The Black Prism

Let's be honest; I've been dreading reading this. Why? Because [b:The Night Angel Trilogy|6122735|The Night Angel Trilogy (Night Angel, #1-3)|Brent Weeks|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1450327994l/6122735._SX50_.jpg|6537338] ended up a broken promise. Good beginning, steady decline in the quality of characterization and plotting, and, need I mention, a sexist hot mess? At any rate, Weeks seems to have been going for something different here, or at least something more developed--say perhaps, Epic--and it works much better.

Except it's so damn conscious of being epic that I roll my eyes just looking at it--that heft! The matte black cover! The half-hidden silhouette! The bold text! Impress yourself show more much?

It is Epic, "epic" with an intentionally capitalized 'E.' This is a book that wants to dominate your shelves, expand into a series and crowd out all the others. Weeks has built a blocky but solid foundation that will no doubt carry him a Jordanian expanse. This is Epic Crank, with one damn crisis after another, and if they can't all fit into book one, well, surely they'll show up in books two, three and four. There's no shortage of conflict large and small: An almost-orphan with a drug addict mother, a village rebelling against a ruler, a woman caught between two brothers, an occupied city, an unfulfilled prophecy for a world, a religious revolution. Brothers fighting for their father's approval. Magical tests. Deception. Bandits. Isolation, social and physical. Magic and madness. Discovering inner potential. A siege. A country made up of kingdoms only nominally working together. A school of magic that may be rotting from within.

Familiar ingredients, and I dare say that there isn't much original with them, beyond composing the story around an unique and interesting magic system--and throwing the entire kitchen sink into one book. I'm sure you've heard all about how 'light' forms the basis of magic, and it is one of the concepts that sets this book apart. Magic users get so many opportunities to use that magic before it drives them insane, or at least that's how the canon goes. Some users on the other team are giving madness a shot, one of the more interesting plot lines in the book.

What I did discover is that Weeks can write an engrossing story when he stops jumping around different characters, ala Night Angel, and gets to the business of writing. Here he limits himself to Kip, the orphan boy; Gavin, the most powerful magic-user in the land and spiritual head of the religion; Karris, a magic user and top-notch fighter; Liv, Kip's tutor, fellow townie and daughter of a famous traitor; and one other spoilery character that seems to be crazy. I know that's a lot of people, but it's a score less than the Night Angel series, so I counted myself lucky. I could just about tell exactly where the plot was headed and I read anyways--that's how fast-paced it is, and how good Weeks is at sucking one in. It's just the thought of committing to that big fat book and it's subsequent followers that leaves me shying away.

It's Epicness will surely meet most Epic-readers needs, and that it will meet my Epic needs if I discover I have them in the future. It certainly moved quickly, was engaging and the magic ideas were interesting, especially as users reached the end of their lifespans and chose actions accordingly. The identity-catechism ambiguity--which was only a side point of this book--seems promising. As an aside, the writing didn't annoy me, although it didn't necessarily soar either.

Gavin was by far the most interesting character, a multifaceted jewel of complexity, and most of the depth is spent on him. It was worth it, and while he was the character I was ready to hate, by the end I think he was rather admirable. Kip, alas, does not fare as well and seems surprisingly modern whiny for a doughy (wasn't he penniless?), tradeless, drug-user's boy who is clearly A Speshul Snowflake. It rather feels like channeling modern Garion; one minute sulky pouting, the next adolescent hormones and the next all snark. In this case, it seems clearly the fault of the writing, which usually picks one of the three traits to emphasize and doesn't let him color far outside those lines. Karris is WonderWoman, except that she needs to be saved after she sinks into The Pit of Despair, and poor young Liv is being set up by Bad Guys on Both Sides, I can just tell, although she also has an interesting complexity of motivations. But I foresee that the general characterization of women will piss me off in the future, given that Week's already spoiled Karris by making her into one big ball of trope.

There's lots to love for Epic fans; I just don't seem to be an Epic Fan right now. I put it down a number of times because I just couldn't take its demands.

This may indeed be the series that modern Epic Fans were waiting for, but I confess, I only remotely care. Someday, I'll have an Epic need, and I'll surely pick up the second. But I've got a few other higher priority books first.

Three and a half stars.

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/08/28/the-black-prism-by-brent-weeks-or-epic... show less

Update 4/8/20:

Yet another re-read! Yes! Three times now!

