JediWright.com

The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sanderson’s most ambitious story yet, The Way of Kings is a hopeful start towards what could genuinely be a unique and fresh new world. I will definitely be picking up the next installment to this series! I rate it a four because it sets off engaging enough …but quickly peters out for me and then slowly regains its traction, and it seems, struggles to find a common thread for too long (though that might just be me adjusting to the new world). Definitely recommend reading his other works first, to warm up to his writing, though The Way of Kings can certainly stand on its own.

View all my reviews

While escaping the midday heat in a movie at the Grove at 3rd and Fairfax today, a major rumbling and grinding-like sound rolled through the theater, wiping out all sight and sound momentarily (I assume because of a fleeting black-out but haven’t heard of any yet). At first everyone in the theater just rolled with it but with the second wave some of us decided it wasn’t worth second-guessing and exited the theater to a hallway quickly filling up with other theater-goers and employees to, in a word: chaos.

Everyone thought it was an earthquake still and even the staff were uncertain as to where to begin with the situation. Some were directing us to the emergency exit in the back and others to the front, though the rear exit quickly revealed itself a no-go when the door was opened to a wall of toxic-smelling smoke wafting up the back sidewalk towards us. Those of us looking for a quick exit joined the masses shuffling haphazardly towards the front.

As we emerged to the main lobby, the mass confusion amped up a few notches while employees continued to get a handle on the situation and sort out their next steps. Here’s a quick pic I snapped off while waiting to see how’d it unfold from that point:

As the lobby began to fill with a foreign and highly unpleasant electrical stench, the theater employees began to call for ticket-holders to proceed to two sets of doors with their tickets in hand in exchange for re-admission tickets. Without much more direction than that (and that much was hard to make out on its own), the small, summer throng – surprisingly patient – slowly but steadily exited the building. While most gossiped about what might have happened, I headed straight around back to try and catch a glimpse of any damage, thinking maybe someone had run off the road perhaps and hit the side of the building. I snapped off these two shots and got the scoop from a fireman on what had occurred, generator failure, which in hindsight, certainly matched up with what it felt and sounded like.

And that was that. By the time I’d exited the Grove parking deck, a quick scan down the intersecting road between the Grove and Farmers Market revealed the firetrucks had already moved on and traffic there had resumed as usual.