Take your first look at the paperback repackages for the Lightbringer Series by Brent Weeks! You can pick up the complete collection in Fall 2023. Cover Design by Unusual Co.
The Black Prism by Brent Weeks (US | UK)
The Blinding Knife by Brent Weeks (US | UK)
The Broken Eye by Brent Weeks (US | UK)
The Blood Mirror by Brent Weeks (US | UK)
The Burning White by Brent Weeks (US | UK)
Check out the new spines too!
It’s not just another day…It is August 26th and for those of you who are waiting desperately for the next installment of the Lightbringer, today is THE day!
THE BLACK PRISM (US | UK | AUS) is the first book in the Lightbringer series and it’s the best place to start if you’re new to the world. It is, in a word, EPIC. His second novel in the series was the The Blinding Knife, and if I can steal a quote from Staffer’s Book Review: “It isn’t only the best book he’s written; I consider it one of the best epic fantasies I’ve read.” To paraphrase — THE BLINDING KNIFE (US | UK | AUS) is just AWESOME. The first two novels focus on Gavin Guile, who is the Prism — the most powerful man in the known world. He is high priest and emperor — a man whose power, wit and charm are all that holds the various nations at peace. But Prisms live on limited time and Gavin doesn’t know how long he has left to live. When he discovers that he has a son, Kip, he must decide the lengths he will go to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.
So, this now brings us to THE BROKEN EYE (US | UK | AUS). The third novel in the Lightbringer series, and the biggest one yet. So what does THE BROKEN EYE have? Let me see…how about an enormous leviathan in the first chapter —sorry! I meant two leviathans!!!! And that’s only in the first chapter. Did I whet your appetite yet? If not, let me continue: Secrets, betrayals, assassins, ancient gods, warring princes, — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg (literally!). Gavin and Kip are both at sea, with very little hope of escape.
A bit about the novel:
As the old gods awaken and satrapies splinter, the Chromeria races to find the only man who can still end a civil war before it engulfs the known world. But Gavin Guile has been captured by an old enemy and enslaved on a pirate galley. Worse still, Gavin has lost more than his powers as Prism–he can’t use magic at all.
Without the protection of his father, Kip Guile will face a master of shadows as his grandfather moves to choose a new Prism and put himself in power. With Teia and Karris, Kip will have to use all his wits to survive a secret war between noble houses, religious factions, rebels, and an ascendant order of hidden assassins called The Broken Eye.
Enough? Want more? Go buy the book — but only if you’ve read The Black Prism and The Blinding Knife. Start there. THEN read THE BROKEN EYE. It is not just EPIC & AWESOME — it is MIND-BLOWING.
And if I’m not enough — perhaps you’ll believe these three?
“Brent Weeks has a style of immediacy and detail that pulls the reader relentlessly into his story. He doesn’t allow you to look away.”—Robin Hobb
“The Lightbringer series is great fun. Nobody does break-neck pacing and amazingly-executed plot twists like Brent Weeks.”—Brian McClellan
“Weeks creates a rich blend of politics, culture and character in the
Night Angel Trilogy, then throws in magic-using assassins. Brent Weeks is
so good it’s starting to tick me off.”—Peter V. Brett
See Also:
The Official Lightbringer Pronunciation Guide read by Simon Vance, the narrator for The Blinding Knife and The Broken Eye (available in audio now)
THE BROKEN EYE Book Tour: RSVP on Facebook today!
“I, Night Angel” and “Gunner’s Apprentice” are now available worldwide!
I love a great plot twist. After writing and publishing six big fantasy novels, I’ve become pretty hard to fool with a twist, but every time I hear a reader say, “I never saw that coming, but looking back, it made so much sense.” I get to feel the pleasure anew. It is, of course, merely a vicarious pleasure, but living vicariously is kind of what novelists do.
The Lightbringer Series is, in part, an ass-kicking examination of identity and integrity. Many of the characters have secrets that influence both, and these secrets are revealed not through navel gazing and discourse, but through actions, lies, and inadvertent truths that escape when the characters are under great pressure. Characters do what they don’t say, say what they don’t think, and think what they don’t do. All of which is fertile ground for surprises.
But a plot twist is more than just a character acting in a way that surprises us. A chaotic or insane character does that. (And, let’s be honest, an actually chaotic character might be impossible to pull off. The most famous recent example of a wildly chaotic character is, if one thinks about it at all, actually a master planner par excellence: Heath Ledger’s Joker from The Dark Knight.) Instead, a great plot twist takes a lot of planning and careful management of what a reader thinks is going on at any moment.
