The Way of Kings

Picking up this 45 hour audiobook was a daunting task. I knew to expect a lot of world-building. I knew to expect multiple-charter POV and that some of those characters I would yawn through. I was surprised by how little I was bored during the book even when the characters moved forward as the plot stagnated. It was like holding a pose in yoga and changing it with each breath. It's the same pose, it's the same character in much the same situation, but they are stretching and maneuvering.

I was slightly annoyed by the number of different magical "things" there were about the world: Stormlight which is stored in gems that then power armor that is usually paired with mystical giant swords (shardblades) that are summoned from nowhere and can cut through anything (except the power armor); People who can use the stormlight for a dozen different things; Machines that use gems to transform one substance into another; Anthropomorphic blobs (spren) that are attracted to an inconsistent array of things (elemental spren, emotion spren, binding spren, rot spren, music spren); Some old magic that causes visions.

Looking at the list, I realize that it's actually just the spren that bother me. It reminds me too much of the furies in Jim Butcher's Codex Alera combined with every elemental spirit tradition and simulatenously dialed up in silliness and completely inconsequential to the story.

I can ignore the spren though and so I enjoyed the book. I will be listening to the next book even though it is even longer at 48 hours.