Beyond the Shadows

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Mar 12, seak rated it really liked it Shelves: While some people have been waiting over 20 years to finish The Wheel of Time, over 13 and counting for A Song of Ice and Fire, and over 10 for Malazan Book of the Fallen, it's a great feeling to finish a series and probably better for all the waiting I've been doing. While not without its faults, as I'll discuss in a bit, the characters are moving and the world fully realized, so much that I was a bit s While some people have been waiting over 20 years to finish The Wheel of Time, over 13 and counting for A Song of Ice and Fire, and over 10 for Malazan Book of the Fallen, it's a great feeling to finish a series and probably better for all the waiting I've been doing.

While not without its faults, as I'll discuss in a bit, the characters are moving and the world fully realized, so much that I was a bit sad to be reading the end. That's always a good sign. Now comes the blurb and spoilers if you've yet to read the prior installments Logan Gyre is king of Cenaria, a country under siege, with a threadbare army and little hope. He has one chance - a desperate gamble, but one that could destroy his kingdom. In the north, the new Godking has a plan. If it comes to fruition, no one will have the power to stop him.

Kylar Stern has no choice. To save his friends - and perhaps his enemies - he must accomplish the impossible: Beyond the Shadows is the action-packed conclusion to the Night Angel Trilogy. Not letting up on the fast pace, Beyond the Shadows is surprisingly even more action-packed than its predecessors.

This didn't hurt the story until the very end when it felt a bit rushed as I explained here look for "seak" at the bottom of the page. Otherwise, I couldn't get enough. With Dorian in the north, disguised as a eunuch searching for Jenine Gyre, Vi in the Chantry learning from the Sisters and starting her own faction, Neph Dada on his own nefarious mission, and Kylar learning what his new gifts really cost him, not one section leaves you wishing you were somewhere else. One of the things I was most impressed with was the explanation of the Krul. They were mentioned in the previous volumes only cursorily, but what a great monster.

In fact, the Kalidorans in general were wonderfully realized, especially with their connection to the vir their version of the Talent , setting up yet another moral struggle for a certain main character. Although events leading up to the ending were a bit rushed, the ending itself was amazing. From great monsters and epic fights to poignant scenes of realization, I left satisfied and a little sad to be done. After the first two in the series, duh Okay, sad attempt at a joke. D As I said with the first two installments, be ready for fast-paced-action-intense-writing-lots-of-fighting and everything you'd expect in a series involving assassins.

The Night Angel Trilogy brings out the kid in you that wants to rule the world. View all 4 comments. Jul 19, J. What a great trilogy. I the ending of Beyond the Shadows is pretty good, I really liked it. I do recommend this trilogy to those who really like magic, god-kings, high kings, immortals with great power, great battles with magic, kings, women and soldiers.

Many great characters with interesting backgrounds. It's a worthy trilogy to start and finish. I hope you all give this trilogy a shot and read it. It might not be good for some but if you like my books I've read in the past check profile of my What a great trilogy. It might not be good for some but if you like my books I've read in the past check profile of my books I've read or compare books you'll like it very much as I did. View all 5 comments. Apr 30, Kris43 rated it it was ok Shelves: Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of good in this book, but most of it is way bellow from what i've come to expect from this series!

And most of it is some of the worst moralistic crap i've heard in a long time! Like the whole sex thing. Every character who had sex was portrayed as in some way a evil whore or dirty or seriously wrong. Are you for real?? I just hope some young innocent girl Men! I just hope some young innocent girl doesn't read this because she will think that is wrong to have sex and that makes you a dirty whore, its not! Its normal and natural and there is nothing wrong in doing it!

She'll think that when you finally do it, you have to be married and it has to be sanctified and holy and gods know what else or you'll be evil and it will corrupt you. More like make you a frigid condescending B-word. This is wrong on so many levels I hated her frigid little perfect self-righteous stupidity from the second book, here it only gets worse!

