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A review by hellsfire
Beyond the Shadows by Brent Weeks
2.0
At this point, I've stopped caring about anything happening in The Night Angel trilogy. I thought the first book was good, the second bad, and am just finishing the series because it's a trilogy. Like the previous two books, Beyond the Shadows shifts in tone and story.
In some ways, Beyond the Shadows improved upon the previous book. One of the weak points of the entire trilogy was that you had these threads with characters who hardly got any story time. I neither remember nor cared about them. They get a lot more story here and actually become major players. If they were focused on earlier, this would have been a damn good series.
Conversely, characters that were important like Momma K or who thought might have been important like Uly, are missing. So the characters who were focused on the earlier books are barely in this book, if at all.
The biggest failing is that everything happens off camera. Rebellions are put down, magical swords are retrieved, people walk into enemy territory to sacrifice themselves, magical swords are forged, sisters are trained, etc. Would have been nice if all of that was shown. Of course, it would have turned the trilogy into a series but I believe it would have been much better.
Another thing that bothered me was the way everyone talked. I don't mind cursing but I do when it's on every page. People seemed to talk like how me and my friends would talk in the 21st century.
I also still don't like the magic system. Nothing's really explained and people can do any and everything with no rhyme or reason. And when characters can die and come back to life, it loses all tension.
I think there is one thing that's done well and that's Dorian's rise and fall. That's the one thing that's actually shown. And I kind of felt bad for the guy. I also remember his name unlike the previous two books where he was kinda in the story. I suppose the love triangle is also shown, but it was done so terribly in the previous book and still badly done here. It's not much of a love triangle when one party is forced than conflicted over who to love.
The Night Angel trilogy started off well enough. The first book was good, but it had its flaws. However, the most disappointing thing is there was so much potential here, but it just fell flat. It was rush, became convoluted, was too fast paced, all over the place, most of the world and characters just weren't developed, and the dialogue pulled me out of the story.
In some ways, Beyond the Shadows improved upon the previous book. One of the weak points of the entire trilogy was that you had these threads with characters who hardly got any story time. I neither remember nor cared about them. They get a lot more story here and actually become major players. If they were focused on earlier, this would have been a damn good series.
Conversely, characters that were important like Momma K or who thought might have been important like Uly, are missing. So the characters who were focused on the earlier books are barely in this book, if at all.
The biggest failing is that everything happens off camera. Rebellions are put down, magical swords are retrieved, people walk into enemy territory to sacrifice themselves, magical swords are forged, sisters are trained, etc. Would have been nice if all of that was shown. Of course, it would have turned the trilogy into a series but I believe it would have been much better.
Another thing that bothered me was the way everyone talked. I don't mind cursing but I do when it's on every page. People seemed to talk like how me and my friends would talk in the 21st century.
I also still don't like the magic system. Nothing's really explained and people can do any and everything with no rhyme or reason. And when characters can die and come back to life, it loses all tension.
I think there is one thing that's done well and that's Dorian's rise and fall. That's the one thing that's actually shown. And I kind of felt bad for the guy. I also remember his name unlike the previous two books where he was kinda in the story. I suppose the love triangle is also shown, but it was done so terribly in the previous book and still badly done here. It's not much of a love triangle when one party is forced than conflicted over who to love.
The Night Angel trilogy started off well enough. The first book was good, but it had its flaws. However, the most disappointing thing is there was so much potential here, but it just fell flat. It was rush, became convoluted, was too fast paced, all over the place, most of the world and characters just weren't developed, and the dialogue pulled me out of the story.