The Burning White

Lightbringer, Book 5

By: Brent Weeks

Narrated by: Simon Vance

Length: 39 hrs and 4 mins

Publisher's summary

In the stunning conclusion to the epic, New York Times best-selling Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks, kingdoms clash as Kip must finally escape his family's shadow in order to protect the land and people he loves.

As the White King springs his great trap, and the Chromeria itself is threatened by treason and siege, Kip Guile and his companions will scramble to return for one impossible final stand.

In the darkest hour, will the Lightbringer come?

The long-awaited epic conclusion of Brent Weeks's New York Times best-selling Lightbringer series.

Lightbringer:
The Black Prism
The Blinding Knife
The Broken Eye
The Blood Mirror
The Burning White

For more from Brent Weeks, check out:

Night Angel:
The Way of Shadows
Shadow's Edge
Beyond the Shadows

The Night Angel Trilogy: 10th Anniversary Edition
Night Angel: The Complete Trilogy (omnibus)
Perfect Shadow: A Night Angel Novella
The Way of Shadows: The Graphic Novel

©2019 Brent Weeks (P)2019 Hachette Audio

An Actual Review, after I got done listening to it

I ask forgiveness for the title, but I love how people are leaving reviews for this novel that's nearly two days long and reviewing the same day its released. So here if you want a review from someone that actually took the time to listen to the entire book before leaving a review.

So the beginning of the review, a note. This book does have quiet a bit of religious overtones. If you've listened to the rest of the series then this shouldn't surprise you, if you get twitchy at religious overtones you'll hate this book; if not you might still find it grating but we'll I enjoyed it greatly. I also had a slight dislike for how fantasy works only have 'dark gods' and silent 'light gods' and so I find an active battle between them rather refreshing.

A mini-review in case you don't want to read my entire review. First the answer to people that have followed the series up till now, this might just be the strongest entry in the series. Yes it is as good as Black Prism and Blood Mirror, if not better. Also, yes, Weeks pulls off his customary excellence story and perfectly balanced ending, if you've read his other series The Night Angel Trilogy you know what I mean though this one without the rushed Deus Machina. For everyone else, if you haven't started the series and don't mind a religious war with actual gods and faith in play and want fantasy of highest caliber you would love this series, it's worth it.

Now for the longer review.

The Prose: I could be short here and state that Brent Weeks is one of the greatest writers alive, I really could he's that good. So what does he do right in this book?

1. Well besides craft a story with no less than four characters that could be a protagonist in their own series yet together harmoniously into one, four divergent yet complete character and story arches that all intertwine into something fantastic in a way I've only seen Robert Jordan, Joe Abercrombie, and Steven Erikson do, did I mention not all the characters get along and each provides a different perception of each other? Yeah, Karas, Gavin, Kip, and yes Andros are complete and fleshed out with their own side characters, side characters that are interact so natural and humanly I often found myself smirking and laughing merely because a character did something that was so them.

2. That Weeks somehow blends the gritty dark realness of what is with, well, the hope and belief of what should be that the fantasy genre lives on and in such way that makes neither a lie. Meanwhile it ties the history and lore of not just a world but each distinct country and culture in such a way that it explains not only why things have happened the way they have but does so in a believable way and how each relates to the others. The world of the 9 satraps truly feels like a real world.

3. Half the complications of the book, and tensions, and subversions, exist because of characters acting within their own nature but also with the best information they have, given that the characters behave like people, each character has their secrets or things they want to keep hidden. This is one best aspects of the series since many of the tragedies, and fears happen because of people behaving like themselves. This is some game of thrones stuff, in other words there is a good amount of subversion here but in an organic non-forced way that feels believable.

4. Weeks is a master, ie all the things I typically grip about with lesser authors don't exist here. We are shown how characters feel, everything is properly described without getting to deep into description, the pacing is razor sharp, there are no damn real world politics here, there is no 'this happens because I say it does', the magic is explained with a system but is still magic, the men are manly and the women are womanly and neither put down or seen as lesser. Yeah none of my typical grips are here. Well there is one long diatribe that is a little too obviously the author speaking but given this is in an epilogue an only a few minutes I feel i can forgive it.

So the cons because I want to be fare and this isn't a perfect book.
1. As I wrote in my preface the biggest 'flaw' of the book is the amount 'God' plays a role in the series and the discussion of faith. If this sort of thing make you feel uncomfortable you will not like this book. Personally, I rather enjoyed the philosophy but I can understand other people not liking it.

2. While i liked the pacing there was on point around hour 20-30 that felt a little slow, the build taking a little too long, maybe. Again I enjoyed the tension and build up to the final battle of 5 books, all 20+ hours each but I can see how it might annoy some people.

3. This is the weakest flaw, but one that might annoy most. Andros gets a full back story here, he becomes a full protagonist. This feels unnecessary, I enjoyed it and it added depth and meaning to the tragedy and reason to his actions that we couldn't have guessed at. But this also extends the book by a good 5-10 hours.

4. There are multiple epilogues, I know people don't generally like this and complain. Well there are multiple, deal with it, or don't, again it doesn't both me, just trying to be impartial.

