Another excellent Stormlight Archives book. As the middle child in the five books that will make up the first major arc of the series, Oathbringer clearly needs to do a lot to get the characters and setting to certain points. Loads to sink in and think about with plenty of highlights. The Dalinar flashbacks were masterful - I loved finally learning the backstory of one of my favourite characters from the series. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about the Shallan stuff at first but by the second half it really paid off well and is a nice continuation to her character arc. Kaladin gets some great moments but he’s gone through some enormous changes in the first two books so I’m happy with him backseating in this one a little bit. The Szeth stuff is great; loved his interactions with Lift. There were two twists that made me gasp out loud. The final 150 pages are ridiculously thrilling. Whilst I do have issues with the pacing of the book at times, God above does Brandon know how to stick the landing. It went full on Avengers and I loved it.

That said, this one did feel its length. The narrative thrust and pace are a little all over the place, as the strands get more complicated and numerous. Sanderson more or less balances them out but I did get a little lost very occasionally with the secondary characters and some of the lore stuff. Some of it also felt like padding; thinking of a few of the characters getting stuck on a boat in particular. I also confess to not having read the Edgedancer novella before reading this but I will be reading both it and Dawnshard before starting Rhythm of War. Lift was still great fun regardless.

Overall, it’s another very worthy achievement for the series. As the middle chapter it does have a hard task to grapple with but I’m still very much thrilled at where this is going next.