The Way of Shadows (Night Angel) [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [Audio CD]

I bought this book on a whim. I hadn't read anything new in awhile and was looking for a new series to lose myself in.
I'll be honest it was the cover and then the blurb which attracted me. I was expecting a rather lacklustre piece I could put down at any point. Something not to hard on the mind, just something to pay attention to when I had nothing else to do.

To my pleasure this turned out to be something I willingly sacrificed doing work among other things. I'm a big fantasy fan. This stems from my love of the Final Fantasy series. This book almost effortlessley creates and entire world. We don't even get to see or hear about all of it in the first novel. I'm a big fan of maps and am always flicking back so I can give myself a mental picture of the area's being described.
In my opinion the truly amazing part was the creation of whole new cultures and customs. The "wetboy" as being different to an Assassin. I was slightly dissapointd by the occasional jump of years but can easily understand why it was done.
With this is mind the book did have some flaws. At times the writing was similar to teenage novelists but I may be ignorant of the intended audience.

My favourite part of this book is without a doubt the characters. All major characters receive intense attention and depth. Even minor characters receive similar scrutiny. This goes from similar "wetboys" to characters such as the Sethi Ships Capatain.
Character construction or in some cases revalation goes on throughout the book offering up many interesting twists and turns to what you perceive as being the truth. Brent Weeks has no qualms about revealing the cruelty of human nature even if some of his characters to strive to be noble and just. Even the heroine gets terribly scarred. I love this because the characters are what I construe as being true to life. The best part is that with the exception of few these "evil" actions usually get justified or excused by the narrative. You can almost understand the logic and reasoning behind said actions.

As a whole I dislike obvious use of magic. However the use of magic is so entwined and ingrained that sometimes it becomes a nuiscance that some people are unable to use magic in what is a book packed with it. Those characters unable to use it have a tendency to be the more heroic but thats a limited concept. The un-magical characters can be just as cruel as everyone else. I applaud that as sometimes there is an unneccessary use of awe to emphasis the use of magic. This acceptance is another reasons I think the books is excellent.

I would certainly recommend this to any fantasy fan. I would also remind people that if they're expecting a story of princes and castles that this book is going to shake the foundations of those expectations. Its a fantastic read I couldn't put it down and would always make time to fit in a few hours reading during the day. If your looking for somewhere to literally lose yourself then Midcyru is certainly the place.

Unpredictable. Action-packed. Makes a reader look forward to what is going to happen next. Story-telling quality is good. But the ending is a cliffhanger. The ending is the start of the next book, so you have to read the next book. The ending is the only reason this book did not garner a five-star rating.

After releasing both books of Karen Miller's Kingmaker, Kingbreaker duology within the space of a few months (and, it must be said, achieving considerable success with such a method), Orbit decided to do the same with Brent Weeks' The Night Angel Trilogy: all three books were released within a month of each other.

This is a particularly clever marketing ploy, as it means that fans don't have to wait long for each instalment, while the author's reputation and presence is built all the more quickly (or destroyed, depending on the books!).

Quite a bit of buzz has been steadily growing online around The Way of Shadows, so it moved rapidly up my reading list. I must confess I had my doubts about this debut, one being that it might veer too far towards bubblegum fantasy territory. Having finished the novel, I've found that some of my concerns were justified while others were not.

In short, The Way of Shadows is something of a mixed bag.

The weakest aspect for me was the worldbuilding, or to be blunt, total lack of it. What we have is a standard medieval-esque world of kings, princes, assassins and soldiers. There's even a magic sword and a prophecy. In short, there is absolutely no innovation whatsoever. For some readers this is not a problem; the issue of worldbuilding vs characterisation is an old one, and many fans of the genre are quite happy as long as the story and characters are good. That's fair enough, but personally I like fantasies where the author attempts to push the boundaries a bit, do something a little different. Failing that, the world needs to at least come through well in the writing; I need to be able to become absorbed in it. Weeks' world fails on both accounts for me - it's neither particularly interesting and it just never reeled me in. There were hints of a more Asian influence (rice paddies, tantos, etc) but this was never built upon. Subsequently, the world became a backdrop and nothing more, rather than a vibrant, living place.

The writing at first seemed little better. Again, this may just be my personal taste, but I found the prose a bit simplistic. There was some really clunky exposition and I felt certain events badly lacked context. For example - without giving anything away - there's a scene early on where a certain individual overhears two men discussing the dynastic succession. Maybe it was just me, but I struggled to really grasp the importance of the situation or what was at stake - there were too many names flying around for me to really appreciate exactly what was happening. On top of that, certain words - Momma, helluva - are too modern and are subsequently jarring.

Having said that, the writing improves considerably over the course of the book and the final third displays some much better descriptive prose. There was one scene in particular that I thought Weeks handled extremely well and was clearly the stand-out moment in the book for me, though obviously I can't reveal what it is. While I never fully took to Weeks' style, it is at least accessible and I saw enough to believe that the next books in the trilogy will contain superior writing to this one.

The characterisation was a little bit hit and miss for me. Some characters - Durzo Blint, Azoth/Kylar, Momma K (still don't like that name) - were handled and developed well, but others (Solon/Feir/Dorian/Duke Gyre) were less so. Azoth/Kylar does make for a good, engaging protagonist, and Blint is a very strong support act, so ultimately Weeks does manage to create an entertaining cast that hold the reader's attention.

The plot is what really saves The Way of Shadows from total mediocrity. To his credit, Weeks has constructed a plot that generally moves at a good pace and has a high number of twists, some of which most readers will never see coming. It's been a while since I've read a novel with this many surprises, so credit to Weeks for that. On the other hand though, I do think the best authors are able to drop hints prior to the twist/secret being revealed. For example, George R. R. Martin is very good at doing this, so you're able to flick back over the novel and think "Yeah, all the signs were there - I just didn't see them." The twists in Weeks' novel aren't as subtle, and for me one or two of the twists seemed a bit hollow. Still, when all is said and done Weeks has created an absorbing plot.

I had one or two other minor complaints: I would have liked to have seen much more of Azoth's/Kylar's training, as the plot jumps ahead by two years more than once, which threw me a bit. I did at times feel that Azoth/Kylar was too skilled - to the point where it lessened the tension. Still, relatively minor complaints.

In all, despite the world being rather standard (and not coming through as well as I'd have liked), the writing being clunky at times and the characterisation blowing hot and cold, there was something that appealed to me about The Way of Shadows. I can't quite put my finger on it, though the plot certainly helped me to enjoy the novel. I've read much better fantasy novels, but then again I've read far worse. For a debut, it's not bad at all and I think it has all the right ingredients to appeal to a lot of readers.

I've heard Weeks compared to Scott Lynch, though I think that has more to do with the similar nature of their debuts - Lynch, for me, is a better writer in all departments. That said, I'll probably check out the next book in The Night Angel Trilogy, as I think Weeks does have potential.