The Way of Shadows

[Bob]

I had no expectations when beginning "The Way of Shadows". I wasn't familiar with Brent Weeks and hadn't heard of the book before. I often read books that have been recommended or that I've read reviews of in the hope of avoiding bad books, but it was fun to read something I knew nothing about.

I enjoyed this book in many respects. Weeks creates intriguing, flawed characters and is good at forcing his characters to face moral dilemmas. It's hard to cheer for an assassin who kills innocents, but Weeks pulls it off nicely. His short chapters and rapid paced action keep the story moving and keep you wanting more.

There were some things about this book, however, that frustrated me. Weeks does not spend much time giving us background story about the various political factions and the competing powers in his world and how their antagonisms began and intensified. He tries to do this as the story moves along, but keeping up with the action while trying to sort out the various factions and leaders is cumbersome. Perhaps a prologue or outline at the beginning of the books would have been nice to introduce us to his world and what we would be encountering as we read.

The other big problem I had with the book concerned the character of Rat/Roth. If he was the son of the godking why was he the head of a guild in the Warrens, the most dangerous and slummiest part of town? Is this really the job of a son of a godking? Was he placed there primarily to help his father gain the the kingdom of Cenaria? Again, this isn't fully fleshed out and seemed a bit unreal to me.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed this book and would certainly be interested in reading upcoming books in the series.

[Tobias]

Generally I wouldn't consider myself a great fan of long fantasy volumes. However I have been pleasantly surprised by some of the fantasy I've read recently. Joe Abercrombie's 'The Blade Itself' was a far better read than I expected and this book reached way beyond my expectations aswell. If I hadn't had so much work that I needed to do I would have read this book in a couple of days. The plot was intricate gripping, the characters ranged from lovable to detestable, and the book was easy to read. I enjoyed the book immensely.

[Jessica]

Roth was in the slums because every child of the godking was expected to make something of himself. They were left alone as children and kinda had to make their own way in life.
I loved those books. They were some of the most entertaining, twisted books I've read in a long time. They kept me on edge and I couldn't wait to read the next one in the series.
Also, Brent Weeks has short stories out now about Durzo Blint. I believe they are preludes and probably will help explain more of the world he created.
I'm sorry no one else had much to say about these books. I thought they were amazing, all in all. :)

[Tobias]

Don't get me wrong, I loved the book. And I've only read the first book but I agree with you that it was one of the most entertaining and twisted books I've read in a long time.

[P.J.]

I really enjoyed The Way of Shadows and the rest of the trilogy. I admit I found them a little hokey, and not always well written, but thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless.

I found elene to be pretty annoying in the later books, but I think that was possibly the intention.

[Jessica]

Hokey? Aren't all scifi and fantasy hokey. None of that can really happen. That's like saying Star Wars is hokey. lol :)

[P.J.]

Lol, I suppose, but what I meant is that I found the plot rather contrived, especially after having read how Brent Weeks likes to construct the plot!

I still enjoyed them though.

[Jessica]

Spoilers ahead....


I read this book a few days ago, and I have to say, I found it a trial. I agree with Bob, that the political factions were very poorly dealt with. More than that, though, I found the writing fairly clunky and inconsistent. For example, the very first thing Durzo Blint says to Azoth is "I've done worse things than kill a child," (or something to that effect, I may be paraphrasing) and yet later, when Azoth thinks he's committed a terrible act of cruelty against a child, Blint gets drunk and sits there wondering how anybody could think he would be so cruel... It just didn't really make sense to me at all.

Also, I never really warmed to Azoth. In the beginning, Jarl is collecting money for him, right? Why? Why doesn't he use the money for himself? We're never told why he feels Azoth is just so fabulously special that he deserves it. And for that matter, why doesn't Azoth collect his *own* money? Why should Jarl get beaten up for it??

And the conversations often didn't make sense to me, either. There were times when people were having what seemed to be perfectly normal conversations, and then one would start yelling all of a suddden, and I didn't quite get why... It was like Weeks just couldn't build up tension properly, it all came out of all of a sudden...

Sorry for the mini-rant... I just didn't really get this book at all.

[P.J.]

