Rhythm of War
03 Aug 2023
✍️ Written by: Brandon Sanderson
🏷 Genre: Sci-fi / fantasy
🗓 Published: 17 Nov 2020
📄 Pages: 1,232
🧐 My rating: ★★★★☆ / 4 stars
After forming a coalition of human resistance against the enemy invasion, Dalinar Kholin and his Knights Radiant have spent a year fighting a protracted, brutal war. Neither side has gained an advantage, and the threat of a betrayal by Dalinar's crafty ally Taravangian looms over every strategic move.
Now, as new technological discoveries by Navani Kholin's scholars begin to change the face of the war, the enemy prepares a bold and dangerous operation. The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength.
At the same time that Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with his changing role within the Knights Radiant, his Windrunners face their own problem: As more and more deadly enemy Fused awaken to wage war, no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.
I enjoyed Rhythm of War, but I do feel like it went on a little too long. Maybe it’s because I’ve done these 4 books back-to-back and I’m getting a little tired of the story, but I felt like this one was hard work.
Enjoyable, but hard work. Throughout the book I thought that Sanderson wasted time developing storylines and characters that he didn’t necessarily need to, but toward the end of the book it - in true Sanderson fashion - it all came together and made sense.
Having said that, I still think it dragged on for longer than necessary. Still though, it was a great read and I’m looking forward to the 5th book coming out. But for now I’m going to enjoy a break from Kaladin and his pals.