Listen free for 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Rhythm of War cover art

Rhythm of War

Written by: Brandon Sanderson
Narrated by: Kate Reading, Michael Kramer
Try for $0.00

$14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $65.13

Buy Now for $65.13

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

"Powerhouse narrating duo Michael Kramer and Kate Reading bring their outstanding skills to this stunning continuation of the Stormlight Archive series... This audiobook is truly a masterpiece of story and performance." (AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner)

An instant number-one New York Times best seller and a USA Today and Indie best seller!

The Stormlight Archive saga continues in Rhythm of War, the eagerly awaited sequel to Brandon Sanderson's number-one New York Times best-selling Oathbringer, from an epic fantasy writer at the top of his game.

After forming a coalition of human resistance against the enemy invasion, Dalinar Kholin and his Knights Radiant have spent a year fighting a protracted, brutal war. Neither side has gained an advantage, and the threat of a betrayal by Dalinar’s crafty ally Taravangian looms over every strategic move.

Now, as new technological discoveries by Navani Kholin’s scholars begin to change the face of the war, the enemy prepares a bold and dangerous operation. The arms race that follows will challenge the very core of the Radiant ideals, and potentially reveal the secrets of the ancient tower that was once the heart of their strength.

At the same time that Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with his changing role within the Knights Radiant, his Windrunners face their own problem: As more and more deadly enemy Fused awaken to wage war, no more honorspren are willing to bond with humans to increase the number of Radiants. Adolin and Shallan must lead the coalition’s envoy to the honorspren stronghold of Lasting Integrity and either convince the spren to join the cause against the evil god Odium, or personally face the storm of failure.

A Macmillan Audio production from Tor Books

©2020 Brandon Sanderson (P)2020 Macmillan Audio

What the critics say

Barnes & Noble Best New Books of the Year - 2020

Featured Article: The Best Female Narrators You Can Listen To All Day


When considering a new audiobook, one of the biggest questions listeners have is whether they’ll enjoy the narration style. This is understandable as audiobooks span at least a few hours, and sticking with one person’s voice for that period can feel like a big commitment. Luckily, there are so many excellent voice actors performing audiobooks that you might just find yourself gravitating to certain audiobooks based solely on the narrator’s strength.

What listeners say about Rhythm of War

Average Customer Ratings
Overall
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,671
  • 4 Stars
    200
  • 3 Stars
    52
  • 2 Stars
    17
  • 1 Stars
    8
Performance
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,530
  • 4 Stars
    102
  • 3 Stars
    13
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    3
Story
  • 5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1,366
  • 4 Stars
    202
  • 3 Stars
    48
  • 2 Stars
    19
  • 1 Stars
    13

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

50 hours of wheel spinning.

He is trying so hard to do justice to a cast of characters with mental health issues and I appreciate that but it's starting feel like he's transcribing a medical text rather then telling a story about people. This book feels like the balanced tipped and the characters are fare more defined and overshadowed by their issues rather then being one aspect of a character. Like he lost sight of the forest because of all the trees. As a result the plot crawls along as characters endlessly agonize, hand wring and navel gaze about their struggles, Running in such mental circles is very realistic but makes for an exhausting and repetitious narrative.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

Worst Sanderson Book Yet

Interesting story that was poorly executed; it could have been summarized in 500 pages, and with better quality. His known issues with approximating characters, their actions and natures, poorly is even worse in this book. Their decisions are as if they came from children, the enemy is impotent and has to become threatening with plot manipulation.

The whole time I was thinking "oh no... Don't screw this up; your cosmere is so interesting so far and losing steam as an author now will ruin it all."

Brandon: dig deep, learn how to prose, focus more on character details, and be more concise.

Michael Kramer and Kate Reading were superb as usual. 10/10

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

11 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

Couldn't finish it was so slow.

I really enjoyed the previous books in this series, however this book is so painfully slow and the dialogue is so cringey. Couldn't finish.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

While I loved books 1-3, I hated this.

I can't believe I just spent an entire 6 days and nights listening to this, and ended up pretty much HATING it! Started off loving it, but stop Brandon S with all the psychotherapy/mental illness crap. I don't need that in my fantasy, it's part of real life. It doesn't make Kaladin or Shallon one bit more relatable- we loved them before, when they were still just crazy. And it doesn't make me care about Navani, who had way, way too much space in this book. Every time her chapters came on with these long complicated explanations about artifabrial science and stuff, my head went- I don't care. And I ignored her chapters, ignoring important info in the process. Like Warlight and Anti-voidlight. I was busy not caring and missed some humdingers.

Honestly, this was a long, drawn out depressing uphill slog of a book. While he is often disjointed in his writing, this time it's monumental. My favourite characters, simply didn't exist in this book. Kaladin, needs to learn to explain stuff, and let go. And take the Rosharan equivalent to antidepressants. Shallon needs Lithium...and some psychotherapy. Why is this exposition in infinite detail so important for fantasy characters?

