I must admit to something here and now. I’m proud of it, but I feel a little guilty too.
I don’t buy books.
Not on principle! It’s just that we have not felt that buying books is a priority in these times that student loans are coming due and we are trying to position ourselves to buy a larger home.
So I borrow books from the library. For now.
But please know that I have committed to making my contributions to the book publishing industry as soon as I am having my own books published.
Didja hear that, Publishing Industry? You scratch my back, I scratch yours.
All this is leading up to the fact that I sat on the waiting list for Brandon Sanderson’s The Way of Kings for a couple of months. I finally picked up my copy on October 23. The clock started; I had three weeks to read this huge book before I had to return it. I was confident I wouldn’t be able to renew it.
My copy was due on Saturday, November 13. I wasn’t done yet. In my defense, I DID try to renew it, but that was no good.
I kept the book and just finished it last night. So, person who has been offended by the jerk who held onto the book past its due date, please forgive. Your book will be in your hands today.
I know I continue to assert that I don’t usually review books, and then go ahead and review books. True to form, I’m doing it again.
Here is the quickie review I offered last night on Twitter: I just finished The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson and I want to swear and call him names. “You’re doing it too right!”
To expand.
This is the book that pretty much every young, aspiring fantasist wishes she/he could write. You have an insanely original world with literally fantastic flora and fauna, brilliant world-centric magic systems, a fully robust mythology, each scene crafted for each character to move toward goals, consistent and excellent dialog, characters with a history that is dribblingly revealed in good doses, tension building, great plot pinches, and a staggeringly vast world.
And with all of that, there’s a story. A truly intriguing story that rises from the characters and the world that they live in.
I can’t say it’s a perfectly crafted epic novel, but I don’t think there is anyone living today that could get it any closer to perfect than Brandon Sanderson has done here. This dude knows his stuff and all of that notoriety he’s gaining is well worth it.
If you’re looking for something to sink your teeth into, something with rich and real characters, something that will engross you and immerse you into a very alien but still somewhat familiar world—this book will get the job done.
As I read The Way of Kings, I found myself wanting to know how all the character threads would tie together. At times I felt like the characters and the setting they were in was something of a vacuum, but the pay-off and reveals at the end make that slight issue a non-issue.
Here’s my cover copy or quotable summary:
The Way of Kings is a demonstration of one author’s remarkable development of the craft of storytelling. Not overly concerned with providing a roller-coaster of a ride, Sanderson gives his readers a complete world to inhabit, characters to fall in love with, and a story that will stagger the imaginations of readers everywhere. The Way of Kings is not a roller-coaster; it is a world-sized theme park that we could spend our lives in.