Rating: 4 stars
The Godking lies dead. With any power vacuum, there is always an influx of those who wish to capitalize on the situation. Dorian, trying to complete a rescue mission in the Godking's castle, finds himself unwittingly sucked into the maelstrom and ends up ascending the throne and becoming the new Godking. But a benevolent Godking may find converting his people to a just way of life may be more difficult that he imagine, and it may just be impossible to achieve without submitting to the will of the vir and becoming evil.
Speaking of power vacuums, Cenaria needs to rebuild and refortify. Terah Graesin, the current queen, will be incapable of keeping the country united if it falls under attack and Logan Gyre can do nothing to take the throne he deserves from her. The nomadic Lae'knaught are seeking to settle Cenaria as their own, rogue Vurdmeisters are seeking to raise the goddess Khali and there's an army of krul being raised to wage the war. What can Kylar, one man against hundreds of thousands, do to stem the rising tide of aggressions and, if the Vurdmeisters have their way, when all is said and done, will be he strong enough to kill a goddess?
The final volume of Brent Week's Night Angel trilogy is quite the satisfying conclusion. The events of the previous 2 volumes culminate in a tremendous war for all of Midcyru and the events of Beyond the Shadows do not fail to entertain, not only on the scale of grand battle, but the personal relationships as well. Weeks unifies everything he has been building up to and, in the process, we get to watch his characters change and grow and we gain some new friends and lose dear loved ones. This is handled quite well throughout the course of the novel and I'm still rather shocked at how well done it all is seeing as this is only Week's third published novel. Pacing is great, events intertwine very well and the ending is satisfying.
There's only a couple of major detractions to the trilogy as a whole; general pacing is one of those (despite what I mentioned last paragraph.) The character-building and story introduction of the first book prepare the reader for a slower-paced series but the two subsequent books flow smoothly, what with the characters being introduced and Weeks being able to focus all his writing on the events themselves. The other would be the lack of definition to many of the terms used in the books. A glossary in future reprints would help ease the reader into the world and help sort out the nuances of different terms. Minor complaints, both of them, and if you didn't pick up on it yet, I strongly recommend picking up the Night Angel trilogy so you can enjoy a terrific new talent to the fantasy genre right from the inception of his career.
---------------------------------------------------
Mass Market Paperback: 720 pages
Publisher: Orbit (December 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316033669
ISBN-13: 978-0316033664