Recommendations
Books Like The Way of Kings
Best books to read after The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings opens the most ambitious ongoing epic fantasy series — The Stormlight Archive, Roshar, Kaladin, Shallan, Dalinar. These recommendations continue the Stormlight Archive and Cosmere, explore the epic fantasy tradition, or offer companion reading in the tradition of the hard magic system fantasy.
- 1Buy
Words of Radiance
by Brandon Sanderson
The direct sequel — Day Two on the Shattered Plains, considered by many fans the best single Stormlight volume, the plot threads from The Way of Kings building to a major confrontation.
- 2Buy
The Final Empire
by Brandon Sanderson
The Mistborn entry point — Vin in Luthadel, the Lord Ruler's Final Empire, Sanderson's first hard-magic-system epic fantasy and the novel most readers use to decide whether they like Sanderson's approach before committing to Stormlight.
- 3Buy
The Lies of Locke Lamora
by Scott Lynch
The heist fantasy with comparable world-building depth — Camorr, the Gray King, Lynch's fully realized secondary world shares Sanderson's commitment to internal consistency while offering a completely different plot type.
- 4Buy
The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
The other great contemporary epic fantasy — Kvothe at the University, Rothfuss's magic system and world-building depth comparable to Sanderson's, the two series together defining contemporary commercial epic fantasy.
- 5Buy
The Blade Itself
by Joe Abercrombie
The grimdark counterpoint — the First Law trilogy occupies the opposite end of the epic fantasy spectrum from Stormlight, and many readers of both find the contrast illuminating about what the genre can do.
- 6Buy
A Memory of Light
by Robert Jordan & Brandon Sanderson
The Wheel of Time conclusion — Sanderson completed Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time after Jordan's death, writing the final three volumes; readers who love Stormlight find the WoT series the closest in scale and ambition.
- 7Buy
The Eye of the World
by Robert Jordan
The Wheel of Time opening — Rand al'Thor and the Two Rivers, the epic fantasy series that most directly shaped Sanderson's ambitions, which he has cited as one of his primary inspirations for Stormlight.
- 8Buy
Good Omens
by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman
The tonal relief — where Stormlight is earnest and epic, Good Omens is warm and comic; many readers of long epic fantasy series find the Pratchett-Gaiman collaboration a perfect palette cleanser between volumes.
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