That's fair, Jessica. I don't like A Game of Thrones myself.

With regards to the Blint comment, I think it's more bluster than anything, and an oblique reference to his past, which is revealed later.

[Jessica]

Yeah, I know what you mean about it being bluster, and I got that he has a dark and mysterious past... It just struck me as funny (and very clunky writing) that someone would declare on one page "I kill children" and then a few pages later be sitting in a bar with his head in his hands going "WHY do people think I kill children???" The parody kind of writes itself! :)

[P.J.]

How did I not notice that?

[P.J.]

Lol, and who says bad writing is limited to self published books?

*cough* twilight *cough*

Ahem, that's a whole other story! Anyhow, back to Way of Shadows. Thinking back, there are a few bits in the book that made me squirm, they were so bad, and as for the cardboard cut out villains ...

I still enjoyed it, but you're right, it does have issues.

[Jessica]

Another thing I didn't like about it (last one, I promise) was some of the terms. "Wetboy" for example. For obvious reasons, this calls to my mind pictures of Adam Sandler, or somebody equally drippy and irritating. It does not, IMO, say 'kick-ass assassin with magical powers'.

Also, they call their victims "deaders"?? I couldn't stop saying that in a dirty Dublin accent (anyone here Irish??)

Those words just ruined what little cool factor I was trying to glean.

[P.J.]

Lol, yeah. I think he got the idea of wetboy from the term wetwork. Certainly undermined the book - It kept becoming 'wetboi' I'm my head, lol.

Not one of his better ideas!

[Rob]

I must admit, I found this book to be pretty terrible, and couldn't bring myself to go onto the second and third. After reading I looked on amazon, and found myself agreeing with most of the points from the following review. I hope the author doesn't mind me copy and paste.

"The story was ok but largely unoriginal, not a problem in itself but I found the quality of the writing/story telling not up to scratch. In places the book felt like it was aimed at younger readers especially in terms of speech, but then that seemed to clash with child rape, levels of violence etc. I also had a problem with what appeared to me to be attempts at originality / possibly attempts to target a younger/contemporary audience that didn't fit for me. Its the authors world so do what you want but it appeared an odd mix of oriental/European setting that just jarred to me. The naming conventions were awful 'Momma K' sounds like a rapper rather than a sophisticated courtesan, 'Bigs' for older guild members, 'Deaders' for targets etc it all just felt wrong.

Speech between characters was also not well written. There was one conversation between a soon to be Duke and an Ex street urchin which read like an MTV special with Paris Hilton with lots of 'Like' in it. Again that's quite contemporary, but didn't fit with the young Duke having servants who referred to him as "Mi'lord"

I didn't like most of the characters either I just didn't bond with them and they didn't seem very 'real'. As I was reading I didn't identify with any of the characters enough to care about them one way or the other and I don't think they responded realistically to situations everything was too simplistic for me. Not sure if this is the authors teaching background leading him to aim at younger readers, but as the characters grew into adults they didn't develop as much as they should have.

Anyway the book has got lots of good reviews so it obviously works for some people, but for me it too much of a mishmash and to awkward. Pity as I was looking for a new author to pick up for the long term."

[Chie]

O.o I thought it was entertaining and well written.
*Is impressed by hazy shadowy effects*. And I liked how fragmented the whole book was. I think it really suits this 'ram-shackled world/au' feeling of the book. And it I thought it had been done on purpose.

The term Night Angels was a nice touch. I thought if the Night Angels were an actual religion/cult, it would have been very good.

The introduction was good,but I have to admit the whole following slum/doll girl/Jarl(?) scenario was really iffy. Weeks was really trying to make his characters less superficial but I did not like most of them, they just didn't fit. I thought they were in China at first, but they really weren't.

The characters I did like were Durzo and the mage. Durzo personality is a reflection of the book. Raw, but not so dark,alone-but not lonely ,like magic and illusions,hard to master but easy to penetrate. A raindrop on the tip of a leaf. I liked this about Durzo. He was 'on the edge of glory' and madness.His flaws were so fascinating. I think him dying might just have squashed all that is good about this series. This mixture of good and bad I think makes the book quite likeable.