A Book Review

Actually a review of a trilogy.

I happened upon this author by chance at one of my old haunts, The World's Biggest Bookstore, which had, as far as about 2003 or so when I stopped working there, the most linear footage dedicated to books, and thus still retained the coveted title of "world's biggest".

Strolling through the fictions section during my annual visit to Toronto, I came across an end-cap that featured the works of Brent Weeks. A new and upcoming fantasy author, I picked up the first book on a lark, and when I got back home, bought the next two in the series from Amazon.jp.

The Review: The Night Angel Trilogy

The Way of Shadows
Shadow's Edge
Beyond the Shadows

To be honest, I desperately wanted to hate this series. The fantasy genre has, for me, died since I read George R. R. Martin's epic (and on-going) A Song of Fire and Ice series. This was the yard-stick by which all other fantasy would be measured, and for so long none other had.

This is where it gets confusing. To date, I have found only one other author that evinces a similar epic feel, and thus succeeds for me as great modern fantasy, and that author is not Brent Weeks. Rather that title goes to fellow Canuck Steven Erikson, whose Malazan books are based on a GURPS game he ran/was part of.

Martin and Erikson, through their works, evoke a living, breathing, world. While both authors' works are character driven, these characters exist in worlds vast in scope and detail. Careful and loving attention is given to the mechanisms of their worlds, and the reactions and consequences of dabbling with those mechanisms are realistic and logical, albeit in a fantasy structure.

By contrast, Weeks' world is far less consistent or fleshed out. While he does a good job of painting pretty scenery, there's a feeling that the locales that make up the book are mere set-pieces in an otherwise drab continental back-lot. The grand cities and dark slums seem like pretty decoration in world otherwise devoid of life.

Yet this is a surmountable obstacle, and one I hope Weeks remedies. After all, both Martin and Erikson have had literally thousands of pages with which to develop their worlds, while Weeks' initial offering is a mere 2100 pages or so long.

Yes, that last bit is to be read with a little bit of sarcasm.

If you've been paying attention, you'll remember that I said I wanted to hate this series. The fact is that I don't. The fact is that I was highly entertained by the series, and eagerly await his subsequent offerings.

I've been reading a lot of reviews for this book, mostly because of my own conflicting thoughts on it, and most cite Weeks' characters as the main strength of the book. This is a book about assassins, evil sorcerers, maidens fair and true, femme fatales and valiant kings. Weeks does make very interesting characters, and the suffering that he puts them through pay dividends at the end of the series when he finally ties in all the plots and character stories. We understand why certain characters are they way they are, and understand (and are indeed satisfied) by the changes they have undergone.

But the characters aren't particularly original or innovative. The main protagonist is a (at times) reluctant hero. A king is betrayed and struck down, but his honour and integrity sees him though his ordeals to greatness. A young princess reveals herself to be far more able than her age would suggest. And there is more than one villain who's downfall is their unwavering faith in their own superiority.

Such descriptions could be applied to any number of characters from any number of books. These are archetypes for a reason. But I think that most readers prefer such archetypes, precisely because they are familiar. They are not alien to us, as such creatures would surely defy our understanding of their character and motive. Such characters would take far more work to draw us into the story, or might even serve to repel us.

So if Weeks' work isn't spectacularly character- or world-worthy, then what is it that I so drew me in? Ultimately, I think it comes down to the language on two levels.

First is his writing style. Weeks' offers us short, often action packed chapters which leave us wanting to learn more. And unlike Martin's sometimes infuriating tendency to create a cliff-hanger which isn't resolved until four or five or more chapters later, Weeks' has no problem giving us near instant gratification with a mere turn of the page. The style is written in a populist manner which reads quickly. There isn't any lengthy prose here, and the economy of the language serves to propel the plot forward at almost dizzying speed.

Second is the language used by his characters. One of the most glaring problems in this series is the frequently anachronistic language used by the characters (and the narrative, though I have fewer qualms about that). One scene has the main character admiring the...rear assets of a particularly comely lass. I half expected him to think 'mmmm dat ass!', and I wonder if Weeks' was thinking that as he wrote it. There are other problems, such as when a character explains that he's going to make something called a dictionary, an idea foreign to this world, while some pages later another character puns how melted gold is a better liquid asset, demonstrating his at least basic understanding of modern financial terminology.

Yet these random, 20th-century (?) words may inadvertently be one of the series' strengths. The characters are engaging because they are not only archetypal, but because they are so identifiable to the reader. They speak and act in a way that we might in such a situation. More specifically, they speak and act in a way we might if we were players in a D&D game. By (inadvertently?), filling the mouths and heads of his characters with modern terms and concepts, he has created characters that are intimately familiar to us.

In the end, this is why I enjoyed this series so much. I felt that the characters, and indeed the story and world, were some great D&D campaign that I was taking part in. I could be the main character because I had played characters that were, in my mind at least, as bad-ass Kylar, noble as Logan, or as mature as Jenine. I had created villains as cruel as Garroth, or as scheming as Neph Dada.

These are, admittedly, observations from a long-time RPGer, and so I would be curious to see what the opinions of someone not a gamer are after reading this series. In the end, I would suggest this series to any fan of the fantasy genre.