What does it take to make a boy into a killer?
Creative Staff
Story: Brent Weeks
Adaptation: Ivan Brandon
Art: Andy MacDonald
What They Say
For Durzo Blint, assassination is an art-and he is the city’s most accomplished artist. For Azoth, survival is precarious. Something you never take for granted. As a guild rat, he’s grown up in the slums, and learned to judge people quickly – and to take risks. Risks like apprenticing himself to Durzo Blint. But to be accepted, Azoth must turn his back on his old life and embrace a new identity and name. As Kylar Stern, he must learn to navigate the assassins’ world of dangerous politics and strange magics – and cultivate a flair for death.
Presentation:
Yen Press went out of their way to make The Way of Shadows stand out and to distinguish it from their manga style offerings. It’s a full sized hardcover presentation, with a paper slipcase that is evocative of the novel’s cover illustration with Azoth in assassin gear. The paper stock is glossy which makes the black ink artwork pop. Forgoing color for ink with limited use of tones it creates a very stark atmosphere for a very bleak and violent story. I didn’t notice and typesetting, guttering, or print issues, nor did I spot any typos. It’s a very nice looking book and not too large as to be uncomfortable to hold while reading.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The Way of Shadows is the latest novel to be converted into a graphical format from Yen Press. The story opens with a forward by the original author talking about the origins of his novel series and the choices made when retelling the story as a graphic novel. He seems very pleased with the results, and notes that trying to adapt a 600 page novel into a 200 page graphic novel is no easy task. He gives credit where it’s due and it’s clear he’s happy with the retelling.
The story follows Azoth, a orphan boy in the slums just trying to survive. Part of a guild filled with slum children and ruled over by a shadowy man who put a chubby psychopath named ‘Rat’ in charge of the ‘littles.’ As time goes on and Azoth looses more friends to the boy he seeks revenge, and manages to become the apprentice of the assassin Durzo Blint in order to break free.
From there Azoth’s life becomes a lesson in how to become a cold blooded killer that can kill in a thousand ways and infiltrate any situation to hunt his prey. This brings him in contact with prostitutes and princess, mages and other assassins, and finally a lost loved one. It’s that one girl who ends up becoming Azoth’s driving force of guilt and survival.
Running parallel to Azoth’s story is that of the kingdom itself. Ruled by a almost entirely useless king it’s full of treachery and plotting. An adjacent empire ruled by a ‘godking’ seeks to take it over and is encouraging the internal discord and biding his time to invade. Meanwhile the son of an out of favor lord might actually be the land’s best choice as successor to the throne, if he can survive.
Azoth didn’t grab me right away as a lead, although I can’t quite figure out why. Maybe because the story goes out of it’s way to make his situation sympathetic. His mentor figure Blint is a bit more interesting, keeping you guessing about how ruthless he actually is, and how much he may or may not care about the killer he is training. There’s no time to explain how the magic of their world works, but enough time to convey that Azoth has the potential to be very powerful and then when the time comes supremely overpowered. Overpowered leads tend to be boring, so I really am curious as to how he gets reigned in for the sequels.
In adapting Brent Weeks’ novel they chose to go with an art style and presentation that is closer to a traditional US graphic novel rather than the manga style books they’ve been releasing. The end result is a very handsome book with illustrations that the cover image does a disservice to. Andy MacDonald is a very skilled artist, and manages to differentiate a large cast of characters while creating a visual version of the setting from the novels with an impressive level of consistency. From costumes to landscapes to the many different countries represented it feels like a well realized world. He’s also adept at portraying the many duals, brawls, and flat-out warfare that is a large part of the story.
This is a bleak tale of a land where corruption is the standard and anyone’s life could be forfeit. The story doesn’t shy away from showing violence but reigns it in when that violence might take a sexual turn and leaves that off panel, for which I’m grateful. The normal violence is a spectacularly bloody spectacle of impalements and gruesome slashes in all of their inky glory.
I only have two somewhat major complaints about the book. One problem is the sheer amount of terminology being thrown around. Beyond the large cast to keep track of are a list of unfamiliar place names, organization names, and objects, many of which are left up to the reader to interpret from context and remember. In a novel I’d expect a glossary to refer to to explain what’s what. Here we don’t get that luxury.
Typical of most long scale novels with huge casts broken down into single volume graphic novels, and that’s pacing. The Way of Shadows actually dodges most of those issues until the last and most frantic parts of the story. When the action heats up and the palace is stormed the story ends up moving faster than the action and the abrupt scene switches end up being ultimately confusing. Most of the side characters get to be continued endings or not ending at all, and we don’t get much time to explore them in detail to begin with. The ending as it stands is abrupt and begging for a continuation, leaving many of the plot points dangling.
In Summary
The Way of Shadows made a pretty painless transition from prose to illustration, which is no small task. The artwork is lovely, with a detailed yet brisk style which conveys the action heavy story well. Some comic readers might feel put out by the lack of color but I feel the book is stronger for it. The overall narrative hangs together and only falters towards the very end, and the cliffhanger ending is extremely frustrating. I hope that the author and illustrator can partner up again to bring the other two novels to the same format because I think this is a project worth continuing. For series fans this is a must buy just to see that world rendered in loving illustrated detail, and for the rest of us it’s a fine if somewhat incomplete story of betrayal, determination and revenge.
Content Grade: B +
Art Grade: A
Packaging Grade: A +
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: October 7th, 2014
MSRP: $30.00