Title: The Blinding Knife
Series: Lightbringer
Author: Brent Weeks
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: September 1, 2012
Format: Paperback
Pages: 671

 

The Blinding Knife is a step up from The Black Prism in a lot of different ways. Part of this is due to the fact that it’s not the first book in the series. First entries are always hard because of everything they have to accomplish. Authors have to introduce the world, characters, and plot and then sell readers on all that. But if you’ve made it to book 2 here, you’ve clearly been sold already. Characterization and plot (especially characterization) are a lot more at the focus than world-building this time around.

So, let’s look at the characters. They’re great. Gavin is the world’s most magically powerful person, but my god the man has problems. Between the skeletons in his closet and everything he’s trying to deal with presently, he somehow manages to be a badass on top of having a heartbreaking story. And then there’s Kip. Thankfully, he starts to mature with a lot of The Blinding Knife focused on him being trained. It’s a slow journey for him, with most of his facetime being dedicated to growing up. For Kip’s segments, this is very much a coming-of-age story. And these are just the two chief characters.

Other people from book 1 may not have as much time in the spotlight, but they still shine. Karris and Ironfist in particular are increasingly well-written every time we see them. We also start to slowly learn more about our antagonist, the mysterious Color Prince. And you can’t not mention Andross (or as I call him, Tywin Lannister) and how much of a magnificent bastard he is. We also get a slew of new characters, most of the good ones being Kip’s fellow trainees in the Blackguard. While most of these characters have smaller moments, the moments they do have (often alongside Kip) are just fantastic. Especially Teia, you go girl.

Now, while all this characterization is great, the plot is a little slow. Granted, this is a fantasy series with a big page count, so that’s kind of a given. While a lot of The Black Prism focused on the world’s history, The Blinding Knife focuses more on its present. With the known world on the cusp of war, politics naturally become involved. The world is a loose connection of nations that only sort-of kind-of get along. Some people care about the war, others don’t, and it all gets very complicated. Plus, the multiple POVs throw a lot of different plotlines at us and not everything connects just yet. Those bits will probably come together in book 3 or later.

Overall, The Blinding Knife is a big improvement over The Black Prism and paves the way for a truly great series. If you’re like me and found The Black Prism to be a bit rough, just stick with it until you get to the good stuff.

Title: The Rising of the Shield Hero, Volume 6
Series: The Rising of the Shield Hero
Author: Aneko Yusagi
Genre: Light Novel
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: November 22, 2016 (English) | June 25, 2014 (Japanese)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400

 

Rising of the Shield Hero Volume 6 picks up not too far from where Volume 5 left off. Everyone is licking their wounds after the last big battle and planning their next moves. Kind of. As per usual, the other three heroes are still treating this whole thing like a video game and being jerkasses. And for those of you who watched the anime, Volume 6 is right after season 1 ends. Presumably, season 2 will cover Volumes 6-10 since season 1 did Volumes 1-5 but at the time of this writing, they don’t even have a release date announced yet.

Now, Volume 6 covers two different story arcs. For the first 60% or so of the book, we wrap up the previous arc with little hints about the next one being dropped. This mainly involves a training montage, with Naofumi and the Queen both aware of how grossly underprepared everyone is. This is the more easygoing part of the book, giving Aneko Yusagi more time for world-building, character development, and all that good stuff. Plus, a convenient way to explain why the characters are suddenly a lot stronger in the next fight. And I will take that over some “power of friendship” deus ex machina any day.

The second act is where we get to the good stuff, the next story arc. You better believe that training montage is going to pay off here. The opening arc bleeds into this new one and once the next arc starts, the characters slowly figure out what the new threat is. Until it culminates into a massive, epic battle of survival against a horde of monsters, naturally. It all makes Volume 6 very balanced; first, we get the “normal life” stuff, then we get the big battle.

I would say the biggest pro of this book is the characters, both new and old. We get a few new people like Éclair who are just awesome. And our existing characters get further development too, from massive levels of development like Rishia to the gradual development Naofumi picks up with each new volume. The downside of Volume 6 is that nothing really gets resolved. The opening arc has no real stakes and the new arc is set to continue in the next book. We’ll see what happens next there.

Title: The Colorado Kid
Author: Stephen King
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Hard Crime Case
Release Date: October 4, 2005
Format: Paperback
Pages: 178

 

I’m admittingly not the biggest mystery fan, but I’ll read anything by Stephen King. And honestly, my biggest reason for picking up The Colorado Kid was wanting to read something short. Now, Stephen King has shown before that he can write non-horror just as well as horror. And this is a very different story from your average King book. The reviews for this book are very mixed. It’s not even a ‘love it or hate it’ thing; people’s opinions are all across the board here. I, personally, liked it but can imagine some people loathed it for the same reasons I give it 4 stars.

