I have adored every installment of Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series (including both novellas) so deeply and completely that I hadn’t even entertained the idea that I might be disappointed with Rhythm of War. Unfortunately, despite it having some expected moments of brilliance and the glowing reviews I’ve seen pouring in… for me, this was by far the weakest link in what has otherwise felt like a perfect chain.

I’ll start with some of the positive and, with almost 1,300 pages to choose from, there was still a lot of good.

- I’ve never been able to spell ‘Rhythm’ and now I can.

- Extreme Tension - Ho-ly moly. I spent more or less the entirety of this book feeling so stressed out by the constant anticipation of something awful happening. Sanderson has really, really captured that sense of impending doom. It isn’t what I’ve come to expect from the series (and, if I’m honest, I think it impacted my enjoyment to some extent) but that was clearly his intent and he nailed it.

- Kaladin’s Mental Health - I thought Sanderson’s exploration of Kaladin’s struggles with PTSD and depression was so incredibly well handled; I know I won’t be the only person who found these scenes so visceral and relatable that they were actually quite difficult to read (please do consider this a trigger warning). Watching our favourite unstoppable force hit that wall of depression and not find a way to bounce right back as we’ve come to expect is so jarring and painful to read.

- Navani’s Moment - Who doesn’t love Queen Navani? Watching her finally get so much agency (as her own character, not just as an extension of Dalinar), page time and development was a real joy.

- Adolin, Shallan and Their Whole Expedition - As always, I adore every moment they grace my pages. Really enjoyed their storyline, squealed at the revelations and loved their respective character development. I’d have loved more from them!

- Raboniel and Leshwi, I just absolutely loved them both and I’m thrilled to finally have some ‘voidbringer’ characters that I feel genuinely invested in.

-Dabbid and Rlain - Absolutely thrilled to see both of these characters take a role in the narrative beyond just ‘window dressing’ or reminders of Kaladin’s ‘kindness of heart.’

I could leave it there but, unfortunately, I had quite a few issues with this one.

- Less Polished - Despite all of these books being incredibly hefty, this is the first time I’ve got to the end of one and felt that it could really have benefited from a heavy edit, with some of the flashbacks (many of which we were witnessing for the second or even third time, just from a different character’s perspective) felt overwrought and unnecessary. I didn’t need to see Gavilar’s death again, I didn’t need to see all of Eshonai’s scenes from her sister’s perspective and, while I loved the interactions between Navani and Raboniel as a whole, the science experiments started to feel very repetitive as the book went on. It felt like Brandon Sanderson’s editor had given up because ‘it’s Brandon Sanderson’ and while I would have happily died on the ‘every sentence is necessary’ hill for Oathbringer, I didn’t feel the same way about RoW.

- All the Lore - When I sell people on this series, I always talk about the brilliance of Sanderson’s world building and, particularly, the way that (at least in this series) it really does just serve as a backdrop to powerful character narratives and that even though there is links to and easter eggs for the wider universe, you don’t have to be a human Cosmere wiki page to enjoy the books. Alas, I am not sure that argument stands up for RoW, there was just so much lore and so much of it was just dumped unceremoniously on the reader in a way that really lacked the finesse I’ve come to associate with Sanderson as a writer.

- Ishar and El - These bits both felt unnecessary and just more information we’re required to remember that didn’t actually overly contribute to the narrative. I think this would have served better as separate teasers released between now and book five. Instead of an exciting taster of what’s to come, they just left me with a bit of an information-overload-headace.

- Venli - This is very much a personal gripe but I just find her so incredibly boring as a character so the combination of her substantial role in this book and her endless flashbacks obviously had an impact on my overall enjoyment. It’s such a bugbear of mine that the ‘voidbringer’ with the most page time is the one I’m the least interested in. Give me more Leshwi, please or at least more of Venli actually coming into her own, not just toying with the idea.

Overall, RoW just fell a little flat for me. There were moments that I absolutely loved but, as a whole, the execution often felt heavy handed and the book seemed needlessly dense as a result. I found myself thinking that perhaps I needed to start taking notes and for me it crossed the line from ‘amazing easter eggs for those in the know’ to ‘you really need to be a dedicated fan with a great memory to really appreciate this book’. It really, really saddens me to say that I’ve been left feeling wary about the future of a series that a couple of weeks ago I’d have described as my all-time favourite.

Great news for Robin Hobb, though.