[Whisperzzzzzzz]

I just finished reading book two, and I have to say that this series is shaping up to be much better than I had expected. I went into it having read Weeks' previous effort, The Night Angel Trilogy, which, while not terrible, was definitely a freshman work. And from the first book in the new series, The Black Prism, it seemed like this one was shaping up to be more of the same.

After finishing the second book, The Blinding Knife though, I think this series is definitely going somewhere good, if not great.

Anyone else reading it?

[End of Disc One]

I still need to read the second book. The Black Prism was mostly really good but had too much explanation of the magic system in the first half. Like, more than Sanderson. Loved loved the Night Angel Trilogy though.

[QuickTidal]

I have the second book and have tried twice to get into it, and failed.

I'll be giving it my 3rd go at some point.

[Abyss]

PRISM and KNIFE are in the TRPFH. I bought PRISM new, coming off the buzz of NIGHT ANGEL trilo, but haven't gotten to it yet. KNIFE was a 2HS purchase.

I may wait until the series is finished to actually read it (4 bks i blv).

NAT read really nicely as a complete work and given that i have about 3 complete fantasy series standing by, commiting to one still in progress is less tempting.

All of which is to say i will read it eventually, as i like Weeks.

[Ukjent]

I like it, it better then Night angel which I liked, but hated the ending.

[Mikkelinski]

I like the series much more than Night Angel, and since I don't mind the heavy explanation of magic systems and whatnot I really enjoyed the Lightbringer series from the get go. Despite that, I do notice clear improvements in the second book - so if that's continuing it's shaping up to be great.On the subject, is there something different in Week's prose_ (substituting _ for questionmark, because of broken keyboard, already using ctrl-v to paste in "t") It's just something I picked up on my re-read. In the way of word choices and sentences, in many ways it feels more "modern". I feel I'm phrasing it poorly, but it's just something I noticed and I rarely notice stuff like that when I read. It's not bad in any way, but just different than a lot of other fantasy I've read.It's supposed to be five books right_

This post has been edited by Mikkelinski: 01 August 2013 - 01:17 PM

[James Hutton]

I read the first book, was not impressed at all, mostly because large parts of the story felt cliché to me. I never bought any later books.

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

James Hutton, on 01 August 2013 - 06:36 PM, said:

I read the first book, was not impressed at all, mostly because large parts of the story felt cliché to me. I never bought any later books.

Which parts did you find cliche?

[QuickTidal]

I'm not going to lie that the pretty blatant use of Green Lantern "light" type constructs based on colours of the spectrum for the magic system is the most off-putting thing to me. The only thing that makes it different is the GL stuff has feelings attached to the colours as well (ie. Green light = Will, Yellow light = Fear, Red light = Rage ect.)

In contrast I look to Brandon Sanderson's WARBREAKER which I thought was a wonderfully fresh and unique colour-based magic system.

For cliché stuff...I'll go with:

- Young, poor boy with powers he doesn't know about (farmboy trope)

- Boy is actually royalty, and descended from the most powerful magic user (Chosen one trope)

- spoiler for the first book

Spoiler

Dazen is essentially Sirius Black...the guy you think is bad, but is actually good

- Boy registers higher than almost anyone on the magic scale/test (farmboy trope again)

So while not excessive, it's still follows some very basic and typical high fantasy tropes.

Oh and Kip is annoying as allmighty fuck. Seriously. Where I LOVED Kylar in the NightAngel books...Kip is instead a wishy, washy jerk who switches from being a repugnant ass to mousily shy. I'm actually not sure what the purpose is in that fact. He doesn't have an identity that I can nail down. It's like he's two totally different teens from paragraph to paragraph. Luckily, damn near EVERYONE else in the book is enjoyable character-wise...but yeah, the lead being so annoying hurts my enjoyment.

Though I will say that Andross Guile reminds me so much of Tywin Lannister than I found myself enjoying his asshole scene's, but I'd be loathe to not point out that the similarity between the characters is close.

[MTS]

While I would not disagree with you about Kip, I would have to disagree with you that all of the influences you cite are particularly blatant, especially when there's nothing new under the sun (see what I did there? cos it's about light and stuff...). Did GRRM invent the asshole patriarch obsessed with family? I'm pretty sure that 'breaking the halo' is another difference in the magic system, but then I know nothing about GL so it might not be. As for the spoiler

Spoiler

C'mon, Dazen is a grey figure at best, who consigns his brother to a torturous existence in a monochromatic prison and impersonates him for well over a decade, lying to everybody he knows, including his own bastard child, with 'for the greater good' as his only real defence. Hardly Sirius Black.

