What do you think?
Rate this book
The Way of Shadows: The Graphic Novel
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.
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.
224 pages, Hardcover
First published October 7, 2014
185 people are currently reading
1693 people want to read
About the author
Brent Weeks
94 books23k followersIn a small-town Montana school at age 12, Brent Weeks met the two great loves of his life. Edgar Allan Poe introduced him to the power of literature to transcend time and death and loneliness. Fate introduced him to The Girl, Kristi Barnes. He began his pursuit of each immediately.
The novel was a failure. The Girl shot him down.
Since then–skipping the boring parts–Brent has written eight best-selling novels with the Night Angel Trilogy and the Lightbringer Series, won several industry awards, and sold a few million books.
Brent and his wife Kristi live in Oregon with their two daughters. (Yeah, he married The Girl.)
The novel was a failure. The Girl shot him down.
Since then–skipping the boring parts–Brent has written eight best-selling novels with the Night Angel Trilogy and the Lightbringer Series, won several industry awards, and sold a few million books.
Brent and his wife Kristi live in Oregon with their two daughters. (Yeah, he married The Girl.)
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
August 31, 2015
Bullet Review:
DNF around page 100? About issue 3 or 4?
A combination of too little, too much, and guess what character it is this time! Who are all these people?! The same character? Different? What's the magic system? How do they use it? What's Azoth's training?
This is not so much a criticism of the story (e.g. the book upon which this is based) but more of the EXTREMELY short nature of a graphic novel of a 700+ page book. Though it's a massive sausage fest - if all these men are different characters that is.
I feel equally bad because Brent Weeks boasts that this was even better than his book. I just have to question that.
I give up. If I wanna try this again, I'm doing the full novel.
DNF around page 100? About issue 3 or 4?
A combination of too little, too much, and guess what character it is this time! Who are all these people?! The same character? Different? What's the magic system? How do they use it? What's Azoth's training?
This is not so much a criticism of the story (e.g. the book upon which this is based) but more of the EXTREMELY short nature of a graphic novel of a 700+ page book. Though it's a massive sausage fest - if all these men are different characters that is.
I feel equally bad because Brent Weeks boasts that this was even better than his book. I just have to question that.
I give up. If I wanna try this again, I'm doing the full novel.
October 25, 2014
3.5 stars rounded up to 4. This started out great, then faltered a bit as it tried to fit a gigantic print novel between the covers of just one very large graphic novel. There's a lot of energy and emotion between the covers of this book and that's what made me round up to four stars. The writing and art combined to create something very good, even though adapting such a long novel wasn't a perfect success.
I read the novel several years ago. I liked it, but not enough to get the next two books right away, which is very unusual for me. They've been on my to-read book ever since. I love Weeks' Lightbringer series, but even reading those books didn't drive me back to picking up the other books in this series. I was hoping reading this would, and it actually did, some for the best reasons, and some for the not so great reasons. It's really tricky adapting novels to comic books. These guys chose the strategy of releasing their adaptation all at once as one big, beautiful volume instead of trying to put out smaller issues with parts of the story and later collecting them into a big volume. Or, perhaps what might have worked, doing it in two separate parts each of about this size or somewhat smaller.
So for one thing, that's probably why it's black and white. I don't know that much about this industry, but I think that a color book of this size released without having been released as separate issues would have been way too expensive. But I think the black and white actually worked very well for this stark and dark story. Again, I haven't read the novel in a long time, so my ideas of the characters weren't as firmly formed as a lot of fans, but they all looked about how I expected them to. Most importantly, they all looked really distinct. My eyes aren't so great and it can be hard for me to follow an all black and white page. But I knew exactly who all of these people were and what they were doing, thinking and feeling. I tried to read the adaptation of A Game of Thrones recently and couldn't even get through the first volume. Everyone looked exactly alike, I couldn't tell them apart enough to tell what was going on. Even though that one was in color, it didn't help it at all. This artist was much more successful in creating real looking, expressive and distinct people. Durzo was especially good. A couple of the full page scenes of the cities that were chapter breaks in the place of covers were really beautiful. I thought the art was very successful.
