This is a masterpiece of worldbuilding, proving Sanderson a grandmaster. Elements can be seen in his other works, possibly tried, experimented with, but here they all come together to create a complete world, different from what the reader would be familiar with. Philosophy, religion, ethics and, perhaps most of all, prejudice are also tackled. That requires many explanations, and they are provided, piece by piece, layer by layer, like in Shallan's drawings, each passing adding more detail, showing rather than telling. The explanations follow the action, are part of it, and even the occasional piece that would elsewhere be seen as an information dump avoids that fate here. Even the slow pace, required for such an endeavor, actually serves to emphasize the thrilling moments even more, not that I saw any risk of getting bored either way. If anything, I just wanted to spend more time reading each day, and now I'm itching to move on to [b:Words of Radiance|22313627|Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)|Brandon Sanderson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1407090431l/22313627._SY75_.jpg|16482835].
Not that The Way of Kings is perfect, of course. While Sanderson makes this work surprisingly well and the characters themselves are, usually, worth supporting and cheering for, there are too few of them for an epic fantasy on such a scale, and Kaladin is quite clearly the main focus while some of the others get too little space, which also restricts the number of locations and events that can actually be presented. And leaving Dalinar's arc completely out of part three, considering how it ended in part two, is an odd choice. But perhaps the one truly notable problem is that at times the reactions of others seem delayed, even time itself seems to stand still, to allow the arcs of the lead characters to follow a plan, including events being seen through certain eyes. And, to add an editing issue, details are hard to notice in the included sketches in the mass market paperback edition, and the handwriting is next to unreadable. But having such sketches included in such an edition at all is unusual in itself, and they do help with a few mental images even so.