“What do you call it when you realize you’ve been an asshole your whole life?” “A good start.” -Brent Weeks, The Burning White Never has my opinion of a story changed more drastically than over the course of reading it than Brent Weeks' Lightbringer series. The first book, The Black Prism, wasn’t bad, exactly, but if left me sorely, deeply disappointed. You see, I picked up it up after seeing that the author was speaking at a Realm Makers conference and discovering that he was, in fact, a Christian. Thus was looking forward to reading an epic fantasy written from a Christian worldview. However, The Black Prism proved indistinguishable (aside from a few subtle Biblical references) from some mainstream secular novel. The monotheistic religion is relegated to an interesting worldbuilding feature, people filled with lust are the norm, and moral themes are bland and safe, such as ‘loyalty and compassion toward those who love you are good’.
I’m not sure if this was some sort of trap to bait secular readers, but the Lightbringer series as a whole is a very different story than its first installment would indicate. At first, the cast of characters offers little to emulate. Gavin Guile, the most powerful man in the world, is arrogant and narcissistic, his heroic deeds tainted by the web of murder, deception and sexual sin he’s woven for himself. His (maybe) son Kip isn’t evil, but he’s more an object of pity than admiration. Kip's former crush Aliviana Danavis lusts after Gavin and later joins forces with murderous tyrant. Karris, Gavin’s ex-fiance (whom Gavin still loves but believes he can’t be with for spoilery reasons), is a short-tempered warrior whose main purpose in the first book seems to be objectified by the male characters. Then the rest of the series happens. Weeks take full advantage of his books' immense size to write some of the most intense character arcs I've ever seen. Every major character undergoes drastic changes. Gavin loses everything he wanted and is forced to recognize the depths of his sin. Kip grows from a whiny fat kid into a courageous hero. Karris sees the intense suffering she’s endured redeemed and used for something greater than she’d hoped for. Aliviana spirals into darkness and nearly loses herself entirely. That’s not even mentioning Teia, Tisis, Quentin, Andross, Ironfist, and Cruxer, all of whom have powerful character arcs of their own. By the end of the series, the depravity of the first book has peeled away, and the glory of God shines forth, revealing this story for what it’s been all along: a tale of God’s gracious working in a dark world. Writing Style: Weeks has an annoying habit of not italicizing direct thoughts, so the narrative seems to jump from third to first person and back again. This doesn’t impede enjoyment of his writing, as long as you turn off your inner grammar editor and let the story sweep you away. He also has a Brobdingnagian vocabulary, bigger than you’d expect his characters to have, but again, just don’t overanalyze it and you’ll be fine. Content: There’s a lot to be worried about here. Lightbringer has more sexual content than any other story I’ve read. I skipped several scenes, so I’m not sure how graphic it got exactly, although a couple of them were absolutely necessary for the plot. I actually read Wikipedia summaries of the first three books so I could default to skipping whenever anything involving a man and a woman in a dark room together and not miss anything vital. The fourth book includes a subplot involving a woman who gets married and then finds out that she has some dysfunction of the reproductive system that makes it so she can’t have sex, which ties into the character arcs of both husband and wife in very interesting ways. The sexual content decreases as the series goes on. By books four and five, nearly all the sexual innuendo is in the context of marriage, which makes me happy. One of the awesome things about Lightbringer is that characters I love get married, not at the end of the story, but in the middle— and then I get to see them grow in new ways in their relationship with each other. Battles, killing and dying and are very frequent, although the violence is rarely more gratuitous than necessary. With a few exceptions, the descriptions of killing are along the lines of ‘she stabbed him and he died’ rather than ‘she stabbed him and blood sprayed everywhere and he died’. Vulgarities of all kinds are quite frequent. Characters toss around F-bombs in both casual and high-stress situations. If the idea of reading a sentence like “Get the [expletive] off your [expletive] [expletive], you piece of [expletive]!” fills you with horror, you might not enjoy this series as much as I did. But seriously, if you feel comfortable with it, read Lightbringer all the way to the very end. It’s amazing. Deus ex machina: One common complaint I noticed while reading reviews of The Burning White, the conclusion to the series, is that Weeks used deus ex machina to solve plot problems. To which I reply: it’s not deus ex machina, it’s just deus. Yes, the God-figure, Orloham, takes a more active role in the climax, but He’s a been part of the story from the beginning.
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Progress on Doombear, Rough draft:10%
Progress on The Lore of Yore, third draft:
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"In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing. A journey."
-Oathbringer, pg 981 Types of blog posts:
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