The problem was that the story got a bit confusing as it went along. The beginning was fine, very good even because it was focused on Azoth's childhood and his initial interactions with Durzo. But after Azoth grew up and the story had to widen to include many more goings on in the city, suddenly things got very rushed. I have a terrible memory so I really didn't have much of an advantage over new readers, just a little bit, but I'm grateful for the bit I had or I'd really have been lost as some new characters were introduced very quickly and in this context didn't make almost any sense at all. Azoth seems very upset about the Godking at the end, but I have no idea who that is. The ka'kari stuff was super confusing, not really cool the way it should have been. I don't get why he's a night angel, whatever that is, and what I do get about the devices, if that's the right word, is from what I remember form the novel combined with reading this. Everything with Dorian and Feir made no sense at all, total confusion. They're just stuck in a few places so awkwardly and I have no idea why or what the import of their role in the story was. I kind of remember them being really import and pretty cool in the novel, but that's an adaptation for you, you can't fit everything in, and oh my goodness were they awkward and awful here. I think the Godking thing is the worst part though, I have no idea what the big overarching point of the series is. What's Azoth fighting against? I know what he's fighting for, he's all about Doll Girl, that is very clear. But I didn't get the politics at all. Logan was so marginalized, I barely got a sense of him at all too much less what his role in the whole thing is. It was apparent that they were struggling to fit at least the most necessary story elements into the space allowed and it just didn't always work.
What was there worked. Azoth and Durzo worked. Durzo and Mama K, Mama K and Azoth, Azoth and Elene/Doll Girl, Mama K and the Sa'Kage, the battle for power in the underworld and in the kingdom, they all worked. What we saw of Logan, which was very focused to the most key elements, was good. They brought in the other elements as much as possible and necessary. I'm sure they wish they could have made the book double its size and fleshed out all of the things that were confusing and too short, or the things that fans are going to complain that got cut altogether. But it's still an exciting story. Azoth's story is still moving, going from abused street kid in desperate and dire straights to a young man with seemingly some power and control over his life. There's a lot of life and power in this book, energy and palpable emotions that comes from the powerful story combined with the terrific art. It's a really good combination. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the next book. And it did remind me of the best parts of the story from when I read the novel and made me interested enough again to want to read books two and three of the print series. So overall I think it's a success. But I'm not sure how people who haven't read the book will feel, if their confusion will overwhelm the more positive parts, or maybe they'll be able to just hone in on what's here and not be bothered by the issues that bothered me. I'm not sure, I think this might be a book just for fans.
I read the novel several years ago. I liked it, but not enough to get the next two books right away, which is very unusual for me. They've been on my to-read book ever since. I love Weeks' Lightbringer series, but even reading those books didn't drive me back to picking up the other books in this series. I was hoping reading this would, and it actually did, some for the best reasons, and some for the not so great reasons. It's really tricky adapting novels to comic books. These guys chose the strategy of releasing their adaptation all at once as one big, beautiful volume instead of trying to put out smaller issues with parts of the story and later collecting them into a big volume. Or, perhaps what might have worked, doing it in two separate parts each of about this size or somewhat smaller.
So for one thing, that's probably why it's black and white. I don't know that much about this industry, but I think that a color book of this size released without having been released as separate issues would have been way too expensive. But I think the black and white actually worked very well for this stark and dark story. Again, I haven't read the novel in a long time, so my ideas of the characters weren't as firmly formed as a lot of fans, but they all looked about how I expected them to. Most importantly, they all looked really distinct. My eyes aren't so great and it can be hard for me to follow an all black and white page. But I knew exactly who all of these people were and what they were doing, thinking and feeling. I tried to read the adaptation of A Game of Thrones recently and couldn't even get through the first volume. Everyone looked exactly alike, I couldn't tell them apart enough to tell what was going on. Even though that one was in color, it didn't help it at all. This artist was much more successful in creating real looking, expressive and distinct people. Durzo was especially good. A couple of the full page scenes of the cities that were chapter breaks in the place of covers were really beautiful. I thought the art was very successful.
