Melissa "Dog/Wolf Lover" Martin's Reading & Ramblings: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive sequence began in 2010 with the New York Times bestseller The Way of Kings. Now, the eagerly anticipated Words of Radiance continues the epic story and answers many of your questions.

Six years ago, the Assassin in White, a hireling of the inscrutable Parshendi, assassinated the Alethi king on the very night a treaty between men and Parshendi was being celebrated. So began the Vengeance Pact among the highprinces of Alethkar and the War of Reckoning against the Parshendi.

Now the Assassin is active again, murdering rulers all over the world of Roshar, using his baffling powers to thwart every bodyguard and elude all pursuers. Among his prime targets is Highprince Dalinar, widely considered the power behind the Alethi throne. His leading role in the war would seem reason enough, but the Assassin's master has much deeper motives.

Expected by his enemies to die the miserable death of a military slave, Kaladin survived to be given command of the royal bodyguards, a controversial first for a low-status "darkeyes." Now he must protect the king and Dalinar from every common peril as well as the distinctly uncommon threat of the Assassin, all while secretly struggling to master remarkable new powers that are somehow linked to his honorspren, Syl.

Brilliant but troubled Shallan strives along a parallel path. Despite being broken in ways she refuses to acknowledge, she bears a terrible burden: to somehow prevent the return of the legendary Voidbringers and the civilization-ending Desolation that will follow. The secrets she needs can be found at the Shattered Plains, but just arriving there proves more difficult than she could have imagined.

Meanwhile, at the heart of the Shattered Plains, the Parshendi are making an epochal decision. Hard pressed by years of Alethi attacks, their numbers ever shrinking, they are convinced by their war leader, Eshonai, to risk everything on a desperate gamble with the very supernatural forces they once fled. The possible consequences for Parshendi and humans alike, indeed, for Roshar itself, are as dangerous as they are incalculable.@goodreads

MY REVIEW:

5 STARS

HOLY. CRAP. ON. A. CRACKER!

I freaking loved this book! I am going to give a crazy arse review that will probably only make sense to me and throw in some excerpts and pictures and who cares?! Almost everyone has read this right, right?

I love you Brandon Sanderson! But now that I sit and think about it, I will most likely be dead before you finish the books. I still love you though!

I still love all of the men of --->BRIDGE FOUR<---- Here's a random EXCERPT<---

Kaladin pressed the stone against the wall of the chasm, and it stuck there. "All right," he said, stepping back. Rock jumped up and grabbed it, then dangled from the wall, bending legs below. His deep, bellowing laugh echoed in the chasm. "This time, he holds me!"
Sigzil made a notation on his ledger. "Good. Keeping hanging on, Rock."
"For how long?" Rock asked.
"Until you fall."
"Until I..." The large Horneater frowned, hanging from the stone with both hands. "I do not like this experiment any longer."

Let me just get this off my chest and out of the way. I love Kaladin. I loved him in book one, I love him in book two, I will love him for all time!

In the first book I wasn't really all that fond of Shallan, not that I really didn't like her, I just didn't care for her parts. Probably because all of the action was with the boys elsewhere. And in this beginning until half way through the book I didn't care too much for her parts either, although, they were a lot better than they were in the first book as she joins up with the gang. This would include Bridge Four, the King, Dalinar, Adolin, the evil peeps and everyone else. I particular fell in love with her character when her and Kaladin were stuck in a chasm together. They had a wonderful banter together and had to get out of some sticky situations. Kaladin also found out some very interesting things about her. So now my opinion is that she's pretty damn cool and I want to read more of what's going on with her.

I didn't care too much for Dalinar's son Adolin in the first book but he blew me away in this one. He is a really good dude!

--->EXCERPT<---

Kaladin reached the jailer, taking him by the arm. "What is happening? The king put Dalinar's heir in here?"
"The king didn't have anything to do with it," the jailer said. "Brightlord Adolin insisted. So long as you were in here, he wouldn't leave. We tried to stop him, but the man's a prince. We can't storming make him do anything, not even leave. He locked himself away in the cell and we just had to live with it."
Impossible. Kaladin glanced at Adolin, who walked slowly down the hallway. The prince looked a lot better than Kaladin felt--Adolin had obviously seen a few baths, and his prison cell had been much larger, with more privacy.
It had still been a cell.
That was the disturbance I heard, Kaladin thought, on that day, early after I was imprisoned. Adolin came and shut himself in.
Kaladin jogged up to the man. "Why?"
"Didn't seem right, you in here," Adolin said, eyes forwarad.
"I ruined your chance to dual Sadeas."
"I'd be crippled or dead without you," Adolin said. "So I wouldn't have had the chance to fight Sadeas anyway." The prince stopped in the hallway, and looked at Kaladin. "Besides. You saved Renarin."
"It's my job," Kaladin said.
"Then we need to pay you more, bridgeboy," Adolin said. "Because I don't know if I've ever met another man who would jump, unarmored, into a fight among six Shardbearers."
Kaladin frowned. "Wait. Are you wearing cologne? In prison?"
"Well, there was no need to be barbaric, just because I was incarcerated."

I'm going back and forth with all of this too. There is a point where Kaladin, Adolin and Dalinar are trying to fight this assassin from killing the king, but he is strong, so very strong. Imagine the sweetness when Kaladin scared him off because he knew Kaladin was something else.

Syl, Kaladin's little Spren is in this too of course. I love her so much. She plays a vital part in this book. Well, she's vital anyway and we get to learn more about her.

So back when Shallan and Kaladin were kinda lost in the chasm's, Shallan sort of figured something out from her drawings and a whole group of her and some of the peeps go back there. Kaladin is healing from an unfortunate event and I'm so glad that changed in this book. I was afraid Mr. Sanderson might leave us hanging on until the next book. BUT... OMG, it was so EPIC to me when Kaladin saw the light so to speak. I thought I was going to have a panic attack I was so excited! He ended up fighting the assassin in an awesome showdown, people found some stuff, people died, and people found out some more awesome stuff. And there is more messed up stuff to come they will have to fight in the other book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's a lot of stuff!