Lightbringer series

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Ace Pace
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Lightbringer series

Post by Ace Pace »

I finished reading the first 4 books in the Lightbringer series (the fifth and final book is coming out in the fall. In the series are the books The Black Prism, The Blinding Knife, The Broken Eye and The Blood Mirror.
Like a lot of fantasy in the post ASOIAF world, it’s set 16 years after a great war and tensions are rising again. However, the first book mostly has this as a backdrop and instead focuses on a small scale family drama. The regions most powerful character, the Prism discovers he has a bastard son and has to live with the consquences of his bastard son being a fat know it all rather than anything impressive.
It’s an interesting world, but far more interesting for it’s narratives twists and subverting popular expectations. The world is right before the industrial revolution and has a magic system that is color based. A lot of the worlds religion and general historical setting reminds me of Europe, with Christians and Jewish overtones.

The magic system is pretty neat and worth describing. I’ll liberally quote from another review that lays it out in a simple manner.

It has a fascinating system of magic which is complex and well-thought out, based on the colour spectrum that results when white light is dispersed by a prism. The pay-off for being the most talented of magicians, a 'superchromat' like the Prism Gavin Guile himself, is a limited lifespan that dwindles the more you 'draft'. Break your limit, the 'halo', and you are faced with suicide or the madness of becoming a 'wight' and being hunted down.

The later books somewhat add a focus on grand scale schemes and intrigue, but keep a lot of focus on family drama and how they impact the world. The author described the story as what happens when two close brothers squabble and those brothers have power and he’s not far wrong.

Anyone else read these books?
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