Chaos

Hi everyone! Eric with 17th Shard here, and I'm here to talk to you about Rhythm of War, by Brandon Sanderson, the fourth novel in The Stormlight Archive. This review is completely spoiler free! There will be no spoilers for the preview chapters, or other cosmere stuff, so if you haven't read anything about Rhythm of War, this won't have any information other than some non-spoilery info Brandon has discussed about the structure of the book. Of course, all of us at 17th Shard are mega-fans, so you can take us with a grain of salt that, yeah, we really like Brandon books and his writing style. But if we didn't like a thing, we'd tell you, and that'd hold some weight. So, in this review, these are my opinions here, but you'll hear from all our other staff members about the book soon enough, too! If you'd prefer to watch a video instead, check out our video review! So let's talk about Rhythm of War! This book is the longest of the Stormlight books, even longer than Oathbringer! Overall, this works really well. I didn't think Oathbringer had fluff, but this book is even leaner. It's just that the world of Roshar is so big, and the number of characters is so big, that there's a lot to do in this. Plus, stuff happens! A lot of stuff happens in this book, and it will really surprise you in many ways. Rhythm of War has some absolutely killer moments. There will be joy. There will be a lot of pain and suffering, too. I think a lot of people will tear up on more than a few occasions. Character Character is a massive focus in Rhythm of War, moreso than Words of Radiance and Oathbringer. This book is a character study for several of our characters, and the character moments are the best moments in the entire novel. Mental health and struggling with mental health takes center stage in the book, and it personally affected me more than it has in the series. As someone who struggles with depression, this book spoke to me fantastically. Now, this might be controversial in the book, because the mental health stuff could be hard to read for some. It gets deep, and it gets dark, darker than Brandon has taken characters before. That might turn you off of the book. And there may be readers who don't find characters dealing with their mental health to be important, and yeah, this book might not be for you. I think it was done really well, I think it really spoke to me, and I think mental health is always a good thing to thoroughly explore in books to continue to destigmatize it. There are tons of characters in The Stormlight Archive, and as always, Brandon has to juggle a lot of different characters and plotlines. I've always felt Brandon deals with this well, with some characters getting less in some books but more in the next, and that continues in Rhythm of War. It focuses on the right characters for the book, but we still see from all of our main gang of protagonists, and they are all important. There is a main character who gets less viewpoints than others, but there is another character who really comes into their own here, which was lovely. There are new characters, too. One new character is one I can't wait to talk to you about, because they really steal the show. We also see more viewpoints of characters we didn't see as much as we should have before, and it's lovely to see more from these more minor characters be fleshed out. Plot I can't really tell you too much about the plot, honestly. But this book doesn't go where you'd expect. After Oathbringer I didn't really know where the story would go, but... I didn't quite expect this, I don't think you'll expect it either! It is really cool and awesome, as you'd expect from Brandon. There are three groups of characters and after Part One they do split up. Some of these interweave a bit, others don't. It's more that Way of Kings vibe, where in that book, we had Shallan in Parts One and Three and Dalinar/Adolin in Parts Two and Four. Rhythm of War is like that in many way with its three groups, and only one of the groups is in all five parts, with the other two alternating after Part One. But each plotline is engaging, and they all get extremely intense. This book will definitely keep you at the edge of your seat. Now, The Way of Kings is not my favorite Stormlight book. Words of Radiance and Oathbringer had plot structures I more preferred, and the endings of those books, where absolutely everything comes together, man... that just really speaks to me, and I love that so much. Rhythm of War has a great Brandon Avalanche. The highs are REALLY high, but it's not going to be like the ending of Oathbringer where everything comes together. So I liked the ending less so than Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, but I know there are people who thought this was the best Stormlight book, with the best ending. I think it may come down to how character focused you are. I'm more plot based, so I liked it a bit less, but I think this structure is done better than it was in The Way of Kings. There's a ton of awesome here and it's really cool. I quite enjoyed the plot and the ending, it's just the different plot structure Brandon went for here was not as in line to my personal preference. You may well be different! I do want to say, though, that where the book is meant to have a big impact, Rhythm of War absolutely executes incredibly. There was a moment that confirmed something I figured, but the way it was portrayed makes it easily one of the best and memorable scenes in the book. When there's suffering, you feel it, and when there's a "hell yeah" moment, it's just the best. Probably one of the weaker parts is the flashbacks. There are both Eshonai and Venli flashbacks, and it's cool, but it's nothing as impactful as Dalinar's flashbacks were. But I mean, Dalinar's were so good and so impactful for the main story, and we just can't have every flashback sequence be as awesome as those. But if I had to get a criticism, it may be these flashbacks. They are fine, but not incredible. This book has a one year time jump from the end of Oathbringer, which is different for the series thus far. All the other books have happened immediately after the previous novel. So how'd this go with this one? The time jump worked pretty well for me. I felt like we've gotten enough hints of what happened in the interim that it was fine. The time jump allowed the world and characters to progress, and sets the stage for the real action that's happening in this book, and I think made the plot better. Lore and Worldbuilding Let's talk about the lore and worldbuilding of the book. Every Stormlight book has tons of worldbuilding. Remember Oathbringer, where it widened the world so much? Rhythm of War expands things way further than I ever could have imagined. I don't think you'll expect where the book ends up, because some of the things we learn are so crazy, I don't know how you'd guess them. The door is open for so many more things by the end of this book. It's insane. We are all going to have so much to talk about once you're all done with this. I didn't think a Stormlight book could expand the world more than Oathbringer did, but this one sure as storms does. The connections to the greater cosmere increase in this book, even more than Oathbringer had. This might be controversial. Brandon has said in some comments on the Part One chapters (which you can read for free) that Brandon is phasing things more to "things are intersecting more in the cosmere" now, which is a bit different than how he's done things before. It's hard for me to comment on this effectively, because I am so deep into the cosmere books, but I don't think references to other cosmere books ruin your enjoyment of Stormlight if you are a Stormlight-only reader. It's more, "hey, there are some things that are mysteries in world to our characters, but you can learn more by reading some other books if you want." It is less subtle here, so I do think pretty soon Stormlight-only readers may want to start reading the other books. That said, if you're already deep in the cosmere, all of this is JUICY! It is so, so good. Final Thoughts Overall, I really enjoyed this book. There are some of the best moments in the series here. Its very character based, but also expands on the lore a lot. It's just for me, I like the ending of Oathbringer so much, and though the Sanderlanche is awesome as you'd expect, I just like the Oathbringer and Words of Radiance style of book more. So for me, Rhythm of War is not my favorite Stormlight book, but I think it's really excellent! I imagine this will be a lot of people's favorite, of the four books. Maybe the worst part of the book is just the wait till book five. If you didn't know, The Stormlight Archive is ten books but split into two five book arcs, and Brandon has always said book five will have a big climax for our cast of the first half. After Rhythm of War, yeah, I really need book five now, please! But of course, I want book five to be as good as can be, and I can only imagine what it's like going through this massive 470k book for several drafts. I understand Brandon needs a bit of a break from Stormlight, and I do want Skyward sequel and that final Wax and Wayne book. So I'll wait! This book has tons to tide people over to through the wait for book five. And for the cosmere fandom, there's going to be plenty to talk about. We'll definitely have spoilery reactions on our podcast, Shardcast, and I can't wait to talk to you about it all!

