Very Knife!

I'm past the point where I can retain all the plot points from all the as-yet-unfinished book series whose authors I'm waiting on for the next volume -- and consequently, I rarely start an unfinished series these days. But finished series aren't so hard a sell, and that's how last year I embarked on the five book Lightbringer series from Brent Weeks... and recently finished book two, The Blinding Knife.

If I'm to persuade any of my readers to become readers of a book series, then spoilers become a major consideration after book one of a serialized saga. So I'll have to keep things general and recap only the basics: this is set in a world where magical power is derived from light (and specifically, which colors in the spectrum you can "draft" from). There are tropes here: a familiar "Chosen One" (or is he?) character, and a familiar wise sorcerer character (though he's not especially wise, and not much of an advisor).

The Blinding Knife builds up a lot of what's intriguing about the setting, and it also satisfying develops the aspects that aren't the most trope-tastic parts of the narrative. We're introduced to a very engaging new character, Teia, and her relationship to the magical system of this series is unexpected and compelling. The political landscape continues to develop, with the major antagonist developing in a good way -- he has a good underlying point (as the best villains do), but goes about achieving his ends in a truly monstrous way (as the best villains do).

Other subversions of the fantasy formula are more subtle, but no less welcome. The arc of a young magic apprentice coming into his power is nice in that he really has to work to improve. His facility with magic is all you'd expect it to be, but he's not especially smart and certainly can't do "everything." He regularly needs help from others (especially the new character, Teia), and he's a pawn in a game that others understand far better than he.

The pace does slacken at times. In particular, Brent Weeks' fascination with the real-world Magic: the Gathering shows too often, and the romantic tension between two of the characters doesn't feel as tense to me as it was surely intended. But quibbling about pace is a very different thing than arguing that "nothing happens." I was actually shocked at how much does happen in this book, for a series that's going to continue three books more. At least one major subplot that I felt sure was going to loom large in the later books appears to be shockingly, abruptly ended in this book. And a major "hammer waiting to fall" actually does so as part of the cliffhanger here, rather than another book or two from now as I might have anticipated.

Starting here with book two, I made the switch from reading the series to listening to the audiobook version. Epic fantasy tomes can certainly take up a lot of listening time, so this approach probably isn't for everyone. And while I can't say that narrator Simon Vance is among my favorite readers I've listened to, his British accent certainly suits the atmosphere I'd hoped to be immersed in when I first took on a five-volume high fantasy series.

I give The Blinding Knife a B+. I'll definitely be moving onto book three of the series.