Before I start, I'm going to tell you that this is the first of TEN books. That's a lot of books for one series. If you don't like Wheel of Time length epics, than you might not like this.
While this book got a lot of praise, I don't think it made a mark as much as his earlier Mistborn series.
The Way of Kings follows three characters: Kaladin Stormblessed, Dalinar Kholin, and Shallan. There are a lot of supporting characters, but none of them are as important as these three. Kaladin,who joined the army when his little brother was drafted, is sold into slavery by the noblemen who has a reputation as an honest and honorable man. He is placed into a bridge crew, a unit in the military that has the job of carrying bridges and putting them down so the soldiers can cross the chasms of the Shattered Plains. You can safely assume that since they're carrying bridges and putting them down before the soldiers arrive that they'll get shot at by the enemy, and this is exactly what happens. As he plans an escape, he turns the bridge crew with the highest casualty rate into the most effective.
Highprince Dalinar Kholin is one of the ten commanders of this army, who marched to war after the assassination of Dalinar's brother, the late king Gavilar. He sees visions of the past telling him to unite the other Highprinces before the Last Desolation comes against men.
Shallan is the daughter of a nobleman who recently died. She becomes apprentice to Jasnah Kholin, seeking not to learn, but to steal Jasnah's Soulcaster and use it to pay off her family's debts. I would go into more detail about the Soulcaster, but it takes a lot of explaining, and that's what the book is for. Besides, I think I've said enough.
The vast majority of the people that read this book loved it, me included. But there were a few who complained that at 1007 pages the book was too long and the overall story of the series didn't get anywhere.
This is true, but the story of the book by itself, without the overarching plot, was really good. It was kind of like a Robert Jordan book in that respect. The biggest strength of the book was Brandon's ability to show you not only the action-packed, serious parts, but the quiet, funny parts as well. One of the scenes I remember best is Kaladin and the rest of his bridge crew laughing around a campfire with a bowl of lousy soup in their hands. This is probably one of the reasons Brandon is such a good writer, period.
The thing that I thought subtracted from the book was that it says there's one prologue, but there are really four or five chapters that set up the story, and I didn't think that was necessary. I was also kind of irritated that there were about two hundred pages of flashbacks. It gave you more of the background story, but it really wasn't needed. Kaladin's situation could have been mentioned in maybe one flashback chapter, without detracting from the storyline of the book at all.
All in all, this book gets a 94%. It was good, but I thought it could have been better.
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