Brent Weeks, The Lightbringer Series

[MasterGhandalf]

^ I certainly liked Black Prism a lot, but didn't love it. Blinding Knife just felt like it added a lot more scope and depth all around to characters, story, and world.

[Igolbug he/him]

A lot of people liked brent Weeks Night Angel Trilogy and I felt it was severely lacking.

Has he become a better writer in his new series. I read the Night Angel Trilogy and he seems to write good stories but is not a very good storyteller if that makes sense to you.

It`s one of the only series on my bookshelf that I haven`t re-read.

[Aethling he/him]

Interesting read on one fantasy authors take on using magic.

http://www.orbitbooks.net/2013/07/23/36983/

[Argent he/him]

I am playing my Thread Necromancy card!

 

I read The Black Prism sometime last year and loved it. I guess I am a colossal sucker for well-designed magic systems, because I remember having a few (minor) issues with the quality of the writing and the characters, but the magic drew me in so much, I chose to ignore those things. Now I am going through The Blinding Knife and experiencing pretty much the same thing - I want "Gavin" to tell Karris everything, I want Kip to do that movie montage where he turns into a superhero, I want Liv to pull her head out of her (reportedly lovely) rear... but really, none of that matters, because there are people who can see microwave (or terahertz waves) and x-ray! And they can draft them. And the luxin behaves sensibly! Which is all really cool and I am glad Weeks thought it through, down to how the physiology of the eye would have to change to make such things possible. Mad props.

[Briar King]

I really enjoyed these 2. 3 is due in Aug I think. Also for those Night Angel fans we will be getting more bks continuing Kylar's story and I'm super stoked for that.

[The Rooster he/him]

I prefer this series to Night Angel by about a mile. I was entertained by Night Angel, but I LOVE Lightbringer. I can't wait for the next one.

[Tempus]

I prefer this series to Night Angel by about a mile. I was entertained by Night Angel, but I LOVE Lightbringer. I can't wait for the next one.

 

Can't agree more. 

[The Rooster he/him]

I'm getting legitimately stoked for this book. Despite there being a TON of good releases right now this is the one I'm looking forward to the most. Thinking about performing a re-read. I've never re-read this series so it should be quite fun. Also refreshing because looking back I'm hazy. I think there was a girl who can see microwaves in the last book. Does that sound right to anyone?

[Briar King]

There is Teia a Supervilot and Liv(not 100% a Supervilot and Yellow) I too need to re read and I can't wait for this also.

[Swimmingly he/him]

As far as I can tell, there are four basic components to the magic - the emotion, the hard substances, the soft substances, and the perception.

[Briar King]

The back of Blinding Knife has a DP and great drafting guide info.

[Swimmingly he/him]

I kind of find it hilarious that a pastiche of Magic: The Gathering is a deeply ceremonial gambling and strategy game in the setting, though all the cards are based on actual historical figures there.

It's played completely straight, too, and there's nothing like a line of flavour text for a fragment of exposition when it actually applies to the people and objects.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Swimmingly

[Argent he/him]

There is Teia a Supervilot and Liv(not 100% a Supervilot and Yellow) I too need to re read and I can't wait for this also.

 

Teia / Adrasteia is not a superviolet (though Liv is). Teia can see and draft paryl, a color described as "as far below subred as subred is below red." Which makes it microwave, but a very narrow slice of the microwave spectrum.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Argent

[PeterAhlstrom he/him]

I have book 3 but I can't read it until I'm done with my Hugo reading.

[Tempus]

Lightbringer is such an excellent series, and I'm extremely looking forward to the release in a month. It's one of only a few series that ignites my theory cortex as much as Brandon's do. I spent a good chunk of time myself, Argent, looking up spectrum related information after reading the books!

 

Peter - I'm generally of the mind that a trilogy or series needs to be digested and and evaluated as whole moreso than as individual volumes. I agree with you the Blinding Knife wasn't a revolution over Black Prism, but I'd prefer to think of them both as a huge step forward for Brent, and a really progressive work for Fantasy as a genre as they step out of the 'dark and gritty' phase from last decade.

[Argent he/him]

I have book 3 but I can't read it until I'm done with my Hugo reading.

 

I see my arch-nemesis has arrived to this thread. Again.

Edited July 25, 2014 by Argent

[ZoneZero]

Looking forward to the next book - hopefully the German audiobook does come out in a reasonable time frame, since its reader does an awesome job.

[Atilium she/her]

Just finished a re-read of the first book before starting the second book. I am forever astounded by the scientific accuracy of Chromaturgy!

[The Rooster he/him]

I just started re-reading Book 2. I am always blown away by how damnation readable his books are. The prose is just OK, but there's something about the world and the characters that just make these books page turners to an extreme. I can't stop reading and it's a re-read. Weeks is doing something right. Normally with a book like this when I look back things gets foggy and I can't remember why I gave it super high ratings, but when I look back on Weeks I think "It ain't literature, but it's a BLAST!"

[Gabriele she/her]

I already got book 3 thanks to Amazon.de.

 

Prepare for a wild ride.

[Atilium she/her]

I finished The Blinding Knife yesterday. I think I'm still in shock by how amazing it was. Brent's charachter development is fantastic. 

Edited August 25, 2014 by Atilium

[The Rooster he/him]

I re-read blinding knife in 4 days. I meant it to take a week. It's too much of a page turner. I just started up Broken Eye. I'm really very happ to be reading it right now. So good right off the bat.

[PeterAhlstrom he/him]

My review is up on Brandon's blog.

[Tempus]

Nice review Peter. One thing I noticed during my recent reread is the gigantic bump in foreshadowing the second book brought. The first book has very little foreshadowing at all, and relatively few hints there's a much much deeper world than we suspect. The second book is supercharged by comparison - the world now abounds with people who know secrets but aren't telling, ancient things that most people forgot, hidden powers that are marginalized, secret societies and plots promised, and in general just jam packed.

 

I'm not sure if this is a case of 'Yay, the series has a guaranteed publishing contract now' or just a change in direction, but it was very notable to me.

 

Also, am I the only one who is gradually feeling more and more that major Fantasy authors just need to get together and make their own card game or MTG subset? I've even considered doing one myself as an idle thought. It seems like the major new authors of the last decade or so is correlating with a love of a certain collectible trading card game...

[Argent he/him]

Well, Rothfuss is wielding the regular card decks business like it's a vorpal blade. Weeks* has the MTG going on, and I believe he would like to eventually turn it into a game, if the planets align properly. Supplementary materials, not just card games, are definitely a cool way to expand the franchise.

 

* I will not stop feeling weird when I have to say or type people's names that are also regular nouns.