Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella

• A beautifully written, engaging novella about some of history in the twisting, frenetic, and dangerous life of the author’s famous character Durzo Blint, first introduced in “The Way of Shadows”. I loved the brief glimpses of this fascinating assassin, an immortal soul that has held many guises over his 700 years of life, starting with his first Acaelus Thorne. I particularly liked how some of the other characters (I’ll not mention here to keep spoilers out of my review) from that novel were worked into this story. • Reading this novella might be a bit of a challenge at first because, as the author mentions in his own Acknowledgments, writing it gave him the chance to “experiment with a staccato, time-skipping, kinetic style that I [the author] hoped would be fitting for these characters.” Indeed, the style chosen for the novella does fit the telling of the history of these characters, but it is jarring for the reader. • The best advice I can give is to remember the main character here is Gaelan Starfire, and he’s giving an interview to a guy by the name of Yvor Vas. The threads then weave in and out and between the interview, and many other characters are mentioned, considerably more than for your typical novella. It will help the reader keep things straight in his mind to know that Brent Weeks wrote the interview portion of the story in PRESENT tense, while all the memories of the stories are written in PAST tense. • The second piece of advice is to know that italics are used for internal monologue (of course), but those italicized lines enclosed by tilde (“~”) characters are thoughts given off by the secret entity that lives inside the main character. Their silent dialogue exchanges can be insightful and funny, but confusing if you don’t realize this little detail. • Others have remarked you need to read the entire Night Angel trilogy before reading this novella. Not so! I’ve only read the first book in the trilogy, and I enjoyed this novella very much. Perhaps some of it went over my head? Possibly. But that’s why this wonderful work deserves a second (or even third) reading to capture all the nuances that author Weeks imbued this great tale. It is a must-read for any fan of “The Way of Shadows”.

I will start by saying that Brent Weeks is one of my all time favorite authors. I hold the Night Angel trilogy in very high regard for the character depth especially. In this world the characters are very believable and stay true throughout the series. However, in my opinion, none of the other characters are as deep and enriching to the story as Durzo Blint. I was extremely excited to learn that Brent took time off from writing the sequel to The Black Prism to work on this novella. Despite a glaring contradiction from the original story regarding the use of a certain artifact by a certain legendary character (see pages 414 and 535 of Beyond the Shadows, then examine Perfect Shadow), this was still a very fun read and I greatly enjoyed getting to see more of Durzo before the beginning of the trilogy. I really look forward to Brent's next series set in this world after he finishes the Lightbringer trilogy.

I don't get the negative reviews of this novella, especially from readers claiming to be a big fans of the trilogy. Yes it's short - it's a novella - you knew that when you bought it. I for one am very grateful to have this additional taste of Night Angel story and history. It's as well-written as the Night Angel trilogy, and for as short as it is, it contains a lot of history. There are several time frames but it's not jumpy. There are a few short-story type segments, going forward in time with each clip, and then the majority of the novella is done in the same time frame, which is the most interesting part. There is more history here than just Durzo's too - Gwinvere (Momma K) is a young working woman during the last segment, and we're treated to their first meeting. We're given some insight into what has made Durzo Blint the man he is, and a little more personality of the black ka'kari itself. There are several conversational bits between man and ka'kari. We also see another ka'kari in action, and see its fate. This novella probably started out as some research-type writing on the author's part. Then at some point he realized hey, the fans might like to read this stuff. So here we have it, and I'm glad this didn't just end up sitting dormant in a hard drive or the editor's archive files. I too am anxiously awaiting the next Lightbringer novel, but this was great. And as far as the price - yes it costs more per page than a novel. But come on - how much do you think the author would make if this were $0.99? Almost nothing. He deserves our support for his fine work. $2.99 is less than the cost of a beer at a bar, it's not unreasonable. If you're a new reader to the Night Angel trilogy, I would definitely say DO NOT read this before reading the trilogy. It won't ruin it or anything, but I think discovering things as they are laid out in the trilogy is best, and this additional history afterward is great backstory. Backstory is always best once we know and care about a character. If you're a Night Angel fan, don't hesitate to read this, you'll enjoy it!