The wait for Dawnshard is over, at least if you backed The Way of Kings Leatherbound Kickstarter! The novella is being sent out via BackerKit now. For non-backers, they will put the novella on ebook stores, which may take a few more days. There will be a print version of Dawnshard coming to Kickstarter backers, but that won't be until early next year. There will also be an audio version, but according to Brandon that is not coming "for a year at least." Still, Dawnshard is out! That's exciting! The ebook should contain a bunch of different versions of it, including MOBI, EPUB, and PDF files, similar to Way of Kings Prime. Dawnshard spoilers are only* allowed in the Dawnshard Spoiler Board on the forums and the #dawnshard-spoilers channel on our Discord server - and you don't need to hide or tag them in those places. These spoiler areas will last for three months from now, as that is our usual cosmere novella spoiler period length. Dawnshard spoilers will also start showing up on the Coppermind wiki, but pages that include them will also include a warning up top for the 3-month spoiler period. What if I want to talk about Dawnshard and Rhythm of War? This is what the asterisk above is. If you want to talk about both of these new Stormlight stories, you must do so in the Rhythm of War forums/channels - no RoW spoilers will be allowed in the Dawnshard forums/channel! In addition: On the forums, you must either have [Dawnshard] in the topic title (in which case you don't need to tag or hide DS content in the thread), or use the spoiler tag (eye icon in the toolbar) to hide any Dawnshard material; if you are using the tag, make sure you also label what this is a spoiler for somewhere in your post. All of this will remain in effect until the 3-month spoiler period for Dawnshard is over, after which you'll be able to freely talk about it in any Stormlight forum, as well as the general Cosmere one. On Discord, you must use either #row-spoilers or #row-magic-mechanics. For about a month after Dawnshard's release, you must put Dawnshard content behind spoiler tags (double vertical bars around your message, ||like this||) and label them as Dawnshard spoilers - just like you would in #tagged-spoilers-only (where you can also talk about Dawnshard, provided you tag and label it properly). After that timeframe, Dawnshard content will be allowed to be unlabeled in those two channels. And again, please no Rhythm of War content in the Dawnshard area. One last non-Dawnshard spoiler policy thing: if you happen to get Rhythm of War early, full book spoilers will not be allowed to be posted until November 17th. Only discuss the released sample chapters. Some bookstores break street date every year, so we just wanted to mention that.

