Rhythm of War

The penultimate book in a story arc is always a challenging one. Everything needs to be set up for a grand finale so there tends to be a fair amount of character positioning and story prep. Rhythm of War is the 4th book in a 5 book first arc of the Stormlight Archives and has a lot of ground to cover. The main POV character who had previously all be brought together are now scattered apart to fulfill some key tasks. The war which has been going on is not exactly going brilliantly for our heroes - the fused are essentially immortal so a war of attrition is a bad one to be in. These are all challenging positions to tell and keep the reader interested - especially over a 1200 page book! Sanderson is however a master of the epic fantasy genre and holds together all his threads, keeps the reader interested and delivers a mightily impressive take on this, usually the most challenging book in a series.

I don't feel I need to rehash my praise of Sanderson's world building and character work - if you have got this far into such a massive series you should well be aware of it. He is a master of his craft and this is probably the best epic fantasy currently being written. Note: Stormlight Archives need to be read in order. I see too many reviewers of fantasy books starting in the middle of a series and then complaining about being confused. DO NOT START READING THE SERIES WITH THIS BOOK. Do yourself a favour and start from the beginning (The Way of Kings). Epic fantasy needs to be read this way. Sanderson has been clever enough to split his Cosmere into several self contained story arcs, but each arc needs to be taken as a total story and you can't jump in mid arc.