What to Read After The Way of Kings
Stuck between Stormlight books? Start with the Cosmere, then move to giant series, clever crews, and epic fantasy with sharper edges.
You climbed all thousand-plus pages of The Way of Kings, came out a Bridge Four loyalist, and now need something large enough to fill the wait between Stormlight books. The request is unreasonable: a huge world, slow-burn payoff, a magic system with rules, and characters worth following across ten volumes. Fortunately, epic fantasy has never lacked for doorstops.
These come from what ChapterPals readers actually read alongside The Way of Kings, ranked by how many independent readers pair them, and grouped by what you're chasing: more Sanderson, a giant series to sink into, or something with sharper edges.
Stay in the Cosmere
The not-so-secret thing about Stormlight is that it shares a universe with Sanderson's other books. Start with the one most readers do.
Mistborn: The Final Empire - Brandon Sanderson
A heist crew tries to overthrow a god-emperor in a world where ash falls from the sky, and the magic runs on swallowing and "burning" metals. It's tighter than Stormlight - one trilogy, cleaner arc - and it shows off the thing Sanderson does best: a magic system so logical it becomes the plot. If you only read one more of his books, read this.
Elantris - Brandon Sanderson
His first novel, and a great standalone: a cursed city, a prince trapped inside it, and a political-religious puzzle that resolves with the satisfying click Sanderson fans live for. Rougher than his later work, but the ideas are all there, and you can finish it in a week.
A giant series to disappear into
If what you loved was the sheer scale - the sense that the world goes on forever - go big.
The Wheel of Time (start with The Eye of the World) - Robert Jordan
The fourteen-book monument that Stormlight is consciously in conversation with. A handful of villagers get swept into a world-ending prophecy, and over the series it becomes one of the deepest, most lived-in worlds in fantasy. It sags in the middle and Brandon Sanderson himself finished it after Jordan's death - but for a reader who wants to live somewhere for a year, nothing else is quite this big.
The Warded Man - Peter V. Brett
Every night, demons rise from the ground, and humanity survives only behind magic wards. It follows three people learning to stop hiding and fight back. Darker and more propulsive than Sanderson, with the same pleasure of a magic system whose rules keep deepening. A fast, grabby doorstop.
Sharper edges
Some Stormlight readers want the epic scope with a meaner streak - grayer heroes, real danger, sharper prose.
The Black Prism - Brent Weeks
Magic powered by light and color, a charismatic leader with a dangerous secret, and a plot that keeps folding back on itself. Weeks writes twistier, more morally slippery fantasy than Sanderson, and this series scratches the same "clever magic + big politics" itch with a rougher edge.
The Lies of Locke Lamora - Scott Lynch
Not a save-the-world epic - a con-artist caper - but a favorite of Stormlight readers who love a crew and a clever plan. A gang of thieves runs an elaborate long con in a canal city dripping with atmosphere, and the banter is some of the best in fantasy. Sharp, funny, and vicious when it needs to be.
The recommendation
For a club, do not begin by assigning another thousand pages. Start with Mistborn: The Final Empire for the Cosmere connection or The Lies of Locke Lamora for the crew and the con. Both deliver a complete first-book payoff before asking anyone for more.
Shelve the finalists on ChapterPals and vote together. For the full reader-ranked list, open the read-after page for The Way of Kings.