The Way of Kings by Brandon SandersonHaving recently finished reading the one-thousand-page-plus smaller-print-than-most-books novel The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson, the first of his original series, The Stormlight Archive, I'm left with that common after-having-read-a-good-book feeling, a mixture of satisfaction and sadness—sadness and longing, as I miss already the characters and the fascinating world Brandon spun in my imagination, and now I'm forced to wait for a few years before he adds another tome to the story. Sigh!

I'm a slow reader, mainly because I mentally vocalize the words as I read silently. Therefore my silent reading speed is nearly the same as reading aloud. I've tried not vocalizing, and while I can speed up significantly, I don't enjoy it. Especially when I read novels. My comprehension decreases as well as my delight at letting the words weave a tapestry in my head. There's a beauty to the very sounds of consonants and vowels combining that I love, a poetry to words, so I don't anticipate ever changing the way I read.

Due to this book's length, my enjoyment was prolonged over the course of a week, reading a bit each night, with a few longer stints on the weekends. It was fun to look forward to each day.

As I expected, Brandon invents a beautiful world to populate with characters and stories, even if this one is stark and harsh due to perpetual "highstorms" that ravage across the landscape, leaving the rock seemingly barren and exposed, save for hearty unearthly (yet somehow familiar) lifeforms that have adapted to the harsh conditions.

I loved Mr. Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy, the first of the series, Mistborn: The Final Empire my favorite of the three. And I was thoroughly engaged by his novel Warbreaker--a novel that Brandon shared online as he made revisions, permitting we fans to read each draft he released until the novel was finalized and printed.

His debut novel, Elantris first hooked me in late 2004 when I read a few sample chapters on his web site prior to the novel's release after having read a prepublication review of the novel by another favorite author of mine, Orson Scott Card—even though I had to wait to finally read the book.

The Way of Kings did not disappoint me—it impressed me. Wow! That Sanderson guy can write! I'm grateful he is sharing his creativity. Keep up the good work!