Rereading

 

I'm rereading The Way of Kings, book one of the Stormlight Archive series by Brandon Sanderson right now. Book five, the end of the first arc, releases in the next few days. 

The series is epic fantasy and massive. (Each book is over a thousand pages in paperback.) By rights I should have started rereading a month ago if I wanted to finish on time, but I confess I only started last night.

The books have a huge amount of lore and world-building and backstory and minor characters--all things I'm likely to have forgotten since the release of book four Rhythm of War in 2020. But that's not why I'm rereading it. In fact, I'm doing what I call a skim-reread: I'm only reading Kaladin and Shallan's POV chapters and I'm skipping all of Kaladin's flashback chapters. My goal is only partly to brush up on previous events, mostly what I want to do is rekindle my love for this series which faltered a little in book four. 

 

My favorite plotline in The Way of Kings is the Bridge Four plotline. I love it, which is kind of weird because it uses a trope I don't really like: the underdog sports team. (Bridge four isn't a sports team, so I didn't recognize the trope until I heard the author talk about it at a convention once.) I love the misfit characters--slaves and deserters and failed soldiers--and how Kaladin struggles to forge them into a team and in trying to keep them alive ends of  revolutionizing how bridge teams work. I love the twist at the end where instead of escaping as planned they do the honorable thing and save Dalinar.

As a reader, I love rereading for the comfort of it. As a writer, I love rereading for how it allows me to see behind the curtain as to how the author achieved a certain effect or plot twist.

Do you reread?