Looking Into the Mirror

Over the past few years, I've been working my way through the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks. It's taken a while, since I've switched to audiobook and shared drives with my husband (mixed with other books). But we both remain interested in this interesting story with an interesting light-based magic system: magic users "draft" their power from different colors in the spectrum, each with unique properties.

I've now finished book four, The Blood Mirror, and there's very little I could say about the plot -- it either would spoil things for people starting the series, or be incomprehensible to those who haven't read it. Suffice it to say, there are still multiple running plot lines, each centered on a different characters. High status characters continue to be brought down, lower status characters continue to ascend, and the narrative is working its way to the conclusion coming in the next book. What I can do is again recommend the series as a whole, and as of this book, I still would. The Blood Mirror may not be perfect, but it's absolutely something I think most fantasy readers would enjoy.

There are still fun new revelations in the plot, even this deep into the story. Book four brings a "the truth was sitting there the whole time" kind of reveal that made me better appreciate the time that had been spent with one particular character whose story I'd thought had come to be a bit repetitive. (Bonus: I feel like the books had mostly played fair in hiding this development from the reader up to this point.)

I continue to love Teia, a character only introduced to the series in book two. Looking with dispassion at the story as a whole, she's not the main character. Yet she gets just as much screen time as the figure the world seems to turn upon, if not more. She's a more nuanced, more compelling, and more sympathetic character -- who doesn't have as much power to get easily get herself out of the problems that befall her.

I especially appreciate Teia's presence as elsewhere, another female character (who has been around since book one) has fallen out of the story almost entirely. It's almost laughable how little Liv appears in this book; I guess she's already arrived at where the story needs her to be for the big ending in the next book, so she has to just sit and wait for everyone else to catch up. Still, it definitely feels like one of the weaker parts of this book that a major character isn't really important in it at all.

Still, I can repeat praise I've given to previous books: I find the world and magic interesting and I've enjoyed seeing characters develop. I do feel this book might have been a bit slower generally than the ones before, as though the Lightbringer series really could have been four-and-a-half books (but a deal had already been signed). But the elements that work really did work for me. I feel that going into the final book, a good balance has been struck between expectations I have for the ending and uncertainty about what some of the particulars of that might look like.

I give The Blood Mirror a B+. Next time I'm back to talk about the series (many months down the road), it will be to report whether the series stuck the landing.