Some Thoughts on Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings Prime

 

While there are only four installments of the projected ten book The Stormlight Archive from Brandon Sanderson, it is a contender for some of the best stories that the fantasy genre has to offer.  The entire series is a treatise on the issues with colonialism, war, and mental illness full of fascinating characters and a genuinely different magic system, yet it somehow isn’t the first time Sanderson attempted to write this series.  The Stormlight Archive is meant to be the backbone of the Cosmere, his shared universe of novels, originally writing a version of The Way of Kings in 2002.  Now, eighteen years later, Sanderson has released that initial draft as a Sanderson Curiosity as part of the Kickstarter for the leatherbound edition of The Way of Kings under the title The Way of Kings Prime.  This is a unique insight in just how Sanderson has evolved as an author.  In the introduction, Sanderson states this book was both a success and a failure.  Success, as it helped him get out of an issue he had with writing.  He wasn’t published and couldn’t even get a publisher to consider a book deal so in 2002 he wrote this as his first magnum opus to prove he could, which directly lead to the experience he needed to write Elantris which would be published in 2005.  Failure, because the book is flat out not very good.  It barely resembles what would become The Way of Kings, most characters’ names are different, with only some of the Kholins and Heralds having the same names.

 

Half-baked is perhaps this version of The Way of Kings.  The Kaladin analogue, Merin, is perhaps the perfect example of how weak the characters are.  There is no trauma with this character, he is given lordship very early on in this version and doesn’t actually have to struggle much outside of training.  Now the training sequence would have some echoes in the finished version, but here it doesn’t ever feel like he is growing.  Part of this is because the relationships with Bridge Four and Syl just aren’t here in this version.  The magic system here is just the barebones Knight’s Radiant idea, not even called Knight’s Radiant, and the Shardblades/Shardplate.  This makes the book just feel empty and Merin doesn’t have the depth.  He is essentially your standard fantasy protagonist.  The same can be said of Shallan, here Shinri, not on a mission to regain her family’s status, but Jasnah’s ward for reasons.  Jasnah’s also not asexual here which is already here.  Reading The Way of Kings Prime is one that just feels like it is empty.  It’s 800 pages long, but doesn’t exactly grab the attention, but for someone looking at how writing styles can develop it and The Way of Kings proper is the perfect mirror to the Prime version, being a version that shows how page count can be used for depth.  Here there isn’t depth on the pages.  There is one plotline that perhaps regular readers will definitely connect with, but outside of that it’s essentially a first draft.  Now, this is a free ebook and audiobook, so it isn’t Sanderson trying to earn a quick buck (which is why I’m not really scoring this one because it’s not a finished product), it’s bad, but it’s worth the read.