The Way of Kings: A Thousand Pages of Adventure

Note: There are very slight spoilers in this review.

The Way of Kings, the first book of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive, is a book I was dying to read. The Way of Kings primarily follows a young man named Kaladin, who is reduced to a slave and struggles to save his fellow men while serving soldiers in a war against a strange race of beings called Parshendi.

According to the glowing reviews at Goodreads, it promised compelling characters, expansive magic, and rich worldbuilding. However, there is also quite a lot of violence happening, and even an instance of suicide ideation. But there was only one thing that had been deterring me from reading it: its size.

The Way of Kings has, and I kid you not, more than a thousand pages (1,258 pages, to be precise)! And it’s not a one-off event like Dune, which has 800-odd pages while its sequels are much smaller. Each book is a thousand-odd pages! Naturally, I was intimidated. But I realized that if I read around 50 pages, give or take, I could finish it in under a month. So it wouldn’t take months as I had feared. Well, that’s a relief!

The Way of Kings has in-depth characters and world building that drew me in, while the narration made me forget that I was reading a thousand-page book.

When I say “in-depth worldbuilding”, I mean traditions, religion, class systems, gender roles, and taboos, not to mention colossal, magical thunderstorms (a lot of them!), and I’m just getting started.

The World

The world of Roshar is just amazing. There are powerful, magical storms that play a huge role in shaping the topography and life; that’s why much of the terrain is rocky and animals have shells. Additionally, it impacts how its human society functions, from where cities are built, to belief systems, and down to the currency itself.

The social hierarchy around the world of Roshar is decided through eye color. People whose eyes are brighter have higher social standing than people with darker eyes. This is tied to religion, where a higher power chose bright-eyed people as leaders.

There are the gender roles that people in Roshar strictly adhere to, and it’s going to sound oddly familiar, trust me. Politics, military, and manual labor is considered masculine, while creative arts, academics, and even reading is feminine. In fact, many men are illiterate, because it would be deemed “unnatural” for a man to read. [Also, women are required to cover up their left hand, for a mysterious reason that might be revealed in the sequels.] Only religious scholars, called ardents, are allowed to break free from gender roles.

Speaking of religious scholars, faith is a big part of Roshar. I have never come across any fantasy novels that dive deep into belief systems (except Dune). Not only does the religion in Roshar add a profound layer of meaning and history to the world, it also ties into the story very neatly. It’s very difficult to put it into a few sentences, so you’ll have to read it to fully grasp the aspects of Roshar’s belief systems.

The Characters

Kaladin was a surgeon’s apprentice before he became a soldier and later was reduced to a slave. His role is to be a “bridgeman”, meaning he — and many other slaves — had to carry giant bridges and place them across canyons so that soldiers could advance. But much to Kaladin’s horror, the bridgemen were actually meant to be cannon fodder, a distraction for the enemies.

Three more characters that have key roles in The Way of Kings are: Shallan, an aspiring scholar who plans to steal a valuable object from a princess, Dalinar, an old nobleman who is getting strange visions and questioning his sanity, and Szeth, an enigmatic assassin who kills a king, and ends up starting a war (you’ll see why, because it gets deeper).

My favorite part is that it also explores mental health through the experiences and backstory of Kaladin. As he used to be a surgeon’s apprentice, Kaladin has a drive to save and help his men.

However, the war has claimed the lives of men close to him, and it’s taking its toll on his mental health, to the point where he considers taking his own life.

The Writing

The description of Kaladin’s mental health and war might paint a bleak and dark picture like the Game of Thrones, but it’s actually the opposite. 

It reads in a hopeful, optimistic spirit, similar to Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings. It focuses on how Kaladin struggles through hopelessness and helplessness, doing his very best to defend his people against the enemy, leading to a satisfying ending (that nonetheless teases you about the next book).

Also, the writing is very simple, making it easy to keep track of the story. It also makes the messages stand out clearly, since you’ll find there are lessons sprinkled here and there.

The Size

So, hopefully I’ve convinced you to give it a try, but I’m sure you are still scared of the size. It’s just so thick that you can fit 4 or 5 fingers on the pages. But there’s a way around it. It’s simply breaking it up into smaller portions. Like me, you could read 50 pages per day and finish it in under a month, but do what works for you. As the saying goes, “How do you eat an elephant? By one bite at a time.”

Give it a try, because you really cannot afford to avoid this extraordinary book. I really loved the world, with its storms and magic. I loved its religion and its interaction with society. I loved Kaladin’s journey with his mental health, and I think it’s worth reading a thousand pages for.