ridel reviewed The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks (Lightbringer, #3)
And Now For a Half-Time Break!
3 stars
I was so excited by the previous books that I was halfway through The Broken Eye before realizing that it was an inexplicable slog. With over a thousand pages before it, numerous cliffhangers and loose threads to resolve, even without author fiat, the narrators should have had sufficient momentum to carry the plot forward.
Instead, The Broken Eye is a directionless mess. Brent Weeks took the incredible action-packed climax of The Blinding Knife and called a timeout. Everything is put on hold. Gavin and Kip find themselves without agency, removed from events of importance while the world passes them by. Karis is written out of the story, with as many narrative chapters as Aliviana. The war, always the backdrop, barely warrants a mention. The only character who is doing anything of value is Teia.
This is partially due to the ambiguity of our antagonists, something I previously praised. It's a …
I was so excited by the previous books that I was halfway through The Broken Eye before realizing that it was an inexplicable slog. With over a thousand pages before it, numerous cliffhangers and loose threads to resolve, even without author fiat, the narrators should have had sufficient momentum to carry the plot forward.
Instead, The Broken Eye is a directionless mess. Brent Weeks took the incredible action-packed climax of The Blinding Knife and called a timeout. Everything is put on hold. Gavin and Kip find themselves without agency, removed from events of importance while the world passes them by. Karis is written out of the story, with as many narrative chapters as Aliviana. The war, always the backdrop, barely warrants a mention. The only character who is doing anything of value is Teia.
This is partially due to the ambiguity of our antagonists, something I previously praised. It's a very tense and thrilling novel where you're not quite sure who is the enemy, but when there's no clear villain, we need short-term goals. The Blinding Knife spent much of its page count on Kip's entrance exams into the Blackguard, but no such goal exists in this book. Characters wander from scene to scene like a slice-of-life novel, accomplishing minor tasks without any overarching plan, despite there being an actual war in the background.
Yet somehow I still felt the desire to read just-another-chapter. And credit where credit is due, I love it when authors recognize that defeated foes shouldn't just fade away after a protagonist deals with them. They're given life off-screen and return simmering with resentment. It breathes realism into a world. Events of import continue to occur in the background and secondary characters that disappeared from our narrators viewpoint continue to live their story.
Sadly, their story appears to be more interesting than the one we're reading.
Recommended with reservations - pre-existing goodwill should see you through the first mediocre half, and the last quarter has Brent Weeks returning to his fine form.
