Finished The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks. This is the first book in his epic fantasy, Night Angel trilogy about an orphan-turned-assassin named Azoth/Kylar.

Azoth knows that life on the streets is hard and dangerous. So to protect his friends, Doll Girl and Jarl, and himself, Azoth decides to become an apprentice to the best wetboy (aka assassin) in the city — Durzo Blint. The years pass, and Azoth slowly takes on the persona of Kylar Stern, a respected, but relatively poor noble. But war is brewing, and Kylar will have to decide who he wants to save — his friends or Durzo. Because someone’s going to die …

First of all, let me say that this book has one of the best covers I’ve seen in a long time. Seriously, go look at it on Amazon. It’s beautiful. Whoever does the Orbit book covers really knows that they’re doing. I like a lot of their covers.

Back to the book. I picked this one up because I write a series about an assassin, and I’m always curious how other people write assassin characters.

I liked a lot of things about this book. Weeks doesn’t shy away from showing the horrors of being an orphan living on the streets (rapes, beatings, constant hunger), and he doesn’t make the wetboy business a glamorous one either. This is probably one of the grittiest fantasies I’ve read in a while, but it fit the story well.

I also enjoyed the characters — Azoth/Kylar, Durzo, Momma K, Jarl. Each one has a unique point of view and acts just the way that you’d expect them to, given their various situations. Momma K was especially a favorite of mine.

But there were just as many things that I didn’t like about the book — especially when it came to the execution of the world building. This is an epic fantasy, but there isn’t as much magic in this book as you might expect. Wetboys have “Talents” that let them hide in shadows, climb walls, etc. But why someone has Talent, how it forms, etc. wasn’t really explained very well. Neither were the magical artifacts (they have a name, but it escapes me at the moment) that several people were after in the book. And I never did quite grasp what the Night Angels are — Ideals? Gods? Something else entirely?

Also, I didn’t get a real sense of the various countries/peoples. There are four or five characters (including a seer) who just popped in and out of the book at random with no real explanation about their motivation or why they would even care what’s happening in another country.

I think a glossary of terms would have really helped when it came to explaining the magic, the peoples, and the countries. 

Weeks has some really nice twists near the end, especially in regards to who and what Durzo really is, but I didn’t think he brought out the backstory/reasons for them enough earlier in the book. The references were a little obscure for me, just like the magic was.

Despite the problems I had, I’m still going to give this one a thumbs up. The characters were interesting, and Weeks leaves you with a cliffhanger that makes you want to keep reading. Overall, if you’re in the mood for an epic fantasy, you might try this one.

Up next: Night and Day by Robert B. Parker.

Books in my TBR pile: About 20.