Can you believe it? We are less than two weeks away from Rhythm of War, which means this series is about to end. Just one more after this! Brandon posted his annotation for Chapter 17 a bit late, and you can read it here. 00:00 Intro and Annotation 4:35 Epigraph 7:47 Chapter 18 You can find all of the preview chapters, our discussions on 17S, and Brandon's annotations of them here: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/91039-rhythm-of-war-sample-chapters-and-discussion-threads-index/ Here's our Rhythm of Previews playlist! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgGfrVwudwTHINabIn5UWmO-TnwXw7qr8 Want a recap of Stormlight Archive? We're doing a series of articles on catching people up! https://www.17thshard.com/news/features/stormlight-archive-recap-world-and-history-r584/ The sweet animated wallpaper is from Cosmere.es, the Spanish fan site. It's awesome! They have one for Words of Radiance as well! https://cosmere.es/descargas/ The thumbnail image is by Michael Whelan, and is the full spread of the US cover of Rhythm of War. https://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/rhythm-of-war-us-cover-reveal-r606/ If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/bMAUS5c Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]

On this episode of Rhythm of Previews, we're onto chapter 17, and since I didn't watch or edit it, I have no idea what happens, but since I'm writing the description and posting this, I am contractually obligated to say it's awesome! Thanks to Alyx (Feather) for editing this while I have a very busy week! You can find all of the preview chapters, our discussions on 17S, and Brandon's annotations of them here: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/91039-rhythm-of-war-sample-chapters-and-discussion-threads-index/ Here's our Rhythm of Previews playlist! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgGfrVwudwTHINabIn5UWmO-TnwXw7qr8 Want a recap of Stormlight Archive? We're doing a series of articles on catching people up! https://www.17thshard.com/news/features/stormlight-archive-recap-world-and-history-r584/ The sweet animated wallpaper is from Cosmere.es, the Spanish fan site. It's awesome! They have ones for Words of Radiance and Rhythm of War as well! https://cosmere.es/descargas/ The thumbnail image is by Michael Whelan, and is the full spread of the US cover of Rhythm of War. https://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/rhythm-of-war-us-cover-reveal-r606/ If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/bMAUS5c Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]

We talk about Returned, Returned healing, memory, perception, new God Kings, Vo, and the Royal Locks. Oh and Austrism. And... health insurance. Vroom vroom. No Rhythm of War spoilers, but there are Warbreaker and cosmere spoilers. We have Eric (Chaos), Evgeni (Argent), Grace (thegatorgirl), and Ben (Overlord Jebus). This is our second to last episode before Rhythm of War's release. Our last one will be Dawnshard, which ideally will be out so we can keep up our biweekly cadence, but we will see! Then weekly podcasts return on the week of the 17th for a few months! If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/bMAUS5c Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]

We're onto chapter 16 of Rhythm of War this week. It's a shorter one, and therefore a shorter episode, but there's still plenty of fun stuff to talk about here! 0:00 Introduction and Chapter 15 Annotation 6:02 Epigraph 9:23 Chapter 16 You can find all of the preview chapters, our discussions on 17S, and Brandon's annotations of them here: https://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/91039-rhythm-of-war-sample-chapters-and-discussion-threads-index/ Here's our Rhythm of Previews playlist! https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgGfrVwudwTHINabIn5UWmO-TnwXw7qr8 Want a recap of Stormlight Archive? We're doing a series of articles on catching people up! https://www.17thshard.com/news/features/stormlight-archive-recap-world-and-history-r584/ The sweet animated wallpaper is from Cosmere.es, the Spanish fan site. It's awesome! They have one for Words of Radiance as well! https://cosmere.es/descargas/ The thumbnail image is by Michael Whelan, and is the full spread of the US cover of Rhythm of War. https://www.17thshard.com/news/brandon-news/rhythm-of-war-us-cover-reveal-r606/ If you like our content, support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/17thshard For discussion, theories, games, and news, come to https://www.17thshard.com Come talk with us and the community on the 17th Shard Discord: https://discordapp.com/invite/bMAUS5c Want to learn more about the cosmere and more? The Coppermind Wiki is where it's at: https://coppermind.net Read all Words of Brandon on Arcanum: https://wob.coppermind.net Subscribe to Shardcast: http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:102123174/sounds.rss Send your Who's That Cosmere Characters to [email protected]