Thick As Thieves

Thick As Thieves by Megan Whaley Turner, 337 pages

"Kamet, a secretary and slave to his Mede master, has the ambition and the means to become one of the most powerful people in the Empire. But with a whispered warning the future he envisioned is wrenched away, and he is forced onto a very different path."  I feel like every book in this series is better than the last.  I liked the first one just well enough to keep reading the series and I’m so glad I did because I didn’t want to put this one down.  Kamet was intriguing.  Mostly likeable, he still had a lot of flaws.  I was totally on his side from beginning to end.  This is a great series for teens who like adventure that has a fantastical bent.

The Way of Kings

The Way Of Kings by Brandon Sanderson              1007 pages

This is the first book of The Stormlight Archive.  I found this book a little bit confusing at times.  We follow several different characters through their stories although ultimately, they are all part of the overall story.  There is a huge war being waged between a group of ten kingdoms, all led ultimately by one king, but none of the armies, led by highprinces, are working together.  They are all fighting one enemy, the Parshendi.  Through one storyline, we follow Dalinar, leader of one of the armies, who is plagued by visions that he believes are trying to lead him to unite the kingdoms but also worries that he is simply going mad.  Another storyline follows Shallan, who is trying to restore her families’ status.  Her plan is to have Jasnah, the current king’s sister, take her as a student and thus, get the opportunity to steal something from her that Shallan believes will help her family.  Yet another storyline, and the one that takes up most of the book, follows Kaladin, currently a slave in one of the armies.  We see both his current story and his backstory, from the time he was a child to the explanation of how he became a slave.  Actually, I really only cared about Kaladin as a character, and his story.  I didn’t really have any interest in the rest of the book, except as how it related to Kaladin’s story since some of it explained the broader story going on around him.  Overall, I thought this was pretty good, but I have enjoyed other books by Sanderson more, including the Mistborn series, which is similar in genre.  However, I’m sure that most fans of epic fantasy will probably enjoy this book.