In short: 2000 pages in short, are you kidding me? Well alright then: boy becomes apprentice to legendary assassin and goes on to play his part in the battle between good and evil while learning both the dirty and the fun bits of life and beyond.
My judgment:
An epic fantasy trilogy, now where have I heard that before? When it comes to epic novels, fantasy literature and trilogies, I'm merely a dabbler. But I ripped through Brent Weeks' books in record time. The author takes over 2000 pages to unfold a broad delta of plotlines, but it all flows together nicely at the end. You'll have to be able to withstand a heavy dose of sorcery (and some truly gory, graphic bits) to like these books - magical interventions play a constant and vital role in the story, but they're in no way detrimental to character development. In fact, the character psychology of the Night Angel Trilogy is what makes it such a compelling read.
A slight turn-off was the author's preference (or should I say proclivity and predilection) for difficult words where simpler synonyms would have been just fine. It came across as a bit pedantic. So why not eschew the ostentatious erudition :-) Another strange thing was the naming among the different cultures in this dark fantasy world. There are two countries (Sethi and Ceura) where people clearly bear Japanese-sounding names while another people, the Alitaerans, clearly have the names of Ancient Rome. The rest is utter fantasy, so it felt a bit disruptive.
Such details have not kept me from chasing through the pages in anticipation to see ugly predicaments and heroic stand-offs resolved. A highly enjoyable story.
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