The Stormlight Archive saga continues in Rhythm of War , the eagerly awaited sequel to Brandon Sanderson's #1 New York Times bestselling Oathbringer , from an epic fantasy writer at the top of his game.

Heart on my sleeve here; the Stormlight Archives is my favourite series by far. I doubt anyone will be surprised that my most anticipated book of this year was Rhythm of War. While I had the best intentions of savouring this story, I devoured it in a couple of days, but I have zero regrets!

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There are secrets we have kept for so long. Watching. Sleepless. Eternal. And soon, they will no longer be ours. I love epic fantasies but Mr. Sanderson is taking his own epic time and wasting a lot of epic space. My strategy now: Wait til Mr. Sanderson finishes the entire series then read all the books, restarting and rereading with one and two. However, I just turned 52 and I may not be alive to read the end (seriously). The Hope of Elantris · The Emperor's Soul · Shadows for Silence in the Forests of Hell · Sixth of the Dusk)

Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status darkeyes. Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl. The Fallen Soldier caresses and loves the spear even as it gouges his own flesh. He steps ever forward, ever into darkness, without light. He can bring none with him, but that which he can kindle himself. As the plot advances, Sanderson puts the reader through a roller coaster of emotions, including some exhilarating highs and terrifying drops. Sanderson is able to craft a war that feels real, showing the motivations of people (human or other) on both sides of the conflict. When the characters we’re rooting for win or lose a battle, we can see its effects clearly. It’s a staple of epic fantasy to have a large (even immense) scale of events that shorter series can’t attain, and Sanderson fully embraces this and uses the greater scale to its fullest effect. Chapters 7 and 8, which can be listened to here, regarding Kaladin and Moash, as well as new fabrials used by the Fused.

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There had also been criticisms about how the Knights Radiant are too overpowered with their ability to heal with Stormlight. This is a fair point because when your heroes and favourite characters can't get seriously injured or die, the stakes just don't feel high enough to create tension. Rest assured that this was not the case in Rhythm of War as the knowledge, skills and/or weaponry of the enemies spelled some pretty bad news for our fellow Radiants. Without giving away too much again, I can say that for the most part of this book, the action scenes made for some really heart-pounding, panic-filled moments. The story is science-heavy. Fabrials, light, and sound are a huge focus of the story, and Sanderson explains in detail how they all work, individually and together. Over and over. And over. It bogs the novel down. One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable. You can bear it. You can remember it. Our weakness doesn't make us weak. Our weakness makes us strong. For we had to carry it all these years."

Eh, I'm bad at poetry. But it's a good story. No one is one-dimensional, and every perspective adds to the narrative. There were some spots. Adolin's trial was eye poking out boring but the end was quite good. Navani's arc was good throughout but the over explanation of the science was, again, mind numbing. She is cunning and calculating and very smart making her a chilling opponent and not someone that you can easily thwart or anticipate and a formidable adversary is always one of the best things that can happen in a story.

The focus on science. I super loved the storyline that played out about science on Roshar and in the cosmere. More lady scientists pls!

A fragment of the Navani prologue, which can be found here, in which Navani tries to keep the party under control while searching for her suspiciously absent husband, and another version here, which continues for a little longer after the first reading ends and features a conversation between the two.This is an odd position for me. Before, I’ve found it easy to explain my novels. Each one was built around one or two central premises. The gang of thieves who want to rob an immortal emperor. A man cast down by a terrible, magical disease and forced to rebuild a society among those similarly afflicted. A boy who finds that librarians secretly rule the world.