Where The Black Prism was a bit slow to kick off and sometimes got bogged down in explaining the magic system, The Blinding Knife floors the accelerator from the starting line. Before you get a moment to take a breath you’re already 200 pages in, forgetting to go back to work after your lunch break, wondering just how the bloody hell it got to 3:00 am on a work night.
Weeks makes the right assumption that most readers will have read the previous book and doesn’t get bogged down in magic system details, yet provides enough that new readers can pick up fairly easily on it without getting lost. We get to find out more and more about the possibilities of luxin and the drafters that use it as Weeks keeps expanding his magic system, not getting stuck on previous laurels, keeping old readers interested.
Weeks delves deeper into the twisted world of lies that Gavin lives in and explores his relationship with Karris further. Looking into the Blackguards through Kip and the Colour Prince’s army through Liv provides some brilliant perspectives to lend the book the term ‘epic’ without much effort. At the same time, Liv’s perspective provides some very interesting and very real feeling religious questions that resonate with any reader who has any link to a modern religion.
The political power plays – especially a scene with the Spectrum and Gavin – are well thought out, brilliantly written, and choc full of built up pressure and the promise of a darker future.
This book is an absolute cracker. I couldn’t put it down.
Read The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks
