Way of Kings part two by Brandon Sanderson

This is the second part of the first book of the Stormlight Archive. Yes I know, confusing. Par for the course for fantasy fans though who seem to have been singled out for longer and longer books in longer and longer series by publishing houses desperate to lock in revenue streams and minimise development and marketing costs...or at least that's what the business model looks like to someone who's used to examining monetising potential.

More charitably you could say that when something's not broke then don't fix it. It's a strange phenomena - thinking that Epic means having a gargantuan word count but there you go.

Sanderson's book. Or part two of the first book. Tightly written, well paced and continuing to develop an interesting world. Several of his themes from the Hero of Ages series recur - including the nature of the supernatural, borrowing from Aristotle's/Paracelsus' philosophy of sympathies, ossified and creaking empires based upon obvious misreadings of their own histories. Not to say that those tropes aren't well explored or plausible - they are and I actually enjoyed this book quite a lot. So much so that when the final act began I was positively enthralled.

I think Sanderson does something that quite a lot of fantasy authors don't manage - that's write stories and plots that aren't completely conventional. So much fantasy holds to the mainstream ideals of western society. Sanderson tacks away from that fairly successfully.

If you like fantasy I think this is a recommend. If not? Well you knew you weren't going to experiment with something different before you started - so off with you - back to whatever you think is 'worthy' and I wish you the best of (middle of the road) luck.