Review of The Way of Shadows
Oct
25
2008

The Way of Shadows
by Brent Weeks
688pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
Amazon Rating: 4/5
LibraryThing Rating: 4/5
Goodreads Rating: 4.58/5

Note: This review may contain spoilers. I always try to give a little bit of detail on the plot without mentioning anything I wouldn’t want to know before reading the book myself and didn’t think there were any major spoilers in this review… But I noticed that the author mentioned on his site this review contained spoilers. So I’m adding a warning because I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone!

The Way of Shadows is the debut novel of Brent Weeks and the first book in “The Night Angel Trilogy.” Although this book was released only last month, the rest of the books in the trilogy will be available by the end of the year. Shadow’s Edge, the second book, is scheduled to be out on October 28 but is already on the shelves in some bookstores (at least it was at my local Borders the beginning of this week). The final novel in the series, Beyond the Shadows, has a release date of November 25.

Azoth and his two friends, a boy named Jarl and a mute only known as “Doll Girl,” live in the slums among other children. He dreams of becoming the apprentice of Durzo Blint, the legendary wetboy (an assassin with magical abilities), and being able to keep Doll Girl and Jarl from harm. Azoth encounters Durzo on a few occasions and begs him to teach him his craft. After several refusals, Durzo agrees to train Azoth under one condition – he must kill Rat, a violent older boy who terrorizes the other children. As a sympathetic boy who tends to look out for his friends, Azoth is unable to complete this task until Rat hurts Doll Girl. With Rat dead, Durzo accepts Azoth as his apprentice but tells him he must leave his old life behind, including his friendships with Jarl and Doll Girl. Durzo fakes the death of Azoth and gives him the new identity of Kylar Stern, a young nobleman of a minor family.

Throughout the years, Kylar learns about fighting and poisons from Durzo but cannot use his magical Talent no matter how hard he tries. Although he becomes a very capable assassin under Durzo’s tutelage, he can never truly be a wetboy without the Talent. In addition to attempting to develop his magical abilities, Kylar struggles with leaving the past behind. He has always cared about Doll Girl and feels responsible for the scars Rat left her, so he arranged for her to live with a nice family and sends her part of his allowance. Occasionally, he watches her from afar but Durzo has forbidden any interaction with her on the grounds that a proper wetboy should not love. He knows from personal experience that those you care about can be used against you by enemies.


The Way of Shadows is a rather long book at almost 700 pages but it seems shorter since it lacks long descriptions, has a lot of dialogue, and has great pacing that keeps the pages turning. It was not a book that was terribly original with a fairly standard fantasy setting containing kings, dukes, swordfighting, assassins (yes, they may be called wetboys but they’re really just a higher level assassin aided by magic), war and conflict, mages, and prophets. Yet there are two more books and the premise of the Night Angel revealed toward the end has potential for an interesting backstory and mythological basis.

The book contains a lot of focus on characters, and although they are likable and not completely one dimensional, I felt that they could have had more depth. Kylar is a basically good-hearted assassin who is reluctant to kill innocents. Underneath the tough exterior, Durzo has a heart as well and has just grown better accustomed to hiding it over the years. It is not that the characters are shallow; they just have the personality traits you often read about when trying to make someone with an immoral job into someone a reader can have sympathy for. I did care about what happened to Kylar and Durzo but I was never devastated when tragedy befell either of them to the extent I should have been.

On the subject of tragedy, it does happen and the story can be somewhat dark although it never seemed shockingly so to me. For instance, it was not nearly as brutal as Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series.

One minor quibble I had with the book was calling the assassins “wetboys.” They’re supposed to be so much better than an assassin but with a name like that, they do not sound tough at all. It sounds like they should be the guys that fetch water for all the important people instead of killers inspiring fear in the hearts of their enemies.

The Way of Shadows is a fast-paced, entertaining read that is difficult to put down. It is not particularly unique, but it is a very fun book.

