The King's Way

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This takes a long time to set up. There are hints of things along the way but all the major stuff happens toward the end until the last 10% you are at a flat out run the whole last stretch. IT IS WORTH IT. For the big payouts we needed the huge set up, just be patient it is still all very interesting and there are plenty of smaller payouts along the way. And in this chapter we are introduced to our main protagonist. Our Jesus, our Superman of the story. In 50 years, when historians will bang their heads in an effort to find roots of a downfall of epic fantasy as a genre, they’ll find its roots here. In this very book. But he didn't limit himself to grand scale misdirection, no, he did not. He also regularly made your heart stop for the three seconds it took to get past the obvious reaction to the reality of the situation that was entirely different from the path he had lead you down.

And the other unique concept/tradition in this world is that it is “beneath” men (other than ardents) to learn how to read and write. Like, men in this world marry a lot of the time just to be able to have their wives read to them and write down things for them. Yet, this value in society has not only put them at a disadvantage in life, but as also put them at a disadvantage in solving the mystery of the late king’s final act before death. In the Shattered Plains, Dalinar appoints Kaladin and his thousand-strong bridge crews to serve him, his family, and the king as bodyguards, convinced that they will never side with Sadeas or any of the other Highprinces in the game of spies and saboteurs that they are inevitably going to start once his appointment as Highprince of War will be announced. Kaladin is appointed captain of the guard and Dalinar gifts him his old cloak as a symbol of gratitude and favour. Kaladin, in exchange for time to accomplish his goals, promises to train his bridgemen well, and even begins to entertain the idea of teaching Surgebinding to some of his men. Dalinar Kholin’s Alethi armies won a fleeting victory at a terrible cost: The enemy Parshendi summoned the violent Everstorm, which now sweeps the world with destruction, and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified. I'm still in love with Kaladin and I still love Dalinar! Their parts are my favorites even though the whole book is awesome.The magic system was not as thoroughly explained nor described in the same way as Allomancy and Feruchemy in Mistborn. The reason is that as much as the Knights Radiant now represented a mystery, the knowledge of Surgebinding was equally unknown or lost through the ages. An initial glimpse of the magic system at work was shown in the Prologue, courtesy of a fascinating yet tormented assassin, and we only get to progressively learn about it through the experiences of the main characters. I really don't think I'll be able to take that pain, but I know that Sanderson is the king of destroying his readers' poor souls, so I'm just going to be prepared and still die I never thought that you could read about bunch of knights, dressed as medieval Power Rangers, wielding giant swords that were made out of pure essence, which would appear in their hands out of thin air (or morning mist) when they would call them with their minds – and not come out as a dork high on sugar.

Fulton, Ben (August 27, 2010). "Author Brandon Sanderson's real-life fantasy". The Salt Lake Tribune . Retrieved April 29, 2017. Axies the Collector is a Siah Aimian engaged in a quest to catalog all the different varieties of spren on Roshar. He is virtually immortal due to an interaction with magic.

Ishikk is a fisherman from the Purelake. He is approached by three strangers, who he calls Grump, Thinker and Blunt. They are using him as an agent to find a man named Hoid. In the end, all men die. How you lived will be far more important to the Almighty than what you accomplished.” Narrative shifts primarily between three people; Shallan, a penniless noble who wants to apprentice herself to a scholarly heretic, intending to steal her Souljewel; Kaladin, a former surgeon and talented soldier who now wears a slave brand; and Dalinar, a prince and uncle to the king. I appreciated their different viewpoints; Shallan is a naive young woman, Kaladin a member of the underclass and Dalinar is the king's uncle; from all three, we get a remarkable range of insight into the society. The fun starts, with - what I will repeat is - probably one of the best described confusion of battle I have ever read. Anywhere. One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

As of the date of this review, I have read this book three times. Till now I have yet to exhaust the discovery or appreciation of all the details, hints and foreshadowing that Sanderson had masterfully woven into this impressive accomplishment of modern epic fantasy. If you have not read this book either because of its intimidating size or that it is part of an unfinished ten-book long series, allow me to attempt appeasing your doubts by saying that each published book has so far wrapped up its story well enough that readers are not left hanging. With this, one can treat each volume as a trilogy in itself and savour it like as such. Another point to note is that Sanderson intended the ten books to be written over two different arcs of five books each, with each set being separated by a significant time period. If you are still not convinced to start reading this series, I can only say that you will be missing out on one of the very best the genre has to offer. Fair Warning: THIS IS MY FAVORITE HIGH/EPIC FANTASY SERIES TO DATE. There were a ridiculous amount of updates, gifs and general fangirling. Robin (Bridge Four) has come home at last. And whoever experienced a battle in real life, or at least played CoD online, or really, really carefully was trying to figure out what baseball is about, probably knows of confusion I’m talking about. (And if you’re wondering, yes, I experienced all three above – baseball is the worst. By far.)The magic of the world is based on gemstones that glow with light for many weeks after recurring, powerful storms known as highstorms. These commonplace gemstones are also used as mundane currency in merchant transactions, as well as interior lighting at night in wealthy houses and palaces. Drawing in this "stormlight" energy is what fuels the magical talismans of priest-wizards (the gem encrusted gloves called Soulcasters) that convert matter into another form, such as stone into grain, or people into stone, and powered gemstone constructs known as fabrials, such as a fabrial that creates red light and heat to replace wood in a fireplace. Soulcasting and fabrials are typically only owned by the nobility. In Alethkar, nobility is also based on eye color, blue eyes being seen as the purest royalty due to the association with the legendary Knights Radiant, who had glowing eyes. Ramifications of this atrocity called: ‘characterization through characters past’ will be significant in future. The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you how to think, but to give you questions to think upon. Now the Assassin is active again, murdering rulers all over the world, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin’s master has much deeper motives. We follow the codes not because they bring gain, but because we loathe the people we would otherwise become.”