carl_lazarevic's Full Review: Brent Weeks - The Way of Shadows: Library Edition
Durzo Blint is no mere Assassin. Durzo Blint is a 'Wetboy', a killer for hire whose flare for death will outshine any Assassin you could find. His fees are high, but, when you purchase his service you know that you're guaranteed results because Durzo Blint is the best at what he does, and he knows it.
Azoth is nobody. He's a 'Guild Rat' struggling for survival by stealing whatever he can to payback his guild leaders and avoid their cruel beatings. Azoth wants to look after his closest friends; fellow street rat Jarl, and a mute urchin they know as Dollgirl, but struggles because Azoth is worth less than nothing to the world. Azoth has dreams though. Dreams of becoming strong, fearless, and fortunate enough to save his friends from their life of poverty. In short, Azoth dreams of apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.
In The Way Of The Shadows fate will take a turn that allows Azoth to realize his dream, if he thinks the cost is worth it. When given the chance to become Durzo's apprentice Azoth will be able to make the necessary contacts among the wealthy to remove his friends from poverty, but by doing so Azoth must first die. He must become instead Kylar, a young noble from one of the less prominent families. Respectable, but otherwise ignored by the upper classes. He can have no contact with his former life for love is a weakness that would be used against him. Instead he must dedicate himself to the philosophy of the shadows. "Life is meaningless, life is empty. When we take a life, we take nothing of value."
To survive in this world Kylar must learn to navigate the dangerous politics of the city, to cultivate the strange magics of the Wetboys, and most importantly to put aside his own sense of morality and cultivate in its place a flair for death.
I must say that despite all odds I really found myself enjoying this book. On the surface it's a fairly bog standard fantasy assassin yarn from someone whose clearly been playing his Elder Scrolls games. You can tell reading the book that author Brent Weeks is still new to the writing game as he ticks off the checklist of generic character types one after the other. You have the callous mentor who shares a father son bond with his uncertain student. The idiot king, the religious mentor, the virginal girl the protagonist has always loved from afar. All and more of the expected stereotypes are present and correct, with little to differentiate them from the similar characters in other fantasy novels.
This wouldn't have been so bad if the characters had been fleshed out a little more, but on the whole they were all so ridiculously black and white it was unbelievable. Considering the nature of the story and some of the themes involved (child abuse, rape, prostitution of both sexes and obviously murder) I would have expected a little more maturity in the way the characters were portrayed. However only Durzo Blint is portrayed in anything resembling a shade of Grey. Kylar, despite being a murderer for most of the book, somehow retains his naivity and innocence as the books big hero. His distant love Eileen is the sweet innocent, takes stray puppies off the street and loves them, type of girl that can save every hero. By comparison the villains range from a sadistic Wetboy who likes to torture his victims for the fun of it, to the evil 300 inspired Godking who just wants to take over the world. There's no middle ground between the 2 camps, and no one besides the lead character seem to have any real motivations at all.
Still, like I said I did find myself thoroughly enjoying the book. Weeks writes this as an action story with a sense of pace that belies his inexperience. There's a definite sense of intrigue flowing through Kylar's training that will keep you guessing to the very end. Moments where Kylar is sneaking over rooftops and through castle grounds have a definite sense of tension, and they flowed nicely into the action scenes presented. The action itself, when it starts, is fairly large scale and features some fairly intense military sequences. I'd say it's in the action that Weeks has found his forte, and it's here that the book will really hold your interest.
Of course how much it will hold your interest will depend entirely on how interested you are in the subject matter. If you've ever enjoyed a videogame like Oblivion, or Thief, and enjoyed the worlds presented, then the world of Midcyru will appeal to you. If, however, you rolled your eyes at my plot description then you'll likely find nothing in it to change your mind. The pace of the book, at times can work against it, but mostly serves to keep you gripped enough that you wont bother asking too many questions.
I wouldn't recommend paying full price for it, but, if you can get it cheap and the subject appeals to you then you'll be glad you've read it. It'll also be a book you'll have no trouble rereading multiple times over. Mind you this book is only the first in Brent Weeks Night Angel trilogy that were released in very short succession. So who knows, maybe after reading the entire series it will be better than the sum of its parts. I suspect this will turn out to be the case, but as an individual book, so far my score stays at 3 stars.
For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city s most accomplished artist. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take fo...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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