The problem was that the story got a bit confusing as it went along. The beginning was fine, very good even because it was focused on Azoth's childhood and his initial interactions with Durzo. But after Azoth grew up and the story had to widen to include many more goings on in the city, suddenly things got very rushed. I have a terrible memory so I really didn't have much of an advantage over new readers, just a little bit, but I'm grateful for the bit I had or I'd really have been lost as some new characters were introduced very quickly and in this context didn't make almost any sense at all. Azoth seems very upset about the Godking at the end, but I have no idea who that is. The ka'kari stuff was super confusing, not really cool the way it should have been. I don't get why he's a night angel, whatever that is, and what I do get about the devices, if that's the right word, is from what I remember form the novel combined with reading this. Everything with Dorian and Feir made no sense at all, total confusion. They're just stuck in a few places so awkwardly and I have no idea why or what the import of their role in the story was. I kind of remember them being really import and pretty cool in the novel, but that's an adaptation for you, you can't fit everything in, and oh my goodness were they awkward and awful here. I think the Godking thing is the worst part though, I have no idea what the big overarching point of the series is. What's Azoth fighting against? I know what he's fighting for, he's all about Doll Girl, that is very clear. But I didn't get the politics at all. Logan was so marginalized, I barely got a sense of him at all too much less what his role in the whole thing is. It was apparent that they were struggling to fit at least the most necessary story elements into the space allowed and it just didn't always work.
What was there worked. Azoth and Durzo worked. Durzo and Mama K, Mama K and Azoth, Azoth and Elene/Doll Girl, Mama K and the Sa'Kage, the battle for power in the underworld and in the kingdom, they all worked. What we saw of Logan, which was very focused to the most key elements, was good. They brought in the other elements as much as possible and necessary. I'm sure they wish they could have made the book double its size and fleshed out all of the things that were confusing and too short, or the things that fans are going to complain that got cut altogether. But it's still an exciting story. Azoth's story is still moving, going from abused street kid in desperate and dire straights to a young man with seemingly some power and control over his life. There's a lot of life and power in this book, energy and palpable emotions that comes from the powerful story combined with the terrific art. It's a really good combination. I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with the next book. And it did remind me of the best parts of the story from when I read the novel and made me interested enough again to want to read books two and three of the print series. So overall I think it's a success. But I'm not sure how people who haven't read the book will feel, if their confusion will overwhelm the more positive parts, or maybe they'll be able to just hone in on what's here and not be bothered by the issues that bothered me. I'm not sure, I think this might be a book just for fans.
December 16, 2015
I did enjoy this graphic novel. I havent read the written version of this book and so I got a bit lost half way through and at the end but I will definitely read the next graphic novel from this series. That's if there is one.
October 17, 2015
Essentially the Night Angel story, retold in illustrated format. Really nice package, well done dialogue and graphics. I enjoyed it, in a medium I do not normally enjoy.
September 10, 2022
I guess I should preface this by saying that I haven't really read much of Brent Weeks' stuff, nor the book this novel set out to adapt. That being said, I found it to be a pretty enjoyable if not a sometimes confusing read.
Parsing through a few other reviews I saw that some people had issues with the lack of explanation given about the magic system and world in which the story is set. This didn't really bother me. On a personal level I've often quibbled with fantasy works that are more encyclopedia than novel, and I find the modern audience's obsession with having every intricate detail of a magic system at play within a work pieced out to the reader in obsessive detail a direct indictment of the genre's decline, not its greatest boon.
There's nothing here that needs highly detailed explanation, pretty much everything can be picked up through implication or inherent understanding of the reader, and the stuff that could use a little more information never seriously detracted. It's all fairly standard fantasy stuff. There's the home nation run by a shitty king, a bit of backroom politics simmering beneath the surface, and an evil nation looking to launch an invasion in the midst of chaotic uncertainty. If you've read a fantasy book, you've seen this before and you pretty much know what to expect.
Ultimately, I'm a character first man, which means I have a big dick and kiss hot ladies on the mouth, so that's what I read most stuff for and I came away enjoying the ones on display here. Azoth's journey from guild rat to supernatural slice and dice superhero was enjoyable, if a bit truncated towards the end, and I like that Durzo Blint is an assassin for hire who genuinely feels like it. A lot of assassin centered fiction will whitewash the profession through some means or another, either making the people they kill especially heinous all of the time, or by giving them intensely sympathetic motivations. Being a wetboy in this setting seems a particularly unpleasant profession, sure, there's the inherent fantasy of being an especially skilled shadow-ninja, but nothing about the work itself seems easy on the body or the mind. It's a socially isolating, grueling profession, nothing about killing people is glorified in this, though I admit that might have more to do with the art than the story it's working with.
