The Stormlight Archive

The Stormlight Archive is a series of books by Brandon Sanderson. It’s set on a planet called Roshar that has a lot of storms that have magic attached to them.

1) The Way of Kings

2) Words of Radiance

3) Oathbringer

4) The Rhythm of War

5) Wind and Truth

Roshar was one of three planets that were visited by three gods, Odium, Cultivation, and Honor. One planet had humans on it. Roshar had non-human people who talk by singing. Odium attacked the planet with humans on them so Honor fought to stop him and that world was destroyed. So, the humans left and came to Roshar. Odium convinced the singers to worship him instead of worshiping Honor and so he turned them into monsters called Voidbringers.

Honor then turned ten human soldiers into gods called Heralds to fight the Voidbringers. Whenever they died, they’d come back to life on the third planet and continue fighting until they got killed, came back to life on Roshar, and had to fight the Voidbringers again.

The Heralds created ten armies of human soldiers called the Knights Radiant to help fight against the Voidbringers. Eventually, the Heralds gave up and left Roshar, except one who was trapped on the third planet. The Radiants got power from spirits called “spren” which got power from people swearing oaths and following them. Then the Radiants broke their oaths, so their spren died and the Radiants lost their power.

After the Radiants died, the Voidbringers turned into mindless slaves called Parshmen.

Then King Gavilar of Alethkar met a group of sapient Parshmen called the Parshendi and wanted to bring back their old gods. So, the Parshendi had a human named Szeth kill Gavilar and start a war. When Gavilar died, he said “tell my brother, you must find the most important words that a man can say” so Szeth wrote that down.

Gavilar’s brother Dalinar then found out that that was a line from a book called The Way of Kings and decided to try to read the book and find out what it meant. Dalinar’s niece Jasnah then took an apprentice named Shallan while one of Dalinar’s soldiers, named Kaladin, was betrayed and enslaved by his commander.

Kaladin then met a spren named Syl and she convinced Kaladin to say “the most important words that a man can say” so Kaladin says “I will protect those who cannot protect themselves” and becomes a Knight Radiant.