Brent Weeks - Way of Shadows 1 - Way of Shadows.pdf - angielski_i_stuff

Acknowledgments

I t was all downhill after seventh grade. That was the year my English teacher, Nancy Helgath, somehow

made me cool when she encouraged me to read Edgar Allan Poe to my classmates at lunch. They sat

goggle-eyed as I read “The Pit and the Pendulum,” “Berenice,” and “The Raven.” But I had eyes for only

one: the tall, smart girl I had a crush on—and was terrified of—Kristi Barnes.

I soon started my first novel. I would go on to become an English teacher and a writer, and marry Kristi

Barnes.

This book wouldn’t have happened without my mother—for more than the obvious reason. I started

reading late, and when I did, I hated it. This wasn’t helped by a teacher who shouted “Choppy

sentences!” at me for my inability to read aloud smoothly in the first grade. My mom took me out of

school for a year to home school me (insert social awkwardness joke here), and her dedication and

patience gave me a love for reading.

Thank you to my little sisters, Christa and Elisa, who begged for bedtime stories. An enthusiastic and

forgiving audience is a must for a budding teenage storyteller. Any princesses in my books are their fault.

It’s one thing to love reading; it’s another to write. My high school English teacher, Jael Prezeau, is a

teacher in a million. She inspired hundreds. She’s the kind of woman who could chew you out, cheer you

on, make you work harder than you’ve ever worked for a class, give you a B, and make you love it. She

told me I couldn’t break the grammar rules she taught me until I was published. It was a rule up with

which I could not put. She tried.

In college, I briefly considered politics. Horror. A few people turned me from disaster. One was an

industrial spy I met in Oxford. On reading a story I’d written, he said, “I wish I could do what you do.”

Huh? Then my best friend Nate Davis became the editor of our college literary journal and held a contest

for the best short story. Wonder of wonders, I won the cash prize, and realized I’d earned slightly better

than minimum wage. I was hooked. (It was better than I would do again for a long, long time.) I started a

new novel, and whenever I tried to do my homework, I could count on Jon Low to come knocking on

my door. “Hey, Weeks, you got another chapter for me yet?” It was irritating and flattering at once. I had

no idea I was being prepared for having an editor.

I must thank the Iowa Writers Program for rejecting me. Though I still sometimes wear all black and

drink lattes, they helped me decide to write the kind of books I like rather than the books I ought to like.

My debt to my wife, Kristi, cannot be overstated. Her faith kept me going. Her sacrifices awe me. Her

wisdom has rescued me from many a story dead end. To get published, you have to defy overwhelming

odds; to marry a woman like Kristi, you have to knock them out.

My agent Don Maass has an understanding of story that I’ve not seen rivaled. Don, you’ve been a

reality check, a wise teacher, and an encourager. You make me a better writer.

Huge thanks to the amazing editorial team at Orbit. Devi, thanks for your many insights, your enthusiasm,

and your guidance ushering me through an unfamiliar process. Tim, thanks for taking a chance on me.

Jennifer, you were my first contact at Orbit, and I have to tell you, the fact that I’d e-mail you a question

and get an answer the same morning was a big deal. Of course, then you started sending me

paperwork—and then I knew I wasn’t dreaming. Alex, thanks for your brilliant Web page design, the

beautiful billboards, full page scratch-and-sniff ads in the New York Times, and those nifty little

cardboard display stands at Borders. They’re fab. Lauren, thank you for taking my ones and zeros and

making something real. Hilary, copyeditor extraordinaire, a special thanks for two words: bollock dagger.

They made the novel.

I also want to thank all the other people at Orbit and Hachette who do the real work while we artists sit

in cafés wearing black, drinking lattes. I’d mention you by name, but I don’t know your names.

However, I do appreciate what you do to take my words and make something out of them. So, layout

people, art people (by the way, Wow!), office go-fers, accountants, lawyers, and the mail guy, thanks.

Crazy dreamers need a lot of encouragers. Kevin, your being proud of me is about the best thing a little

brother can get. Dad, one of my first memories is of sharing my worry with you about the space shuttle

poking holes in the atmosphere and letting out all of Earth’s air. Rather than rushing to correct me, you

listened—and still do. Jacob Klein, your encouragement and friendship over the years have been

invaluable. You were there at the very beginning (4A.M. in Niedfeldt, I think). To the Cabin Guys at

Hillsdale College (Jon “Missing Link” Low, Nate “My Head Looks Like PK’s Butt” Davis, AJ “My

Girlfriend Will Clean It Up” Siegmann, Jason “I Love Butter” Siegmann, Ryan “Mystery Puker”

Downey, Peter “GQ” Koller, Charles “Sand Vest” Robison, Matt “No Special Sauce” Schramm), I

couldn’t have shared a slum house with better wangs. Dennis Foley, you were the first professional writer

who gave me time and guidance. You said you’d tell me if I should give up and get a real job—and that I

shouldn’t. Cody Lee, thanks for the unbridled enthusiasm; it still makes me smile. Shaun and Diane

McNay, Mark and Liv Pothoff, Scott and Kariann Box, Scott and Kerry Rueck, Todd and Lisel

Williams, Chris Giesch, Blane Hansen, Brian Rapp, Dana Piersall, Jeff and Sandee Newville, Keith and

Jen Johnson—thanks for believing in us and helping make the years of work and waiting not just

tolerable, but fun.

