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Waylander gave up his dark life as an assassin years ago–or so he thought. \u00a0When an ancient magic gateway begins to break down and evil beings from another world set out to reconquer the lands of Kydor, Waylander finds himself caught up once again in the cycle of war and bloodshed.<\/p>\n
Waylander joins forces with Kysumu, a rajnee<\/em> warrior who has been training all his life to be the best swordsman, and Ustarte, an escaped \u00a0changeling experiment who has come from the demon world to organize a resistance. \u00a0But when the spirit of Qin Chong comes from the past to aid the fledgling resistance, he comes to the unlikeliest person of all–the ditch-digger Yu Yu Liang. \u00a0As Kysumu wrestles with envy over the spirit’s choice, he comes to understand what it truly means to be a hero.<\/p>\n This book was good.<\/em> Way good. \u00a0Not only was it a thrilling action\/adventure story, it was full of deep, wonderful insights into the nature of courage and cowardice, life and death, good \u00a0and evil, and true heroism. \u00a0David Gemmell’s books are full of wonderful insight, and deliciously complex in the way they deal with life’s most important and meaningful questions.<\/p>\n I read the last hundred pages at a breathless sprint. \u00a0So many of the characters died! \u00a0Yet even though the story was very violent, I didn’t feel that it was excessively so. \u00a0The violence always had a reason to be there, and added something to the story.<\/p>\n What really surprised me was how Gemmell redeemed even some of his most evil characters. \u00a0Just when you think one of the main antagonists is soulless and outright evil, he shows you another side of the character and makes you rethink him\/her entirely. \u00a0Amazing.<\/p>\n Not only where the “good guy” characters imminently likeable, they were surprisingly relatable. \u00a0I felt like I understood exactly how Kysumu felt, having spent his whole life training to be the best warrior, only for the spirit of Qin Chong to choose a clumsy, shameless commoner. \u00a0As he struggled with his \u00a0jealousy, I felt I knew exactly what he was going through. \u00a0Interesting stuff.<\/p>\n Waylander, too, was very interesting. \u00a0Even though he was the best warrior out of anyone in the book, he was far from invulnerable or perfect. \u00a0He had a dark side that was very believable–not too gritty or over the top. \u00a0In fact, I think Waylander was originally an antagonist in the earlier books in the series.<\/p>\n When I read White Wolf,<\/em> I had issues with the plot structure and excessive use of flashbacks. \u00a0Not so with this novel. \u00a0The plot progressed wonderfully, keeping me engaged and interested the whole time. \u00a0The twist ending was delicious! \u00a0Wonderfully satisfying.<\/p>\n Above all else, this is a book that means<\/em> something, that actually says<\/em> something. \u00a0I came away from this book satisfied, not only because of the excellent, entertaining story, but because of the way the story made me think. \u00a0Gemmell is an expert at creating depth to his characters and his stories, pulling you beneath the surface to glimpse at things that are really important and meaningful.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Waylander gave up his dark life as an assassin years ago–or so he thought. \u00a0When an ancient magic gateway begins to break down and evil beings from another world set out to reconquer the lands of Kydor, Waylander finds himself caught up once again in the cycle of war and bloodshed. Waylander joins forces with… Continue reading Hero in the Shadows by David Gemmell<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[112,113,1005,177,117],"class_list":["post-785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-character","tag-david-gemmell","tag-heroic-fantasy","tag-theme","tag-violence","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7iXK-cF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=785"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":788,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/785\/revisions\/788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onelowerlight.com\/writing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}