Review: The Way of Shadows and Shadow’s Edge by Brent Weeks

I am 2/3 of the way through his trilogy, and I must say, I am impressed. My picky other half selected Way of the Shadows during one of our bookstore forays, but he is obsessively reading all back issues of Playboy from cover to cover and had been ignoring it.

{He fell behind when he got out of a magazine mood, but because we get them all, he just kept them in a stack. And because I swear he is some bizarre form of OCD, he has to read them all. In order. From cover to cover. No just filing them away for future perusal and starting anew with this month’s. He has to read 18 months worth of articles. Personally, I snag it, read the main articles and the Advisor, and then promptly forget about it, and if I miss one, so be it. I lose no sleep over this.}

Therefore, I saw fit to purloin said Weeks’ novel from his stack of “to read next” books and magazines. I have since read five other books (it’s been a reading sort of month), and he is just now deciding to take a break from the obsessive compulsive backreading to hit some fiction for a change.

When I first started reading, my thought was, “oh. I don’t know if I’m in the mood for another first fantasyist attempt at a guild-driven world with some heart of gold thief or something.” It wasn’t that I dislike those sorts of books, but just that it’s such an overdone deal and so rarely really well done, that I wasn’t “feeling” the desire to try my hand at another. I decided to give it a go, however, and my initial, fleeting thought was quickly ripped to shreds like a bra at a Motley Crue concert and buried in the dark of a moonlit night. This wasn’t one of Those sorts of books at all. With a lighter heart and increased interest, I kept reading.

Several hours later, I was half-way through the book and well past my bedtime. Reading in bed does NOT put me to sleep like it does so many of my friends. Reading wakes me up. I will push on and on to get ‘just one more chapter’ in before I crash. The next day, I got up reluctantly, went to work because I had to, and when I got home, I buried myself back in the book. I came up for air to say good night to those around me and probably for dinner, since if I starved to death I’d have to stop reading.

I finished it that second night and was irked that I had not had the foresight to realize I would love this series and to buy at least the second one. I meandered around his website a bit on a break and read a few reviews. During those wanderings, I found reference to Patrick Rothfuss and Peter Brett. I read about them as well.

And that’s how I found myself in Borders on the night of my Borders’ rant below. I had come to buy the second Weeks book, and hopefully Rothfuss and Brett too. Unfortunately, here is where I messed up. I went on a business trip (aka the final weekend of grad school) the next day and instead of taking the second Weeks with me, I took the Rothfuss. I’d read so much great stuff about his The Name of the Wind that I just had to dive in right then. I’ll write more on that separately.

Anyway, I returned to Weeks and picked up Shadow’s Edge with anticipation. At first, I was so swept up in Rothfuss, I was disappointed with book 2 because it wasn't book 2 of his!

I’ll be picking up book 3 in the next day or two. Brent Weeks has held my interest. He’s built an interesting world that is not afraid to be dark and to show layers of darkness and hope entwined in complex dances. Those looking for a simple tale of fantasy heroes in epic struggles should not look here. Go read Feist; he does it well, in a simple and enjoyable way. There’s something more real here.

What you should not do, however, is pick up something like Patrick Rothfuss’s book in the middle of reading these. He’s of a different caliber entirely, a level of mastery that few can attain, and it sets unrealistic comparative expectations if you read them too close together. This is not to say that Weeks is a soft hitter, because he is not. He’s excellent thus far. I’m hoping this holds up through book 3 and then on to other books.

Recommendation: Absolutely. Go buy the trilogy and some microwave dinners and settle in.