The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson - 4+

The book:


buy it.  seriously, if you like high fantasy at all, buy this book.  (or at least pick it up at the library)

This is, quite honestly, the most original piece of high fantasy that I have ever read.  High fantasy, as in 'horses and swords and magic, with no modern technology to speak of'.  Original, because almost everything about this story is new, even as it works within a fairly standard and formulaic genre.  The plants act like no plants I've ever read about.  I've never before read a story in which almost all of the animals on a given planet seem to have evolved from crabs, and yet humans exist too.  The magic system is intriguing and new, which is admittedly not something foreign to Sanderson's other works, but we're talking about another level of writing completely here.

The comparison makes me want to gag, but I honestly have to compare this to

Ok.  yes, I know that Sanderson is filling in for the deceased Jordan, but that isn't why I'm drawing the comparison line between the series.  The Eye of the World was a fast-paced adventure, full of new creatures, characters the reader could empathize with, and an entirely new magic system.  The series followed different key characters in different plot lines that eventually merged and or diverted from each other.  It was new, and it was exciting, and it was brilliant.

I can say all of those same things about The Way of Kings.  It is refreshingly new and different, and I find myself wishing that I had found the series a few years from now.  That way, I wouldn't have to wait for the next book, it would have already been published :-)

The only complaint I have about the book, and it is a small one, is that the prologue didn't work for me on the first reading.  Since the world Sanderson has created is so entirely new, I didn't have a frame of reference to put the prologue onto.  Names, places, peoples, none of them ment anything to me, and so many of the intriciacies that exist were lost on me at the first read.  After reading the entire book, I went back and re-read the prologue, and it works so much better for me now.  I can fully appreciate the richness and depth of the detail that Sanderson is employing now, and I look forward to re-reading the whole book to see what other interconnections I missed the first time through.

This book is definitely one that will end up on my 'frequently read' list, and I highly suggest that you pick it up!