Rhythm of War, indeed, picks up one year later, and while Oathbringer was primarily concerned with uniting Roshar, Rhythm seems more interested in how the protracted war might finally come to a climax. Oathbringer is feeling more and more like that necessary middle chapter, the one that rather tortuously sets up the world the way the writer wants it so that the story can move ahead. Hopefully by the time the flashbacks start there’s enough momentum in general that they don’t drag down the pace too much.) (There will be flashbacks, eventually, but I kind of like that we are starting by staying fully in the present. Part of this may be the lack of flashback chapters – I know lots of folks enjoy the flashbacks, but personally I find them disruptive. Rhythm of War is just as long, but so far, at least, I’m finding it more compelling. I know Sanderson loves his long books, but goodness. Oathbringer was, in other words, too long. The ending featured a huge battle, but by the time I got there I mostly just wanted it to be over. By the end, I was fairly disillusioned by the Stormlight Archive series: while there were things I liked about that book, I also found it shockingly dull, with storylines that dragged on for hundreds of pages with too little payoff. Okay so full disclosure, it took me like two years to read Oathbringer. I’m also just going to go ahead and assume that you know who all these people are and have read the other three books in the series. It goes without saying that this will have SPOILERS for the first part of the book (up to page 293 in the U.S. This way, I’ll be able to track my evolving impressions of the book and will have something to look back on when I write the full review. Since this book will take me a while to finish, I’ve decided to write short reaction posts to each part as I go along. What I have done is finished Part One, along with the first set of Interludes. First things first, this is NOT a review! I haven’t finished Rhythm of War, the fourth book in the Stormlight Archive series.

Rhythm of war part one