Tim Clark

I audio-read the whole series while walking around - it was my first foray into the modern fantasy genre and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I remember this book as been solid - unspectacular but engaging - a page turner. Knowing there were loads of books in the series made me think it was going to be gloriously epic - and the first book did setup a series very well. Now I've read Sanderson and realise that it can be done _so_ much better - but at the time I felt it was good. Celaena was a decent heroine - she had agency - she was realistic - but she was kinda random in her decision making - and I think this gets worse as the series progresses. As a first installment though - I remember it fondly.

This is a magnificent children's book. It captures the loose, pythonesque world of Polly, Mr Gum and Friday O'Leary and makes adults laugh as much as kids. Stanton plays with all the conventions at once - the writing is both insane and inspired on occasions - it was meta before meta was cool in kids books - and despite the silliness it has real emotions hidden if you look carefully.

If you read it out loud (doing all the voices of course - which Stanton helps you with cunning use of spelling) you may accidentally attract a crowd.

A 1,000-page foundation for something that promises to be excellent — which is both its greatest strength and its central problem.

Coming straight from Mistborn, the shift is jarring. No heist, no crew, no magic system that explains itself. Instead: three protagonists being broken in different ways simultaneously across a world that feels genuinely ancient but refuses to explain itself. The storms, the spren, the megacrabs — it's unlike anything I've read, and I mean that as a compliment, mostly.

Kaladin has the best progression of the three. His supporting cast provides most of the warmth. Shallan is chirpy and frustrating in equal measure — she keeps choosing the boring option when the interesting one is right there. Dalinar is solid. The world-building is vast and clearly going somewhere ambitious.

The honest caveat: on its own terms, this is not as good as Mistborn. It's all setup. You're eating your vegetables on faith that the pudding is coming. I'm going in on that faith — Sanderson has earned it — but I'd be lying if I said Way of Kings was a complete, satisfying story in its own right. It isn't. It's a prologue the size of a building.

Three stars for now. I'll revisit when I've finished Words of Radiance — if the payoff is everything people say it is, this rating is going up.

Tickled my brain exactly right from the start - the magic system seems mad when you start reading - but it's logical and consistent and makes the story compelling. The actual book is beautifully self contained while supplying a rich world for the rest of the original trilogy to play in.

It's beautifully written. It's a cliche - but the journey is the discovery - read the first chapter - if it grabs you - as it did me - it's brilliant. If you are expecting bombastic fantasy - you might be disappointed. I hate a book that fails to stick the landing - I found the one deeply satisfying.