I am probably one of the biggest fans of Brent Week's novels that you will ever find. I blazed through his incredible Night Angel trilogy and savored every second of The Black Prism. So I was somewhat surprised to find that his next book would be a short story or a novella instead of a standard novel. Revisiting the Night Angel universe was more than enough to kindle my interest, and for the most part this story does deliver. However I cannot recommend this to anyone who hasn't already read the Night Angel trilogy. *Spoilers* Don't read this review unless you've read the Night Angel trilogy. Going back and elaborating on the back-story of Kylar's mentor Durzo was an interesting premise, one that I would have happily seen as a full novel. This is my first issue with Perfect Shadow: it seems that Brent Weeks had a laundry list of interesting scenes and ideas for Durzo but couldn't think of a full novel to work them into. You'll probably come to the same conclusion when you see the overall structure of the story. It seems to scan over the more memorable and important moments in Durzo's past life at a very brisk pace without much in the way of character development. I got the notion that Brent Weeks really just wanted to write some scenes for Durzo that never got into the Night Angel trilogy, kind of like deleted content. While it does provide some interesting (and erotic) exposition on the relationship between Momma K and Durzo the story doesn't have any new memorable characters nor does it elaborate much on the ones we've come to know. That's saying a lot considering that I revere Brent Week's for his incredible characterization. I really feel that Brent Weeks missed an interesting opportunity with Perfect Shadow. Don't get me wrong it's a great story, but I feel that it could have been so much more. Durzo is an immortal who has lived multiple lives for countless generations. We could have explored these older lives and witnessed the very events that culminated into Durzo becoming a cold-blooded assassin that he is now. The reason I bring this up is because Durzo isn't a very deep character, so he doesn't really work very well as the protagonist. He's an interesting character, but he lacks the internal conflict and depth that made Kylar such an endearing and memorable character. Perfect Shadow is a good story but only an "ok" Brent Week's story. A huge reason why I'm so harsh on it is because Brent Weeks has constantly blown my expectations out of the water, Perfect Shadow while solid just didn't have that same WOW factor that his other works have had. It's not a must read like his other stories, but if you want a quick gritty backstory then give it a try. Just remember that this is NOT an introduction into the Night Angel series.

Brent Weeks is a fantastic author. The Night Angel Trilogy was my first introduction to him. I'll admit, I didn't much care for his writing at first, but the story is extremely compelling, and Weeks is fantastic at making his characters human while still being super human. They are unbelievable in their abilities, but he acknowledges that and moves on with a story that seems extremely familiar and completely alien at the same time. He is almost on par with writers like Robert Jordan. He created a complete world with a fascinating history that makes you want to know more. This novella was more, but it wasn't enough. I hope someday to learn the full history of Acaelus Thorne, but this was a good teaser of how Durzo Blint came to be. What's especially fascinating about Weeks is that I have also started the Lightbringer Series. They have some similarities, but they are so vastly and uniquely different, that I'm impressed that one author has created 2 completely separate and distinct worlds. I do wonder if the worlds are just different biomes of the same universe, or if they are completely separate, but I can't help but wonder what a meeting between young Lord Gire and Kip Guile would be like. Kip almost seems to merge the 2 characters of Gire and Kylar, but this isn't a review of The Lightbringer. Suffice it to say, this version of story telling worked well for Durzo's story, and I hope to learn more of his past. If you liked the Night Angel Trilogy, you will like this. It's more than worth the cost.

I loved the Night Angel series and I enjoyed this book too. It is about the backstory to the original Night Angel and how he came to possess his powers. The only thing keeping this from a perfect score is that the author skips a large portion of the story by just going over what happened in a few sentences. I'm not sure if this was to get it under a certain size or if he thought the back story wasn't necessary but I didn't like it. Other than that it was a great read and an excellent choice for any fan of the Night Angel Series.

Great book

This series is fabulous, epic scale, great characters, super cool realm, and a great story! You can’t go wrong if you’re looking for lots of action and intrigue!

Esse é um dos livros da minha série favorita!!! Recomendo

Charmante nouvelle qui raconte les premiers pas de Durzo Blint en tant que wetboy. L'histoire se situe donc quelques années avant sa rencontre avec Kylar, mais je conseille de la lire après la trilogie, pour être familiarisé avec les notions de Sa'kagé, ka'kari, etc. Le récit n'est aucunement indispensable, mais c'est un plaisir de retrouver Durzo et de découvrir des facettes de sa longue vie. Et on croise des personnages qui auront leur importance par la suite. L'écriture est maîtrisée, le style tonique. J'ai trouvé cette longue nouvelle particulièrement plaisante.

Zunächst war ich verwirrt, doch ich hatte bis dahin noch nichts von diesem Autor gelesen und kannte das Universum nicht. Trotzdem war ich sofort begeistert von dem Schreibstil - kurz, knapp, aber dennoch sehr aussagekräftig und bildgewaltig. Sofort bekommt man ein Gefühl für die Stimmung dieser fremden Welt und für den Protagonisten, der die Geschichte erzählt. Außerdem wartet die Story mit tollen Dialogen und spannenden Actionszenen auf, auch wird es heiß und sexy. Damit hat sie alles, was sie für eine abgerundete, unterhaltsame Geschichte braucht.

I have loved the whole series, this gives a great insight into the world of Durzo, thoroughly recommend this book.

Mi è piaciuto molto. L'ho letto tra il secondo e terzo libro della trilogia. Lo consiglio per approfondire i personaggi di questa bella storia di Brent Weeks.