[End of Disc One]

MTS, on 07 August 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

While I would not disagree with you about Kip, I would have to disagree with you that all of the influences you cite are particularly blatant, especially when there's nothing new under the sun (see what I did there? cos it's about light and stuff...). Did GRRM invent the asshole patriarch obsessed with family? I'm pretty sure that 'breaking the halo' is another difference in the magic system, but then I know nothing about GL so it might not be. As for the spoiler

Spoiler

C'mon, Dazen is a grey figure at best, who consigns his brother to a torturous existence in a monochromatic prison and impersonates him for well over a decade, lying to everybody he knows, including his own bastard child, with 'for the greater good' as his only real defence. Hardly Sirius Black.

In response to the spoiler (spoilers for Harry Potter):

Spoiler

Sirius Black is quite grey himself. While he was on the good side, he was ruthless and a bad influence on Harry. He was also an asshole as a teenager

[QuickTidal]

End of Disc One, on 07 August 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

MTS, on 07 August 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

While I would not disagree with you about Kip, I would have to disagree with you that all of the influences you cite are particularly blatant, especially when there's nothing new under the sun (see what I did there? cos it's about light and stuff...). Did GRRM invent the asshole patriarch obsessed with family? I'm pretty sure that 'breaking the halo' is another difference in the magic system, but then I know nothing about GL so it might not be. As for the spoiler

Spoiler

C'mon, Dazen is a grey figure at best, who consigns his brother to a torturous existence in a monochromatic prison and impersonates him for well over a decade, lying to everybody he knows, including his own bastard child, with 'for the greater good' as his only real defence. Hardly Sirius Black.

In response to the spoiler (spoilers for Harry Potter):

Spoiler

Sirius Black is quite grey himself. While he was on the good side, he was ruthless and a bad influence on Harry. He was also an asshole as a teenager

^^Indeed. This.

"breaking the halo" in Lantern mythos is kind of what the reds and oranges are all about...allowing the aspected colour to overtake you till you become a monster or a wraith. It's there. It's different enough that Weeks should feel safe he's not impinging on anything....but a reader of DC comics would be remiss not to notice MANY similarities. I should note that it's not a dealbreaker by any stretch for me...but it annoys me...most especially because he feels the need to explain the system over, and over again, even in the second book.

[MTS]

End of Disc One, on 07 August 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

MTS, on 07 August 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

While I would not disagree with you about Kip, I would have to disagree with you that all of the influences you cite are particularly blatant, especially when there's nothing new under the sun (see what I did there? cos it's about light and stuff...). Did GRRM invent the asshole patriarch obsessed with family? I'm pretty sure that 'breaking the halo' is another difference in the magic system, but then I know nothing about GL so it might not be. As for the spoiler

Spoiler

C'mon, Dazen is a grey figure at best, who consigns his brother to a torturous existence in a monochromatic prison and impersonates him for well over a decade, lying to everybody he knows, including his own bastard child, with 'for the greater good' as his only real defence. Hardly Sirius Black.

In response to the spoiler (spoilers for Harry Potter):

Spoiler

Sirius Black is quite grey himself. While he was on the good side, he was ruthless and a bad influence on Harry. He was also an asshole as a teenager

Spoiler

Of course Sirius Black is no saint and interestingly was willing to murder one of his best friends while Dazen was not, but the only commonality between the two characters is that you think they're bad but then in a twist they turn out to be on the other side, which is hardly unique to that character.

QuickTidal, on 07 August 2013 - 08:07 PM, said:

End of Disc One, on 07 August 2013 - 08:02 PM, said:

MTS, on 07 August 2013 - 07:40 PM, said:

While I would not disagree with you about Kip, I would have to disagree with you that all of the influences you cite are particularly blatant, especially when there's nothing new under the sun (see what I did there? cos it's about light and stuff...). Did GRRM invent the asshole patriarch obsessed with family? I'm pretty sure that 'breaking the halo' is another difference in the magic system, but then I know nothing about GL so it might not be. As for the spoiler

Spoiler

C'mon, Dazen is a grey figure at best, who consigns his brother to a torturous existence in a monochromatic prison and impersonates him for well over a decade, lying to everybody he knows, including his own bastard child, with 'for the greater good' as his only real defence. Hardly Sirius Black.