Thanks to everyone over the years who, on finding out I was a writer, didn’t ask, “Oh, are you

published?”

Last, thanks to you, curious reader who reads acknowledgments. You do realize the only people who

usually read acknowledgments are looking for their own name, right? If you’re quirky enough to read

acknowledgments without knowing the author, you and I are going to get along fine. Picking up a book

by an author you’ve never read is a leap of faith. Here’s my offer: you give me a couple of pages, and I’ll

give you a helluva ride.

BOOKS BY BRENT WEEKS

THENIGHTANGELTRILOGY

The Way of Shadows

Shadow’s Edge

Beyond the Shadows

Extras

interview

What professions were you involved with before becoming a writer?

I came to writing backwards, by which I mean directly. Most writers have a long list of strange jobs they

held before they settled into writing. I’ve known I wanted to be a novelist since I was thirteen. I figured

that instead of doing something practical that made money until I was old enough to have the leisure to

try, I’d just try. To support myself, I worked as a bartender and then as an English teacher. When we

married, my wife and I decided I would write full-time. Unless your spouse thinks being poor is romantic

and is tremendously patient, unbelievably supportive, and basically unconcerned about owning toys, this

is a recipe for disaster. For us, it worked.

Do you mainly read fantasy fiction or are there other genres that you enjoy?

Fantasy is my first love, but like most writers my reading habits are fairly promiscuous. I love reading

history because it breaks you free of some of your own culture’s preconceptions while staying within the

bounds of human psychology. If you read something totally outlandish in a fantasy novel, you think, meh,

whatever . If you read something totally outlandish in history, you think, how did that happen? How did

people accept that? It’s also fun because you find places where other novelists have “borrowed.” I was

reading about the Borgias in sixteenth-century Italy and it slapped me in the face—Pope Alexander VII

was the Godfather, complete with dysfunctional kids. I checked into it, and Mario Puzo readily admits it.

I also dabble with mysteries and whatever’s on the best-seller rack, and I’m a recovering literature

major.

The Night Angel Trilogy has a very dark and gritty concept. How did you derive the idea for

it?

There are a lot of answers to this question.

First, few writers admit this, but coming up with ideas is the hard part of writing. I pay a guy in Bulgaria

to do it for me. Then I do the easy part and make a novel out of it. No, actually, ideas come from a

secret email discussion list in New York City. You can’t get on the list until you’re published, but you

can’t get published until you’re on the list.

Second, the darkest part of the trilogy is near the beginning of The Way of Shadows, where we see the

abuse of children. At the time I started the trilogy, my wife (who has an MA in Counseling) was working

with children who’ve been molested and who then act out sexually. Without help, these kids often

become abusers themselves. The very idea of an eight-year-old kid abusing a five-year-old is monstrous.

Is an eight-year-old capable of evil? Is an adult abuser too deeply wounded himself to be held

accountable for the deep wounds he inflicts? How about an adolescent? Where’s the line? My wife

shared only a little of what she heard, both for my sake and for confidentiality, but it was clear that this

was evil. That abuse is so common in a society where children have as much supervision as they do in

ours is frightening. I extended that only a little bit to what might happen in a gang with no responsible

authority figures—and, quite honestly, then I toned it down. Incidentally, in an LA Times feature on gangs

this year, one gang member claimed that sexual abuse is rampant in today’s gangs, but such a taboo that

you don’t even hear about it in hardcore gangsta rap. He claimed 90 percent of young men in gangs have

been abused, and virtually all the girls. If he’s even close to correct, I think sexual abuse is a huge

component of why these kids are willing to obliterate themselves with drugs, to die, and to kill.

Third, calling these books dark and gritty is like saying George Clooney was an ugly kid voted least

likely to succeed. Well, maybe he was, but that’s not the whole story. There is darkness and grit in these

books, but I think that’s balanced and ultimately overcome with hope and redemption. It’s simply a

matter of whether you think hope is wan and weak, or robust. Is your idea of hope when a brilliant girl

who does all her homework wants to ace a test? Is your idea of redemption turning in a coupon at the

grocery store? Hope isn’t vibrant unless it has to be chosen over despair. Redemption is cheap unless

there’s a suffocating darkness in which even a hero is tempted to hide. I see these books as a fight to

escape from darkness to light, which is reflected in the titles. So yes, the books start in a place that’s

dark and gritty because without that, light and peace are meaningless, worthless, boring.

Who/what were your influences in creating the trilogy?

