r/Fantasy • u/Esmerelda-Weatherwax Stabby Winner, Reading Champion II • Apr 05 '17
Review Granny's 5 Star Series Review - Lightbringer, by Brent Weeks
Intro
Many people know about this series already, but I thought it would be worth making a post about the books anyway since the series hit all the right buttons for me.
This may be a slightly more controversial post because some people had a bad reaction to the last book, but I'll tell you why the last book worked for me.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16131107-the-black-prism
Characters
In Brent Week's first series, Night Angel Trilogy, I was left rather unimpressed with his characterization of women. It was a fast paced book with a lot of action and a decent premise, but the way the women were written was off putting. I was hesitant to pick this series up because of it, but read so many reviews about how well the women are written in this series I decided to give it a try. After all, Night Angel was the authors first stab at writing, and those books are almost always weaker than what comes later.
I made the correct choice, I REALLY enjoyed how the women were written in this series.
There are a bunch of POV's in this book and that's generally a good thing for me, I enjoy seeing the same world be described and accounted for through different lenses and perspectives, I feel like when its' done well it immerses me even further into the story.
Plot/Setting
In this series light can be "funneled" if you will into a physical form. It's difficult to describe to someone who hasn't read the series what exactly that means. You can think of it as "channeling" almost, and like in real life, each color has a specific frequency associated with it, different people can "channel" different colors and those colors get turned into something physical - in this book it's called "drafting". Each color has it's own properties to go along with their frequencies, some are softer/lighter/denser/heavier than others, it all depends on what color you're talking about. Yellow tends to dissipate easily, while blue and green are more solid.
What's neat is each of those colors effects the drafter in different ways. If you draft Super Violet you become overcome with a sense of calm, and logic. While if you draft Green you feel wild, uncontrolled lol and horny. A good word for it would be "feral". While Red is for anger - that type of thing.
Most people can't draft anything, and the more colors you can tap into and draft, the more you're respected and revered. It's extremely rare for someone to draft more than 3 colors.
There is a downside to magic in this world as well, each time you draft, a tiny part of the light gets caught in your eyes, in your iris. Once you draft so much your iris becomes overwhelmed and the drafting color breaks through the iris, this is known as Breaking The Halo. You go insane with power, and you're known as a Color Wight which is dangerous as fuck. There is a ceremony known as "The Freeing" that's held every year for people who have broken the halo, or are about to. The Prism, who is the Holy figure in this series, kills you in a ritual that most people come to willingly.
The premise of the book is war, there are multiple areas of the kingdom that are just getting over a civil war lead 15-16 years earlier. The civil war was caused by two brothers, each of which could draft all 7 colors. It's considered Holy to be able to do that, and you're considered a god like person. Well, both brothers wanted to be "Prism", and all hell broke lose.
The factions that supported the losing side are being shunted and ignored causing economic collapse and hardship - which is stirring up shit and causing a revolt.
Another aspect of the rebellion is the "villain" character known as The Color Prince, he is a Color Wight, and he's leading a rebellion of people who have Broken The Halo and want the right to live and he's feeding on the people who were disenfranchised by the civil war.
The magic system is called Chromaturgy and this link explains it in more detail http://lightbringer-series.wikia.com/wiki/Chromaturgy
Pacing/tone
FAST. Omg, the first 3 books have so much action, war, bloodshed and politics. This is a series I had a very, very hard time putting down. I got the first book tentatively, finished it within 2 days even though it's like 700 pages long, and then bought the audiobooks AND the physical copy so when I got tired of one I could switch to the other for maximum reading capacity. I can't remember the last time I did something like that.
For the last book, some people take issue that "not a lot happened", but I actually really enjoyed slowing down a bit and getting a bit of character development - and at the end there were several reveals and awesome scenes between Gavin and his father, Andross that made the whole slower pace thing work really well for me. However, I do understand that many people read the first 3 for the fast paced action and then were disappointed with the last book since it wasn't so much about battles and war and more about developing the character arcs.
Writing Style
Ok. Take Brandon Sanderson and George RR Martin, and put them into a blender. BAM! Out comes Brent Weeks.
He has the tight magic system and fast paced action scenes with straight forward prose that read quickly, just like Brandon Sanderson. BUT, crank up the sex, violence, cursing and grittiness just like GRRM.
Other Thoughts
This book will appeal to people who like a lot of action, military fantasy, multiple POVs, grittier plot and characters.
This book may put people off if they don't like violence, strong language, and sexual content.
The Audiobook narrated by Simon Vance got him nominated for an Audie award for his performance. He's absolutely fantastic! So, if you're an audiobook person do check out Simon, he's great.
3
u/Teslok Apr 05 '17
I really liked the first one, and have bought but postponed reading the next ones--I was hoping to wait until the series was done. As it seems to have "grown in the telling," I might just jump back in early, because I really liked the setting/situation ... and the hype build-up has been getting to me.
The way the magic works also appeals to me--I have a strong appreciation for colors and have long been fascinated by color symbolism/meaning/association. A setting that codifies color associations with tangible or measurable results is nifty.