Friday, 20 November 2020 08:51 pm
Book Review: The Black Prism
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deckardcanineAll I knew when I picked this book was that the author, Brent Weeks, also wrote The Way of Shadows. Sure enough, while not part of the same series, it's pretty similar, being a flintlock fantasy with adult-level grit.
The starting premise is a world in which all known magic is based on colors. Certain people, presumably selected by genetics, can look at a color and produce a substance called luxin in that color, making objects and energy blasts by pure will as the situation demands, kinda like the Green Lantern. If there isn't much of that color around, the "drafter" can wear tinted spectacles. Drafting temporarily tinges one's skin tone, so the darker one is, the greater one's chance of drafting undetected. Traditionally, there are seven types of luxin to work with, including "sub-red" and "superviolet," which are tricky even for their drafters to see. (For some reason, violet is counted under blue.) Each type has different properties and different effects on the user's temperament; for an unsurprising example, red drafters are prone to anger. Few people can draft more than one color, and popular wisdom holds that only one man at any given time can draft all seven, kinda like the Avatar in Avatar: The Last Airbender. That man doesn't even have to see a particular color; he can work just from white light, hence his title, the Prism.
Unlike most mages, these drafters do not provoke my envy. The more they draft, the closer they come to a breaking point when they either die or become violently insane "color wights" that former allies see fit to kill. (No, there isn't a white wight.) Few drafters make it to age 40. Prisms who don't die of other causes consistently serve for 7, 14, or 21 years before the time comes, with the prevailing theory being that the one god, Orholam, likes sevens.
The entire land depicted on the map up front is called the Seven Satrapies. A body called the Chromeria reigns over it, with the additional responsibilities of training drafters and getting them to swear they'll submit to a ritual killing, called "the Freeing," when they know they're close to breaking. The rulers are a septet called the Spectrum, an elder non-drafter called the White, and the Prism, who is widely regarded as a papal sort despite having few administrative duties (and, at present, a severe doubt in Orholam). But not everyone thinks highly of the system, especially in areas that have suffered, and the Chromeria will have to contend with a new army of largely pagan rebels.
The current Prism, Guile, is extraordinary even for his position, accomplishing what possibly no past one could. He also flouts the rules a lot, as by ditching his bodyguards. Having served 16 years, he's pretty darn sure of how long he has left. But that doesn't mean he isn't full of anxieties. He has multiple secrets, each shared with few people, and probably no one else knows all of them. (No, nobody actually calls him the Black Prism.) He doesn't know how to reconcile with the woman he loves, Karris. He has big goals that he might not accomplish in the next five years.
Even more than Blint in TWoS, Guile walks the line between hero and villain, frequently inviting readers to reevaluate him. The past is revealed to us gradually, and it contains a lot of moments that would justify many people wanting to kill him. Would it have been better if he'd lost the war against his brother? At the same time, we who can read his thoughts know he wants to do right by people in general. He feels bad every time he thinks of his wrongs. And for all his misgivings, he does help a lot. If there's one sin he never regrets, it's making out with a slave, but at least she apparently welcomes and initiates that.
After Guile, the second most focal character is Kip, a teen boy from a backwater town whose mother, shortly before dying, declares that he is the Prism's bastard son, which explains his newly discovered drafting power. Despite all her drug and child abuse, Kip seeks vengeance on the rebel leader who massacred her (and almost the whole town, dang it; sort out your priorities). Guile, who just found out about Kip as well, pulls him out of trouble and rushes him into the Chromeria. Kip is sorely lacking in self-esteem, always bitterly laughing at his obesity and tendency to say or do the wrong thing, but he hopes to become worthy of an awesome dad. And of course, he's more powerful than he knows yet.
We get some chapters from the third-person-limited POVs of others, including Karris, who's an amazing warrior in her own right; Liv, a general's daughter and Kip's mentor and crush, who doesn't like what she's seen of the Chromeria from the inside; and Guile's brother, who is widely believed to be dead but has spent 16 years in a tailor-made prison, so you can guess what's on his mind. (Told ya Guile had big, dark secrets. I don't consider this one a spoiler; it becomes clear early on.)
Part of me wishes this were a young adult book. Then it would spend more time clarifying the details, especially of the magic, which took me a while even to picture rightly. Besides, who expects a story focused on rainbow hues to include gore and profanity? The occasional obscure RL term is pretty distracting too.
Still, Weeks did something right. At more than 750 pages, it passed faster than I expected. It kept me wondering what would happen. The ending is a bit of a shock, barely tempered by the sneak preview of the next book. I might read that, but I don't see myself getting through all five volumes unless it gets better.
