The Stormlight Archive

The Stormlight Archive is an ongoing epic fantasy novel series written by American author Brandon Sanderson. The first of ten planned volumes, The Way of Kings, was published on August 31, 2010. Book five will be the final book of the first sequence.

Widely acclaimed for his work completing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time saga, Brandon Sanderson now begins a grand cycle of his own, one every bit as ambitious and immersive.

Roshar is a world of stone and storms. Uncanny tempests of incredible power sweep across the rocky terrain so frequently that they have shaped ecology and civilization alike. Animals hide in shells, trees pull in branches, and grass retracts into the soilless ground. Cities are built only where the topography offers shelter.

It has been centuries since the fall of the ten consecrated orders known as the Knights Radiant, but their Shardblades and Shardplate remain: mystical swords and suits of armor that transform ordinary men into near-invincible warriors. Men trade kingdoms for Shardblades. Wars are fought for them, and won by them.

One such war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. There, Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight separately against a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable.

The Stormlight Archive consists of five primary books, and includes three additional books that complement the series but are not considered mandatory reads, and the series is set to expand with the upcoming release of five more books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.