Excerpt Emporium: More Free Brandon Sanderson

An except of the prologue through to the third chapter of The Way of Kings marked my first taste of Brandon Sanderson's fiction - read about my experiences here if you missed them first time out. In short, I had a fine time. I don't know that I yet love Sanderson's work, but I certainly came away from the excerpt over at Tor.com hungry for more.

My proof - one of but a few to have made it all the way across the Atlantic, I'm given to understand - arrived in the mail a few days after I put up the aforementioned post. I still haven't picked it up.

I think that might be symptomatic of the book malaise I've been suffering from these past few weeks. I've read little of note since The Passage, to be perfectly honest. Johannes Cabal the Necromancer left me largely nonplussed; I didn't love The Holy Machine as much as I'd expected to; and my current read, The Unit, is (in the early-going at least) a bit too gun-porn for my liking.

It's nothing to stress about, mind you. The best and the worst of us feel this kind of fatigue once in a while. The Speculative Scotsman won't be taking a sabbatical, my stubborness alone will see to that - reviews of each and every one of those books will make it onto the blog shortly, have no fear. For the last little while I've feeling a bit meh about reading; it's as simple as that.

So let me tell you what perked me up. Following in the footsteps of the excerpt of The Way of Kings that graced Tor.com a few weeks yonder, a second selection from Brandon Sanderson's mammoth new novel just appeared on the site. This time in audio form. It's Kate Reading and Michael Kramer starting where the last except left off, narrating chapters four through six of The Way of Kings, and their reading got this bookworm's blood pumping all over again. I'm particularly enjoying Kalladin's perspective on the slave caravan.

There doesn't seem to have been half such a hew and cry over the audio excerpt as accompanied the release of the first selection, so consider yourself well and truly on notice, ladies and gentlemen. The Way of Kings only gets better. If you haven't already, read the first three chapters here - you only need register at Tor.com - and then go listen to the second excerpt. Doctor's orders, you hear?