R. A. Strich's Reviews > Blackflame

Well, Will Wight knows what he is doing. In fact, he knew it the entire time and I was wrong.
Did not expect to rate this as highly as I do, but wow. If you struggled with books 1 & to (as I did as well), I can only repeat: Read at least until the ending of Blackflame.
Because with this book, Wight changes everything, I critizised in the previous entries. Apart from one thing.
So for the reason of what this book is and what it did, I decided to bump my more accurate rating of 4* (4.5 rather) up to 5*, because... Damn...

So what was critizised about books 1 & 2?
- Prose on the weaker side / confusion and lack of control over what should be shown
- Flat characters with little depth, especially weak protagonist
- Flat protagonist leasing to: Rather dull POV
- No plot or urgency, just a repitition of training and progression in the magic system
- worldbuilding limited to the magic system, little to no image of the grander world and its workings

If you were annoyed or held back from one of these factors- or multiple, this is what Blackflame changes now:

1. Pretty simple, but the prose is great.
The reader finally gets the full image of the locations, characters, atmospheres and the likes. Will Wights language has drastically improved to convey, what he wants to convey and in the meantime meeting, what the reader was previously only disappointed to not get a full image of.
As this book dives deeper into both world, culture, lore, magic system and even something... Bigger, the tonality and feeling of the writing becomes *way* more appropriate to all of these things. And this is mainly because of:

2. Multi-POV.
Oh my god, you can't even imagine, how much this was needed. How much I was satisfied, when switching POVs constantly became apparent. This has so many benefits.
First of all, you get scenes from multiple perspectives, therefore creating more depth and thorough the more advanced picture in the head of different pov-characters, everything feels WAY deeper now.
Secondly, Will Wight uses this technique very cleverly to strenghten certain emotions in the reader; mostly awe, urgency and wonder. Also this drastically improves the pacing, making the previously more tedious training montages less dominant in the book. You will fly through most of this book.
Really great is also, that we also read from the perspective of the "antagonist" side of things. This improves urgency and actually leads to some VERY satisfying and even emotional moments in the last act. Truly great.

3. What also improves thanks to, but not limited to multi-pov, is the worldbuilding.
On it's own, this book would have opened the curtain towards this truly huge world, but to also see it from perspectives of the biggest players known so far, is eye-opening.
As the title suggests, we finally get to visit the Blackflame empire. We learn about it's culture, about it's people, hints about it's history and actually get a vivid image of what these cities look like.
And damn, this is some epic shit.
Still, one thing that bugged me before and also didn't stop doing so in here is the fact, that literally anything is just based around progressin and improvement in magic. Nothing else.
To be fair though, we also can explain some of that a bit better in this case and it doesn't feel as stupid as before. This fact even gets explored a bit further and ties into the plot and themes of this book, which yes: This has that.

Now there are also some major changes to the rest of the series. How massive the leap between book 2 and 3 is in raw scale and power-levels is shocking. I would have never expected, that we see this level of strenght and output this early on in the series. Both the protagonist(-s) and the secondary characters show off in here - and so does Will Wight.
The fight and training scenes are better than ever. This time though, there are actual stakes at play. There is a level of clarity to everything and an understanding of motives, consequences and action. The final act SLAPS.

Speaking of stakes: This is also something I found to be improved on in Blackflame.
The set-up is easy. Understood in the first page of the book.
Protagonist has one year to train until he will duel an unbeatable enemy. Boom, urgency established.
What follows seems like something of the first books, but easier to follow, clearer, more enjoyable and most importantly: cooler.
But that's not where it ends. Not to spoil anything, but how all of that is resolved and plays out is not what you'd come to expect from having read up to this point.
The author lifts the curtain and releases the reader into his vision.

Now I have either read/seen Hunter x Hunter or Avater TLA, but this might not be too far away from that - with some addition of cosmic horror and wildly abstract SciFi.
The combination works so well and I am now fully hooked for the rest of the series. 3 done, 9 to go.
(Where in the hell is this supposed to end???)
That being, because I am finally also invested in the characters.
Everyone gets more depth in this book and more details for me to latch onto.
Lindon is way more enjoyable than ever, getting some really cool add-ons to play off of and some really cool "character traits" that make him feel less then a vessal to explore the magic.

Same for all the side-characters. The added POVs do a lot about this. There were some characters that were enjoyable before (mainly Yerin and Eithan), but this finally lets them shine fully.
The dynamic between Eithan, Yerin, Lindon, certain entities and other characters are so much fun to read.
Eithan is an absolute G btw. The dude is hilarious, while still being the most badass dude in the series, showing off like nothing else, blowing everyone away with his impossible strenght, while at the same time being such a fascinating and mysterious presence. And all of that WITH HIM having a POV!!!!
But as I said, everyone (that we do get to see) rocks. Yerin is being Bae even more here and the new additions also all feel unique and interesting.
With what they all do in this book and what the fact of having multiple povs and characters in the first place, everything else improves.
Everything gets clearer, more ambitous, more fleshed out, more mysterious and intriguing, more thought-through.
And now I am at the point, where I actually can't stop thinking about certain scenes, mechanics of the magic, characters, etc.
Can't wait to continue with book 4!