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Notes -
Wanted to write a longer review of The Way of Kings to spark a bit more of a discussion on Sanderson and fiction in general. Blog version of this post if any are interested.
One of my 2025 reading goals was to read more “normie” books, which basically entailed reading more books that my non-online friends recommended to me. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, the first book in the Stormlight Archives series had to be one of the most frequent recommendations I have received, especially from my college friends. A couple of my other Baltimore friends were embarking on a read of this book too, so I decided I would give it a shot this past summer, reading in Spanish as I usually do with easier fiction1.
To cut to the chase, I really didn’t like this book, although strangely also enjoyed my time reading it. The book was extremely bloated: it’s longer than all of Lord of the Rings and contains far less plot, has juvenile, unbelievable worldbuilding, and has so little character development and growth that I’m beginning to doubt the tastes of my many friends who recommended the book to me. That said, The Way of Kings is extremely readable, and if you just want to turn your brain off and read some Lit RPG, MCU-like adventure pulp, this book is the perfect thing for you.
Short plot summary
The Way of Kings takes place on the alien world of Roshar, which is known for its extremely strong and powerful storms. These storms infuse precious stones with “stormlight” which can then be used to power machines (soulcasters) or perform magic. Despite the beautiful map depicting this world, we only get to see a tiny portion of it in the first book: The Shattered Plains which are in the southeast corner of the above map.
The plot of the book centers on three different characters: Kaladin, who is a depressed slave, forced to carry assault bridges for a war that is being fought on the Shattered Plains, Dalinar Kholin, a noble who is in charge, at least in part of conducting said war, and Shallan, a want-to-be scholar trying to study under Dalinar’s niece, who also has to attempt a heist of a soulcaster.
The plot is a bit hard to describe beyond that without getting into spoiler territory, which is a big part of the problem with this book: a lack of direction and bloat.
Bloat
The Way of Kings is 383,389 words. All of The Lord of the Rings, including supplemental material like the appendices of The Return of the King, is approximately 550k words. So for more than 2/3 of the length of that entire series, we basically get a book that serves as a long prologue to the Stormlight Archive, with maybe some serious action in the last 80k words. This is not uncommon in epic fantasy series: the first entry in the First Law Trilogy, The Blade Itself, serves a similar role, as does the first Wheel of Time book, and arguably The Blood of Elves in The Witcher series. But none of these are as long as The Way of Kings, as weak stylistically, or as devoid of momentum for the rest of the series.
The bloat present in The Way of Kings is present on multiple levels. The most egregious is on the sentence/paragraph level, where Sanderson literally repeats himself. Some examples below:
I don’t know what Sanderson’s editor was doing, but cutting this kind of dialogue could have shaved off nearly 10% of the book at least.
Then there’s repetition on a larger scale. The book is filled with nearly identical scenes in which not much happens. Dalinar assaults mesa after mesa with only minor variation that moves the plot forward at a snails pace. Shallan has lunch and reads books. Kalinar has countless training sessions with his bridge crew that blend together in my mind. Contrast this to chapters in a book like Game of Thrones. This is what happens in the eighth Tyrion chapter in that book
There are at least four plot beats in this chapter. Contrast this to a typical Kaladin chapter in The Way of Kings:
There is one thing that really happens in this chapter, and it doesn’t really move the plot forward at all.
I estimate at least 50% of the scenes could be cut in this book with nothing being lost.
Bogus world building
In a certain sense, the worldbuilding of Sanderson is very effective. He’s very good at constructing impressive vistas, like the city of Kharbranth, which is built into the side of a mountain, or the Shattered Plains as a whole. Things like shard blades and the quasi-superheroes who wield them are also “cool” upon first glance. But the moment you look behind any of these shock and awe spectacles, it turns out there’s almost nothing there. Sanderson’s world building in this book feels incredibly arbitrary and poorly thought out.
Take the central feature of Roshar: it’s extremely powerful storms. We get some sense of how this affects everyday life on Roshar: the city of Kharbranth for example has grown to prominence because of its extremely sheltered location that protects it from the most damaging effects of said storms. Yet the strength of these storms is conveniently forgotten when it’s not important to the plot. Big armies are camped out in the open on the Shattered Plains: how are the damages from these storms not bigger, especially among the merchants/prostitutes/camp followers who aren’t officially part of the army. And this is not to mention how little of an understanding we have of how the agricultural system works when these storms are such a big issue.
Then there’s the issue of gender. Sanderson seemingly randomly decides that certain traits are masculine and feminine in this world. Not only is this not really how this works in the real world, but actively makes little sense in his own world. Reading for example, is something that basically only women practice. Yet any man or group of men who learned to read would have a huge military advantage. This kind of trait would not last long in a competitive society, which Alekezar almost certainly is.
