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.

Now, as new technological discoveries 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.

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Product details

Listening Length	57 hours and 26 minutes
Author	Brandon Sanderson
Narrator	Michael Kramer, Kate Reading
Audible.com.au Release Date	17 November 2020
Publisher	Gollancz
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B082MKYB2S
Best Sellers Rank	86 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) 2 in Epic Fantasy (Audible Books & Originals) 5 in Epic Fantasy (Books)

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Kindle Customer

The Rhythm of Tedium

Reviewed in Australia on 24 November 2020

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Book could have been much shorter. Too many characters (Kaladin, Shallan, and Navani) have repetitious chapters that repeatedly drill in the same details.

I understand Kaladins particular mindset on a personal level, and do see what the point was. However there are ways to present it without being boring.

That said there was a lot of interesting events in the book. I feel it was worth reading, if only for the hope that the next book will deliver a climax. However the notion of ever rereading this book makes me shudder.

4 people found this helpful

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David Bell

Insanely good read

Reviewed in Australia on 22 November 2020

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Fantastic read. Once again Sanderson proves why he likely the best writer in the genre. If you haven’t read the series you’re missing out.

2 people found this helpful

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P Fakan

A good book but distracted by mental health

Reviewed in Australia on 11 January 2021

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I like Brandon Sanderson as an author, and have loved the previous books in this series. Unfortunately I found this one to be too riddled with lengthy descriptions of mental health issues, its as if he went to a brief about it and then decided to have every character suddenly upend their character arc and bemoan their mental health issues, to the point that the overflow of what could probably have fitted inside this book is now in Dawnshard (currently reading).

While I'm underscoring the problem I personally had with this book, I salute his attempt at having flawed characters through the book, and if toned down a little in the amount of text remains a great addition to the read.

The book is still very much worth reading if you have already committed to the series, but I would not recommend starting the series here.

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Vishvaa Thivaagara

Superb

Reviewed in Australia on 3 December 2020

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Utterly Brilliant, as usual I’m awed. This continuation covers a portion about people with PTSD & the perspective of different characters. Even the supposedly villains point of view, justify causes for his actions. The magical world is woven with gemstones, rhythms & lights. How does Brandon Sanderson conjure these perspective, his ideas, plots, writing and overall content is a masterpiece. Bridge Four salute for you.

One person found this helpful

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Owen

Just read it

Reviewed in Australia on 9 January 2021

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What more needs to be said? If you've invested the ~4000 pages of the previous books, then you've probably already read this one by the time this review goes live. If you haven't, go read book one!

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Kindle Customer

Bring on book 5

Reviewed in Australia on 1 December 2020

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What can I say another awesome Sanderson book that leaves you wanting more!, as this one starts to makes the cosmere a more integral part of the story

One person found this helpful

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kate

Be prepared for feelings

Reviewed in Australia on 23 November 2020

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I will not go into details. There are really happy moments and really sad ones. It is a roller coaster of emotions I wish I knew before reading. My favourite in the series so far.

One person found this helpful

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Kindle Customer

Read it

Reviewed in Australia on 23 November 2020

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This is a great sequel to an already great three books, no spoilers but its very sad. Read the previous books before this one. also maybe warbreaker and elantris

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Barry Mulvany

Good instalment and a bit different than previous books

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 3 December 2020

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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.

8 people found this helpful

J. L. Merritt

Disapointed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 November 2020

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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

8 people found this helpful

M COOP

Mental health issues and some stormlight story

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 November 2020

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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

5 people found this helpful

A. Whitehead

Something of a return to form after the slog of the third book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 January 2021

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The war between the forces of Odium, a dark god who desires ultimate power over the Cosmere, and the Knights Radiant is continuing to escalate. The Knights Radiant have conquered the ancient tower-city of Urithiru and are using it as an impregnable stronghold to wage war on Odium's forces. Dalinar Kholin forms an alliance with a skilled general and decides to mount an attack on Odium's armies to the south, whilst his son Adolin embarks on a dangerous mission into the other-dimensional realm of Shadesmar to seek an alliance with the honorspren, a task complicated by ancient crimes committed by humanity against them. Kaladin Stormblessed, the greatest soldier in Dalinar's armies, finds himself granted a leave of absence to deal with his own battle stress and self-doubt. But Odium is not beaten yet and takes advantage of Dalinar's absence from Urithiru to put a bold plan into motion.

Rhythm of War is a lot. It's the latest in a lot of books: this is the fourth of ten planned books in the Stormlight Archive series and the twelfth of a planned thirty-odd books in the wider Cosmere universe. It's a lot of pages: at more than 1,200 pages this is the longest epic fantasy novel published since the previous volume in the series, Oathbringer, which in turn was possibly the longest fantasy novel published in over a decade. It's a lot of characters, with dozens of major and minor characters playing important roles in the story. It's also a lot of worldbuilding, with fabrials and Shardplate and voidlight and stormlight and half a dozen different magic system employing different principles being discussed at chapter-stretching length (not helped by the three-year gap since the last book in the series; keeping the Stormlight wiki on standby during reading may be advisable). This is not a series for the faint-hearted or the short of time.