Could I be a fanboy? Possibly? Maybe even more so after reading the fifth book recently? Wanting to revisit the entire series from the start?

Yep. And I LOVED it. Again. So many changes. So many plot twists. So MUCH. To. Love.

Not to mention how beautiful all the visualizations are. It's like this book was written just for me to see in my mind. :)


Update 10/15/17
Re-Read with buddies!
This is one of my favorite epic fantasy series ever and upon re-reads, I'm hardly in a position to recant. Especially now. I'm still thrilled as hell. :)

I can't quite tell whether I love the magic system or the characters more. I absolutely love the smartass "Kip the lip" fat kid whiner turned badass, but show more it's Gavin Guile that really steals the show. Has there ever been such a complicated character in existence? Charming, devious, uber-powerful, totally evil and absolutely on the side of good all at once. What the hell is he? Ah, but I've read the whole series and I know it just gets better and better, but this first book is utterly kickass.

It's almost pure action, gorgeous colorful magic system, bigger-than-life characters, and best of all, it's probably one of the most fun books I've ever owned. I've raved about it to everyone I know. For good reason. :)

Still fantastic? You better believe it!


Original review:

I truly suspected that I'd fall head-over-heels for the new Brent Weeks trilogy, and I wasn't disappointed in the slightest. If you are in the mood for a great and creative magic system in a very well thought out fantasy world that is so thoroughly steeped in action, melodrama, action, crazy mind-blowing characters, action, and color, then pick this damn book up immediately and thank your lucky stars you did. I'm a fanboy. I cannot wait until I pick up the second book. Oh wait, I have it in my hands and I'm typing this out with only one hand. Now I've put the book in my mouth so I can keep typing. This hurts, some, because the book is so wonderfully thick and if I ever thought that I might have been getting less than my money's worth, then I'm an idiot.
Did I mention this fantasy is a fast-paced action full of twists and gorgeous colors throughout? This novel is what happens when a novelist's imagination is much, much bigger than any hope that the story could ever be made into a movie or an anime and will give the reader all of the scope and power to vision it all in as much glory as he or she likes. And I liked, Oh, yes, I liked it a lot. It's different from most fantasy novels, although it may not seem so from these words; in that it allows magic to be big, heroes to be big, and then let them be bigger and more complex and even downright evil while being good at the core at the same time. That's as close to a spoiler as I'm going to get. You'll see within a few hundred pages what I'll mean by this, and then be surprised several more times, again.
My only complaint at this point will be in waiting for the third book, because it's not going to be long before I finish the Blinding Knife. Brent Weeks has done it again and ranks up there with my very favorite Fantasy novels of all time. :) show less

I've never read anything by Weeks before & was pretty impressed. His system of magic was interesting, albeit somewhat confusing at times. Actually, I just went with it when people did magic. Weeks tried hard for a rationale, but there were a few too many rules & ways it was used to make complete sense. I assumed he stayed within them, but doubted it at times. Still, that was minor.

Weeks really impressed me with the realistic aspects of the story. Not only did he have complex, imperfect characters, but the world & politics were, too. As soon as my sympathies were firmly attached to one side or the other, they were tested or even broken by new information - sometimes to return, other times not. Good guys weren't always nor were bad guys. show more People made rational decisions that put them at odds with their allies based on incomplete information. The obvious never was. Excellent.

Even better were the bits of reality that made the characters & story pop for me. In one scene, a girl is whisked from one area to another, winds up sliding on the floor in her dress & gets a wedgie. Then she faces the embarrassment of trying to arrange her clothing while under public scrutiny - perfectly natural & hilarious since it didn't happen to me. It wasn't overdone, either. There were many such scenes & plenty of great action, too.

The first book ends well, although there is obviously a lot more story to tell. I'll look forward to reading the rest of the series as it comes out. I would buy the second book right now, but I've gone a bit over budget, so I'm going to add it to my wish list. I'll definitely look for more by this author. I think Marg will like his books, too. show less

This was a great start to a new series by this author. I absolutely LOVED the color-based magic system here (and even though I read some fantasy, I'm not that into magic in general, so this is exceptional). Since I was a little kid, I organized colors into rainbow order, first with crayons, then markers when I got older. It's a thing I'm obsessive about, so I really could relate with this color system. When I was in school, certain subjects meant specific colors to me. Like history was orange, math was blue, physics was purple, biology was green, chemistry was red, etc. So I would buy folders and notebooks in those colors for those classes. I still feel that way now, so the color thing has never left me.

