The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks

I actually read this during Spring Break about a (at the point of actually posting this - more like three months ago!) month ago (and the other two volumes of the trilogy - and a prequel novella which does not seem to have made my list of books that I have read and not gotten posted). Both my sister and my former student have been recommending them highly, so I bought the series for my Kindle.

To my astonishment, I had read this one - or at least the beginnings of it. I remembered the opening chapters in considerable detail - and nothing at all about the last three fourths of it. Apparently I started it at some point and either set it aside or got distracted and never got back to it.

And now the semester is over and it has been a couple of months since I started the notes on this book. Maybe I remember enough to make some coherent comments.

Our hero, Azoth, is a street rat in a fairly typical distopic fantasy universe who conceives a severe case of hero worship for the legendary Durzo Blint (I would love to know how Weeks came up with that one). Blint is the most successful among the city's "wetboys," super-assassins. The name Azoth is the name of one of the ultimate elements in alchemy - a universal panacea. Azoth sets out to become Blint's apprentice. In the manner of epic fantasy, he both loses and gains much in the process.