Rock didn't hardly get a single storming paragraph. Lopen got none. Balat, I even wonder about him! You know- Shallon's bro's? Do I have to remind you who'se in your books, Brandon? You made me care about them Brandon, don't just mention them in previous books and walk away. :( We miss them for the humour and there was absolutely NONE in this book, not even enough to smile about.
Shallon, Adolin, Kaladin, were not really big parts of this book, though there was some big and interesting things happening in Shadesmar, and I did actually cry at Maya's "We CHOSE". "You cannot have my sacrifice!", those people who made me absolutely love The Way of Kings, and Words of Radiance, failed to show up here, as in Oathbringer. Well they were here, but mere husks of themselves. Stuff just went on and on and on and on and ON, and I stopped caring. Yes, Kaladin had a lot of material in this book but it was such depressing stuff, I only half listened. I completely missed him getting his plate/swearing the 4th ideal... Either I missed a lot, there seems to be material missing, chapters or something including the epigraphs. Adolin, poor Adolin only exists to advance plot points. I liked the duellist who was a dandy...who cares about people AND spren.
Instead, a bunch of new characters were introduced, and we are almost forced to like them, relate to them, while they are literally completely unrelatable- being "the Fused", Rabonial and Leshwi, and to a lesser extent Venli. I liked Rabonial, wish she'd stuck around... Venli's been unlikable since the start so she actually went up a bit in this book to merely annoying. I'm still trying to figure out how some people in different books were important here at all.

Brandon Sanderson is absolutely brilliant at world building, magic systems, but characters seem to either be mythically great or stormingly bad. This book doesn't even give us the entrancing visuals we imagined by reading- the tower in Uriuthiru is just a big cube where we know very little about this magical place. It was not described in a way to allow our imaginations to "see" it. My often repeated phrase is for those who are unsighted to get into this complicated a series, build that scene, that world, and please "Paint it", so my mind's eye can see it. That was missing this book.

In the end I'm storming angry, Brandon and while you can have my sacrifice, I don't think you'll get any more pre-paid orders from moi. I really can't see me spending anything more on this series- I expect Roshar will become a planet without humans next book, because that's what it feels like it's building to. I'll remember the Roshar from The Way of Kings.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Journey over destination

Yet another great addition to the series, with lots of twists and turns. The characters come to life and are so relatable. Their inner struggles are the ones that matter most and the book challenges these thoughtful characters in ingenious ways. We get to see how many such a variety of heroic behaviours through tough decisions from both the villains and the protagonists.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Missing from library

I’m hooked on this set of books. A great and original story.
Only thing, is that I had it pre-ordered and it hasn’t showed up in my library. I’m stumped as to how to d/l right now.

It’s now in my library! Not sure how I got it there. Possibly from launching it in the app from the web site. Hope this help anyone with the same issue. Enjoy!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

7 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Incredible Story, anticipating the next one!

The story was great and carried us both backward and forward into the depths of the story arches and world lore. I feel as though this book did suffer from what I've heard been named the Brandon "Sanderlanche", like an avalanche, the final dozen chapters or so went off at breakneck speed while the rest held a steady pace.

Expect the story to slow at times, whole still staying I credibly engaging, I feel as though the chapters closer to the end just delivered punches at a different tempo (very fast) then the rest of the book.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Love it!

Read all the pre release chapters, PLEASE SHOW UP IN MY LIBRARY, STORE SAYS IT IS BUT NOPE! LOVE IT SO FAR!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    2 out of 5 stars

"Get on with it!"

I loved the first three books in this series but found this one a very different experience.

If I had to sum it up in one word it would be "ponderous". Something has changed in the writing (which was never the series' strong suit) between Oathbringer and RoW. There is now SO MUCH space given to the internal emotional experiences of the characters and insignificant conversations between them. These are things that have no bearing on the plot or even the characters' arcs; it's just gratuitous fleshing out. I found myself yelling the title of my review multiple times while listening. I can honestly say that the book could be cut by 1/3 and not lose anything important. I feel that Sanderson may have fallen overly in love with his characters and enjoys imagining the nuances of their lives- and thinks the reader will too. Started this book so invested in the story and by halfway through I was so bored and irritated I stopped caring. Needs a massive edit; there's a good book in here but it's buried in filler.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Forced heavy handed adventure into mental illness.

This is the first miss for me by Sanderson, a lot of the book took the characters on a regression to work out issues we've been over already. Much of this book is a plodding slog of psych 101 attempts to cover ptsd, depression and identity disorders. The other books i never stopped but this one i took long breaks before going back to. The flashbacks added little to the book, there are some decent ones but not much is gained from them. The book suddenly decided it needed to end at one point and raced to setup the next book.


Characters who at this point need to be decisive leaders become wavering and meek when confronted with problems. Many of these characters grew so much in oathbringer that it is just irritating here to see them going this way. This book could have been a few hundred pages shorter and probably been a better read.


I hope Shallan finally comes into her own in the next book or actually has to realize a consequence. Shes born rich, becomes the disciple of the best scholar after trying to steal from her, marries a prince, and is bonded not once but twice all while being a kinda terrible person lieing constantly to everyone. Everyone gives her a pass, hell she is often rewarded for betrayal and has been committing borderline treason with the ghostbloods. Something needs to be done with this character where she isn't acting like a foolish child playing pretend, i hope this was the last book we get of her naive incompetence. I'd like her to actually realize a consequence of her foolishness for once.


Kaladan depression arc needs to be finished here. I cannot take another few hundred pages of this. Please let it be resolved and move him into a heroes arc even if its a flawed hero. Another page of him crying on the floor is a page too many.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

4 people found this helpful