Author: Brent Weeks
Themes: Nihilism vs faith
Quotes: "Life is empty, life is meaningless. When we take a life we take nothing of value."
Reading/Listening Time: 21 hours and 10 minutes
Review:
This book was, like, the most emo thing I read in the entire year of 2017. I stopped reading about half way because some of the dialogue was just too cheesy. It tackles some heavy issues but they're addressed in a kinda juvenile way so I had a hard time taking it seriously at first.
Luckily I came back to finish it because the second half was a lot better; it was less cheesy, and it was also really suspenseful! Everything comes together in a really satisfying way and it's neat to watch.
The story is mostly about this street urchin who apprentices himself to this master assassin dude to help him and his friends get a better life. His master is basically Edgelord Supreme and makes him repeat lovely little mantras, like the quote above, to make him not feel bad about doing bad things. (It doesn't work very well...)
The first half of the book is all about him growing up; training, setting up his alter-ego, and watching over his loved ones from afar. The second half is actually really involved, but a lot of it has to do with a mystery behind Edgelord Supreme, a theft of an extremely powerful magical artifact, and a big political coup. The secondary characters take on a life of their own at this point as well, which could have been really random but ended up being really awesome because all of their stories fit together perfectly, and you get a payoff to things you weren't anticipating.
The story kind of focuses on the criminal underbelly of society, particularly a syndicate that's run by a committee of crime-industry leaders (like the head of prostitution, assassination, banking etc.) It doesn't necessarily portray them as inherently bad people though. Mostly they're doing what's in their own self interests, just like the people in the government are doing. When we finally discover who some of them are, it's kind of like "Oh...I actually quite liked that person...s/he was nice to me."
But there's another group of people who are actually more compelling to me than the people in power on either side of the law, because their motivations are completely different and honestly they're a breath of fresh air compared to...Edgelord Supreme and Co...
I'll call them the do-gooders (just because I don't have a better name for them) and my favorite's are Count Rimbold Drake and Dorian Ursuul:
I particularly loved it when we get Count Drake's backstory and you see he's a lot more than the goody-two-shoes they've built him up to be. He actually says some really profound things; and he represents a perspective that was really needed in this book.
I loved Dorian's antics too. He's a lot more active of a character in the plot than Count Drake (Count Drake is more in the background) but Dorian is kind of one of the more powerful magical characters in the book and he's focused on using his magic for good. (Most people who can use magic can really only use it in, like, one specific way but Dorian can do, like 3: Fire magic, healing magic, and also he's sort of a prophet or soothsayer. The sad thing his, he knows that using his prophetic gifts will give him insanity as he grows older but HE KEEPS DOING IT ANYWAY because he believes it's important. Something he's seen in his vision's convinced him that he needs to take active part in shaping the future.
I think it's weird they don't mention it a whole lot, but by his last name we know he's the son of a king. And that the king dude makes it a point to have as many kids as possible and the most powerful/brutal one will get the throne. Dorian's just not about that life.
He's also really funny, and this story really needed that too.)
One character I didn't like much was Doll Girl. You get the feeling she's supposed to be this perfect little cinnamon roll, but every time Azoth starts talking about how tragic and perfect she is I want to tell him to shut up.
Also she can go from "I am eternally in your debt, how can I every repay you?!" to "Don't you ever talk to me or my cat again" outrageously fast.
Rating; 3/5 stars.
No comments:
Post a Comment