Feeling a bit less charitable now, I will say that the incessant POV switching to other characters to showcase a larger narrative felt like an awkward holdover from the novel. Whenever the novel would break away from wetboy shenanigans to show the secondary party doing... whatever it was they were doing, I found myself often getting a bit lost and confused, kind of just rolling with it to get back to the narrative that was easier to understand and less piecemeal. I would have argued for cutting it entirely, if their actions didn't have to happen so that the protagonist could survive events at the end of the story.
Art-wise I thought it was pretty good. Not especially beautiful, black and whites work well for the story as-written but it didn't feel particularly stylish, just cost-effective. While the art is detailed, there's a bit too much sameface going on and I struggled some of the time to tell which POV the story had swapped to every once and a while.
It's a pretty edgy graphic novel, so if that isn't your bit then you might want to avoid it. The story carries the violence and dark tone well up until the ending, where the YA origins of the story shine through and it gets very cheesy. Suddenly Azoth is calling himself an avenging angel and apparently has some kind of higher supernatural calling and it all felt a bit retarded.
Maybe I'm just feeling charitable because it's a graphic novel, but I wouldn't mind checking out more work from Weeks after reading this.
I rate it four snikt!s out of five.
Parsing through a few other reviews I saw that some people had issues with the lack of explanation given about the magic system and world in which the story is set. This didn't really bother me. On a personal level I've often quibbled with fantasy works that are more encyclopedia than novel, and I find the modern audience's obsession with having every intricate detail of a magic system at play within a work pieced out to the reader in obsessive detail a direct indictment of the genre's decline, not its greatest boon.
There's nothing here that needs highly detailed explanation, pretty much everything can be picked up through implication or inherent understanding of the reader, and the stuff that could use a little more information never seriously detracted. It's all fairly standard fantasy stuff. There's the home nation run by a shitty king, a bit of backroom politics simmering beneath the surface, and an evil nation looking to launch an invasion in the midst of chaotic uncertainty. If you've read a fantasy book, you've seen this before and you pretty much know what to expect.
Ultimately, I'm a character first man, which means I have a big dick and kiss hot ladies on the mouth, so that's what I read most stuff for and I came away enjoying the ones on display here. Azoth's journey from guild rat to supernatural slice and dice superhero was enjoyable, if a bit truncated towards the end, and I like that Durzo Blint is an assassin for hire who genuinely feels like it. A lot of assassin centered fiction will whitewash the profession through some means or another, either making the people they kill especially heinous all of the time, or by giving them intensely sympathetic motivations. Being a wetboy in this setting seems a particularly unpleasant profession, sure, there's the inherent fantasy of being an especially skilled shadow-ninja, but nothing about the work itself seems easy on the body or the mind. It's a socially isolating, grueling profession, nothing about killing people is glorified in this, though I admit that might have more to do with the art than the story it's working with.
Feeling a bit less charitable now, I will say that the incessant POV switching to other characters to showcase a larger narrative felt like an awkward holdover from the novel. Whenever the novel would break away from wetboy shenanigans to show the secondary party doing... whatever it was they were doing, I found myself often getting a bit lost and confused, kind of just rolling with it to get back to the narrative that was easier to understand and less piecemeal. I would have argued for cutting it entirely, if their actions didn't have to happen so that the protagonist could survive events at the end of the story.
Art-wise I thought it was pretty good. Not especially beautiful, black and whites work well for the story as-written but it didn't feel particularly stylish, just cost-effective. While the art is detailed, there's a bit too much sameface going on and I struggled some of the time to tell which POV the story had swapped to every once and a while.
It's a pretty edgy graphic novel, so if that isn't your bit then you might want to avoid it. The story carries the violence and dark tone well up until the ending, where the YA origins of the story shine through and it gets very cheesy. Suddenly Azoth is calling himself an avenging angel and apparently has some kind of higher supernatural calling and it all felt a bit retarded.
Maybe I'm just feeling charitable because it's a graphic novel, but I wouldn't mind checking out more work from Weeks after reading this.
I rate it four snikt!s out of five.
