Shadow's Edge
(Night Angel 2 /3)
by Brent Weeks
fantasy
copyright 2008
read in March 2013
rated 6 / 10: read to pass the time
Stephen King advises authors to, make their characters suffer. When I first read that, I had just finished writing a simple little short story set in a small country town. I liked my characters. I did not want to make them suffer!
Which is, perhaps, why I'm a reviewer rather than a writer.
Brent Weeks, on the other hand... makes his characters suffer. To a person of gentle sensibilities -- such as myself -- it is depressing.
This is book two of a trilogy. There is an adequate conclusion: a villain is disposed of, though the even-worse villain is just off-screen, waiting eagerly for book three. All quite satisfactory.
But the suffering!
I don't mean physical suffering, though there is plenty of that. I mean mental suffering...
Hero and heroine are dragged apart, families are separated, characters are introduced, then slaughtered... No-one is happy with the way that they are performing. It's all so... glooooomy... :-(
Two hundred pages in and I am thinking, will this story ever end?! I have to double-check the cover, to make sure that it clearly says, trilogy.
"Trilogy" tells me that there will definitely be an end to the story, at the end of the third book. If this turns out to be one of those interminable fantasy epics where the author had no idea how to finish a story -- I shall be most annoyed.
Shadow's Edge is exciting, imaginative, action-packed. It is also depressing. I rate it six, read to pass the time.
But read it only if you can handle a large load of suffering and despair.
And hope that book three will bring some modicum of a happy ending.
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