauding Sanderson for his virtues (the bridgemen scenes are fucking cool as shit, for example), but call him out for the vices as well.

Is it really "storm you"? (I haven't gotten the book yet). I could see "storm take you" or some variation on that maybe working, given what I've heard about the peculiarities of the world, but storm you? :ack:

[Old Nan]

I take the permissiveness of "their world is different than ours" out to a very great degree, but language is not really a part of "their world." It is the connection between that world and me, the reader, in a way culture or physics or even logic is not; I have no reason to believe that the people in the story are speaking English, and so this amounts to essentially a really bad translation, and that is doing the reader a disservice, just as bad prose amounts to essentially throwing sand in the eyes I look at the story-world with, and is equally a disservice.

[Gabriele]

Well, I prefer 'storm you' to the f-word that's way too causally used these days.

[Switchback]

it's always surprising to hear what brings fantasy readers out of the story. i guess i'm lucky with that stuff not bothering me, but i hear "storm you" a few times and i just chalk it up to being that world's angry words and move on...

[Curethan]

*incorrect post deleted*