Religion too is largely pretty undeveloped. There’s no real tension between competing religious beliefs, even in kingdoms that have only recently been converted to the dominate faith of vorinism, which is basically a reskin of Christianity. Contrast this again to Game of Thrones, where we see significant religious tension when Stannis tries to burn heart trees sacred to the Old Gods, or septs dedicated to the seven, or when Cersei gets locked up for treating the Faith of the Seven as a power-hungry atheist would. In The Way of Kings, there is no real consequence for Jasnah’s atheism, and no real religious tension between competing religious beliefs.
The problem I think, comes from Sanderson’s opinion of culture as something completely arbitrary and cosmetic. I want to say that this comes from his Mormon faith, but I honestly think it’s pretty common in the West right now. Islam, Buddhism, stoicism, and Christianity aren’t funny hats that you wear because they’re cool, they developed out of the real material and spiritual realities of past societies. Religion and culture are the way they are because of the way the world is, not because someone merely decided that they were true2.
Bad taste: why do people like this book?
Despite all my criticisms of the book, I did enjoy myself while reading it. The basic plot beats follow the heroes journey, while painfully slowly, and it is satisfying to see our characters grow in power and (eventually) make better decisions. Reading felt like watching a Marvel movie, which scratches a certain itch, while not being particularly healthy as a large component of one’s intellectual diet. I will probably continue with the series, as Sanderson has sufficiently hooked me on the plot enough for me to want to find out what happens.
What I don’t understand is how this is praised as one of the best books of all time. The prose is weak and bloated, the world building is shallow, and the characters are cardboard cut outs of people pulled from a children’s cartoon. There is no forward momentum of the plot, and the attempts at romance and wit are cringey and juvenile.
Yet people love this book. Why? I have a few theories.
First of all, I don’t think people read particularly widely any more. If this was the only fantasy book I had ever read, I think it would have been difficult not to have been impressed by the scale and scope of the novel, as well as the “character development” of the three main characters. Yet compared to the other genre greats, like GRRM, Ursula Le Guin, Joe Abercrombie, Robin Hobb, or even Robert Jordan, it’s hard not to see this as an unpolished YA novel.
Secondly, the relative flatness of the main characters makes it very easy to do a self-insert. Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar are all pretty much defined by one or two key traits, which makes it very easy to slot yourself into the story in their place. This also explains the appeal of Harry Potter, who has the same trait up until around halfway through the series.
Thirdly, I think the simplistic morality and illusion of “philosophy” that this book offers appeals to people who want to think of themselves as tackling the big questions, but who lack the intellectual chops and/or the ability to move outside of their narrow worldview to consider truly alien cultures.
Finally, I think a lot of the hype around these books is due to the consistent, predictable nature of Sanderson as an author. Just like with your favorite Harry Potter slashfic writer who releases a new chapter every week, you know you will get 2-3 Sanderson books a year, with a minimum level of quality and an assurance of a certain level of action and “cool” new worldbuilding.
1.5/5 stars
This serves two purposes. First, it slows down the pace of the story so I can marinate in the details/prose. This is slowly becoming less effective over time as my Spanish improves: I may need to switch to another language soon. The second purpose is to get some daily practice with the language.
Yes one might argue that I have the causality reversed, but these faiths and the culture that were built around could only work if they mapped on to the real material conditions of the world and the spiritual conditions of the human mind.
Sanderson is very good at what he does. What he does is crank out easily digestible lowbrow epic fantasy. Sanderson novels are the MCU films of contemporary fantasy literature. He's a self-admitted mediocre prose artist, but he has a reasonably effective plot formula and has a genuine knack for writing fantasy action scenes, which make his books fun to read if you're into that sort of thing. The gimmick-based world building and magic systems appeal to the nerdism of fantasy fandom and gives a sense of novelty to what are otherwise fairly forgettable stories.
Sanderson is YA, but aimed primarily at men in their early twenties rather than women in their early twenties. The fact that his writing is not on the level of GRRM is the point - almost every higher caliber SFF writer I can think of is also significantly heavier, which is not necessarily a plus.
I have an ungenerous theory: this is a plus for two reasons. The first is that epic fantasy is a genre that implicitly equates bulk with quality (you compare it to LotR, but LotR is quite modest in length compared to later epic fantasies), so a padded writing style helps there. A lot of readers want the pointless fluff. The second is that it makes it easier to read without paying close attention. It's okay if you miss details because Sanderson will just tell you again.
Isn't YA aimed at people in their early tens? It's just called YA to flatter their egos.
What do you think people in their mid-later tens read?
TikTok closed captions? If you want me to be 100% serious, then fine, I'll extend YA to midtens, but I totally expect late tens to switch to regular midwit literature without YA labels.
I suppose late tens was when I switched to webliterature.
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