wolvenbolt's reviews
267 reviews

Is Brent Weeks serious???!!!
Wtf was this book?! This was the ultimate mind bender! So many things we saw as fact and fundamentals that were the foundations for what made characters who they were....were completely flipped around and shown to be false! 

Dazen is a black drafter and was never a real Prism! Andross knew he was Dazen for the past 7 years! Andross loved Dazen only, and despised Gavin, and only paid him such attention because he knew he was dangerous, a terrible ruler, and only made him Prism because he thought he'd die after 7 years, and he didn't want Dazen to die! Kip is not the real Gavin's bastard, but Andross' own bastard! Gavin died at Sundered Rock and was never in Dazen's Color Prism, in fact, nobody ever was! The "Dead Man" in the prison is not a will-casting of Dazen meant to torment a prisoner, but is something more sinister, something that has lived below the Chromeria well before Dazen made the Prison! Ironfist is a fucking Broken Eye agent! Kip actually loves Tisis and she's not actually a faker and pretending to as to manipulate him! Prisms are made with the Blinding Knife thanks to the Black and White luxin in the hilt absorbing colors and granting them to the wielder! (although that's a theory, unless I missed that being explicitly stated) Grinwoody isn't a slave, and in fact has fooled Andross the whole time as he is the leader of the Broken Eye!

I'm sure I've forgotten many things, but I have never came across a book that has flipped everything we knew on its back and revealed almost everything we knew as being wrong. To think some people called this book filler and setup for the final book, that's grossly unfair!

Now I will say some of the things Weeks unmasked in this book feel like they weren't planned for from the beginning but were made up as he went, such as:

 

Gavin not really being in the prison at all and Dazen hallucinated it and fooled himself because he wanted to convince himself he was a good man and used Black Luxin to forget his darkest deeds. A lot of that feels very forced, like a round-edged square fitting into a circle hole. It felt like a cheap twist, akin to someone waking up from a dream at the end of a shocking ending. If this was true, that means a good chunk of the first two books that were chapters solely about describing Gavin trying to escape the Color Prison and talking to the "Dead Man" didn't actually happen. I can't fathom why they were made and focused on so much if they weren't real, the right way of going about that wouldhave worked better if Dazen show up at the prison to a watch room from time to time and watched Gavin in his escape attempts, which would have made more sense because we're viewing things with Dazen present...because it's not real and he's hallucinating. How can Dazen have hallucinations about the prison when he wasn't even present or anywhere near the Chromeria???

But I have to say, the twist with Kip actually being Andross' son felt a tad bit round-edged square, but made sense at least and didn't have any plot holes I can remember, because Dazen didn't know what Gavin did all the time and he wouldn't know about a bastard and so just assumed it to be true because Gavin was a scumbag rapist. It also makes sense why Andross spent so much time with Kip despite him being "Gavin's bastard".

Overall, probably my favourite book from the series so far, I'm not a huge fan of the cheap twists that create plot holes for shock factor, but the series is so vivid and rich that it's immediately forgivable 🤓

Dear Orholam! This book was somehow even better than the first book!

I can't even describe how amazing this was! This is in my top 5 favourite books now! 🤯

Gods this book was wild! My favourite fantasy series is The Stormlight Archive and this book felt so ooooooo very much similiar to that series!
It was filled with intrigue, action, emotion, plot twists that subverted expectations and I didn't see coming but made sense.

The magic system was a bit complex to wrap my head around at first, I spent a bunch of time at the beginning constantly thinking "What the hell is Luxin???" but once I understood it I was like "Jesus this is some fun as feck magic!".

The twist about 30% into the book was completely unexpected and brilliant, it made me question everything for a while, who's good, who's bad, what motivates this person and that person, why can't this person do this thing and what's holding them back etc.

There's so much overpowered magical ability balanced out with great drawback, which is something I love to see with a magic system, some semblance of balance. There's a very rich world being built here, all the factions, the history and grudges in play, the hard choices and difficult sacrifices that go against certain characters own beliefs. Kip, Liv, Corvan, Gavin and even Ironfist were all incredible characters that quickly grew on me. I will be fair and say I think Karris is a character I'm kinda "meh" about in this book, she's one of the four main perspectives on the book and she's and it's nice that she's a badass in combat and has skills etc, but I'd have liked to see her character fleshed out a bit and see her strength not from combat but from character

(She's lived 16 years in the dark, she's always wondered why Gavin called off the wedding, why he suddenly became good, she mourned Dazen who she truly loved while also dealing with the fact he killed her family)

We did see some of her past revealed and the effect it had on hardening her

(the birth of Gavin son and having to send him away and never see him again)

, but this was for a short enough chapter and was about it.

Overall, the book wasn't flawless, but I'm certainly nitpicking and it doesn't deserve to be docked any marks, this but was a thrilling pleasure and has reinvigorated my love of reading after finishing the last couple of Dune books 😂

It started off really strong, the characters were interesting, the magic was intriguing, the world was different enough to grip me but familiar enough for me to not be lost. This book is mostly character driven, the plot leaks in from time to time. However, when a certain character was killed off

Remy

, the book kinda derailed from there and seemed like it was improvised as it went on, instead of planned out properly. An unsatisfactory ending, that makes reading the book almost pointless. The book became very dumb and smooth-brained at the end, almost like the author just gave up.

