By Brent Weeks.
After seeing the first part of this Trilogy, "The Way of Shadows", in the book store, I was extremely excited and bought it immediately. To be honest, the artwork on the cover made half the decision for me. "Oh my god, how awesome! He looks so cool!" - that's what passed through my girlish mind and I was on my way to the check out counter.
And the first chapters confirmed my judgement entirely. The description of street children (or Guild Rats, if you prefer) was captivating, very emotional and of course, brutal. But it wasn't tasteless and it made a grand opening to whatever it was going to be followed by. At that point I ran back to the book store and ordered the other two books. Unfortunately, whatever followed did not live up to it.
From the main character's, Kylar's, first kill to the invasion of Khalidor into Cenaria, the story was somehow predictable and insignificant. There were bits that captured my attention entirely, for examlpe Vi Sovari's attempt on Kylar's life, the powerful Queen of the Underworld, Momma K and Dorian, the tormented prophet of mysterious background.
On the other hand the dilemmas of the main character felt so excruciatingly old and, pardon my slang, emo. The mysterious master seemed to turn out faceless instead of mysterious, the plots of nobility and underworld confusing rather than cunning, the solutions quite puzzling.
A young man who has all the gold and power in his disposal he could ever dream of, surely, even in a magical world of unicorns and rainbows, he wouldn't say no to girls throwing themselves at him. Especially if he's a killer. I realize this empowers the inner conflict and his heroicness, but it sure sounds like he's a wussy, not to mention unrealistic. And of course, the woman of his dreams is a perfect angel, too good to be true, way too forgiving, the best and the most beautiful to the core.
That's just horseshit, as Kylar would say.
The same goes for intrigues, which only seemed to exist large scale and no smaller betrayals or side stories to touch the main story line briefly. Everything rolled towards one greater goal, which would have been fine it weren't all so damn cliché.
To summarise, it was always overpressured or underexplained. If the whole nobility of a country and several important characters die in one invasion, then it's not very surprising anymore. And also not very dramatic.
Until the third book, everything seemed to roll in the same haze - not exactly focusing on people and not exactly on the bigger picture either. There were long paragraphs of Kylar moaning in his pain and stupidly honorable choices and then there were things already heading towards the culmination which one could obviously see colliding in the end.
But then the third book turned out pretty damn good. Now THAT I would have wanted to read more of. Different stories, very distinguishable characters, emotions, war, magic. Perfect. This should have been the first book and then third more should have followed in that style. Oh my god, I would have stayed up all night to read that. I was working on the beach while reading it and most of my day passed in thrilling moments gulping down pages after pages and trying to juggle with customers who started to look curiously like Sethi merchants and Aliteran travellers... My mind was processing feverishly to work out what could happen next, what paths lay before the heroes, what choices were they likeley to make. Oh blessing!
And then it all collapsed into a huge pile of crap. If the final battle concludes with flowers blooming from the corpses of the dark and the dead, then the book has obviously sucked. It makes me want to go know on the writers door and say: "Sorry sir, I was under the impression you were trying to write your books realistically..." Yes, even though it's fantasy, I don't really believe that type of happy-gooey ending. Even Harry Potter had a few dear characters die in the end. Well, the totally unrealistic angel-girl did die, but that was only good news to me. I liked Vi alot better.
All that aside, throughout the books I found loads of rip off from other books, anime and even games. Naturally I don't expect it to be admitted, but here is an illustration.
Yes, its Mount Thrall. Also Cenaria (Cenarion Circle), Khalidor (Kalimdor) and Warrens?? (Seriously, like several men named Warren in the Barrens). What else pissed me off was the name Kaede. Regnus Gyre and Nalia Gunder is Shigeru Otori and Naomi Maruyama version 2. I love "Tales of the Otori", it's truly a masterpiece allowing a western person get a glimpse behind the eastern mind and not feel like running into a wall. I'm not happy about copying that.
The writer could at least have had the dignity to stick to some geographical and linguistical standard. If you use rice paper walls and names like Mitsurugi, Hideo, Watanabe and Garuwashi in one area, then don't go sticking them to another with Wariyamo and Takeda. Obviously, even if the setting is fictional, people in one country speak one language and use same types of syllables, familiar naming systems.
Grrr, I R MAD BRO!
All in all, even if the story was bits and pieces glued together to make something legendary and it only carried it half way through. It was not however the worst book I have ever read. Not sure I would suggest it to any of my friends, much less enemies - as I wouldn't want them to think me tasteless.
Final grade:
6
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