Stepping Into the Shadows

A short while back, Sangediver kicked a fantasy series my way, The Night Angel Trilogy, written by newly published author Brent Weeks. The last recommendation he'd given me was for the two (so far) Locke Lamora books, which I quite liked. And these books were somewhat similar in tone, he said. That all sounded good. Still, it took me several weeks to find the time to get started.

I'm now one book into the series, and finding it interesting. The passing similarities to Locke Lamora are mostly in subject matter. As that book was centered around a con artist, this trilogy is also built on an "unsavory" character, an assassin. Actually, as the first book begins, he's a young would-be assassin who apprentices under a master. Like the first Locke Lamora book, a sizable chunk of this novel is dedicated to the following the main character as he grows up and learns his trade.

But the similarities don't really run any more deep than this. This trilogy is about a conquering villain who overruns the city in which Our Antihero lives, and seems ultimately pitched to be a showdown between the two. (We'll see after two more books.) Locke Lamora would never throw himself in harm's way to help anyone other than himself.

The writing of this first-time novelist is a bit hit-and-miss. He has a very strong sense of his characters. More than the first third of the rather lengthy book is all what ultimately amounts to backstory, watching the young protagonist grow up, but it's actually just as compelling as anything that follows. The setting of the tale also seems very deeply thought out, with a full landscape of politics, rules of magic, and more.

But at times, he doesn't do such a great job of conveying these things to the reader. He's a smart enough writer to know that showing is better than telling, and keeps his exposition minimal. But sometimes it's a bit too minimal. I found myself occasionally confused about how a few things really work, and sometimes it takes a few chapters before you can really suss out how some new point really fits into the story.

Despite the few flaws, though, the story is engaging, and I most definitely want to continue reading the trilogy. (I'm already a good ways into book two.) I'd rate The Way of Shadows a B, though perhaps the real grade will come once I've read all three books.