Stephen J. Cannell once said that whenever writers get asked about their influences “out comes the list

of dead writers.” So Eliot-and-Steinbeck-and-de-Beauvoir-

and-Chekhov-and-Foucault-and-Yeats-and-Kierkegaard is probably the right answer—but it’s not true.

My major influences aren’t even obscure. There goes my street cred. Thanks, now the only people who

will talk to me at conventions will be the Klingons.

Tolkien sucked me into this world when I was young. I found it very irritating that he gave me this huge

love for fantasy, and then only wrote four novels. I’d go read other fantasy, and most of it was sooo bad

that I’d come back and reread the Lord of the Rings. Then Robert Jordan came along. My first novel, at

age thirteen, was perilously close to plagiarizing him, and it took me a long time to escape from his

shadow. George R. R. Martin is another giant. He showed me that if you actually kill or maim a major

character or two, the next time you put a major character in danger, readers worry. Writing

children—especially smart ones—is a huge challenge because it’s so easy to make them precocious and

precious, so I love Orson Scott Card’s work. I believe he called his vision “relentlessly plain”: children

are young, not stupid; innocent because of lack of exposure, not paragons of virtue.

I was really trying to avoid mentioning this one, but I have to admit a Shakespeare influence. There, I

said it. His characters, even his villains, are so conflicted they’re fascinating. I even borrowed a

Shakespearean king’s dilemma over what to do with a law-breaking friend.

Do you have a favorite character? If so, why?

I have to admit I love Durzo Blint. He’s just so bad. I was reading an article the other day about

characters who are strong, charming, relentless in their pursuit of their goals, and willing to use people

because they don’t have the weakness of empathy. In fiction, they’re often called heroes. Think James

Bond. Psychology has another name for them: sociopaths. I wanted to create a strong, ruthless character

who wasn’t a sociopath. Blint is so strong and so conflicted he’s fascinating to write. He doesn’t care if

he pisses people off. He’s got no time for lies and illusions—yet he lives lies and illusions. He’s raw; there

are cracks in the façade. He’s a puzzle because he’s done so much good and so much evil in his life, but

try to find a great historical figure who didn’t. Constantine preserved the Roman Empire and slaughtered

thirty thousand people for holding a rally against him; Washington and Jefferson founded a nation on the

principle that all men are created equal but owned slaves; Abraham Lincoln was racist; Martin King

Luther Jr. and JFK cheated on their wives. Obviously, these run the gamut of seriousness depending on

what each of us values and excuses, but all of them require excuse. Durzo believes he’s a worse person

than he is, and that only comes from a person who has a deep moral sense.

On another level, I really like Vi. She starts as nearly a stereotype, but through the books she becomes

the kind of character I’ve never seen in fantasy. I think this has to do with writers’ desire to create strong

female characters. Too often, these women end up as men with breasts: female, sociopathic James

Bonds. If they have emotions, they never have the “weak” emotions. There’s an added layer of difficulty

when the writer is a man, of course, so it takes even more work. Without dropping any spoilers, all I can

say is I like how Vi turns out.

As much as I like both characters, though, I don’t think I’d hang out with them. One or the other would

kick my ass, just for fun.

Which character is most like you?

Oh, that’s easy. Momma K. Next question?

Now that you’ve finished writing Kylar’s saga, do you think that you’ll visit this world again?

Or is there a new story idea that you’ve been working on?

Both! That guy in Bulgaria’s been really busy. I’ve already done a huge amount of work on what

happens in Kylar’s world after the events of Beyond the Shadows. I pick up with the story seventeen

years later with one of the sons of . . . well, you’ll just have to read it. It will be a trilogy and it won’t be

necessary to have read this trilogy first, but readers of the Night Angel Trilogy are definitely going to

spend some time with characters they love.

At the same time, though Midcyru is a huge canvas to paint on, I’ve been cooking up a new world that

I’m really excited about. New magic, new cultures, it’s a cool setting, and I’ve got a premise that I think

rocks. But the story—the full cast, who goes where and who does what—hasn’t coalesced yet.

As a first-time author, what have you found to be the most exciting part of the publishing

process?

The day you get the phone call that your books have sold is too shocking to be exciting. It’s simply too

big. You walk around with perma-grin, but you don’t really understand it yet.

I think the most exciting moment was when a French editor wrote that he had stayed up all night reading

The Way of Shadows, and after twelve years in publishing, that didn’t happen that often. I’ve dreamed

of keeping people up late reading my books since I started my first novel at age thirteen—but I always

figured I’d have to wait at least until I got published, and I figured it would be some poor kid who’d have

to sleep through math class the next day, not an editor. That was a great day.

meet the author

BRENTWEEKSwas born and raised in Montana. After getting his paper keys from Hillsdale College,

Brent had brief stints walking the earth like Caine from Kung Fu , tending bar, and corrupting the youth.

(Not at the same time.) He started writing on bar napkins, then on lesson plans, then full time. Eventually,

someone paid him for it. Brent lives in Oregon with his wife, Kristi. He doesn’t own cats or wear a

ponytail. Find out more about the author at www.brentweeks.com .

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