And her stupidity and cowardice gets elevated to a virgin Mary heights where she actually sacrifices her self to save the world by LOVE??? And the whole overuse of Love thing, it makes me wanna puke. Believe me, you'll get trucks loads full of love here, so much love Durzo Blint was awesome! I loved him, I was so upset when he dyed. Here he reappears only you have to wait until half of the book to see him.

And hes not him self anymore.

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Ok i understand hes a changed man. But this Durzo is a sugarcoated shadow and the whole point in him reappearing is so he can become a flying dragon on moment notice and scoop down from the sky to save the day? I feel offended in his name, I think it cheapens his whole character! I liked him more when he was at his lowest point, because he was more real and more true to him self than here.

Here he is supposedly happy and at peace and professes his love left and right There was a lot of it that was so rushed, and there was so many holes filled by illogical 'make up on the spot magic'. Here are some examples: In the end Vi breaks them, by willing it, on the spot and by doing so invokes some real love crap. And bam, it breaks. How does she know that?

As far as i know she runs away and gets captured and offered to khali as one of the choices for her host. It was a coincidence for her to get in that position. I much preferred first two books where the characters followed more natural, not rushed development. They where realistic there. Here they where all possessed with moralistic dogmas and ridiculously noble notions. That sounded quite wrong and not in character with their previous selves. There are parts of the book that are really good, and this is in no way a bad book.

It has a lot of stuff happening, a lot of it original. I wouldn't be so angry if didn't love the first 2books so much. Now i feel cheated. But all in all i wish i never read this one! Oct 31, Stephen rated it really liked it Shelves: Outstanding conclusion to an outstanding series. Brent Weeks has created a superb world with original and well thought out magical systems and creatures. All of the loose ends begun in the first two novels, The Way of Shadows and Shadow's Edge are tied up tight as a drum and brought to a very satisfying conclusion.

This series joins the ranks of one of the best fantasy series of recent years and I can not wait for the next book by this author. Oct 28, Scott rated it liked it Shelves: Last book in the trilogy - three stars. It was a very epic grand huge book. But there were oh so many issues. Like the other two books in the series this was riddled with pacing problems. The first pages of this book were so boring and painfully bad that I almost just tossed it in the garbage and really the only that saved it was that it was the last book in the trilogy and I wanted to see how it ended.

Then the last pages were filled with enough world shattering events and action that it s Last book in the trilogy - three stars. Then the last pages were filled with enough world shattering events and action that it should have taken pages to tell which meant it felt very rushed. Characters - really good characters but nobody I actually connected with. They were interesting but I felt disconnected from them and didn't care all that much about any of them.

Writing - not sure where to put this so I'll lump it into the writing area but the main characters story arcs weren't that interesting to me but the secondary character story arcs were amazing. Plot - it was fine I'll be generous and round up to three stars but just barely this was a solid 2. Jul 01, S. Inkslinger rated it it was ok. I haven't been able to read anything by Brent Weeks since, and I don't think I'll ever touch his works again.

This book is decent in many parts, but offers an ending that is not as satisfactory as I had expected from the Night Angel trilogy. Beyond the Shadows had many great scenes, Kylar's battle with Lantano Garuwashi, and his and Logan's later frie 2. Beyond the Shadows had many great scenes, Kylar's battle with Lantano Garuwashi, and his and Logan's later friendship with the saceurai, Kylar's attempts to finish off Terah Graesin once and for all, and the final scene where everyone combined their magic to stop the horde of kruls from overwhelming the world.

It offers a conclusion to everyone's story, with some having quite a happy ending, whereas others are sad. In the end, Midcyru would continued to be protected and saved by the Night Angel again and again, forevermore into the days of the future. Mar 04, Danielle rated it liked it Shelves: This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.

To view it, click here. This series was a good one, though I was fairly disappointed by the last quarter or so of "Beyond the Shadows. In addition to that, though the author used archetype characters in a large way, I feel that the character of Elene took it too far, or perhaps I should say d Nick, see below: In addition to that, though the author used archetype characters in a large way, I feel that the character of Elene took it too far, or perhaps I should say didn't take it far enough.

