Brent Weeks: Beyond the Shadows

• Mass Market Paperback: 720 pages
• Publisher: Orbit (December 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-13: 978-0316033664

 Logan Gyre is king of Cenaria, a country under siege, with a threadbare army and little hope. He has one chance - a desperate gamble, and one that could destroy his kingdom.
 In the north, the new Godking has a plan. If it comes to fruition, no one will have the power to stop him.
 Kylar Stern has no choice. To save his friends - and perhaps his enemies - he must accomplish the impossible: assassinate a goddess.

 And the finale. The wrap up. The fin.
 This book falls in the same classification of those recently published "epic" fantasy novels. They're published at the rate of about one novel a month, and they're pretty thick, but that is in large part due to the large print on the pages. So, what is meant to be an "epic" is actually a pale reproduction of Tolkien, Terry Brook-esque caliber. However. That doesn't mean that they aren't bad. Just that they aren't AMAZING.
 Brent Weeks started off his saga fairly well. Those are obviously words for another time and another review. This novel - the final in the trilogy - had its moments. My overriding issue, an issue I had with the series at large, was Weeks' attempt to tackle way too many characters and way too many plotlines. And, as I said before, his books have the thickness of those huge epics, but the print whittles down the story to realistically half the size of the book itself. Therefore, he's fitting in essentially the story of five or so countries vying for power in a book and a half. That is simply not enough time.
 In this novel, we have defeated the Khalidorans (who conquered Cenaria and then were expelled all within the space of the last book), but the country is still not at peace. I appreciated this as, realistically speaking, a country's story doesn't end with victory. That is just the beginning of a long climb to rebuilding and recovery. While Kylar thinks his job is done, he actually has to put the rest of the world back together. But wait, he has help. From everyone. The problem being that none of these characters are very good at communication, so we have them all coming at the issue and trying to solve it in their own way and stepping all over each others toes in the process. This makes for a complex story that, honestly, I at times felt I did not quite have the grasp of. There were moments when I felt like I was missing some major points of explanation. A character makes a decision or reveals information based on the movements of other characters that I don't recall. And I don't think that's entirely due to the space of time between novels. The point is motivations are lost in translation.
 Another problem with the space restriction of the novel and having way too many characters walking around at once is that we miss out on a lot of characterization, another factor that detracts from our understanding of motivations. One might argue that we've had three books to get to know these people, but it just didn't feel like enough. If it doesn't feel like enough, it probably isn't.
 Despite it's weaknesses in structure and narrative organization, there were some genuinely beautiful moments. The final few chapters were well written and moving. If I say too much, I'll spoil it. I just felt that - after enjoying the novel while still struggling with the elements above mentioned - it was a great way to wrap everything up. Everything has its place, several mysteries are solved, and the reader feels hope that that world has a bright future.
 Overall: B-
 The elementary space and time issues kind of toyed with my enjoyment of the novel, and I feel like he would have benefited from more time spent in constructing the novel and fewer restrictions. However, for all that, it was an enjoyable story with some great elements and some interesting and definitely worthwhile messages. Also, some major cool concepts.