Discover new books on Goodreads
Meet your next favorite book
“Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”
―
―
“Szeth-son-son-Vallano, Truthless of Shinovar, wore white on the day he was to kill a king […] White to be bold. White to not blend into the night. White to give warning. For if you were going to assassinate a man, he was entitled to see you coming.”
― The Way of Kings
― The Way of Kings
“Come,” he whispered. They all were welcome.
They scattered for the racks, seizing their spiked swords, and their sharp axes, and the Bloody-Nine laughed to watch them. Armed or not, their death was a thing already decided. It was written into the cavern in lines of fire and lines of shadow. Now he would write it in lines of blood. “Die!” he roared, and the blade made circles, savage and beautiful, the letter on the metal burning red and leaving bright trails behind. And where the circles passed everything would be made right. The Shanka would scream and gibber, and the pieces of them would scatter, and they would be sliced and divided as neatly as meat on the butcher’s block
The Bloody-Nine showed his teeth, and smiled to be free, and to see the good work done so well. He knocked a barbed sword from a Flathead’s hand, seized it by the scruff of the neck and forced its face down into the channel where the molten steel flowed, furious yellow, and its head hissed and bubbled, shooting out stinking steam.
“Burn!” laughed the Bloody-Nine, and the ruined corpses, and their gaping wounds, and their fallen weapons, and the boiling bright iron laughed with him.
Only the Shanka did not laugh. They knew their hour was come.”
― The First Law Trilogy
They scattered for the racks, seizing their spiked swords, and their sharp axes, and the Bloody-Nine laughed to watch them. Armed or not, their death was a thing already decided. It was written into the cavern in lines of fire and lines of shadow. Now he would write it in lines of blood. “Die!” he roared, and the blade made circles, savage and beautiful, the letter on the metal burning red and leaving bright trails behind. And where the circles passed everything would be made right. The Shanka would scream and gibber, and the pieces of them would scatter, and they would be sliced and divided as neatly as meat on the butcher’s block
The Bloody-Nine showed his teeth, and smiled to be free, and to see the good work done so well. He knocked a barbed sword from a Flathead’s hand, seized it by the scruff of the neck and forced its face down into the channel where the molten steel flowed, furious yellow, and its head hissed and bubbled, shooting out stinking steam.
“Burn!” laughed the Bloody-Nine, and the ruined corpses, and their gaping wounds, and their fallen weapons, and the boiling bright iron laughed with him.
Only the Shanka did not laugh. They knew their hour was come.”
― The First Law Trilogy
“When the sword is once drawn, the passions of men observe no bounds of moderation.”
― The Federalist Papers
― The Federalist Papers
“Society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they’ll never sit in.”
― The Fifth Science
― The Fifth Science
Anders’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Anders’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Anders
Lists liked by Anders


