Where did she get her pure, innocent, selfless love? It certainly wasn't from her childhood. The characterization to make her who she was, which turned out to be central to the resolution of the plot, simply was not there. She qualified for sainthood, and I just didn't believe it. One, see the previous paragraph. Two, my ears always perk up when I hear a man start talking about strong women see essay by the author, following first book in the series.

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Or especially, their attempt to depict one. I can clearly see the 'strength' the author was going for in the female assassin Vi, but the fact of the matter was what he depicted was an extremely abused girl who reacted to her abuse by trying to 'be a man' divorced from her sexuality, emotional strength or empathy, 'heartless' and 'selfish'. Then, she fell in love cliche and a half! Which of these were strength, really? Were either of them supposed to be? Maybe that's my assumption, based on his essay, and really he was referring to Elene But if he was referring to Elene, then that is even worse.

Elene is a caricature, the very epitome of the selfless Madonna. Versus Vi, the whore. Of course Vi can't have Kylar's heart which is such a prize, his heart! So Elene, the selfless Madonna, holds Kylar's heart while Vi hangs in the background, waiting for possible pickings after Elene dies and Kylar deigns to allow Vi's eager, whorish heart to comfort him. That's not strength, it's a woman being exactly where a sexist system wants her, at the beck and call of a man who doesn't even have to love her in return.

So I just wanna know; can I read a book with a female character who's strong in a real, as-yet un-represented way? Who isn't just 'being a man', or being the 'perfect woman', who is known to all by her extreme selflessness and self-sacrifices? It was a little disappointing. But I enjoyed the series enough that I would recommend it to other fantasy readers I know. This book continues right on from book two.

After Logan Gyres initial victory over the God King, Garoth Ursuul, and the Khalidorian Empire, he is left to deal with the surrounding nations closing in to stake their own claim on Cenaria. To make things worse the Vurdmeisters and remaining Ursuuls fight to reinstate themselves as the new god king. To this end some attempt to raise an army of creatures from the other side.

Some are even desperate enough to try to raise the goddess Khali herself, wil This book continues right on from book two. Some are even desperate enough to try to raise the goddess Khali herself, willing to risk the enslavement of all humanity to the desire of a hateful entity from beyond. I had a hard time connecting to the plot with this one. In the first book we saw the rise of The Night Angel. In the second book we saw The Night Angel doing it's job of dispensing justice, when the book finally got going in the second half, and then closing with the confrontation with the god king.

But this book the plot just seemed to be all over the place. In the third book of a trilogy I'm generally expecting all the diverging plot lines from the previous books begin to converge to a climactic resolution. Instead we get even more story arcs diverging from left field before finally coming together. For example the stories of the three mages, Dorian, Solon and Feir.

While I was looking forward to learning more about them, where they end up made it seem like their whole arcs just gets started in this book, making their story very top heavy. Worse was that Kyler's role as The Night Angel seemed to lose its way somewhat. Instead of dispensing justice and mercy he's off having confused sex with one and half women and then plays a role that is more like warrior mage than the lone wolf icon of justice and mercy.

The rules of what he is supposed to be or do just seemed to be too flexible. And the ending was just a little to convenient and vague to me. The "good" love based magic won over the evil "vir" magic. I still enjoyed reading the book, while I was reading it, but whenever I picked the book up I had to really think to remember what was supposed to be happening and why, which led to some continuity problems.

A reread might make things clearer - but maybe not. I enjoyed book one the most out of the three. Book two was good, even more polished than book one even though I still enjoyed book one more. This book was just too all over the place to enjoy as much. I can't help but think back on Brent Week's Lightbringer books which I read before these. They show a vast improvement in plot structure and magic system and pacing.

