An instant #1 New York Times Bestseller and a USA Today and Indie Bestseller! 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. After forming a coalition of human resistance against the enemy invasion, Dalinar Kholin and his Knights Radiant have … resistance against the enemy invasion, Dalinar Kholin and his Knights Radiant have spent a year fighting a protracted, brutal war. Neither side has gained an advantage, and the threat of a betrayal by Dalinar’s crafty ally Taravangian looms over every strategic move.
Now, as new technological discoveries by Navani Kholin’s scholars begin to change the face of the war, the enemy prepares a bold and dangerous operation. The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength.
At the same time that Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with his changing role within the Knights Radiant, his Windrunners face their own problem: As more and more deadly enemy Fused awaken to wage war, no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.
Other Tor books by Brandon Sanderson
The Cosmere
The Stormlight Archive
The Way of Kings
Words of Radiance
Edgedancer (Novella)
Oathbringer
Rhythm of War
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
At the Publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
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I will always love books by Brandon Sanderson, but this one got to me more than anything else I’ve read by ANYONE! I was laughing, I was in tears, and I couldn’t put this book down.
Sanderson’s world building is one of, if not THE, best out there. In this book, he went above and beyond not just with the magic and setting, but also with the characters. He made them all so human and relatable. Seriously love this book.
Wow.
Yes, this is back to what I want out of a Sanderson book. I was a little underwhelmed with Oathbringer so I was a little pessimistic going into Rhythm of War, especially with the decision to have this take place a year after the last book. There were a couple places where the explanation seemed a little forced at the beginning as to what had been going on, but that soon passed and I was blown away by all the new discoveries and revelations in this book. If you’re a fan of Sanderson, give this a read!
This had some moments that had been building for four books, and the pay off was HUGE! This moved a little slower than his last three books in my opinion, but that didn’t stop me from flying through the pages! For the first time in the series, the emotional heights achieved brought tears to my eyes. Highly recommended, along with the rest of the series.
Moves a lot slower than the others, but I still enjoyed it.
Brandon Sanderson killed one of my favorite characters. I won’t tell you who, so you will be surprised. My heart is broken. The character I wanted to die, survived.
Still, I cannot wait for the fifth book in the Stormlight Archives to find out what is next to happen to Venli (I probably misspelled her name). I wake up saying her name.
This book took me longer to read than any before. Not because it was long or the writing was difficult to understand. The writing was too good. Brandon Sanderson has done a great job at including non neurotypical characters in this series. Multiple personality disorder, depression, and PTSD are all written beautifully (none of these are beautiful conditions but that is the best way I can describe the service Mr Sanderson has done in representing them.) There are a lot of heavy topics explored in this book. I primarily read to help my own depression but found myself getting more depressed as I read through some of my favorite characters’ struggles. So I had to put RoW on timeout several times and sometimes for months at a time. I am thrilled I finished it, though.
I absolutely love this series. There is so much going on and so many things achieved by the characters and the author. Sanderson handles tough so well. Kudos to his writing and not being afraid. Well developed and I love Sanderson’s character development.
Reading Rhythm of War, Sanderson’s 4th novel in the magnificent Stormlight Archive has led me to two major realisations:
1) This man is an absolute master of world-building and overarching plot. Everything is meticulously detailed, from the history, to the culture, to the clothing, even the flora and fora get the occasional couple of descriptive paragraphs. An unparalleled achievement.
2) For someone like me, with very little free time, these books are too long
I started reading Rhythm of War in December. I finished yesterday. And I honestly felt like it could have been maybe 300 pages shorter. There is a great deal of meandering, a fair amount of pondering, and a light sprinkling of introspection. For someone who can only read a couple of hundred pages a week (to be fair they are quite big pages!), I often wished for things to move forwards a tad more briskly! In my opinion the middle section of the book is especially guilty of this, and at some point I even found myself dreading to pick the book back up again which I never thought would happen with a Sanderson novel.
As for the ending … I liked it, though I thought it less interesting than the previous entries. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely eager for more. But my next few reads are going to be some shorter, faster-paced books, just so I can say I’ve read more than one book in 2021!
I love this series, and I’m definitely going to read all of it, but this novel was my least favorite of the group. It was a little slow compared to others without the same punch. Still, it’s good and it’s an important piece to the puzzle.
Regretting that readers will have to wait for another couple of years for the next installment.
What I loved: This latest installment of the Stormlight Archive has everything I’ve come to expect from a Sanderson novel: amazing characters, an engaging and well-thought world, and wonderful conflict. If you’ve been worried about certain characters getting their “stuff” together, it’ll get worse before it gets better in this book – but it is so worth it to get to the end! So don’t give up! I especially loved the development done between the humans and the singers in this novel. It “humanizes” both sides and really deepens the world and characters.
While I’m always bummed to reach the end of a Stormlight novel knowing there’s several years to wait for the next, it’s comforting to know that Sanderson is a beast at staying on schedule. Can’t wait for the next one!
I couldn’t wait for this book to come out, then I couldn’t put it down, and now I’m left waiting for the next one to see how it all ends.
The Stormlight Archive is one of those rare series that makes you remember why you read.
High Fantasy at Its Finest!
I have to admit that I was worried about remembering all of the things I needed to remember to understand what was going on. Sanderson doesn’t just write a story, he creates a universe, spins up histories, develops multiple cultures, populates his books with thousands of characters and a ton of various locations (on multiple worlds)… I was sure that I had simply forgotten the important bits in the several years since I’ve read the last book in the series. But it was fine! The story was constructed in such a way as to bring back all that I have lost in memory in manageable bits and keep me hooked and entertained for days!
So lots of new revelations, cool details, expansion on the magical system, beloved characters… A great read! Thank you.