The City Of Ceneria is in a bad way. Their king is dead, killed by the actions of their greatest Wetboy Durzo Blint. The bad news is that on the night of the King's death his entire family were murdered in the ensuing coup, including his new heir Logan Gyre who was married to the King's youngest daughter just minutes before the coup began. Using this sudden vacuum of power to his advantage the Godking Ursuul has invaded Ceneria and will use its borders to strengthen his own empire.
For the majority of Ceneria's nobles this means losing their homes and facing sudden poverty in the lower slums of town. Mamma K would dearly like to keep all of the women safe, but their are only so many positions she can make available in her brothels while still remaining in business, and far too many women suddenly needing to fill them.
For Kylar Stern the invasion has marked something of a wake up call. He's killed his master and father figure Durzo Blint, killed the evil prince Roth in vengeance, and failed to arrive in time to save his best friend Logan Gyre from the executioners blade. However in the arms of his childhood love Eileen Kylar sees the chance for redemption. Together with Eileen and his masters daughter Uly he hopes to make a new life in the neighboring city of Caernarvon. This is no easy task for Kylar was no mere wetboy; Kylar is now The Night Angel. Immortal, Invincible, and destined to mete out justice and mercy as necessary.
What nobody yet knows though, is that Logan survived the invasion. In order to save his own life he threw himself in the darkest hole of Cenaria's prison, and is even now fighting for his survival among the worst of Ceneria's criminals. When Kylar discovers the truth of his friends predicament he must make a hard choice. Will he turn back on his promise to Eileen never to kill again and abandon Uly when she needs him most, or will he leave his best friend to die horribly when the Godking discovers his whereabouts?
I must say I was very disappointed with this book. The first book may not have been the best, but in amidst its videogame level storyline I did find a fairly enjoyable action adventure. However there's not much action to be found in Shadow's Edge, and if the problem with the first book was that it lacked depth, the second book descends that little bit further into the kind of puerile nonsense that makes teenage soap operas so popular.
It's a shame because there are a lot of good concepts in the book that would have worked had a better writer been in place. Logan's predicament is a classic example. Here's a guy who has just had his new wife die in his arms, and is now living in abject filth. Guards urinating on bread before throwing it out to the starving prisoners, and prisoners who are murdering each other for food. In order to survive Logan must accept all of this and eat whatever he is provided with. In a better book this whole story would have been given the focus, but here it's enough just to show that this is a bad situation that the writer wants to keep getting worse just to prove how edgy he can be.
In the depths of his prison Logan will meet Gnasher. Gnasher is a giant of a man who has filed his teeth down to sharp points, has a tendency towards violence, and drives fear even into the inhabitants of the hole. If Logan ever gets out of his prison he intends to take Gnasher with him too. Of course it's not important what Gnasher is in prison for, or what kind of danger he would pose to the outside world because Weeks has written a simple giant to rival Sloth (The Goonies) and that's really all that matters.
Outside the prison things aren't much better. In the first book I could excuse Kylar's occasional preoccupation with woman due to the fact that he was a teenager living in relative luxury. Now though he's a grown man, trained as the best Assassin in the world, and on the run for his life. He's given up everything he's ever wanted to try to help a friend, and yet, every time he comes across a woman he phsycologically evaluates who has perky breasts and who has a nice 'butt'. Logan's not much better when he finally escapes from his dank prison and can't stop thinking about how he'll finally get to have sex now; which don't worry, never actually happens in the book. Combine those 2 with Kylar's rival; female Wetboy Vi, having a temper tantrum after someone touches her hair and you do begin to wonder why Weeks would intentionally cast all of his heroes as immature adults overflowing with teenage hormones.
At times I wondered whether I was supposed to be reading a comedy, but there really is no hint of irony throughout the entire thing. You're just expected to take the thing completely seriously.
It doesn't help that it's the middle chapter of a trilogy, and suffers the usual problems of having too much to tell without resolution. So the book tends to flit between characters every few pages, usually with a first person narrative, and as a result you're never really given a sense of place in the story. You're not sure which character you're supposed to be relating with, and often end up getting confused about who's doing what and where.
Still there are one or two good moments in the book such as the gloriously over the top Godking's (inspired by Frank Millar's 300) discussion on the possibility of pure evil, and it leaves off with a lot of interesting ideas for the final entry. However by this point I'm left with nothing more than an intellectual curiosity as to how it will all end up, rather than actually caring about the fates of any of the characters in it.
By the end of the last book I held a hope that the trilogy as a whole would improve the first book. Now though I'm seeing it all roll downhill way to fast and I'm concerned that the final book will be a complete train wreck. Only time will tell I guess, but I'm no longer holding out hope for this being a series I'd really recommend.
Kylar Stern has rejected the assassin's life. The Godking's successful coup has left Kylar's master, Durzo, and his best friend, Logan, dead. He is st...More at HotBookSale
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