The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks

I was gifted the box set of The Night Angel Trilogy by a friend. My friends are amazing; I feel that should be noted now. This series has eaten my soul just a bit. I devoured all three in five days.

So...book one. Let's set the scene.

We open in Cenaria with the guild rat, Azoth. He's young, downtrodden, beaten for missing guild dues.

Enter Durzo Blint, legendary wetboy. Azoth encounters the mysterious Blint while climbing under a tavern looking for dropped coins. It is here his life truly begins.

In order to escape the guild and a tormenter known as Rat, Azoth does everything in his power to apprentice with Blint. An apprenticeship will get him out of the Warrens. It will give him power, a heady desire when he's known nothing but want and abuse for his few short years of life. But it will also let him protect his only friends, Jarl and Doll Girl.

But nothing is ever what it seems, is it? Poor Azoth. He enters a world that is darker than any he could have ever imagined, and it tears him from all angles. Obeying his master means abandoning love and the only true friends he's ever had, taking on a new life and a new name. And Durzo Blint is not exactly kind in his tutelage.

Azoth is reborn as Kylar and finds himself set back by his own morals. New friends or old--he lacks the ability to let them die in the name of professionalism. It's this very break between what's demanded and what he does that makes him an enemy of the empire and sees him framed for the murder of Aleine Gunder, crowned prince of Cenaria.

With prophecy thrown into the mix, Kylar's problems are only beginning. Cenaria is on the verge of a massive coup that could topple everything Kylar has ever held dear--and it demands the death of the very man who gave him his new life. For Cenaria to survive, Kylar must kill Durzo Blint.
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This story is engrossing, well-crafted, and the characters are interesting. Simply put, it's been a long time since a fantasy grabbed me by the throat and refused to let go. The Way of Shadows definitely did that.

I did roll my eyes at the use of prophecy when it was first introduced, but Weeks did a great job of putting limitations and high prices on its use. Deus ex machina is also a deal breaker for me--USUALLY. Weeks managed to turn that in his favor, however. With masterful twists on the trope, we come to see everything has a price in a wetboy's world.

While I would normally award a book of this caliber an automatic 5, I did dock for technical errors. Even with the backing of a big publishing company and the caveat that this book was a #1 New York Times Bestseller, it was still riddled with grammatical errors, something that continues on through series. It tossed me from the immersion several times, enough that I had to grit my teeth and remind myself how good the plot and characters were.

I give a solid 4.5 and recommend it to anyone that enjoys dark high fantasy. Excellent read, and I'm ever grateful to the friend who thought I would enjoy it; they were right.