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Title: The Burning White
Series:
Lightbringer #5
Author: Brent Weeks
Rating:
5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages:
1325
Format: Digital Edition
SPOILERS
OBVIOUSLY
This book has
several main Point of View characters. We follow Teia, Kip and the
Mighty, Gavin Guile, Andross Guile and his daughter in law Karris the
White and also Liv the Ferrilux. With each main viewpoint we also get
stuff from minor characters.
Teia has been
ordered by the Broken Eye to follow Gavin Guile (now a prisoner) onto
a ship and kill him once he completes whatever task the Broken Eye
has given him. The Order holds Teia's father hostage and claims they
will exchange his life for Gavin's. Teia backs out at the last second
and decides she will hunt the Order down. She contacts Karris but has
a fit of the feelings because of something that Karris did so Teia
goes it alone. This leads to her getting captured by her Order
mentor, Murder Sharp, and being tortured for information. She tricks
Murder into killing himself while he reveals just enough info for her
to continue her hunt. She takes some poison and finds a wagon of wine
that the entire Order is going to drink from and poisons every
barrel, pretending to be the poison tester. Of course, she doesn't
know she is masquerading as the poison tester until after she poisons
it all. Then she has to taste test the wine and take the poison
herself. Which means when the sun rises the next day that the poison
will interact with the light and kill her, along with every other
Order member. She succeeds and in killing the Order foils a plot by
them to open the city gates to the White King. She misses the Old Man
of the Desert however. Kip does what he can to save her and succeeds.
By the end of the book she is being re-integrated back into the
Mighty.
Kip and the Mighty
start out still in Blood Forest, where they have to decide whether to
save the town they are currently in or to save another larger town
that is a lynchpin in holding the current Satrapy together. If the
White King gains either town, the entire Satrapy will fall to him.
Tisis, his wife, figures out that Kip is being hemmed in not to
prevent him from saving either town but from heading back to the
Chromeria, where the White King is going to attack with all his
forces and all 7 of the Banes. Kip takes on the mantle of the
Lightbringer and takes the best of his forces back to the island of
Jasper to fulfill a prophecy about the Lightbringer being on the
Island to prevent a world wide disaster. He has also discovered,
through a message from Liv, that the mirrors on Jasper are part of a
network that are capable of killing the Banes. Kip and the Mighty get
to the Island, delay the initial attack by the White King and bring
some needed news to Andross Guile, who as the Promachos, is the
military leader. Andross is still playing games with his grandson and
Kip lets the title of Lightbringer go because he realizes he needs to
focus on his people instead of his grandfather. Kip begins killing
off the Bane by using the Mirror System but Zyman Guile, his insane
half-brother, kills him and proclaims himself the Lightbringer and
Prism and Emperor of the Chromeria. Kip's last actions are to send a
stream of White Luxin to some point in space. A wave of Black Luxin
returns and turns everything darker than night and then Kip is
brought back to life by Orholom's intervention. He is out of the
battle but has done enough to allow others to finish things up. At
the end of the book he publicly proclaims Andross as the Lightbringer
and he and Tisis will head back to Blood Forest to reign as Satraps,
while still investigating more about what Orholom actually meant all
the various luxins to do.
Gavin, who is
really Dazen, is taken to an mythical Island where Orholam Himself
supposedly used to meet with mortals. Grinwoody, the Old Man of the
Desert and leader of the Broken Eye, tasks Gavin with ascending the
tower on the island and destroying whatever he finds on top with a
dagger of black luxin. Grinwoody holds the life of Karas and Kip in
his hands as leverage. Gavin, now blind in one eye, crippled in one
hand and completely color blind and unable to draft, does as he is
bid. He meets up with a former rowing slave, coincidentally nicknamed
Orholam for his self-righteous preaching. Gavin makes the journey to
the top of the Tower, where he expects to find a nexus of magic
(Grinwoody doesn't believe that Orholam is real) and that by slicing
it with the Blinding Knife that he will destroy all magic in the
world. What he finds is Lucidonious, the First Lightbringer, who is
now immortal and apparently evil. He fights Lucidonious and somehow
banishes him back into the mirror world from which he came. The
Orholam Himself appears. He is Real. He and Gavin have a long
conversation and Gavin gets a lot off of his chest but also realizes
just how bad a life he has led to that point. He pledges his life to
Orholam and sends a wave of Black Luxin to the Chromeria to stop the
White King and his Banes. It isn't enough however and with his wounds
he can't do any more. Until a massive wave of White Luxin hits him
and regenerates him. He then uses all the Black Luxin from the Tower
and turns it into White Luxin. He then hitches a ride with Orholam
and gets to the Island of Jasper in time to take part in the battle.
By the end of the book he and Karris are re-united and Dazen (having
given up all false pretenses) decides he is going to go into the
color dungeon and kill some immortal Fallens.
Andross's point of
view begins with a split timeline. It starts many years ago when he
is trying to court his wife. Even back then he thought he was the
prophesied Lightbringer and he married his wife because of her
scholarly knowledge and ability to read and interpret so many foreign
prophecies. Each new chapter brings the timeline closer to the
present and we see all the terrible things that Andross does to
fulfill what he thinks the prophecy means, all the way up to killing
his youngest son. We see how his obsession drives his wife away, his
family away and how despicable a person he becomes. By the end of the
book he begins to redeem himself and both Kip and Dazen are reaching
out to him to prevent him from going down that path again. Of course,
he proclaims himself the Lightbringer and the new Emperor of the
Chromaeia and the new Prism. He is still a jackass.
Liv, Kip's friend
from the first book, now a godling herself, is under the thrall of
one of the Fallen and doesn't even realize it. She provides insight
into what the White King is doing and his eventual goal to proclaim
himself the God of gods and to become one of the Immortals himself.
He obviously fails and is obliterated.
First off, just a warning. As you can tell by the synopsis, this is
going to be a long review. I don't know how long this section will
be, but it will definitely NOT be my typical 3-5 paragraphs.
This final book in the Lightbringer series was released at the end of
October and I was desperately hoping someone else would have written
up a synopsis by now over at the wiki page. No such luck so I had to
do it myself. I left out a lot of detail, even major detail because
this book was just that big. My kindle page count was just over 1300
pages. That number comes from a character count (letters, not words)
with X characters per page, not how many page clicks I had to do on
my Oasis (which would change if I changed the font size). I sped
through it though. I'd read 25% at one go and then go read another
book just so I didn't over do it. That formula worked out perfectly
for keeping me interested but not burning out.
So lets start with the negative and potential negative. The only
truly negative for me was that it had been long enough between books
that I was lost at sea a couple of times. Weeks does provide a short
synopsis of each of the previous books at the beginning and I read
them. I'd have been even more lost without them. 5 books over nine
years is just a lot to deal with. There were a couple of times that
something was referred to that I had NO idea about simply because I'd
forgotten about it from a previous book. The “potential” negative
is the very long talk between Dazen and Orholom at the tower. I say
“potential” because it wasn't a negative for me at all (it
probably was the best part) but I don't know how other readers are
going to react to a theological talk between an Omniscient God and a
powerful but broken and hurting man.
I liked the almost continual revelations about the history of the
Chromeria and the Lightbringers and the 1000 Worlds and the
Immortals, etc. Just when I felt like I was getting my feet under me
Weeks would bring in another wave and knock me right over. The
revelations about Lucidonious was enough to really rock me.
The action was top-notch and was just as good, if not better, than
anything that came before in the series. From the Mighty fighting
against the corrupt Light Guard, to civilians fighting against the
White King's forces to Cruxer fighting against Ironfist to Teia and
Murder Sharp's fight, even down to the card game between Kip and
Andross, it all had the proper amount of tension. All the scenes were
what I wanted in my action. I was satisfied with them, completely.
The ending is a pretty happing ending too. The bad guys are defeated,
the good guys win and even the despicable scum get a shot at
redemption. I didn't find it sappy or over the top or too much. I
have to admit that I wished that Andross Guile had been killed. He
was one of the major despicable scum and while it was in keeping with
what Weeks was writing, I wanted to see Andross get some Justice from
Orholam instead of mercy.
Speaking of Orholam, the reason this got a full 5 stars from me is
because of the conversation between Orholam and Dazen. Weeks doesn't
shy away from having Dazen ask some of the hard questions, questions
that I struggle with in real life. There were a couple of times
during this part of the book where I just cried. I cried with relief
knowing that other people ask the same questions and feel the same
way I do, I cried because of the pain that causes such questions to
even be asked and I cried because I'm sure that Weeks himself
struggles with these issues. He couldn't have written like he did if
he hadn't fought these things out. Weeks is obviously a Christian but
much like CS Lewis and Narnia, he doesn't shy away from exploring the
“What If” in regards to theology and fantasy. He's not quite as
explicit as Lewis, as there is no Aslan/Christ figure, but Dazen and
Kip definitely play out the Father/ Son role of God the Father and
God the Son at the crucifixion. All of these reasons are also why I
am giving this the “Best Book of the Year” tag. It has some stiff
competition from the other books I gave this tag to this year, so
we'll see what book actually wins at Year's End.
Overall, I enjoyed the series enough that I wasn't crying “foul”
over the 2 year wait between books. It did show me though that my
semi-recent plan to only read completed series is the right way to
go. Whatever Brent Weeks writes next I'll be reading, but I won't be
reading it as it comes out. If you read the first book, I think
whatever you feel about that will guide how you feel about the rest
of the series.
★★★★★