7/10

Read Chapter One

Other reviews:

Review of Probability Moon
Oct
19
2008

Probability Moon
by Nancy Kress
320pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 7/10
Amazon Rating: 3.5/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3.22/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.38/5

Probability Moon by Nancy Kress is the first book in the “Probability” trilogy and is followed by Probability Sun and Probability Space. Kress is probably best known for her novella Beggars in Spain, which won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards in 1991, and evolved into an entire trilogy (review). The first two novels in this series, Beggars in Spain and Beggars and Choosers, were nominated for both Hugos and Nebulas for best novel but did not win either, although Kress has won 4 Nebula awards for her novellas and short stories.

Probability Moon takes place in the distant future. Humans have found a method of traveling throughout space, but during their explorations they discovered the Fallers, an alien race bent on their destruction. Soon there is war between the two races and humanity is facing extermination–until they find a new planet and realize one of its seven moons is not a moon at all. It is actually a manufactured object, perhaps a weapon to use against the Fallers. Scientists are sent on a secret mission to study it under the guise of observing the aliens living on the planet, who are unusual in that they “share reality” and experience physical pain if they do not all share the same beliefs. A team of anthropologists is sent to study the aliens, completely unaware of the real purpose of the mission and the fact that the rest of the ship’s crew will be examining the “moon.”

Enli, a young female, has been declared “unreal” by Reality and Atonement for the murder of her brother. Now she is an outcast since all the “real” people must ignore her while she works to earn back her right to be a part of reality and have a proper burial for her brother, whom she cared deeply for. When the humans come to her world, she is assigned to spy on them and gather information allowing the aliens to decide whether or not the humans are real or unreal. If the researchers are found to be different from the aliens, they will be killed, according to the traditional penalty for those who do not share reality.


The alien race in Probability Moon was very well done and I hope the next two books in the series contain more about them. Having a uniform belief system is an intriguing idea – it sounds horrible (and rather dull) in one sense; however, when the people all share the same worldview, it results in no disagreements and no war. Yet the pain is not the only method of controlling shared reality since the unreal or children who never grow up to exhibit signs of being real are executed, which is a rather harsh price for keeping a peaceful community.

There were several characters the story focused on, mainly the anthropologists studying the world, the military team on the ship studying the moon-artifact, and Enli. None of the humans were particularly well developed, although I did find David, the young and inexperienced man who became part of the expedition only through the influence of his father, rather interesting and the best developed of them. David believed the aliens and their shared reality was far superior to humanity and wanted to learn how to genetically modify humans to have shared reality, envisioning himself as a hero who would create peace on earth. The unreal alien was the most real and sympathetic character in the story with her sadness about her brother and wish to be accepted and redeclared a part of her people’s reality. I would like to know more about the details of what happened to Enli and her brother as well as more information on why she was declared unreal but not killed.

This book was a little slow to start with, other than the chapters about Enli which captured my attention from the beginning. I did find the parts that took place in space particularly hard to read early in the novel, but they became easier to read as the story progressed and this was the storyline that had fewer pages dedicated to it.

Probability Moon is a thoughtful novel about two very different races trying to learn about each other, as well as humanity’s quest for knowledge that could save them. Recommended to fans of first contact stories and those who enjoy imaginative science fiction.

7/10

Iain Banks Email Q&A: Part Three
Oct
19
2008

The newest Iain Banks Q&A is up (this is a few days late but I only just saw it a few minutes ago). In this one, he answers questions about killing off characters, his novel Walking on Glass, the existence of gods in the Culture, technological singularity, whether or not any of his books have been banned, and how disappointing it must be to live in Britain instead of the Culture.

In case anyone missed them, here are links to the first two Q&As:

Final Thoughts: Camp Concentration
Oct
18
2008

The first book blogger discussion week has come to an end. (For more information on the origins of this, you can read about it at OF Blog of the Fallen.) It was a great idea and I’m looking forward to the next one covering Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling in December. Although I didn’t think it was a particularly enjoyable book, Camp Concentration was a great selection since it offered more to talk about than a lot of the more entertaining books that are out there.

