Beyond The Shadows Book Review

by The Wanderer

Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
Genre: Sword and Sorcery, Epic Fantasy
Series: Night Angel Book Three
Pages: 699

Buy on Amazon!

Spoilers for the previous two books in the Night Angel Trilogy are below).

In The Way of Shadows Brent Weeks told an entertaining story – I would equate it to being a summer blockbuster, but in book form. It had its flaws, but it was entertainment first, literary merits second.  It’s sequel Shadow’s Edge struggled greatly, especially with Kylar’s time outside of Cenaria and by introducing a number of secondary characters that added almost nothing to the story.  Bringing back Durzo Blint at the end was criminal, but the resolution of a few of the plot points like Vi’s ringing of Kylar made things interesting enough to warrant reading the final installment of the trilogy.

Beyond the Shadows goes completely off the rails.  The first two thirds of this novel are amongst some of the worst fantasy I’ve read – especially in regards to the secondary characters and the romantic pairings.  The final third starts to pull things together – at least from an entertainment perspective – but it ends by force feeding some imagery to the reader in a feeble attempt to shove some ideas about love and redemption that had been casually thrown around the series.

Shadow's Edge Book Review

by The Wanderer

Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
Genre: Sword and Sorcery, Epic Fantasy
Series: Night Angel Book Two
Pages: 645

Buy on Amazon!  

(Spoilers for The Way of Shadows are below).

The sophomore slump.  This really seems to be a problem in a lot of fantasy trilogies, and sadly the Night Angel Trilogy joins the club.  Sure there are plenty of entertaining moments scattered throughout the book, but there are great number of issues, too.

Shadow’s Edge is a fun sequel to The Way of Shadows, but it falls significantly short of it’s predecessor.  By all means this book is like a superhero movie, it’s entertaining, but it’s not going to be winning an Academy Award for Best Picture.

The Way of Shadows Book Review

by The Wanderer

Author: Brent Weeks
Publisher: Orbit
Genre: Sword and Sorcery, Epic Fantasy
Series: Night Angel Book One
Pages: 659

Buy on Amazon!

The Way of Shadows is a Tolkien inspired fantasy that at first glance doesn’t really appear to resemble anything like Tolkien’s work.  Weeks’ story is so dark and bleak, and there are so many morally ambiguous characters, it’s hard to find the classic good vs. evil Tolkien staples. But deep down this story is still about a young unknown child rising to become a powerful figure in a fight against evil.

Weeks writes a descriptive “hell on earth” type of scenario. His characters live in a place with depressing realities that echo the darkness’s in our own world. I found myself loving every bit of the book until the end, which had a number of twists in the plot that agitated me.  However, my personal qualms with the ending won’t stop me from continuing with the sequels. The Way of Shadows is a great introduction to a grim assassin centered fantasy series.