After this, I feel like a different challenge: Historia secreta de una novela by Mario Vargas Llosa. It'll be the first non-children's book I read in Spanish.
The starting premise is a world in which all known magic is based on colors. Certain people, presumably selected by genetics, can look at a color and produce a substance called luxin in that color, making objects and energy blasts by pure will as the situation demands, kinda like the Green Lantern. If there isn't much of that color around, the "drafter" can wear tinted spectacles. Drafting temporarily tinges one's skin tone, so the darker one is, the greater one's chance of drafting undetected. Traditionally, there are seven types of luxin to work with, including "sub-red" and "superviolet," which are tricky even for their drafters to see. (For some reason, violet is counted under blue.) Each type has different properties and different effects on the user's temperament; for an unsurprising example, red drafters are prone to anger. Few people can draft more than one color, and popular wisdom holds that only one man at any given time can draft all seven, kinda like the Avatar in Avatar: The Last Airbender. That man doesn't even have to see a particular color; he can work just from white light, hence his title, the Prism.
Unlike most mages, these drafters do not provoke my envy. The more they draft, the closer they come to a breaking point when they either die or become violently insane "color wights" that former allies see fit to kill. (No, there isn't a white wight.) Few drafters make it to age 40. Prisms who don't die of other causes consistently serve for 7, 14, or 21 years before the time comes, with the prevailing theory being that the one god, Orholam, likes sevens.
The entire land depicted on the map up front is called the Seven Satrapies. A body called the Chromeria reigns over it, with the additional responsibilities of training drafters and getting them to swear they'll submit to a ritual killing, called "the Freeing," when they know they're close to breaking. The rulers are a septet called the Spectrum, an elder non-drafter called the White, and the Prism, who is widely regarded as a papal sort despite having few administrative duties (and, at present, a severe doubt in Orholam). But not everyone thinks highly of the system, especially in areas that have suffered, and the Chromeria will have to contend with a new army of largely pagan rebels.
The current Prism, Guile, is extraordinary even for his position, accomplishing what possibly no past one could. He also flouts the rules a lot, as by ditching his bodyguards. Having served 16 years, he's pretty darn sure of how long he has left. But that doesn't mean he isn't full of anxieties. He has multiple secrets, each shared with few people, and probably no one else knows all of them. (No, nobody actually calls him the Black Prism.) He doesn't know how to reconcile with the woman he loves, Karris. He has big goals that he might not accomplish in the next five years.
Even more than Blint in TWoS, Guile walks the line between hero and villain, frequently inviting readers to reevaluate him. The past is revealed to us gradually, and it contains a lot of moments that would justify many people wanting to kill him. Would it have been better if he'd lost the war against his brother? At the same time, we who can read his thoughts know he wants to do right by people in general. He feels bad every time he thinks of his wrongs. And for all his misgivings, he does help a lot. If there's one sin he never regrets, it's making out with a slave, but at least she apparently welcomes and initiates that.
After Guile, the second most focal character is Kip, a teen boy from a backwater town whose mother, shortly before dying, declares that he is the Prism's bastard son, which explains his newly discovered drafting power. Despite all her drug and child abuse, Kip seeks vengeance on the rebel leader who massacred her (and almost the whole town, dang it; sort out your priorities). Guile, who just found out about Kip as well, pulls him out of trouble and rushes him into the Chromeria. Kip is sorely lacking in self-esteem, always bitterly laughing at his obesity and tendency to say or do the wrong thing, but he hopes to become worthy of an awesome dad. And of course, he's more powerful than he knows yet.
We get some chapters from the third-person-limited POVs of others, including Karris, who's an amazing warrior in her own right; Liv, a general's daughter and Kip's mentor and crush, who doesn't like what she's seen of the Chromeria from the inside; and Guile's brother, who is widely believed to be dead but has spent 16 years in a tailor-made prison, so you can guess what's on his mind. (Told ya Guile had big, dark secrets. I don't consider this one a spoiler; it becomes clear early on.)
Part of me wishes this were a young adult book. Then it would spend more time clarifying the details, especially of the magic, which took me a while even to picture rightly. Besides, who expects a story focused on rainbow hues to include gore and profanity? The occasional obscure RL term is pretty distracting too.
Still, Weeks did something right. At more than 750 pages, it passed faster than I expected. It kept me wondering what would happen. The ending is a bit of a shock, barely tempered by the sneak preview of the next book. I might read that, but I don't see myself getting through all five volumes unless it gets better.
After this, I feel like a different challenge: Historia secreta de una novela by Mario Vargas Llosa. It'll be the first non-children's book I read in Spanish.