Burnt Ends

For years now (two-and-a-half of them), I've been working on the Lightbringer series by author Brent Weeks. (Fortunately, not back-to-back; I've interspersed the series with other books). Now, at last, I've completed the fifth and final book, The Burning White.

The Lightbringer is a fantasy series set in a world with a light-based magic system. Magic users are capable of "drafting" a magical substance directly from light itself; the effects depend on which color on the spectrum the wielder is capable of using. This intriguing system formed the backdrop of an epic series involving an evil magic-user trying to conquer the world, a powerful force for good secretly hiding his true identity and dark nature, a young boy who may or may not be a "chosen one" with a destiny, an unusually-powered slave girl caught up in a web of treachery and murder, and much, much, much more.

This final book of the series is the longest one yet -- the single volume alone is easily the length of many complete fantasy trilogies. With the exception of book one of the series, I've listened to all of them in audiobook format, and this one took literally months to get through, in shared car trips with my husband. But was it worth it?

Probably? But I'm deeply conflicted about the way the series wrapped up.

On the one hand, most of the characters in the book (and there are a lot of them) reached a truly satisfying ending. And the story overall allowed for a wide range of endings: some were expected where others weren't, some villains got the comeuppance they richly deserved while others didn't, some heroes triumphed while others didn't make it to the last page. I was, by and large, very satisfied with the endpoint for each of the characters in this sprawling tale.

But I was far less satisfied with how they got there. For one thing, that length I spoke of didn't feel at all necessary. The novel felt so long-winded that it seemed often more about the writer's self-indulgence than rewarding the fans. It simply didn't feel like it needed to take so long to get all those characters to those satisfying endings.

Particularly when Brent Weeks was ultimately going to employ some huge cheats in the final act. The phrase "deus ex machina" gets tossed around a lot by people who want to express dissatisfaction with cop-outs by pretending to know a little Latin. But it would be more than fair to use that phrase in describing the way The Burning White ends. Huge, insurmountable problems are solved trivially, in the least satisfying possible way.

So ultimately, do the ends justify the means? That's really hard to say -- though I suppose I'd say that the ends were good enough to make me not want to rage on the whole series, which I've otherwise enjoyed. Frankly, I'm just shocked that a modern fantasy writer, who had put so much work into weaving costs and stakes into his created world, would actually make the choices made here. But maybe he just didn't know how else to get to his intended ending? (Which, again, felt ultimately "correct" to this long-time reader.)

With great uncertainty, I'm going to give The Burning White a B-. In my view, it is undeniably the weakest book of the series. Yet it's still been an enjoyable series overall. I'm glad I read it (in audiobook form or otherwise). But if someone were to ask me whether they should start the series? It may be a while before I have that answer.