October 14, 2014
I am a fan of the trilogy. However I am quickly disappointed by this version. The story is way rushed. Pages of scenes spewed all over the place. There is no clear indication when a location jump or time jump was made. It felt really choppy, and this coming from someone who knew the story! Some signs would be helpful, thanks! For example the scene of Solon practicing with Gyre sits without any explanation nor purpose in the middle of two Kylar scenes.
The narration gets annoying, as it changes mode and consciousness.
I had doubts about the graphic but it was actually good. If only the flow of the story works.
I tried giving someone who hasn't read the novel to read this and he didn't understand the story at all, said it was like an art house piece, which I think sums it up nicely.
The narration gets annoying, as it changes mode and consciousness.
I had doubts about the graphic but it was actually good. If only the flow of the story works.
I tried giving someone who hasn't read the novel to read this and he didn't understand the story at all, said it was like an art house piece, which I think sums it up nicely.
March 4, 2016
Fantastic!
Wonderfully illustrated.
It helped me greatly to refresh my memory of the first book
and now I'm ready to start with the second!
Wonderfully illustrated.
It helped me greatly to refresh my memory of the first book
and now I'm ready to start with the second!
July 16, 2019
It would be impossible for this graphic novel to fully capture the first book of the trilogy. However it gave it a good shot. As a companion to the novel it’s brilliant.
November 20, 2019
The pain you feel is the pain of abandoning a delusion. The delusion is meaning, Kylar. There's no higher purpose. There are no gods. No arbiters of right and wrong. I don't ask you to like reality. I only ask you to be strong enough to face it. There is nothing beyond this. Only the perfection of becoming weapons. Do you know how many I've killed? Neither do I. I used to remember the name of every person I killed. Then it was too many. I just remembered the number. Then only the innocents. Then I forgot even that. Do you know what punishments I've endured for my crimes, my sins? None. I am proof of the absurdity of men's most treasured abstractions. A just universe wouldn't tolerate my existence. — Durzo Blint (yeah long quote but I like it)
I'm reading this as something of an outsider, someone who has never read The Way of Shadows though it's been sitting on my tbr list for what a decade nearly. I like assassins what can I say. So take my 4 star rating with a grain of salt.
By having not read the original material I got lost occasionally. This is written with some minor knowledge expectation, given the page differential between the original and the adaptation I am not surprised. I'm wondering if the focus isn't quite right. There isn't quite enough emphasis put on the relationship between Kylar and Logan. They are best friends from very early on but the graphic novel brushes over that it sort of changes the weight of the ending, a line that doesn't carry the punch it should. Aside from that I did really enjoy this. The passage of time is done well, showing the changes in Azoth/Kylar. The outfits are stunning and storytelling in their own right, that is something that won't exist in the written version. The missing story elements are somewhat outweighed by the beauty. Graphic novels suit this story, I'm surprised that the other two in the trilogy weren't adapted as well.
In the author's note Brent Weeks explains how this came to be which in and of itself is an interesting story. It's good to see an author so involved in their own adaptation. The art is well suited to the words. There is a matched beauty and brutality. I find it hard to explain, but there is an effective synergy.
When I started dreaming about the Night Angel trilogy, I didn't dream of words. I dreamt of action, of fights to dazzle the mind's eye: Bruce Lee's kinetic genius and baffling strength, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon's strength and speed. — Brent Weeks (author's note)
A representative gif:
August 4, 2021
This is the graphic novel adaptation of The Way of Shadows, the first book in Brent Week's the Night Angel Series, reviewed here. Sadly, the rest of the trilogy has yet to be published, so the review is confined to how well this adapts the source material.
The art itself is pretty good, all the characters are drawn how the reader pictures them based on their descriptions in the novel. As an adaptation, the lack of full color throughout is reason enough to lose one star. I mean, this is okay
But imagine how much richer and better it would look like this panel.
The second issue I can foresee is major confusion for those who haven't read the source material as there's a lot of things that just don't make sense without the additional background missing from the graphic novel adaptation. There is way too much exposition to pack into a graphic novel without doing the entire wall of text thing, so they made the stylistic choice and didn't do it. The action scenes for the most part, are very well done but the lack of "filling in the blanks" might make it a little difficult for the reader as there are many unanswered questions.