So, The Colorado Kid has a lot going on that’s different from most other mystery stories. First off, the mystery isn’t fresh. And the characters aren’t even really trying to solve the mystery. We have two older journalists telling this new younger journalist the most memorable story of their careers. The story of an unsolved mystery and their insights into it. And this is where I think a lot of people draw ire with the story. In fiction, people want a resolution. They want the time they spent reading to have a payoff. That’s not what The Colorado Kid does, but it was never trying to do that in the first place either.

Like any good mystery, we start with one big question. In this story, it’s “who was this mysterious dead man?” And as little answers and hints are uncovered, that leads to more questions so the trail of clues can continue. The thing is, this is where The Colorado Kid kind of stops. The characters (and readers) speculate a bunch, but it’s never outright said what really happened. And that’s the point. The Colorado Kid is meant to reflect a real-life mystery. Not the fluffed up, everything-works-out fictional version that people tend to expect. And oftentimes, real-life mysteries go unsolved.

Yes, The Colorado Kid is in the mystery genre. But it’s not really about the mystery. It’s about the characters trying to solve that mystery. Which happens, albeit a bit on-again-off-again, over more than a year. When the trail ends and they still don’t have a concrete answer, all they can do is speculate. And deal with it. And move on with their lives. The older characters even straight-up say they’ve never shared this story with any big-time publications because they know the facts will get muddled as people make up their own false ending due to our unyielding need for that type of closure as a society. By telling the younger journalist this, they’re passing the torch to her. And that’s really the point of this story at its core.

And as a side note, I think I really liked this book because it didn’t have a “real” ending and endings are something that Stephen King tends to struggle with. That many authors tend to struggle with. Ending a story is one of the hardest parts of writing one and the “life goes on” aspect of The Colorado Kid allowed it to skip over this usually steep hurdle.

Title: Crusade
Series: Destroyermen
Author: Taylor Anderson
Genre: Sci-fi
Publisher: Roc
Release Date: October 7, 2008
Format: Paperback
Pages: 400

 

Things are starting to heat up for Captain Reddy, his crew, and their new allies in Crusade. A lot of the initial worldbuilding for Destroyermen got taken care of in the first book. So, this time around there is more focus on plot advancement. By the time I got around to writing this review, I’m already 6 books deep into this series. And so far, it seems like the story arcs can be measured out fairly well. Yes, the overall story is still about fighting the Grik. But it can be broken down into smaller actions, just like a real-world conflict. The first book left a lot hanging, but the story was fairly self-contained. Crusade is more the first half of a two-parter.

At the end of the first book, it’s not 100% clear what the characters are actually going to do next. They know a massive invasion force that will take no prisoners is headed straight for them. A decision has to be made: run or fight. They pick ‘fight’ and a lot of Crusade is the human characters teaching the Lemurians how to get ready in every possible way. That means training in combat tactics, developing new weapons, learning to use those weapons and tactics, and outfitting an overall peaceful society for war.

Much of the book is spent on this prep work. Not just getting it done, but how they go about doing it and the beginnings of ramifications all these changes will bring to Lemurian society. And a lot of this is new to Captain Reddy and his men too. Yeah, they’re Navy, but it’s not like any of them were Admirals commanding fleets before this. Not to mention having to lead ground troops into battle.

And as far as the plot goes, it’s kind of basic. In real life, war is a messy business that (historically) is rarely about the moral high ground. But when you’re up against a take-no-quarters enemy who behaves as such because they’re vicious carnivores that you hope to God will have the good grace to kill you before they start eating you, it kind eliminates any question of good vs. evil. It makes it pretty easy for the protagonists to become shining paragons of honor and heroism. They’re not like Disney-protagonist level good, they’ll get their hands dirty when necessary, but the enemy is clearly much worse.

Destroyermen really reads more like an old serial series than anything else. In the grand scheme of things, not too much actually happens in Crusade, and nothing is really fully resolved. But that’s not at all what this book is trying to do, so it really doesn’t matter. It’s just a fun alternate history military romp. It knows this and does it well. This is not the series to read if you’re looking for something on par with Of Mice and Men. It’s what you read when you want fighting, explosions, and action in a light sci-fi setting.

