Whilst hiding underneath a man within the Inn is attacked – he subsequently massacres his attackers with very little effort (even though Azoth thinks he appears drunk) and calmly walks from the bar. Although those within the Inn are unaware of Azoth’s presence – Azoth can see above through cracks in the floor. He finds it whilst wading through the disgusting and dangerous gap underneath an Inn’s floorboards to retrieve a few coins that may have fallen beneath the floorboards. It paints a terrifying picture and as you can imagine… Azoth is willing to do anything in order to get out. They demand payment, beat them, steal their food and even force themselves upon the weaker ones… The older children in the guild literally make the younger children’s lives hell. These guilds are full of young children who basically work together in order to steal food, mug wealthier folk and dabble in minor profit making crime. Azoth has survived by finding his way into a low levelled ‘guild’.
Our main character is ‘Azoth’, an orphan who has been born into a world completely corrupt and controlled by an organised crime band known as the Sa’kagé. There is rape, there is murder, there is pure evil and treachery – in fact it is a very, very dark series. The first book in the series ‘The Way of the Shadows’ came out in 2008… It is a bold book that to some extent glorifies the work of assassins, justifies the work of prostitutes and paints thieves in at very least a grey fashion. This ‘one month’ wait between each book was almost unheard of and although it was a bold move… it paid off… why? Simple… people read the books within 30 days and wanted to have the next one in their hands instantly… It was in Brent Weeks’s own words “A huge gamble by the publisher’, but it was one that paid off.”
When Brent Weeks wrote the Night Angel Trilogy his publishers weren’t prepared to make us wait a year for each book. This allows time for readers to finish a book, have a bit of a change and then re-visit a world about a year later… It takes a special kind of author to write three books and have them sold consecutively on a monthly basis… Typically a fantasy trilogy will take between three and four years from the first through until the last book is released.
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