The Best Book in Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere Is a Masterpiece in Worldbuilding

Image via Gollancz Published Oct 27, 2026, 12:14 AM EDT Sign in to your Collider account "Worldbuilding" is a word that gets thrown around a lot in the world of fantasy writing, mainly because it's one of the most important aspects of any story. It's more crucial in high fantasy stories, i.e., works that take place in worlds that are separate from our own and completely fictional. What worldbuilding effectively refers to is the process by which an author creates the history, lore, culture, and atmosphere of their world, and reflects it through their writing. Good worldbuilding is achieved not by dumping a bunch of info on the reader, but by allowing it to come out naturally as the story unfolds. Many of the finest fantasy novels have excelled in this department, but a somewhat recent entry stands as one of the greatest examples of worldbuilding done right. The book comes from Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere universe, a shared literary universe that consists of over 30 novels, novellas, short stories, graphic novels, and picture books. One of the most prominent and successful entries in this vast universe is The Stormlight Archive, which is currently five books deep into a ten-volume epic. The saga began with 2010's The Way of Kings, which quickly earned critical acclaim, particularly for its intricate, complex, and compelling worldbuilding, a masterclass in how to create an entire world from the ground up. What Is 'The Way of Kings' About? Image via Tor Books As previously stated, The Way of Kings is set on the planet Roshar, a world that is constantly plagued by highstorms that are stronger than hurricanes, which blow across the planet's only supercontinent from East to West. As a result of these violent weather patterns, plant life is practically non-existent. All animals are crustaceans, so they have shells to hide in when a highstorm blows through. Yet, the highstorms also have a strange attribute: they fill gemstones with an iridescent substance known as Stormlight as they pass. The Way of Kings opens up with a man in white robes, Szeth, assassinating the king of the mighty realm of Alethkar during a high-profile event. The Alethi discover that the assassin was hired by the Parshendi, a race of crustacean humanoids. The Alethi are a war-like people: when they're not fighting other countries, they're fighting amongst themselves, so the murder, of course, provokes a retaliatory war. The Alethi surround the Parshendi in their domain, a flat, barren expanse of plateaus and chasms known as the Shattered Plains. Five years later, the war has devolved into a grinding stalemate, with neither side making much progress. On the Shattered Plains, the ten Alethi highprinces are playing a dangerous political game against each other whilst assaulting the Parshendi. One of the highprinces, Dalinar Kholin, brother to the murdered king Gavilar, begins receiving visions from the Stormfather, a spiritual entity that resides in the highstorms, and tries to decipher their meaning while commanding his armies. Meanwhile, a soldier-turned-slave named Kaladin arrives on the Shattered Plains and is assigned to run bridges for the armies of Highprince Sadeas. He and a team of 30 other men are required to hoist heavy bridges over their heads and place them in between plateaus for the armies to cross. They do this over and over and over again, some collapsing from the exhaustion. Worse still, the bridgemen are intended to be used as cannon fodder — the fatality rate is high. Miles away, young student Shallan Davar arrives in the seaside city of Kharbranth, hoping to study alongside Jasnah Kholin, Gavilar's daughter, and one of the most prestigious scholars on Roshar. Interspersed between the regular chapters are flashback sequences, with each entry in the series focusing on a different character. In this case, it's about Kaladin's life before he became a slave, and how he found himself in that predicament, as well as why he thinks the way he does. This allows for greater development and a deeper understanding of each character's trauma, which is actually an essential part of the story. The World of Roshar Is Among the Most Unique Fantasy Worlds Image via Michael Whelan / Tor Books Even though Roshar is barren and mostly lifeless, it never stops being fascinating. There are numerous mountain ranges, hidden cities, and vast, untamed regions such as the Frostlands where humans rarely dare to roam. There's also the enormous body of water in the North called the Purelake, filled with the purest water imaginable and so shallow that people have built an entire civilization in huts raised on stilts. To the South, there is the Azish Empire, a collection of nations that swear fealty to the Prime Kadasix of Azir, while also having individual rulers. To the West, there is the island of Aimia, an abandoned place constantly bombarded by a vicious hurricane, making it inaccessible. But the worldbuilding extends beyond just the geography. There are around 30 sovereign nations on Roshar, each of them with distinct cultures, religions, and governments. There are the Horneater Peaks, for example, which are filled with large, red-headed people. The Horneaters, or the Unkalaki, have adapted to the dizzying height by not needing as much air, and have an interesting culture where their occupations are determined by order of birth rather than by desire or class. Returning to the Azish Empire, this realm is all about documentation: every single thing that people do must be accompanied by signed forms and meticulous records. Among the more bizarre cultures are the Thaylens to the East, who sport long, flowing white eyebrows, with a nearly unpronounceable language and a seafaring culture. What's impressive is that all of these cultures feel so distinct and real, like they could feasibly exist in real life. They may be inspired by real countries and cultures, but the result feels completely original and unlike anything we have here on Earth. Lastly, Sanderson gives us the spren, spirit-like entities that inhabit Roshar but are only attracted by the aspects they represent: for example, fearspren only appear in the presence of someone terrified. But the spren are not limited strictly to emotions — there are also windspren, which only appear when the wind blows, or rotspren, which appear near infected wounds. Some spren varieties are much rarer than others, and there are literally hundreds of them, which leads some scholars to devote their entire lives to their study. Each variety also looks different. Fearspren look like small purple blobs of goop, whereas windspren look like bluish-white ribbons of light that dance with the wind. Learning about new varieties of spren keeps the book endlessly fascinating. 'The Way of Kings' Is a Triumph of Worldbuilding Image via Tor Books/Michael Whelan There are so many moving parts that make The Way of Kings such a memorable bit of worldbuilding. Story aside, every aspect of Roshar is so far removed from anything else in the fantasy genre. The planet isn't anything like Earth, or any other known planet, for that matter. Moreover, it actually feels like a functioning world, with international politics, varying systems of government, fleshed-out religions and cultures, and a surprising catalogue of non-human life forms. The Way of Kings demonstrates that worldbuilding is only limited by an author's imagination, and that it ultimately doesn't matter whether a world is feasible or not. Each story is but a canvas for a writer's creativity, and, if it's a fantasy or sci-fi story, it really doesn't matter how many rules it breaks — that's the beauty of it, after all. While Roshar doesn't have quite as much history behind it as, say, J. R. R. Tolkien's Middle-Earth, it excels in other areas that Tolkien did not, mainly in how the world fits together and has distinct religions and unfamiliar cultures. The Way of Kings is living proof that worldbuilding isn't just about lore; it's about how the world works within the story's canon.