In response to the spoiler (spoilers for Harry Potter):

Spoiler

Sirius Black is quite grey himself. While he was on the good side, he was ruthless and a bad influence on Harry. He was also an asshole as a teenager

^^Indeed. This.

"breaking the halo" in Lantern mythos is kind of what the reds and oranges are all about...allowing the aspected colour to overtake you till you become a monster or a wraith. It's there. It's different enough that Weeks should feel safe he's not impinging on anything....but a reader of DC comics would be remiss not to notice MANY similarities. I should note that it's not a dealbreaker by any stretch for me...but it annoys me...most especially because he feels the need to explain the system over, and over again, even in the second book.

Out of curiosity now, is there any analogue to the Prism concept?

[James Hutton]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 07 August 2013 - 03:08 PM, said:

James Hutton, on 01 August 2013 - 06:36 PM, said:

I read the first book, was not impressed at all, mostly because large parts of the story felt cliché to me. I never bought any later books.

Which parts did you find cliche?

Like QT mentioned, mostly the overall plot: farmboy who turns out to be royalty, with a 'mentor' that turns out to be living close because he has ties with royalty-dad. The farmboy is discovered to be a powerfull magic user, etc. etc.

MTS, on 08 August 2013 - 04:50 AM, said:

Out of curiosity now, is there any analogue to the Prism concept?

Not that I know of.

And by saying "large parts of the story felt cliché", I didn't mean there's nothing new in the book. I'm now echoing others above because it's been a while since I read it, but there were some very interesting concepts in there like the Prism and Breaking the Halo! I simply felt that there was very little depth to it, the story moving along a familiar track. And there's more books in the TRP, so I skipped the rest of this series.

[champ]

I avoided the books when they first came out, mainly due to the negative feedback from the board.

I caved though a while back and gave them a shot, whilst i don't think they have been amazing, I did enjoy the read. Another popcorn series like the Night Angel Trilogy... only not as good!

[Cause]

QuickTidal, on 07 August 2013 - 04:53 PM, said:

- Young, poor boy with powers he doesn't know about (farmboy trope)

- Boy is actually royalty, and descended from the most powerful magic user (Chosen one trope)

- spoiler for the first book

Spoiler

Dazen is essentially Sirius Black...the guy you think is bad, but is actually good

- Boy registers higher than almost anyone on the magic scale/test (farmboy trope again)

I think your being too strict with the tropes, which are partly unavoidable in any medium. Still Kip is the Prisms Son, magic is partly Genetic (he, his father and uncle are all prisms) and the only reason he comes to be tested is because he is the Prisms son and they want to use him.

I actually enjoyed how the extent of his powers is kept from him! I also like how the fact that prisms are an incredible rare genetic mutation and not sent by god is I think an important story point. Their are many rituals and secret magics, using the white knife for example, that are in play but certainly the Chromeria is/has been playing a long game with the world

[QuickTidal]

Briar King, on 08 August 2013 - 07:43 PM, said:

Also QT since you like Andross he gets a fair bit of screen time esp at about the half way point to end.

Yeah, Andross is easily a fave for how much of a raging dickhead he can be.

[End of Disc One]

About 130 pages into the second book and have enjoyed every page so far. Really solid stuff, even if there hasn't been much tension yet. Can't wait to see where this goes. Andross Guile has been awesomely dickish and I'm glad to see that he will feature more in the second half of this book.

[End of Disc One]

Well I'm halfway and the world keeps getting richer. But I have a question. What's with all of the Brent Weeks related account names lately?

[Aptorian]

Check out the Medieval based Assassins book thread.

http://forum.malazan...sin-bookseries/

It started when Obdigore insinuated that WORLD FAMOUS FANTASY AUTHOR BRENT WEEKS might be using sock puppets to drum up attention for his series.

A silly notion really. Why resort to such low tactics when it is obvious that THE BEST SELLING NIGHT ANGEL TRILOGY sells on its stellar reputation alone.

Check it out on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/0316085146

This post has been edited by Not Brent Weeks: 05 December 2013 - 03:30 PM