--- product_id: 5880720 title: "The Black Prism" price: "AED 98" currency: AED in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.ae/products/5880720-the-black-prism store_origin: AE region: United Arab Emirates --- # The Black Prism **Price:** AED 98 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** The Black Prism - **How much does it cost?** AED 98 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ae](https://www.desertcart.ae/products/5880720-the-black-prism) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description In a world where magic is tightly controlled, the most powerful man in history must choose between his kingdom and his son in the first book in the epic NYT bestselling Lightbringer series. Guile is the Prism. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. Yet Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live. When Guile discovers he has a son, born in a far kingdom after the war that put him in power, he must decide how much he's willing to pay to protect a secret that could tear his world apart. If you loved the action and adventure of the Night Angel trilogy, you will devour this incredible epic fantasy series by Brent Weeks. Review: The start of a promising fantasy series - Black Prism is the start of Weeks' second fantasy series. It concerns a world with what may be the most unique magic system that I've seen in a fantasy series. This magic is entirely based on turning light solid, with the solid form of each color having both different properties and a different effect on the person casting this magic. Casters in this world are called Drafters. The majority have the ability to "draft" a single color, others may draft multiples. The greatest tragedy, however, is that casting color magic in this way is fatal - Drafters will inevitable go insane. An entire religion in this world has been built up based on controlling Drafters, including a tradition of suicide rather than madness. This religion is built around the "Prism", a person whom has the ability to take white light and shatter it into its component colors, drafting any of them. Prisms are considered the head of the religion, but have a lifespan that is measured in multiples of seven years. Small multiples; four is unheard of. The book centers around the current Prism - Gavin Guile. In so many ways, this is a story about a family dynasty and the effects that it has had on the setting. Before the book, Gavin fought a war with his brother (Dazen) over who would be Prism. The results of this war set the stage for basically every character in the book - a list which includes the brother, whom has been kept secretly captive for the entire gap of time. The action focuses on the viewpoint of just a few characters and in this neatly avoids a trap that many other epic fantasy has fallen into. This includes Gavin, Dazen, Gavin's newly discovered bastard son Kip, Gavin's ex-fiance Karris, Corvan; a General from the war, and his daughter. These characters are, in fact, tightly entwined - a fact which gives the book an extremely strong focus. Other than the magic concept, one of the strongest points for this author is characterization. Every one of the characters listed above are actual people - the author takes great care to flesh them out, give them motivations that extend beyond "being good". Each character, in the course of the book and before, does things that a reader would find terrible; sometimes in the pursuit of the greater good and sometimes not. This extends to the primary villain of the book, whom I've taken care not to say much about (the book hinges on several revelations, of which this is just one). His motivations are such that it is somewhat easy for the reader to sympathize with the goals, if not necessarily the methods. As stated - the plot is tight and well thought-out. The book hinges on several revelations, one of which comes very early. Each of these revelations makes sense in the scope of the plot; as you hit them, you can understand where they are coming from. Further, the writing is top-notch. The best example for this, as far as I'm concerned is chapter 78. The author presents two separate, entwined scenes that serve as point/counter-point better than any that I've seen before. Further, he does a great job of showing a weapon early in the book, that you know will end up involved in the climax. Really, the only negative I have is that the prisoner plotline starts and seems to end with no actual progress being made. I suspect this thread will be followed up in a future book, but its the only thread like that in the book. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a new fantasy series in the wake of the end of Wheel of Time. Its a long read, and thus far the author thinks that it will require four books for the full telling of it. There's no real indication if this will become the kind of bloated mess that Wheel of Time (in the middle) and Storm of Ice and Fire has devolved into, in my opinion. That said - the scripting is tight enough that I have hope it won't. Review: puts the epic back in epic fantasy - About a quarter of the way through The Black Prism I found myself thinking, "Oh no, not good, this awesome book is the first in a series and it only just came out...I will finish it wanting more, and instead I will have to wait and wait and wait." All the waiting is going to suck. But The Black Prism? The book? It did not suck. It was awesome. So let's see. What are some of the things I liked about The Black Prism. A good cast of characters. It was nice flipping between chubby, frequently pathetic Kip and gorgeous, endlessly charismatic Gavin. And all the characters in between. Each character faces severe challenges, and their individual storylines weave around one another in interesting ways. There are lots of twists and turns, many of them unexpected, and the pace is