The art itself is pretty good, all the characters are drawn how the reader pictures them based on their descriptions in the novel. As an adaptation, the lack of full color throughout is reason enough to lose one star. I mean, this is okay
But imagine how much richer and better it would look like this panel.
The second issue I can foresee is major confusion for those who haven't read the source material as there's a lot of things that just don't make sense without the additional background missing from the graphic novel adaptation. There is way too much exposition to pack into a graphic novel without doing the entire wall of text thing, so they made the stylistic choice and didn't do it. The action scenes for the most part, are very well done but the lack of "filling in the blanks" might make it a little difficult for the reader as there are many unanswered questions.
April 19, 2024
Found this at the library and decided to give it a try, since I freaking love the Night Angel novels. Even as someone who's read the original novels many times, it was easy to get LOST in this.
I absolutely would not recommend it to anyone who isn't already familiar with the original source material, and I don't agree with Brent Weeks' assertion that it's better in this form. Things are WAY too rushed, way too jumpy, and nothing is explained that should be.
- There's a throwaway line about "All the meisters using the vir perished" - literally the only time the word vir is mentioned.
- The reveal of Curoch is just: *pulls back sheet to show bigass sword* - nothing actually mentioned about it, no reason given for why it's important
- The tournament: "Durzo said these are stupid; Durzo is making Kylar fight in one" - WHY? Why is that relevant?
Maybe it would have been better if the other two books had been adapted so the story could at least be finished, but as the lone GN book for Night Angel? Eeesh. 😬
I absolutely would not recommend it to anyone who isn't already familiar with the original source material, and I don't agree with Brent Weeks' assertion that it's better in this form. Things are WAY too rushed, way too jumpy, and nothing is explained that should be.
- There's a throwaway line about "All the meisters using the vir perished" - literally the only time the word vir is mentioned.
- The reveal of Curoch is just: *pulls back sheet to show bigass sword* - nothing actually mentioned about it, no reason given for why it's important
- The tournament: "Durzo said these are stupid; Durzo is making Kylar fight in one" - WHY? Why is that relevant?
Maybe it would have been better if the other two books had been adapted so the story could at least be finished, but as the lone GN book for Night Angel? Eeesh. 😬
February 13, 2021
DNF 50% into the book.
This book had great potential. I found myself liking the book in the beginning with the characters, the world, and the story development. What I found that I didn't like was that after a while the characters because disassociated with themselves (total out of character quirks), cheesy style high schoolish relationships, and huge gaps in character plots/development. I could understand if it would be explained further in the book but honestly from about 1/4 thru the book I wanted to put it down because there were too many unknowns and it was moving way too slowly, but I kept up until halfway thru to ensure that I was in fact disappointed not disillusioned with false expectations on the book.
There is a series of books, just one that I can't get behind really. I gave 2 stars mostly because I feel that the book had a decent story in the beginning. I just wish the beginning storytelling would have kept up thru the book.
This book had great potential. I found myself liking the book in the beginning with the characters, the world, and the story development. What I found that I didn't like was that after a while the characters because disassociated with themselves (total out of character quirks), cheesy style high schoolish relationships, and huge gaps in character plots/development. I could understand if it would be explained further in the book but honestly from about 1/4 thru the book I wanted to put it down because there were too many unknowns and it was moving way too slowly, but I kept up until halfway thru to ensure that I was in fact disappointed not disillusioned with false expectations on the book.
There is a series of books, just one that I can't get behind really. I gave 2 stars mostly because I feel that the book had a decent story in the beginning. I just wish the beginning storytelling would have kept up thru the book.
July 8, 2022
I love this series. I’ve got the 10th Anniversary hard cover edition & the Graphic Audio series in audiobook. I’ve listened to this story at least 3 times. This wasn’t the worst comic book adaptation of a novel I’ve ever read. Obviously it is abridged for story & content which is fine as you’ve can only include so much, the art for a B&W is beautiful with good amount of passion put into it, but for me the 2 failing parts of this book was 1) there could’ve been narration. Something that could segway into scene changes, simply named characters of note, or explained subtle nuances for readers that weren’t familiar with Week’s series yet. 2) The fact there are no page numbers. I know this sounds kinda silly, but I don’t understand why publishing companies don’t add page numbers to pages that the art will allow it of course. I have no idea if the other 2 books were done, but I’d continue to read them if they kept the same artist.
