Rhythm of War: Book Four of The Stormlight Archive (The Stormlight Archive, 4)

Get ready to jump into this long book, full of... 'General but no specific spoilers' deep depression and Schizophrenic split personality disorder, on a roller coaster ride of a story dealing with mental health issues, long extremely drawn out 'scientific experiments' and best of all, almost no actual movement of characters physical location or trails. In this insanely detailed book of personal growth? Of three characters, watch out for the trap of believing three books were enough to understand the characters strengths and their very well detailed weaknesses, as this will take you down to the depths of how to write an extensive book detailing Internal issues. So, what was good?. The ending was split 50% between truly brilliant and 50% wtf. I better understanding of the world building that is happening. A Bond that is starting to be be reawakened. And the bad. Almost no movement of the storyline and I mean actual physical movement A complete continuation of mental health issues to the point of almost not caring anymore. Trying to make a specific character story line in any way have any importance or interest while not actually doing anything!. A focus on the minutiae of stormlight and experiments to the detriment of the story

So many interesting characters but in this book I didn't feel they really went anywhere, nothing new was really revealed and I felt the book wasn't worthy of the authors talent. I expected so much more, Kaladin - one of the best characters in modern fantasy fiction - I wanted to kick him up the ...... , Shaladin a great female hero was the same as well as Jasnah. Releasing Dawnshard at the same time (which you should read before this book) was a bad move. I love this series, I've recommended it to so many people who have enjoyed it. The only real new point was Adolin in Shadesmar which wasn't long enough. Sadly this book didn't do much for me. However I can't wait for the next one

So the next instalment of the Stormlight Archives is done, it was a beast of a book as expected but overall I enjoyed it. I won't say much about the plot except that it's set around a year after book three and mainly follows Kaladin, Navani and Venli. Shallan has a fair few POV's as well though not as many as the others and the rest of the main characters just have a few bits here and there. Unusually, so far anyway, the flashbacks weren't as prominent as they have been in other books and only started in part three. That meant that the vast majority of the book was set in the present day timeline. You would expect that meant the plot moved forwards loads but it didn't really. This was very much an introspective book and so though we had a lot of character development, the plot didn't move forward all that much. So the heart of this book is about self realisation. Kaladin is severely traumatised and needs to learn to take a step back. Shallan is even more messed up and has to come to an understanding with herself. Venli is trying to live with what she's done while moving on to what she is to become and Navani is trying to balance her responsibilities as a ruler with her desire and skill as a scholar. It's an unusual book in that respect and fair play to Sanderson for tackling such issues in a truly epic fantasy setting. Saying that parts of it I felt dragged a bit. The parts with Navani and Raboniel were some of my favourite bits but it got very technical in places and I found myself glazing over it. Some people are probably going to love it though. This book also got very cosmere heavy which is both a good and a bad thing. Myself twenty years ago would have absolutely loved it, I had the time to constantly re-read my favourite books and I'm sure I would have read all three again in preparation for this. However me nowadays still loves it but since I've only read most of his books once, I was constantly wondering what bits of the cosmere he was talking about and if I should know certain names etc. I know the most obvious ones but I'm sure I missed loads and the significance of some stuff we found out. It is still pretty great and again this will be an added bonus for others. As you will expect if you've read any of his other books, Sanderson has ended it with a bang (which I'm still thinking about) and now must wait patiently for another three years until the next one. This time I will re-read them as it will be the final part of this arc.

Almost everything that made this series amazing in the first 2 books has been whittled away to mere sidenotes. The downward spiral started in book 3 and bottoms out with this book. You can read the first 100 pages and the last 100 pages and get every important point of the book without having to struggle through constant, boring, repetitive "whimpering in fear BECAUSE OF ALL MY TRAUMA!!!" and psychotherapy 101 plotlines. There is also really no sense of risk for any of the major characters; one or two side characters always get offed but you always know there are no real stakes for any of the others. None of the other radiant classes are developed at all. These books were 10x better when it was warriors with massive magical blades in almost indestructible magical-powered super-armor just fighting in huge battles and sometimes duelling. Go back to that, please.