Weeks has definitely got better since Night Angel and if you enjoyed this series then I think his next series will be a pleasant surprise starting with The Black Prism. But for this book it's View all 15 comments. Overall, this is 3. There were definitely parts which really piqued my interest and the magic was cool. My wish for more arcs and significance from Dorian, Solon and Feir materialised but I was not entirely thrilled with how they were dealt with. It actually made the whole plotline Overall, this is 3.

It actually made the whole plotline a bit of a mess.

This was also probably the first time where I felt practically indifferent to the main protagonist of a book, in this case, Kylar. I don't dislike him but he just doesn't make me feel invested in him. The parts of Kylar which I really loved were when he was fighting and view spoiler [when he was interacting with Durzo hide spoiler ]. While the cool magic directed by Dorian no less did save the climax - powerful magical artifacts are awesome! Mar 06, Pearlyn Ng rated it did not like it. I don't write reviews. I can't be bothered, half the time.

Even if I love the book to pieces. I'll name my firstborn child after the protagonist and fan-stalk the author, but really, writing reviews isn't my cup of tea. Brent Weeks deserves some solid applause. He's the first author that's made me a hate a book so much as to actually galvanize me into writing a review, can you imagine that?

The Way of Shadows was okay. I kinda liked it. Enough to try Shadow's Edge, which pretty much left me with a I don't write reviews. Enough to try Shadow's Edge, which pretty much left me with a sneer on my face. But by that point in time I just really wanted to see most of the characters meet painful, horrible deaths. Is this some kind of new writing technique? Make the reader hate your book so much that they simply must buy the next book? Well I guess I got suckered in.

The Night Angel trilogy reads like it was penned by a schizophrenic teenage sex-maniac, and Beyond the Shadows wins hands down for being the worst of the series. Couldn't you decide where you wanted your novel to go? Cavernous gaps and jerks in the story where things just happen without any attempt at explanation. And dues ex machina thrown around like glitter at a 9-year-old's princess party. Feir Cousat needs a very specific extra special ruby to 'authenticate' the fake sword he's making for Lantano.

And oh my god! Solon just happens to have the ruby way over in Seth! And he just happens to arrive just on time to save the day when Lantano's about to get skewered for fraud! Without so much as any kind of explanation as to how all of that neatly worked out. What the actual hell? I'll need to start stabbing someone soon. I think some of the other reviewers have covered this at length so I'll just restrain myself and move on.

Was Brent trying to be funny? The sa'ceurai obviously referred to samurai. Khali was obviously a very messed up reference to the Indian goddess Kali. I didn't find those nudges funny. The author was just trying too goddamn hard to inject levity everywhere. Sometimes it was appropriate, sometimes it wasn't. Dorian trying to be punny with the Khalidor Keeper of the Dead or something like that. It felt forced and completely unnecessary for the scene. The last two books should just have been titled Sex's Edge and Beyond Sex.

Sex sex sex sex sex. I'm not a prude; I've devoured many a juicy romance novel across the years. It's not even like Brent was trying to shock his readers by the dark reality or appeal of sex and sexuality. Or maybe he was trying, but he sure as hell never succeeded. I really don't know how much more juvenile you can get. Which brings us to the best worst? If that isn't the biggest, most sickening cliche of them all. Done right, some writers can really make it work.

Brent just took a big glob of it and pasted everything near the end of the novel.

The black ka'kari is powered by love. Khali is destroyed by love. Elene dies spouting about unselfish love. J K Rowling, now she handled the 'power of love' thing well. This is a travesty. Well congratulations Brent Weeks. I spent the last 20 minutes writing an ode to loathing about the Night Angel series.

I really wanted to like this book more than I did. Most of my friends seemed to enjoy it, but I just found it a disappointment. Paul Boehmer again does a good, but not great job as a reader. He is clear and easy to understand. He does a few voices, but I really have trouble telling some of them apart. Full Review I found this book to be a letdown. I felt Shadow's Edge started going off the rails a bit and to be uneven. This book was worse. There are things to like a Executive Summary: There are things to like about it.