Rhythm of War is also, it is pleasing to report, a stronger novel than its forebear, arresting a slight decline in quality that the series had been suffering since the start. The Way of Kings was a strong novel which set up an unusual, alien setting with an interesting story and worldbuilding and characters who were among Sanderson's best. Words of Radiance was almost as good, but suffered some pacing issues. These pacing issues became overwhelming in Oathbringer, a relatively simple and focused novel that was diffused and made more complicated than it needed to be by immense amounts of worldbuilding and backstory discussions that, strictly speaking, didn't really need to be in the book.

Rhythm of War shores up a building that was, if not in danger of collapse, starting to list under its own weight. The novel is helped by dropping the completely self-contained side-stories that appeared in previous novels and by setting up very clear stories around its four main characters: Venli, Shallan, Kaladin and Navani (with Dalinar, Wit, Adolin and Lift having reasonably important secondary roles). Each story is told clearly and intersects with the others in a well-laid out manner, with Sanderson expending a lot of energy on making these characters jump off the page more than previously.

It's also a heavy novel, in the sense that both Shallan and Kaladin's stories revolve around mental health, stress, PTSD and other issues revolving around personality disorders and the need for good mental health practice. It's a strong theme that was touched on in the previous books but becomes a major plot point in this novel. It's welcome to see a contemporary issue being fleshed out in a fantasy novel in a respectful and mostly well-handled way. However, given the novel has come out in the middle of a global pandemic and many readers will be suffering stress and pressure as a result, readers should be forewarned going into the book that it is tackling weightier-than-normal themes for the author.

The clear demarcation and semi-equal screen time between the four leads helps tremendously in overcoming the pacing issues from the previous novel (thinking of this more as four much more reasonably-sized 300-page novels, each focused on a strong lead character, helps).

That said, problems remain. There are immense stretches of time, especially in the Navani storyline, where characters sit around and discuss worldbuilding issues between them. The idea of characters in a epic fantasy novel acting like scientists and trying to work out how the magic of the world works in an experimental manner is really interesting, but the novel does feel it goes a bit overboard as we see people using magnets and beakers to try to catch stormlight and voidlight in bulbs and do weird things with them. It's a cool idea that is overindulged in.

In addition, the splitting of time between the characters feels a bit uneven at times, with the Shallan/Adolin/Shadesmar plot benched for the entire central third or so of the novel because the author ran out of things for them to do. That's a reasonable solution and better than giving them filler, but it's a bit odd that Shallan is a such a hugely important character at the start and end of the novel but then completely vanishes between.

There's also a perennial Sanderson problem that he's improved on a lot book-by-book but still pops up at odd moments, namely that Sanderson is traditionally a writer who works from the head rather than the heart. There are sections in this book that do feel more like they've come from the heart, excellent action sequences as characters confront old enemies or moments of major character revelation, but some of the book feels studied, analysed and written with something of an absence of passion. This is particularly notable whenever Odium appears live on-page. The Dark Lord showing up to confront the characters (even in a vision where they can't touch or fight one another) should be a major event, but pretty much every time this happens some kind of odd debate on rules of conduct unfolds; the last such major confrontation has all the tension of Odium and Dalinar debating the small print of a text like two opponents who've paused a board game to check the rules online to see if an odd move is allowed. There is a last-minute, genuinely impressive plot twist that might change this for future books, but that remains unproven for now.

Rhythm of War (****) is a stronger novel than the one that came before it and continues to display Sanderson's strengths to full effect: immensely detailed, convincing worldbuilding, solid action and a logical, considered development of the plot, as well as interesting characters. Some of his weaknesses remain, such as a tendency to overwrite, occasionally getting bogged down in the minutiae of the setting and a lack of writing flair in some scenes which doesn't sell big events as much as they should be sold. But it's hard not to remain impressed by the sheer size and scope of the story he is telling here.

One person found this helpful

Idaho Mum

Great book that Amazon made difficult to read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 30 December 2020

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I am loving the book thus far, but wanted to give my frustration with Amazon itself not adding Whispersync capability to the book. It's a massive book, and I have some reading challenges, so I need to use Audible recordings and be able to sync them with my written versions I can follow in Kindle. For this reason, I always buy both versions from Amazon. Every other Sanderson book is able to sync between Audible and Kindle, but this book can't. It takes me forever to find my place, and it makes it hard to keep up. I also can't play the recording and have my Kindle app follow the text at the same time in the way it usually does. Bad form, Amazon! I keep coming in here to see if it's an oversight that someone will correct.

One person found this helpful

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