But how do you manage audience expectations when an audience ranges from teens reading the very first book they’ve ever read outside of assigned reading to adults who have been reading fantasy for fifty years? Movies get to cheat on this. If you have a convoluted plot, and something’s always happening on screen, only a tiny percentage of people will be able to think through the plot holes and possible lacunae in the two hours they’re watching. With a big fantasy novel, authors don’t have that luxury. Some readers devour, and other readers savor, thinking through every tidbit, and guessing for weeks where the plot’s going. (more…)
When I began writing the Night Angel trilogy, I deliberately started with a world in which there were few magic users, and most people would rarely encounter one during their lives. I mentally compared them to professional athletes in our world–if you have a normal job, you might glimpse a seven-foot tall basketball player walking through the airport someday, and be awed. On the other hand, if your job is an athletic trainer or referee, you might see professional athletes every day, so as the Night Angel trilogy progressed and the characters grew, we saw more and more magic.
In Lightbringer, I wanted to go high magic. After all, why not? I soon found out. Mo’ magic, mo’ problems.
Having lots of magic makes for lots of narrative problems. First, the main problem for any secondary world fantasy is setting the stage, defining the rules, the institutions, the time period, the religious and cultural beliefs and all the other expectation-setting that we’ve come to call world building. In Night Angel, I’d given myself a low bar to clear: at least at first, the world is straight-forwardly quasi-medieval European. You’ve been there before, you can make good guesses about how things work. In Lightbringer, we’re in a different place and time entirely: this is a Renaissance era quasi-Mediterranean setting. Not only is there a huge number of real cultures to draw from, but it was already a time of rapid technological and social change.
Take one small example: up until 1480, sailors aimed their cannons by resting them on the gunnel (the gun-wale), literally the side of the boat. You propped it up, moved it closer or farther to adjust elevation, and boom. But if the other ship got too close, you couldn’t hit their decks anymore. Then someone had a bright idea: you put the gun belowdecks and made little doors to open when you wanted to fire. Thus the boat could still be relatively watertight, and you could shoot at the hull of the other ship for as long as you could still shoot.
Within twenty years, the idea of portholes had spread throughout the entirety of the Mediterranean basin. No one was shooting from the gunwale any more.
But no one treats magic like this. In secondary world fantasy, usually the only person to do anything new or game-changing with magic is the protagonist. Entire towers full of magicians do research for hundreds of years, and they never learn anything new.
THE BLINDING KNIFE (UK | US | AUS) by Brent Weeks is a New York Times bestseller, a USA Today bestseller, and it was the bestselling fantasy hardcover in the US and the UK last week!
Congratulations to Brent from all of us at Orbit!
And remember, you can read a sample here, but be warned: there are spoilers ahead for those of you who may not have read the first book of the Lightbringer series. You can also read the first three chapters of THE BLACK PRISM (UK | US | AUS).
There are also a few more tour stops on the east coast before Brent crosses the Atlantic to visit UK readers. We’ve gotten numerous reports from fans who had a wonderful time. There was laughter. There was merriment and even a reading from book three. Visit the Brent Weeks Facebook page for full details.
*Goes live on Sunday the 23rd!
THE BLINDING KNIFE (UK | US | AUS) is out today in the US and Canada and will be hitting shelves in the UK and Australia on September 13th. For those not already in-the-know this is the second book of Brent Weeks’s New York Times bestselling Lightbringer series which started with THE BLACK PRISM (UK | US | AUS).
If you’re stuck at work, school, or otherwise unable to dive into THE BLINDING KNIFE immediately, check out these early reviews to whet your appetite. Staffer’s Book Reviews called it “a tremendous achievement… It isn’t only the best book [Brent’s] written, I consider it one of the best epic fantasies I’ve read.” You can read the rest of the spoiler free review here. Comic Book Therapy has another great spoiler-free review up.
The book tour also begins today starting with a launch day event at Powell’s Books in Beaverton, Oregon. Brent will be making stops in the US and UK. Find out which cities and stores he’ll be appearing at here or RSVP on Facebook.
In other series news, Brent recently announced that the Lightbringer series has been expanded to four books. So look forward to even more action after you’ve finished the second exciting installment.
“I’m happy to tell you that the Lightbringer Series will be four books. (No, don’t worry, I’m not floating down the Never-Ending Series River, though yes, I do feel the current!) I was always torn between three books and four for this series, and as I got working on book three, I realized I was going to have to cut way too much great stuff to fit the story into three books, so Orbit and I have agreed to a fourth book. Progress on the next one has been fantastic.” – Brent Weeks.
There is also an updated map posted to Brent’s website illustrating the Seven Satrapies that may aide you as you travel with Gavin, Kip, Karis, and your other favorite characters through the war-torn lands of the Seven Satrapies.
The stakes have grown since THE BLACK PRISM and so have the obstacles facing Gavin and the others. The only thing that is certain is that time is running out.