It was fun to read everybody’s reviews and I think getting a few different perspectives on the novel was helpful in appreciating it more. I found it helpful to actually spend the week reading different reviews and comments instead of writing my review and then just moving on to the next book. Reading the reviews and comments and writing my own comments also made me think of a few things I wish I had further clarified in my review so I’m going to write about them now.

My main issue with Camp Concentration was that I didn’t feel like I knew enough about the characters to really care about what happened to them or be sad about some pretty harsh circumstances. However, this novel was still fairly character-driven, especially taking into consideration the fact that this was not common for science fiction novels written around the same time. It was told entirely through the eyes of one character and detailed his life at Camp Archimedes and his transformation throughout the story. It still did not entirely work for me (although his characterization was certainly better than some of the older science fiction authors such as Asimov), but I think it is important to remember that it is a fairly old book as far as science fiction is concerned. This is why I’d be interested in finding out more about how Disch’s work was influential and which authors would claim him as an inspiration.

I also stated in my review that I did not feel the book was particularly original or challenging, and I think this could have used some further clarification. It did not seem particularly original to me because there have been plenty of books about corrupt governments treating their citizen’s lives as a means to an end, enhancing intelligence in some way, experimenting on humans, life as a prisoner, etc. Also, the exploration of the relationships between intelligence and knowledge and intelligence and madness were nothing new to me, either. Upon further reflection, combining these elements with literary references and the way it was put together was probably more original than I gave it credit for being. The pieces were somewhat standard but the whole was not unoriginal.

By saying the book was not “challenging” I did not mean it was not profound or thoughtful. It did contain much to think about – it’s just that the parts that stood out to me were ideas that I’d already read about before. Therefore, it did not challenge my worldview – I never stopped and thought about how I’d never thought about something that way before or changed the way I viewed an idea. For instance, I already thought that IQ tests are not a great measure of intelligence and that genius is often a matter of luck before reading about it in this novel. There was never one of those “Aha” moments for me – which doesn’t mean someone else will not have one when reading it (or that I might not have some were I to reread it).

I rambled a bit more than I meant to… I do think it was one of those books that was far more fun to discuss than it was to actually read, so it is a great book for reading groups.

December Blogger Book Club
Oct
17
2008

Post-Weird Thoughts has an announcement about the next Blogger Book Club Discussion. The next book will be Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling. I have yet to read a book by Sterling and have been curious about his work so it will be a good opportunity to give it a try. The next discussion will take place from December 8 – 12. The announcement has more details on the selected book, and if you would like to participate, leave a comment at Post-Weird Thoughts.

Update
Oct
17
2008

I was hoping to get up at least one review this week but it turned out to be a busier week than normal and I didn’t have much spare time in the evenings. This weekend I plan to get up a review on Probability Moon by Nancy Kress and perhaps a “post-discussion” post on Camp Concentration. If I can just get that one review done, I will be most of the way caught up since I just have the one on Elizabeth Bear’s “The Stratford Man” duology left other than that. I’m reading two long books right now to give myself some time to get caught up – The Court of the Air by Stephen Hunt and The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks. Since I’ve barely had any time to read this week, that’s working out well as far as not reading more than writing goes.

Clarkesworld Books is temporarily open again for those of you who are addicted like I am. I’m still trying to figure out just what to order and have been working on narrowing down my list of potential buys. If anyone has any feedback on why I should or should not get the following books let me know:

Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh
The Onion Girl by Charles de Lint
A Sundial in a Grave by Mary Gentle
Nekropolis by Maureen McHugh
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
A Princess of Roumania by Paul Park (they have signed copies of this one)
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds (I’ll probably wait on this one since I apparently need to be on vacation to read his books and I’m sure I won’t be having one of those for a while)
Sister Light, Sister Dark by Jane Yolen
The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (think this is a must buy from what I’ve heard)

They’re all fairly cheap (about $8 for most of the trade paperbacks and $3-$4 for mass market) and I’m not sure what to get. Other than Yolen, McKinley and Reynolds, I haven’t read anything by the authors in the above list (yet).