The Way of Kings

On the stormy world of Roshar a war rages on a ruined landscape called the Shattered Plains. Kaladin, who traded his medical apprenticeship for a spear to protect his little brother, has been reduced to slavery. In a war that makes no sense, where ten armies fight a single foe, he struggles to save his men and to fathom the leaders who consider them expendable. Brightlord Dalinar Kholin commands one of those armies. Like his brother, the late king, he is drawn to an ancient text called "The Way of Kings". Troubled by over-powering visions of ancient times and the Knights Radiant, he has begun to doubt his own sanity. And across the ocean, an untried young woman named Shallan seeks to train under an eminent scholar and notorious heretic, Dalinar's niece, Jasnah. Though she genuinely loves learning, Shallan's motives are less than pure. As she plans a daring theft, her research for Jasnah hints at secrets of the Knights Radiant and the true cause of the war.