Anyway, this was a fun book. I show more enjoyed the humorous moments, especially with poor Kip. I think the author wrote an excellent portrayal of a self-deprecating, nervous teen. At first, I wasn't sure how much I liked Karris, but she grew on me and I began to really like her character. As for the Prism, he's a really interesting one. Ironic that the "rainbow" guy would be operating in shades of grey. He's a complicated character, along with his brother, and I'm so curious to see how this all plays out. show less

4.75

I didn't even know that [b:The Black Prism|7165300|The Black Prism (Lightbringer, #1)|Brent Weeks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327921884s/7165300.jpg|7534979] was a series until I'd finished [a:Brent Weeks|1370283|Brent Weeks|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1232012513p2/1370283.jpg] other series ([b:The Way of Shadows|3227063|The Way of Shadows (Night Angel, #1)|Brent Weeks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327881551s/3227063.jpg|3261241] et al) and it came up in 'related works'. Reading the summary, I almost wish I'd read them the other way around. Lightbringer seems like more of a traditional epic fantasy (albeit with an interesting magic system, see below) rather than the unrelenting grimdarkness that was The Night show more Angel books.

One thing that I've really been liking about this series thus far is the world building. In particular the magic system. The basic idea is that drafters (magic users) can take light of certain colors--each person has different ranges--and use those colors to do various things. Like you can make a napalm like substance out of red or a solid, smooth surface out of blue. On the down side, drafting too much of a color will eventually drive you mad[^1]. If I knew more about the actual physics of light, I imagine I'd be more annoyed at the technical details, but as it stands, I know just enough to think it's a really cool idea.

Plotwise, the series starts out surprisingly slow given just how many people die in the first few chapters. It doesn't really start moving for maybe 1/3 of the book, but when it does it really does. There are all sorts of twists and turns (I'm still not sure if it was Dazen or Gavin that originally did a fair number of things; So what's the difference between Lord Omnichrome and a Prism?). In particular, there are few--if any--'good' characters. Everyone has a past. Everyone has secrets.

Characterwise, Kip is an interesting choice of main protagonist. He's an overweight teenager--as Weeks reminds us over and over again, a touch past too often in my opinion--who discovers his magically powerful linage and gets thrown in way over his depth.

“But if you betray him, I’ll tear your arms off and beat you with them.”

“Good thing I’m fat, then,” Kip shot back.

“What?” Incredulous.

“Soft arms.”

There's a lot of self-deprecating humor there, which I appreciate and he really does grow over the course of the novel. I'm still not sure if I actually like him, but he has potential.

After that, we have Gavin Guile--the current Prism (who can use magic of any color without risk of going mad) with a whole pile of secrets. He's definitely not a good person, but he does at least seem to be trying. He really does have the feel of someone who's powerful and never really had anyone tell him no, which is interesting. I can't agree with or condone some of the things he's done, but I still find myself rooting for him. Well done that.

Other than, Karris is an interesting combination of badass warrior woman and scorned lover. Corvan is the old retired general returning for action. Ironfist is the absolutely dedicated bodyguard (that's going to be an interesting storyline when he learns about Gavin/Dezen).

Overall, I quite enjoyed this book--even more than I liked [b:The Way of Shadows|3227063|The Way of Shadows (Night Angel, #1)|Brent Weeks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1327881551s/3227063.jpg|3261241]. I look forward to seeing everything explode in [b:The Blinding Knife|12499290|The Blinding Knife (Lightbringer, #2)|Brent Weeks|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1338432693s/12499290.jpg|17484647].

[^1]: First gripe with the series (which I believe is intentional): why does the Chromeria kill anyone who breaks their halo? I can't really believe that they all go immediately mad and can't still be useful / safe members of society. Some, sure. But all of them? I'm guessing/hoping that will be more dealt with in the sequels. show less

Fantastic. Based on the cover, I was little skeptical, but it turns out that Brent Weeks knows how to tell a story! This is one of my new favorite fantasy novels--the world building is interesting, the "magic" system is also unique and fun, and, most importantly, the story and characters are fantastic. Kip's inner monologues are hilarious and touching. It's rare to see an author that moves so deftly between characters, giving them all VERY unique voices and not missing a beat.

5/5. I am excited to continue reading the series.