May 14, 2017
I purchased this because I love the Way of the Shadows not because I particularly like Graphic Novels (often I think pictures take away from imagination as it can be so difficult to capture the essence of the art in book form to pictures, but I think this is been successfully done here). My only complaint would be that it was a little shorter than I was expecting and it only covers the first book.
November 30, 2021
While I am rating this graphic novel as average, I am very interested in picking up the novel (so that is a success in of its self). My main critique is that with the comic being black and white, and the character designs being very similar, it is difficult to follow who is who. This is exacerbated by the fact that there are a lot of characters with relatively little time to focus on each. However, the story is great and I am really excited to get into the series fill in some of those gaps.
December 31, 2022
Um? The art was gorgeous, but I could not follow the story at all. New names, faces, ideas kept popping up right until the end. Is this a thing where I had to read the book it was adapted from?
To be honest, from what I DID understand, I don’t think I’d like the novel it was adapted from, either. Lots of assassin posturing and a character literally named doll girl. Who has to be saved repeatedly.
The full-page illustrations were amazing though.
To be honest, from what I DID understand, I don’t think I’d like the novel it was adapted from, either. Lots of assassin posturing and a character literally named doll girl. Who has to be saved repeatedly.
The full-page illustrations were amazing though.
July 23, 2021
This is a good, condensed version of the first Night Angel novel, but I don't feel like it can stand on its own. You really need to read the novel if you want to fully understand what's happening in this graphic novel. That said, I would like to see the rest of the trilogy reimagined in this format!
February 23, 2022
It was neat reliving this as a graphic novel. I had read the books years ago, so I had an idea of where the story was headed. I think it might have been hard to understand some things if I hadn’t read the books first, but I quite enjoyed seeing this in a graphic novel format. It’s a shame we never got the sequels, so I guess I’ll just have to go back and reread the novels.
April 13, 2019
A bit hard to follow at first, but it came together more as the story went on. A bit gory for my liking, but the story was pretty good. It will be nice to see how the physical book differs from the graphic novel.
May 18, 2019
Not exactly a fan of the source material myself but the way this work was effectively a "best of" sequence of events while abandoning the plotlines that served as connective tissue for the story left this fairly lacking. I feel like I'd be even more lost if I hadn't read the book earlier this year.
February 13, 2020
Good but doesn’t bring the book to life
Was very short and missed some important points of the book, but that’s obviously because the books is so long. I enjoyed the dark art however I thought the action could have been drawn better.
Was very short and missed some important points of the book, but that’s obviously because the books is so long. I enjoyed the dark art however I thought the action could have been drawn better.
April 6, 2020
This book is a faithful adaptation of the original story with fantastic artwork. It clearly lays out the story for you while the 400 page novel can get confusing at times. This graphic novel brings The Way of Shadows to the world in a whole new way.
July 2, 2021
Very Awesome Adaptation!
I will have to reread the series of books again. Just a great story with great twists and being a graphic novel didn't hurt the tale at all. Really well done!
I will have to reread the series of books again. Just a great story with great twists and being a graphic novel didn't hurt the tale at all. Really well done!
May 14, 2022
I could tell there were some cool concepts at play here, but from my understanding, this is a graphic novel adaptation of an enormous fantasy. Without having read that fantasy, I can safely say I was deeply confused and unable to connect with the characters.
January 17, 2023
The art is good, how it presents the book is okay. I try to think how someone who has had 0 knowledge of the book would view the comic and I think they would be overall confused by the story. It moves at lightning speed. But the art itself is great.
July 7, 2023
I enjoyed this and I thought the art was good and cool, but if you haven’t read The Way of Shadows novel then this isn’t for you. The story would be very difficult to follow if you haven’t read it. If you have read it then this is a fun read.
August 24, 2023
Superb graphic novel
I haven't read the book this based on but it must be very good. A very complex twisting tale of intrigue, violence and honour. Well written, well drawn and action packed.
I haven't read the book this based on but it must be very good. A very complex twisting tale of intrigue, violence and honour. Well written, well drawn and action packed.
July 7, 2017
Boring generic fantasy
August 29, 2017
Make more of these. Yes.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews