Monday, October 8, 2012

REVIEW: The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks

The Blinding Knife exceeded by far the high expectations set by it's prequel, The Black Prism. I loved Weeks' Night Angel trilogy when I read it in 2008, but this book deserves every star and more for a work that has shown such a huge growth not only from Week's first works, but from the previous book alone.

I don't think I can actually say too much about this book and nor do I want to, apart from it is bloody brilliant.

Both Kip and Gavin's wit and humour continue to create consistent comedy throughout the entire novel which often had me enduring some odd looks on the train as I laughed out loud. While Kip's incessant self-deprecating inner dialogue was still around in this volume, it somehow seemed a little more justified, if not at last toned down. I really came to like Kip a lot more as he became much stronger and began to use his witty repartee for something more useful. Gavin of course was still an incredible highlight, because in addition to his Guile tongue, he is obviously the most powerful person on the planet and likes to use this to his advantage.

While I felt the Liv chapters were a little bit of a drag, there were few of them, so I could manage. Teia on the other hand was much more interesting and a welcome addition to the central cast. In fact, I thought most of the characters were incredibly well crafted, including the White, Captain Ironfist and Andross Guile.

The plot itself is the real bread winner in this book though. There are a few new magical elements introduced and the world is further expanded - but finally the system of magic starts to make some concrete sense and I can now handle it without thinking 'whaaaa ...?'.

Best of all are the incredible and unpredictable (for me) twists, most of which take place in the last 60 pages. Not only do some of the characters take action that literally had me yelling out loud in surprise, but there are more than a few shock revelations that I can't mention without completely spoiling things. But ... wow. Weeks totally turns EVERYTHING on its head by the final pages, ensuring that book three will be nothing less than spectacular.

Bring. It. On!

I would actually go as far as saying that The Blinding Knife has been the best book I have read this year - I was glad I held of on reading The Black Prism until recently, but how am I now going to survive the wait!?