The wrap up; this is one of the greatest fantasy series ever written. yes this book and this series is worth buying, just that simple. This is possibly the best book I've read so far this year, and I've read over a hundred.

Absolutely Amazing

I have been nervously anticipating this finale for some time now, worried that I would get my heart broken on yet another fantasy series that falls on its proverbial sword at the finish line. This is not that. This is amazing. Brent’ storytelling, his plot development, and ability to move his readers with emotion gets better with every book. Simon Vance was incredible. Kip was wonderful. Dazen didn’t dissapoint. Karis, inspired. Andros, genius. If you haven’t heard the awesome writing for Gunner brought life by Simon Vance, you’re missing out. Thanks Brent!

A disappointing end

As always, the narration was amazing! My issue is...!!SPOILERS AHEAD!!!





....with the ending. Characters who sacrificed them selves and should have been dead, were instead passed out. God became involved with a literal Deus Ex Machina, and everything was perfect at the end. This lead to the cheapening of everything that came before, the character's sacrifices and heroics.

To top it off, the 'Grinch' had his heart grow two sizes seemingly out of nowhere.

I was hoping for something much different, and was left disappointed.

Ending ruined the serires and author for me

Up until hour 34 of this book Brent Weeks was one of my top 5 authors, I would would have given this book 5 stars after this book. I will not waste my time with this author again. I would go into more detail but don't want to spoil the book for anyone.

GoT Season 8 all over again

First, mad props to Simon Vance. He did an amazing job with every book in the series!!

Now, as for the substance... Meh... A lot of it was useless and could have been cut. Other parts were extraordinarily silly and unbelievable even for a fantasy series.

I wasn't wild about how all the characters wrapped up. I'm not someone who needs every character to have a happy ending, But at the same time, there seemed to be extremely heavy handed unfairness with no clear reason as to why. The best of the Guile family got crapped on while the other two came out on top as kings... It really was a massive disappointment. I don't want to go into specifics and spoil it for anyone so apologies for being vague. I actually started out giving this book 3 stars for the story, but as I write this I realize how much I truly disappointed I was and knocked it down to 2-stars.

This felt a lot like GoT season 8 to me. It was a long time to wait just to get a fart to the face.

I would still recommend the series, but it would come with some strong qualifiers about the ending.

Seriously? What garbage.

Awesome Brent. Create a cool world, get me 4 books in, then ruin everything because you want to spend hours with religious rants and a trash ending.
I'll not be reading more of your books.

underwhelming ending to an over wise great series.

Most of the book felt like a chore to listen to. The book had flashes of greatness but only flashes. Way too much Deus Ex Machina, and very little justice was served to characters that deserved it. Simon Vamce was great as always.

Author gets tired of writing.

I do like the author and I'm sure he had great intentions but this series is crap! He spends two books winding up for what could be an epic tale and the spends three tearing it down. At the end you're left with a pile of loose strings that go nowhere. All the magical rules built up gets trashed. All the story arcs, major story arcs are ignored. The Gods are never killed, the gates never opened or closed, villains are left alive, characters that were eluded to were forgotten, war is never won..ect. In addition unexplained events just happened. On the top of a tower (like 5, 000 miles tall) a hill appeared from nowhere, on the hill was a mirror, wait no the mirror was on top of the tower and no hill, wait at the start there was no hill or mirror on the top, there was no sword visable on the top, wait no there is the sword on the top and its in reach. During the whole section I just started screaming at the AUTHOR. And there's so much more stuff like this. Its like the Author just got tired of writing this series and tried to finnish however he could. It got sloppy and disappointing. Next time I'd recommend getting some poeple other than your family to proof read it and stop borrowing religion from the bible so much it jars you out of the fantasy world.

Just too much

Too much filler. There is hour upon hour of monologue and unfortunately only some of it actually add to the story. Some of it fill in some of the gaps from earlier books but way too little.
Having said that I was plodding through that, hating to quit. The problem is that there is just so many scenes that are twisted at the authors whim and finally my willingness to put up with this got broken by the whole Ironfist vs Krucsa(?) scene. It was just so twisted and nobody heard gun shots...really?
Sorry I am giving up and really don’t care how this ends anymore.

Disappointing conclusion to a great series

The novel transforms from clever magic and intrigue to theology and deus ex machina. The series was built up by having luxin be a hard magic system with strict rules governing its use, and at the end it basically does whatever the plot needs it to. Also did you get invested in how the characters work hard, use their wits and sacrifice to accomplish their goals in the previous 4 books, then too bad for you because the plot is resolved with repeated deus ex machina. Moral complexity of characters and intriguing philosophical ideas your thing, sorry it's been replaced with "Evil comes from rejecting the omni benevolent god" and painfully dragged out conversations about how God can totally exist and be good and all powerful despite the evil in the world. It felt like i was being preached at by the end. It's tragic cause i really loved the Night Angel trilogy and the first four books of the lightbringer series, but it feels like Weeks either tanked the ending of his series to spread his religious beliefs or didn't know how to end the series and so fell back on religion. Audio performance was great though.