Read This: The Way of Kings

I’ve got another review in Shelf Awareness this week—today they’re running my take on Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings, the first volume in a new series called “The Stormlight Archive.” I jumped at this assignment because I’ve been meaning to read Sanderson for a while, but I’d never been able to carve out time from my other obligations and dedicate it to reading one of his massive epic fantasies. So now that it’s one of my jobs to read fantasy… well, you can see where I’m going with that idea.

In my review, I talk about one thing that frustrates me about The Way of Kings, which has to do with its very nature as the kickoff to a multi-book story, as “every bit of closure is counterweighted with another narrative opening.” It’s especially frustrating because, once you’ve read through nearly 1,000 pages and begun to see how Sanderson is going to connect his three main narrative tracks (along with one key secondary story), things don’t really end; they just pause with heavy, heavy foreshadowing. And, by then, you are extremely likely to care how all of this fits together, and to want the answers fully elaborated now, dammit. And it’s not just about the former middle-class boy turned soldier turned slave who may or may not have a future in supernaturally-powered redemption, the brother to the slain king who is trying to preserve the kingdom while his nephew dithers in a military quagmire, or the young girl who wants to apprentice herself to the king’s sister with the hidden goal of stealing a magic talisman that might save her family from ruin. In addition to those stories, Sanderson has already laid the groundwork for a high fantasy take on the development of a scientific mindset comparable to the Renaissance or the Enlightenment, and he’s also provided enough momentary glimpses into other corners of his imaginary kingdom to indicate several possible narrative openings. I’m already curious about what will happen next.

2 September 2010 | read this |