The third of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive novels benefits greatly from having read both Edgedancer and Warbreaker (which I thought I talked about before but apparently haven’t) beforehand.
Sadly I’m not sure it’s really worth the investment; a good 90% of the book is essentially treading water with events and characterizations repeatedly progressing one step forward and then one step back (Shallan’s sections in particular become painful to read). Only the very last section is truly engaging… but it’s engaging in a manner that echoes a cliffhanger, coming across as deliberately manipulative (which of course it is) rather than feeling natural.
The follow-up picks up after a 1-year time skip and starts off much better. Unfortunately it seems Sanderson can’t help himself here and once again reverts to character (Kaladin this time, though Shallan hasn’t improved) and event regression to pad out the novel’s length. Its finale isn’t anywhere near as satisfying as the prequel’s either, partly because yet another artificial extension has been introduced (related to Odium this time).
All that combined with Rhythm‘s foreword stating that the series is intended to be ten books long has me thinking I should just cut my losses now rather than continue to plod through thousands of pages of circular developments for just a couple hundred filled with excitement.