Brent WeeksTHE WAY OF SHADOWS

Awesome book wish I could have ordered hard cover copy

I was wary about choosing another book by brent weeks. He is confusing as an author. One the one hand he created a well developed character like teia in the lightbringer series and the next he reduces every female character to well developed body parts. He did the same thing here except that there was no teia to keep me engaged.P.S these photos are from my kindle edition

Overall book is good.Story is okay to read.Master and apprentice relation is well explained according to their characteristics and nature.Kylar presentation is lacking from the perspective of an assassin.Master Blint is dark and power hungry in entire read, his personality and character is impressive.Character customization could be better.Encounters and Combat as an assassin are not providing a realistic imagination and visualization due to some flaws in writing.It is fast but could be more precise and specific.An urgency of time for an assassin is missing.Magic touch is good but sometime little overwhelming too.Fail on expectations but not disappointing.Going to finish trilogy for sure.

In my humble opinion it was just an "ok" series. It seemed rushed, whole months and years would be skimmed over leading to jumping assumptions about characters and their development. The entire series is also littered with a macho chauvinistic feeling. He gave little to no attention to scene setting or the description of the environment the characters were in at any given time. Maybe I've been spoiled with the likes of The Wheel of Time, Stormlight Archive, Kingkiller Chronicles etc where time and care are taken to explain settings and characters in detail. They're fast and easy reads, so if you're looking for something that doesn't take much thought and has an admittedly interesting magic system then maybe this series is for you.

I'm not sure what I was expecting. Brent Weeks came highly recommended to me from a fellow fantasy reader. The story started off well and the world building was interesting, but if you want something with strong lore, interesting characters and action... I'm not sure I'd recommend it unless you're a young adult.For me, my interest waned at around the 40% mark. Personally, I really dislike inner monologues and many of the characters, particularly the main character (Azoth/Kylar) has a lot of inner monologues to the point where it becomes extremely boring. I also like a character with flaws but if they're incompetent for poor reasons, then I am also quickly bored. Being a testosterone driven virgin isn't a valid enough excuse to completely flop an important job where you've had almost 10 years of training. Or maybe the reason was valid but it wasn't articulated well. I have no idea.Additionally, there are a lot of chapters with views from random people who I don't care about. If a character has been mentioned at least once, chances are that they're going to have their own PoV chapter to move the story along. I don't know why. Perhaps Brent thought it was interesting to know what was going on in different parts of the world to fill in the gaps in the story that the main characters couldn't fill. I personally found it frustrating and mumbled "who the hell is this?!" every time it happened. A world map and a list of names and factions would've been helpful, which is what is usually included in fantasy books.Speaking of the world, the premise is interesting but the building itself is extremely poor. There's very little articulation other than a chunk of paragraphs near the start to describe everything. My take away was that there's a mix of Asian and European architectural styles and that the warrens are like the slums of some medieval European city. More often than not, I put away the book partially confused.Further criticisms are that twists and turns in the story barely turn out surprising; in fact they're more eye rolling than anything because there's no sense of intrigue surrounding it or any build up (i.e. who the Shinga really is, Kylar's disability etc.). The female characters in the book also feel like they're being hyper sexualised somehow (e.g. they all seem to be shapely or did in their younger years with their cleavage out and proud) and all of them, including an old lady, flirt with the main character. I kind of reminds me of a harem anime.Anyway, there's lots to dislike about this novel but I'm sure it'll be interesting for anyone who wants to skip details and get into a story about a young and attractive wetboy-in-training and his escapades. If you're looking for a more mature fantasy with more detail and maturely written characters, look elsewhere.

Me recomendaron esta trilogía con mucho énfasis, lo que sumado a que uno de mis generos favoritos es la fantasía, debería resultar en caballo ganador... pero no.Es más bien un libro juvenil, si no fuera por un par de muertes más duras de lo habitual y algunas discusión con cosas muy feas dichas. Por lo demás, típico y tópico, relación maestro-aprendiz, relación de amistad chico pobre chico rico, y relación romántica, bastante insoportable por cierto.El segundo empieza sobre todo con ese rollo y lo he dejado, por que encima cometí el error de comprar los 3 del tirón. Que por cierto esto es en plan El Señor de los Anillos, es decir las tramas no acaban en el primero, así que si te atrae, hazte a la idea de que tienen que caer los 3.Si te gustan los libros fantásticos y los devoras, sin duda gustará; si eres joven y estás aprendiendo a disfrutar de la lectura, seguramente te flipará; pero si ya eres talludito como yo, creo que no aporta mucho y no es especialmente bueno.

Alles in allem eine fesselnde und gut geschriebene Geschichte. Was ich allerdings nicht verstanden habe, warum Weeks die Leiden der Protagonisten so kompliziert und übertrieben ausweiten musste. Die Missverständnisse sind mir zu groß und wirken etwas an den Haaren herbei gezogen. Jeder will jeden umbringen, aber die Gründe sind schwach und die Helden der Geschichte kommen am Ende als überdramatische Hohlköpfe rüber. Es wird besser in den nächsten Bänden, hab ich mir sagen lassen. Schauen wir mal.

Loved everything about it. Good pacing, great storyline. One of those stories where your thinking wow what else can go wrong? And then something does! Probably not a story for the faint of heart as it can be pretty brutal in places. Definitely worth the read!