“The world became ours, and we lost it. Nothing, it appears, is more challenging to the souls of men than victory itself.”
“She hadn’t asked, but she was certain Captain Tozbeck could read. She’d seen him holding books; it had made her uncomfortable. Reading was an unseemly trait in a man.”
To anyone looking it might seem that Brandon Sanderson literally burst onto the scene. Seemingly overnight the bookstore shelves were flooded with books bearing his name and he was tapped for the monumental task of bringing to a culmination the life’s work of author Robert Jordan, whose Wheel of Time series was left plotted but unfinished at his untimely death. We all know things are rarely that simple and while Sanderson’s star may have risen quickly, he has been writing for many, many years.
The Way of Kings is touted as the first novel in an epic ten volume series entitled The Stormlight Archive. Given my predilection to run screaming away from large novels and to faint dead away at the thought of reading ongoing, decades-in-the-making series this was not a novel that I expected to read, even with its temptingly gorgeous Michael Whelan cover and rare color and black and white illustrations. I must learn never to say, or even think, “never”.
An evening Twitter session with a handful of friends quickly found me throwing my hat into the ring if someone wanted to host a group read of Sanderson’s tome. And thus a community event was born. Deanna agreed to tackle the host duties for this monstrously large book and August 1st trumpeted the beginning of this grand adventure. We are in the early days, so if any of you would like to join in, we would love to have you do so.
Various readers will be taking the reins with weekly questions. Deanna has kicked us off with this week’s questions which follow the jump.
As with the recent Dune group read, expect spoilers to be present in the answers to various questions. I would encourage you to visit the group read site for links to the Q&A for other participants.
