The Black Prism

Lightbringer #1

Hardcover, 629 pages

English language

Published Nov. 7, 2010 by Orbit.

ISBN:
978-1-84149-903-1
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4 stars (7 reviews)

Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals. But when Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart.

8 editions

Review of 'The Black Prism' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

While I still have issues with the glossing-over of slavery, I'm overall pretty happy with this story. My initial concerns over the slow reveal of the magic system's intricacies are gone, and I'll agree that the author did it right; there's enough in place to make everything sensible, while still having lots of reveal in later books. I like the reversal of the Mass-Energy Equivalence equation as a magic system, and I look forward to seeing where this goes.

Review of 'The Black Prism' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Took me a while to get to this one, but once I did I finished it in 36 hours. Love Brent Weeks' style and his ability to surprise me with plot twists. His ability to create good characters that are nonetheless human and do some despicable things is one of the things I like best about him. 2022 reread. This time I'm reading this in Graphic audio. A different experience, but equally compelling. No matter how you read this series, it is amazing.

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