I don’t consider myself a fan of epic fantasy. I don’t mind series. And I love Tolkien. But as a general rule I prefer stories that can be told within a single book.
Part of this is because it drives me nuts having to wait for years to finish a story. I’ve been able to dodge the bullet a little with several of the trilogies I’ve read with my kids, as we found the series about the time the second book came out, so we only had to wait for one year to get the ending. That’s not intolerable. Difficult, but tolerable.
But waiting over a period of a decade? Why on earth would I want to do that?
Oh, I tried to see what the excitement was about. I did start Robert Jordan’s “The Wheel of Time” series. Unfortunately I got to the end of the book and, even though there were at least ten other books already available so I wouldn’t have to wait, I just didn’t care enough about the story or the characters to keep going. I can see why others would, but there just wasn’t enough there for me to make that kind of an investment.
So when I found that Brandon Sanderson, who was tapped to complete Jordan’s epic, was going to write his own epic of at least ten books I can’t say I jumped in line for that one. My experience with Sanderson has been hit and miss, and when just one book of that ten was longer than many trilogies, I saw little reason to jump on that bus. But I read a few more Sanderson novels and decided he was getting better as a writer. And enough people whose opinions I respect were telling me his Stormlight Archive epic was good. So I put it on my Christmas list so that if I didn’t like it, at least it would be on someone else’s dime.
Oh, what a slog! I really struggled. I kept pushing forward because I came to care what happened to Kaladin, though if Sanderson had beaten him up any longer than he did I’d have given up. The other characters…well, they got in the way of getting back to Kaladin, but since this was an epic I could see why he would need more than one thread to work with. But really, Shallan was a barely-likable little snot. Dalinar was kinda interesting, but his thread didn’t move very fast. I was determined to finish it, but I was prepared to be terribly irritated with Sanderson and never pick up another book in that series again once I finished.
And then a funny thing happened around about page 700 or so. I started to care about other characters than Kaladin. Tension began to build. The stakes continued to rise. By the 1000-page mark (yes, it’s that long) I couldn’t put it down. Threads were coming together in delightful and suspenseful ways, and I was getting pay-off upon pay-off. Suddenly all that groundwork through which I had slogged I no longer resented. The climax was most satisfying. Not quite “The Rithmatist” level of satisfying, but still very satisfying. Worth the (high) price of getting there, certainly.
At the same time, the next book loomed darkly on the horizon. Though the book ends in a good place, enough is set up to make that year-long wait difficult. Fortunately the next book, “Words of Radiance”, is already out. I was going to wait until closer to when the third book comes out, but my daughter also read “The Way of Kings” and couldn’t wait for the next book. So in order to avoid a year’s worth of veiled hints and outright spoilers I’ve picked up the second book on audio and am working my way through it.
“The Way of Kings”, while devoting pages to a fair number of characters, really centers on three: Kaladin, Shallan, and Dalinar. Kaladin is a slave, a former warrior who has been double-crossed by “light-eyes”, the local nobility, too many times. But now he’s been sold to Bridge Four, a group of cannon fodder who move massive siege bridges into place ahead of the assault troops. His life expectancy isn’t much to offer hope. Shallan is a light-eyes herself, daughter in a failing house in the brink of disaster, hoping to save her family by stealing something very important from the king’s sister. Dalinar is the king’s uncle, and was too drunk to be of any help when the assassin in white killed his brother the previous king. Now his life centers around keeping his nephew alive, but his frequent visions have him questioning his own sanity.
The book is set in the world of Roshar, where powerful storms wrack the landscape on a regular basis, and where life has evolved to cope with these violent storms. Sanderson creates an interesting eco-system and variety of cultures in great detail. Much of the “slog” is just learning all there is to know about what life is like on Roshar. If epic fantasy is about immersion, you’ll get plenty of that here. But it all works. There isn’t much that stands out as not fitting.
I enjoyed it, clearly. And I’m enjoying the second book even more. With so much groundwork under our belts Sanderson is able to jump into the thick of things more quickly this time.
I’m still not sure if I like epic fantasy, but I’m willing to at least get on Sanderson’s train. With at least ten books in the series, there will be plenty of stops at which to get off should he fail to keep me hooked. But so far I’m enjoying the ride.
