Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Debut Showcase: The Way of the Shadows

The Way of the Shadows (Amazon USA, UK, Canada)
By Brent Weeks (website)
Orbit Books
Mass Market Paperback
Excerpt

The perfect killer has no friends. Only targets.

For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art. And he is the city’s most accomplished artist, his talents required from alleyway to courtly boudoir.

For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he’s grown up in the slums, and learned the hard way to judge people quickly — and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint.

But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins’ world of dangerous politics and strange magics — and cultivate a flair for death.

Hmm. The cover--wicked as it is--looks like the "look" for Karen Miller's books. So much so, that one might mistake it for a Karen Miller book. I'm sure this isn't intentional. This novel is garnering a lot of positive attention, and at first it looked too dark for me . . . but then I read the blurb for the second book over at novel's website. Now I'm more interested. Hmm. Orbit is releasing the three books in this series in three consecutive months.

9 comments:

Mulluane said...

Ears perk up! Looks like series review material!

Anonymous said...

The excerpt hooked me. But the blurbs for books 2 and 3 contain spoilers, which really isn't fair. Now I know how book 1 ends, even if I don't know how it gets to that ending.

Tia Nevitt said...

It does, Mulluane. I love it when they release the entire series on a quick schedule like this.

Raven, I had the opposite reaction. Even though they were marked as minor spoilers, I went ahead and read it because the blurb for the first book didn't work for me. It was the blurb for the second book that made me more interested in the first.

Now that I think about it, they were probably major spoilers, not minor. It's hard to say without having read the book.

Kristen said...

This one looks like it could be good and I love it when there is not a long wait between books. I ordered it over the weekend.

SciFiGuy said...

I'm on the fence about this series. I'll wait for some of your excellent reviews.

My only comment from the synopsis - what kind of name is 'Durzo Blint".

Tia Nevitt said...

I'll think about it. Right now I have a couple of other books ahead in the queue. This is the first one I've wanted to read in a while.

Daya said...

You are spot on about how it looks like a Karen Miller! I got them all at the same time (maybe that was part of the problem) and kept mixing up the titles/authors (I know, blasphemy!)

I really liked WOTS and can't wait to read the whole series! There seems to have been some excitement on whether it was "young adult" or not. I didn't perceive it as such, but you'll have to see for yourself.

Tia Nevitt said...

Ok, now it's shooting up to the top of my must-obtain list.

Anonymous said...

I really like the story, but the names make it a little difficult to read.