Review: The Way of Kings, Part 1

The Way of Kings, Part 1 by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Brandon Sanderson is an author with many books to choose from, and I constantly find myself unsure where to start. Recently, I’ve worked around to picking up some of his work. I started with the novellas – the Legion stories and Snapshot – then moved on to Skyward, and then gave the first Alcatraz book a read. As a whole, I had fun. In fact, I’m desperate for the next Skyward book, and decided it was finally time to dive into one of Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy novels. After all, it’s what I’d been working towards.

In the end, my choice of where to start was decided by what I was able to borrow from the library. There is a waiting list for Sanderson’s books, and the first part of The Way of Kings was the first book I moved to the top of the list with. Thus, The Stormlight Archive series became my introduction to Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy.

After enjoying other Brandon Sanderson stories and seeing the hype surrounding his fantasy novels, I had high hopes for The Way of Kings. Unfortunately, I found this book to be incredibly slow. There were plenty of things to find out about, plenty of details came to light, but I feel as though little actually happened. When things did happen, it was towards the end of this one.

In truth, I feel this is one of those cases where reading the whole thing in one would have done better than just reading part one. By the time I was sucked in and invested, especially in certain characters, I’d reached the end. In the full book, it would be the halfway point. I would be able to continue powering through, and I would be hoping things would finally start happening. As I only have part one, it is clear the story cut off in the middle.

I will certainly be reading part two, I need to know what comes next, but I’m not as crazy about this as I had hoped to be. My other Brandon Sanderson reads interested me from early on, whereas this one took a long time for me to feel the commitment. I know there is a lot to learn, but I would have liked to be invested from the start rather than waiting on that feeling.

With a bit of luck, I’ll be able to get my hands on part two soon, allowing me to continue without too much of a gap.

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