I still found myself rooting for the main characters. The main plot was interesting. But that's about it. This book suffers from way too many subplots. Many of which didn't add much to the story for me. What started as an action packed gritty fantasy series in The Way of Shadows has somehow been morphed into a bad soap opera. I think the main story suffered as a result of all these subplots.

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It felt almost as if Mr. Weeks was considering expanding this from a trilogy into a longer series only to sort of plop all the characters together at the end. I would have liked to see more time on Neph Dada and Khali as the main antagonists of this book, they felt more like background noise. The most interesting character of the series to me was not the protagonist Kylar, but his master Durzo Blint.

Now that I've finished the trilogy, I think I would have preferred if the first book was followed by two prequel books about Durzo previous exploits instead. The series did at least end at a good place, wrapping up all of the main threads and many of the minor ones, but by the end I was just happy to get it over with. Loved it again third time around.

Just loved book 1 and 2 a little bit more. Oct 28, Patricia Crowther rated it it was amazing. Jun 21, Anastasia Antonova rated it it was amazing. Jul 13, Zoe Targaryen rated it liked it. At least better than the second book, nothing grand of the final. Everything tied up in whatever convenience to the writer, illogical and without explanation whatsoever.

But with some great characters and some amazing scenes. Now that was just silly. The book felt rushed and crammed of information that was spoon fed by plot devices read: The parts that weren't rushed were fight descriptions, which unless they're really well done can bore me, and angsty lovey-dovey crap, which bore me unless there's an actual point to them- save for one or two parts that could have been shorter, I didn't think there was much of a point in them.

As it were, I read it like: Oh, and here's a fight scene.

Beyond the Shadows

I'm fairly sure, given what he is, that he would have been able to see it by himself. Did Weeks not want to write one more chapter to show that same thing? And what about Uly's great great Talent? Is that leading anywhere or is it for another book? Youd think after the tenth time they'd just tell them everything, no? How stupid can they be? She was so lame at the end!

In a whole, I would reread the first and second, but I would get rid of the third. Dec 13, Megan rated it liked it Shelves: Now that I've finally finished the Night Angel Trilogy, I'm going to review it more as a series than just this individual book. Overall, this series was just lukewarm for me. I loved the world building. There was so much political intrigue, intricate plots lines, and unexpected twists that went in every direction.

Each character was significant in some shape or form, and each character was connected to each other in some important, but not so obvious way. What I didn't like: Solon is back in Seth, confronting his long-lost love, the Empress Kaede who is about to marry a competitor. Logan Gyre becomes a king of Cenaria, but the price of that is the death of his best friend. Renegade Kahlidorian prince and a Vurdmeister Neph Dada are congregating at the Black Barrow, where they are planning to raise the gigantic demon-like Titan, million of zombie-like Krul and give body to Khali itself.

Can all the conflicting interests of Midcyru act together to stop the abomination?

And do they have enough military and magical powers to actually do so? Kylar and readers with him learns more about his existence and his essence as a Night Angel, the magic behind it all and the real costs of immortality — but the more interesting, at least for me, was the moral dilemma of Dorian, who, motivated by the desire to bring peace and stop cruelty and fear from ruling Khalidor, commits countless and escalating acts of abomination himself, all in the service of the Final Good. The compulsively psychobabbling topics of healing Vi's sexual trauma and the virginal passions of Elene and Kylar raise their corny heads, but mercifully not for long, and in the climactic final scenes the idea of true, deep, spiritual love that transcends all selfish desires finds expression that goes beyond the adolescent mawkishness.

Beyond The Shadows reads easily, entertains with engageing characters, amuses with great monsters and magical feats. The world building is confident but without unnecessary exposition and the whole thing does a very good job of providing a solid chunk of epic escapism.

If you like this kind of thing in general, you'd love this one. Recommended for all fans of the genre. It would be nice to see Brent Weeks return to Midcyru one day, and considering that Kylar is immortal, some interesting creatures of evil appeared briefly or were just mentioned and there is this conundrum of mysterious twins, I am hoping he will. Just send us an email and we'll put the best up on the site.

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