My first exposure to Brent Weeks wasn’t through his fiction, though his first series, the Night Angel Trilogy, was popular among other bloggers and readers like myself. Instead, I was first exposed to Weeks through Twitter (@BrentWeeks). At some point long forgotten, Weeks and I began following each other. Me, a blogger with the potential to promote his books; him, an up-and-coming Fantasy writer who had the gall to not only finish a chunky Fantasy series in three books, but publish the whole trilogy over the course of only two months. I found Weeks to be funny and generous, and a passionate fan of Fantasy, with many similar authors littering the root of his passion and mine. Most pointedly, perhaps, was Terry Brooks, one of the forefathers of modern Fantasy.

So when his next trilogy was announced, a trilogy entirely unrelated to his previous work, I decided that I’d jump in there, not just out of curiosity, but because I now considered Weeks a friend, if one connected only by the thin threads of Twitter and Facebook. My reaction to the novel was somewhat mixed. For all its successes — a likeable set of protagonists, an interesting take on typical Epic Fantasy worldbuilding, a fresh magic system — it was littered with problems — clunky exposition, an overreliance on the reader being invested in a complicated magic system — and I finished the novel feeling somewhat perplexed about my opinions. I couldn’t even be sure whether I enjoyed it or not, or whether I was interested in reading further in the series. Instead of reviewing the novel, I put it aside and just sort of let it be. Read More »