The first, and possibly only, striking thing about Rhythm of War is just how big it is. The Stormlight Chronicles have always been the more grown up books of The Cosmere, but this was quite the slog.
And I feel that the book suffered for it, if only because it had the effect of diluting the significant plot developments and set pieces which would have otherwise stood out in a slimmer tome.
I'd like to say that the quality of the writing hadn't suffered either... but I noticed a significant change in flow here, a sense that a lot of the prose was just churned out. This made the book not as special as the others, and just normal.
Of course we don't read these books in isolation: finally it seems that the Cosmere has fully spilled over and even my amateur eyes spotted numerous crossing overs. This alone made the book exciting and compelling enough to bear with it's glacial pacing.
It's hard not to recommend RoW, essential as it is. I just hope it's the peak of Cosmere book word counts, and we return to the more pure and to the point approach enjoyed previously.
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