The Way of Kings

The Stormlight Archive, Book 1

By: Brandon Sanderson

Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer

Length: 45 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

From number one New York Times best-selling author Brandon Sanderson, The Way of Kings, book one of the Stormlight Archive, begins an incredible new saga of epic proportion.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the 10 consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars were fought for them and won by them.

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 10 armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those other armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is fascinated by an ancient text called The Way of Kings. Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity.

Across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.

The result of more than 10 years of planning, writing, and world-building, The Way of Kings is but the opening movement of the Stormlight Archive, a bold masterpiece in the making.

Speak again the ancient oaths:

Life before death.

Strength before weakness.

Journey before destination.

And return to men the Shards they once bore.

The Knights Radiant must stand again.

Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson:

The Cosmere

The Stormlight Archive:

• The Way of Kings
• Words of Radiance
• Edgedancer (Novella)
• Oathbringer

The Mistborn trilogy:

• Mistborn: The Final Empire
• The Well of Ascension
• The Hero of Ages

Mistborn: The Wax and Wayne series:

• Alloy of Law
• Shadows of Self
• Bands of Mourning

Collection:

• Arcanum Unbounded

Other Cosmere novels:

• Elantris
• Warbreaker

The Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians series:

• Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians
• The Scrivener's Bones
• The Knights of Crystallia
• The Shattered Lens
• The Dark Talent

The Rithmatist series:

• The Rithmatist

Other books by Brandon Sanderson:

• The Reckoners
• Steelheart
• Firefight
• Calamity

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2010 Dragonsteel Entertaiment, LLC (P)2010 Macmillan Audio

loved it!

great book! loved the magic system abd characters felt like real people. great new fantasy world!

Great long read with strong characters.

I really enjoyed this book. characters were amazingly fleshed out and stood out in their own respects. This was a great long read though slow in the beginning, I still could not put this book down. Readers were great to listen to as well.

Great Book!

Loved the book. The 2 narrators pronounce names differently which was annoying, but no other complaints.

Fantastic story and narrators, only one real complaint

There were two narrators and they didn’t pronounce one of the characters names the same, luckily one of them only referenced this character a few times, which is why I’m assuming it wasn’t fixed, still, you’d think they’d both be given pronunciation guides.

love this series

The book is well thought out and only gets better as it goes. I'm looking forward to the next 2 books in this series.

The readers are fun to listen too.

Great, while also overly long.

This was a great story, with complex world building. It takes its time, and that is my only issue. I'm interested and will continue listening to the series, because if I tried to read this I would have been bored to sleep too many times to finish it. However, the story really does pick up by the end, and now I'm invested.

PogU

Slow at first due to the breadth of the world but eventually turns into a masterpiece.

Excellent voice acting.

The story clips along, slowly at first but gathering speed all the way. The voice acting is notably impressive

Fantastic book!

This book was captivating and well done. Only complaint was the narrators pronouncing a main characters name very differently at the end!

Great!

I had heard good things about this epic, and I know that I enjoyed Brandon's work from what he contributed to The Wheel of Time, so I decided to give this series a shot. The Stormlight Archive series is lightyears ahead of his Mistborn series; it's much more mature in both writing and content.

This is a book that once you start, you can't stop. It's so good that it seems to just fly by, and next thing you know you've burned through 45 hours of audio when it feels like you just began. I love it. Brandon hit this one out of the park.