Title: The Black Prism
Series: Lightbringer
Author: Brent Weeks
Genre: Fantasy
Publisher: Orbit
Release Date: August 25, 2010
Format: Paperback
Pages: 661

 

So, The Black Prism was kind of a mixed bag for me. A friend of a friend gave the Lightbringer series a glowing review and I trust her opinion well enough that I gave it a shot. And I did a little pre-reading research beforehand; the thing that stuck out most was everyone commenting on how unique the magic system is here. Ok, sure, I’m game. The story kind of felt like a halfway point between Epic Fantasy and High Fantasy. There were elements of both, and it didn’t strictly lean towards one or the other. And the characters and their quirks are a-whole-nother thing on top of that.

First off, the magic system. How it works is that there are different colors of magic, modeled after rainbow colors. While you can, in theory, use any color for any task, they all have specialties. For example, red magic is the most combustible so that works best for fire and explosives. Each color is also linked to a certain emotion; using a color can cause that emotion to flare up for the user. Red makes you angry, blue makes you logical, and so forth. I got to about this point when I realized the magic here is just the Lantern Rings from DC Comics. Take that as you will.

Then we have the story. Like most good fantasy stories, this world already has a lot of history to it. The audience gets little glimpses from people talking about the last big war. And how, despite being decades ago, the effects are still felt today and influencing current events. The fact that a lot of this information is conveyed through Kip, a 15-year old normal village boy, leaves a few things to be desired. Despite being described as smart, Kip is very much a fish out of water in this story and makes some pretty dumb choices along the way.

And the character tropes don’t stop there. We have an archmage, wizard apprentices, an evil despot, men behind the scenes on both sides, and more. Although the thing that sticks out more than the characters’ personalities is their bodies. Kip is fat and holy crap does that come up often. Not that it necessarily shouldn’t; I mean, it’s not fun to watch but it’s certainly a realistic approach to bullying. And The Black Prism also seems to have some troubles treating women as people instead of things, but I do not have enough space to go in-depth on that here.

Despite all the issues this book had, there are redeeming qualities. Mainly Gavin and his interactions with the world. And there was an impressive enough cliffhanger to keep me interested despite the various issues. People seem to like this series, so I will keep going and give it a chance. It might be a stretch to call it ‘bad’ based solely on The Black Prism, but I am hoping it improves.

Title: Overlord, Vol. 12: The Paladin of the Sacred Kingdom Part I
Series: Overlord
Author: Kugane Maruyama
Genre: Light Novel
Publisher: Yen On
Release Date: June 23, 2020 (English) | September 23, 2017 (Japanese)
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 266

 

So, this story arc, like Volumes 5 and 6, is divided into two books. This being Part 1 of that story, it shares a fair number of similarities with Volume 5. The first is that narratively this is the build-up phase. That’s not to say nothing really happens in this book, but it’s all preamble. This all makes it a pretty far cry from the big, epic moments of the series like Volume 3 or Volume 9. But that doesn’t mean the book isn’t interesting, its action sequences are just tamer. Cause that’s not really the focus here and will likely happen in Part 2.

What this book does is bring the audience to the Sacred Kingdom and its paladins. And show what Demiurge has been up to during the events of the last few books. And he’s once again using his disguise as Jaldabaoth, which just really makes this storyline even more comparable to the previous two-parter. So, the first two chapters of this book mainly focus on bringing in new characters, mainly the aforementioned paladins. We get to know a little bit about the Sacred Kingdom, see them fight, and so forth. Then the tone shifts a bit and starts to focus more on Ainz, although one of the new characters (Neia) becomes his little sidekick.

The thing about Paladin of the Sacred Kingdom is that it starts off slow. Told from their point of view, the story makes sense. We see the paladins desperately doing everything they can to protect their homeland. But we, the readers, know what the Nazarick gang is capable of. We know these paladins are doomed to failure. That they are being played like fiddles. And it’s not actually until the very end of the book that we see what Ainz is really planning here. And like usual, his train of thought is pretty different from the Guardians, but he rolls with it.

One thing that was fun to see here was Ainz’s continuously degrading humanity. He’s become less human, less moral, over the course of the series. But up until this point, it’s been kind of hands-off. Him just giving the orders or the ok to do terrible things. Or causing bad things to happen on a big scale where it’s hard to feel and measure the individual suffering of the victims. But now, he gets his hands dirty. And doesn’t feel even a shred of real remorse over it. He’s even struggling to just understand normal people and where they’re coming from at this point. It seems like he less feels emotions and more remembers what it was like to feel them. He is very much becoming the mask throughout this story and it will be interesting to see where that takes him.