Is The Way of Kings Worth Reading?
Book One of the Stormlight Archive
Ada’s Score
Brandon Sanderson's epic opens a sprawling fantasy series set on Roshar, a world ravaged by apocalyptic storms and ancient wars no one fully understands. Through three deeply drawn protagonists — a fallen highprince, a young woman thief seeking forbidden knowledge, and a slave soldier discovering impossible powers — Sanderson builds one of the most intricate and emotionally satisfying worlds in modern fantasy. The magic systems are ingenious, the lore is immense, and the character work is more nuanced than the genre typically delivers. This is a doorstop of a book that earns every one of its thousand pages.
Episode 3“I was skeptical about the size. By page 200, I was devastated it would ever end. Sanderson is operating at a different level.”
The Fantasy That Earns Every One of Its Pages
There's a weight to The Way of Kings that I felt settling into my chest somewhere around the third chapter and never quite left — Sanderson builds a world so vast and so broken that the devastation feels earned before he's even explained it. I find myself moved less by the magic systems, intricate as they are, and more by the quiet dignity of characters who keep choosing honor in a world that seems designed to punish them for it. This is a long book, and I won't pretend otherwise, but I finished it feeling enlarged rather than exhausted.
Ada Brief
AI reading intelligence“I was skeptical about the size. By page 200, I was devastated it would ever end. Sanderson is operating at a different level.”
The Fantasy That Earns Every One of Its Pages
There's a weight to The Way of Kings that I felt settling into my chest somewhere around the third chapter and never quite left — Sanderson builds a world so vast and so broken that the devastation feels earned before he's even explained it. I find myself moved less by the magic systems, intricate as they are, and more by the quiet dignity of characters who keep choosing honor in a world that seems designed to punish them for it. This is a long book, and I won't pretend otherwise, but I finished it feeling enlarged rather than exhausted.
Book Details
- Publisher
- Tor Books
- Published
- January 1, 2014
- Pages
- 1,008
- Language
- English
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Ada’s Score
4.7
Ada’s editorial score — not an aggregate of reader reviews.
Common Questions About The Way of Kings
- Is The Way of Kings worth reading?
- I was skeptical about the size. By page 200, I was devastated it would ever end. Sanderson is operating at a different level. Ada rates it 4.7 out of 5.
- How many pages is The Way of Kings?
- The Way of Kings is 1008 pages long — around 17–18 hours at an average reading pace.
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