A new series?! Weak! Here’s the upside, though: it’s only a trilogy and it’s already completed, so I’m neither likely to die waiting for the final book nor to forget what was going on with the overarching story before I reach the end. (I’m looking at y’all, Jordan, Martin, and Erikson.) I wonder why this is not a concern when I think about the graphic novel series I’ve been reading lately. Hmmm. Less time investment, I bet. I know that seems like a digression, but as Polonius said, the unexamined life is not worth living. I mean, he probably Shakespeared it up, though.

Anyway, this Prince of Nothing series is pretty cool so far. It’s got priests against wizards, wizards against an evil force from beyond space and time (well, something like that; it’s not entirely clear yet), emperors against popes, civilization against barbarians, prostitutes against, well, okay still that evil force from beyond space and time (and okay it’s only one prostitute, but still), and this one philosopher guy who can read faces like other people can read books against everyone in the whole world. And maybe also against his father who can do that same awesome manipulation and hitting arrows out of the air thing as the guy I mentioned in the first place. Oh, and according to prophecy, that guy (the son, I still mean) will be against the evil force from beyond space and time. But you had probably guessed that yourself.

So this wizard spy keeps showing up in time to discover all the odds and ends of how the world is on the verge of the Second Apocalypse. We like the wizard spy. He’s there in time to watch the pope guy (who we do not particularly like) declare a Holy War against the people to the south who are heathen and own our holy city, only we never really minded before, so that’s a little suspicious. And he’s there to figure out why the wizards would agree to ally themselves with the Holy War, despite that priests dislike wizards even more than heathens, if that’s possible. We don’t know why the pope is willing to invite them, I don’t think. And he and his girlfriend the prostitute are there to uncover the first signs of the evil force from beyond space and time (who we especially do not like, as they seem to be somewhat spidery plus they crawl out of otherwise perfectly normal people). And certainly he’s there when the philosopher guy (about whom we have not yet made up our minds, though he is clearly Cool) and the barbarian general (who we like, even though we suspect he would not particularly like us) arrive to save the day and get the plot rolling. He isn’t really there for anything to do with the emperor, but that’s okay because we don’t like him anyway.

Brutal world, where the good guys are by turns plagued with self-doubt or unenlightened self-interest, there are entirely too many guys who probably aren’t good at all even though they should be, and the bad guys pale in comparison to how bad the evil force from beyond space and time is, but if not for that would be pretty unpleasant in their own rights. But there’s still plenty of hope, in that the self-doubt is likely to be overcome and in that the whole point of the philosopher guy, aside from being a badass, is that he seems primed to bring enlightenment and justice and above all LIGHT to a world that really needs it.[1] I mean, unless the evil force from beyond space and time wins instead. Which, despite just how badass the philosopher guy is, I wouldn’t rule out. (To be clear, though, he’s not the hero, that’s the wizard spy. He’s just a foil against which to measure the wizard spy’s growth. So he has to be really cool for there to be something to aspire to. That seems reasonable, I think.)

[1] Hence (among other ways that it works) the title of book 1: The Darkness That Comes Before.