The Stormlight Archive: A Reading Journey

One of my absolute favorite things to do is to set an unreachable goal for myself with an arbitrary deadline. With my latest endeavor, the deadline isn't exactly arbitrary, but it is definitely ambitious: I aim to read the first four books of the Stormlight Archive series before the release of book five, Wind and Truth, on December 6th of this year. Tackling four books in three months is generally within my reach, but considering each tome exceeds 1,000 pages and features an intricate fantasy world and a complex magic system, it’s bound to get a bit dicey. Nonetheless, my penchant for self-inflicted pressure compels me to take it on.

In the genre of adult fantasy, completing the Stormlight Archive series is one of the final major milestones on my reading list. Two years ago, I crossed The Wheel of Time off that list, a feat that left me with a satisfying sense of accomplishment, and I am eager to experience that high again.

In full transparency, I’ve read the first two books in the series before, but that was over five years ago, so my recollection is a bit hazy (I am being very generous with myself right now.) Alright, so yes, my memory isn’t the steel trap that it used to be, therefore I plan to re-read The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance before diving into the latter volumes. Adding up the page counts, the first four books total 5,125 pages in the paperback editions. This means I’ll need to read just under one and a half books per month, or roughly 1,700 pages. No big deal…right?

I’d love to document this reading journey here on my blog, though I haven’t yet decided on the best approach. I’m leaning towards discussing each book individually rather than breaking it down into smaller segments. I’d ask for your input, but this is my very first post, I literally have no traffic to this site and I don’t know if anyone will ever read this (here’s to hoping that changes soon!).

So for now, in the absence of constructive feedback, I will start with the intent of posting my thoughts and notes after I complete each book. Keep an eye out for my next post and I hope to chat all things book one soon!