I've been told if I did not enjoy books 5 and 6 than I should avoid reading Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, well I will not be reading those books.

This is definitely my least favourite of the series, I found it mind numbingly boring and an absolute chore to read. Heretics at least was trying to return to the golden standard of Dune Messiah, with political intrigue and interesting characters such as Teg we haven't seen since the earlier books. So where did Chapterhouse go from Heretics? Feck all anywhere it felt like. I think the Honoured Matre were an interesting group in concept but a series killer in execution. It's really annoying seeing a series that was so rich with philosophy and glimpses of the human condition, produce these boring empty barbaric sex obsessed antagonists that will Christiano Ronaldo your head off if you offend them even slightly, which could be anything because they're hyper sensitive.

It actually became uncomfortable reading chapters with the Matres in it because I realised they are quite relatable to how a lot of people are right now: hyper sensitive and insecure, seeking power for power sake, unwilling to compromise or take on responsibility, they are right and everyone else is wrong, they take what they want and are almost completely devoid of empathy. The Honored Matre are a large amount of humans right now. And here's another reason why them as antagonists are awful, there is no way for them to last and be sustainable as they are, the fact they've attained such power after all these years is completely unbelievable as they'd have eaten eachother and destroyed eachother pretty early on in their order's inception. I suspect Herbert knew this and that's why

he had the Bene Gesserit merge with them under the new leadership of Murbella.

Murbella automatically being accepted as leader of both factions was so far fetched and bullshit, it felt like it happened with unrealistic pushback and acceptance time.

I suspect the enigmatic characters Marty and Daniel might either be an ancient offshoot of Ix or a cybernetic advanced intelligence driven away to the furthest parts of space because if the Butlerian Jihab we've kept hearing about thought the whole series, personally I think the latter idea would be cool because what threat could be greater to organics than synthetics, that's why the Honored Matre are so afraid of them. That's how I'd do it anyway. Maybe I'll spoil the next two books for myself since I'm not gonna read them.

At the end of the day, I loved the first 2 books, the 3rd book I thought was bad at the time but now I see it better since reading the 5th and 6th books. The 4th book was technically bad in comparison to it's previous books, but for some reason it holds a special place in my heart, it's hard to explain.

A noticeable return to form, I would say this book is a mix of Dune and Dune Messiah. The political intrigue plays the main focus of this book which is a good thing, they were my favourite parts of the original trilogy, but I found this book quite confusing which retracted from the intrigue and enjoyment of the politics.

I'm glad they're finally utilising Duncan, Teg is an incredible character, same with Otrade. The character work in this book is up there with Dune Messiah I believe.

Why isn't this a 4 star like I gave Messiah? Because there was so much information thrown at you in this book with little or insufficient explanation, I found myself at times feeling like that scene from Pulp Fiction with Travolta holding his coat and looking around in total confusion. 

Herbert always has incredible ideas and brilliant world building, but he tends to rush too much and overlook the importance of prose and exposition. The ideas are solid, I can see the setups for the next book, but boy oh boy was this difficult to read, it read as fast to medium pace, but it felt unbelievably slow because of the amount of time I spent going back and forth trying to understand the concepts he's trying to convey or new information about a particular faction.

Chapterhouse Dune, here I come 😎

Well I am honestly finding it difficult to put into words how I feel about this book. The philosophy and ponderous nature of this book was fascinating and oftentimes illumanting.
However, I find this book to be quite a slog, there was a story that was present, but it was captivating so few times that I can't even recall any such moments.

There was some character development but I did not care about any character except Moneo, for me he was the best character in this book.

Duncan

was a massive disappointment, I thought the book was going somewhere with his character, but he's the exact same as

his former iterations except he succeeded where they failed

.

Siona

was bland, unexceptional and one-dimensional, perhaps Herbert will improve on her in the next book, but I was expecting something significant to happen with

her considering Leto's belief in her

.

All in all, a mix of deep and complex characters with bland and one-dimensional characters, all heading down the road of an unimportant, unimpactful and overly-prolonged narrative.

There so much confusion, filler, contrivance and bullshit that came in this book, but oh boy was it a ride! I very much enjoyed Leto's character, he is complex and tragic, an imperfect character but someone deeply understandable and iconic. Despite that, again, it felt as if nothing happened at all with him. This was merely a small window into his life

and the events leading up to his death.

As with the previous book, it was not as enjoyable as the first two books. There were moments of greatness, swimming in a puddle of mud and grime. Trying to sift through it all to find the hidden treasures was a hassle but rewarding at times.

I will not read this book ever again tho, which is exactly what Leto would want of me, to keep going forward in pursuit of the new, the fresh, in hopes of a surprise.

Farewell Leto II ✌️