furious. Weeks seems to be really big on choices - there are lots of hard choices, and even the best choices often have terrible consequences. He's not afraid to make his characters suffer, or push them to do things that made me angry. That's all good. Given his focus on choices, it's no surprise that he often walks the reader through a choice as the character makes it. When it makes sense, this is great. But there were a handful of key moments where Weeks led us through a choice it rang utterly false to me. I didn't believe that the character would really think or feel that way. One early example of this is when Kip's mother dies. She's been a pretty awful, worthless mother - constantly strung out on drugs, unloving and abusive. As she dies, she makes Kip swear to exact vengeance on someone who's wronged her. She doesn't name the person, but Kip fills in the blank. That's already annoying enough; as a reader, I knew that I was being tricked. But then Kip agrees to dedicate himself to fulfilling his mother's wish for revenge, and he seems to really mean it. And, reading, I was thinking: really? Where'd that come from? They don't have enough of a bond to inspire that kind of passion for revenge. On top of which, Kip is way, way too smart to fill in a blank and then act like he's been given really specific marching orders. Naturally, Kip's promise to his dying mother turns out to be important...sometimes. Most of the time, he's aware that his mother was worthless and doesn't seem to mourn her particularly. But every once and a while, when it's convenient to the plot, he gets all passionate about avenging her. Something like that - important events that ring false; motivations that are here one minute, gone the next - can be pretty problematic if it's repeated too many times. And there are a good handful of them here. That being said, for the most part the characters - and their choices - ring true. Quibbles aside, I definitely recommend this book. If you can stand all the waiting. ## Features - Used Book in Good Condition ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #1,954,760 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #110 in Historical Fantasy (Books) #395 in Fantasy Action & Adventure #544 in Epic Fantasy (Books) | | Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 12,801 Reviews | ## Images ![The Black Prism - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91XfWTLEoXL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ The start of a promising fantasy series *by A***R on January 30, 2013* Black Prism is the start of Weeks' second fantasy series. It concerns a world with what may be the most unique magic system that I've seen in a fantasy series. This magic is entirely based on turning light solid, with the solid form of each color having both different properties and a different effect on the person casting this magic. Casters in this world are called Drafters. The majority have the ability to "draft" a single color, others may draft multiples. The greatest tragedy, however, is that casting color magic in this way is fatal - Drafters will inevitable go insane. An entire religion in this world has been built up based on controlling Drafters, including a tradition of suicide rather than madness. This religion is built around the "Prism", a person whom has the ability to take white light and shatter it into its component colors, drafting any of them. Prisms are considered the head of the religion, but have a lifespan that is measured in multiples of seven years. Small multiples; four is unheard of. The book centers around the current Prism - Gavin Guile. In so many ways, this is a story about a family dynasty and the effects that it has had on the setting. Before the book, Gavin fought a war with his brother (Dazen) over who would be Prism. The results of this war set the stage for basically every character in the book - a list which includes the brother, whom has been kept secretly captive for the entire gap of time. The action focuses on the viewpoint of just a few characters and in this neatly avoids a trap that many other epic fantasy has fallen into. This includes Gavin, Dazen, Gavin's newly discovered bastard son Kip, Gavin's ex-fiance Karris, Corvan; a General from the war, and his daughter. These characters are, in fact, tightly entwined - a fact which gives the book an extremely strong focus. Other than the magic concept, one of the strongest points for this author is characterization. Every one of the characters listed above are actual people - the author takes great care to flesh them out, give them motivations that extend beyond "being good". Each character, in the course of the book and before, does things that a reader would find terrible; sometimes in the pursuit of the greater good and sometimes not. This extends to the primary villain of the book, whom I've taken care not to say much about (the book hinges on several revelations, of which this is just one). His motivations are such that it is somewhat easy for the reader to sympathize with the goals, if not necessarily the methods. As stated - the plot is tight and well thought-out. The book hinges on several revelations, one of which comes very early. Each of these revelations makes sense in the scope of the plot; as you hit them, you can understand where they are coming from. Further, the writing is top-notch. The best example for this, as far as I'm concerned is chapter 78. The author presents two separate, entwined scenes that serve as point/counter-point better than any that I've seen before. Further, he does a great job of showing a weapon early in the book, that you know will end up involved in the climax. Really, the only negative I have is that the prisoner plotline starts and seems to end with no actual progress being made. I suspect this thread will be followed up in a future book, but its the only thread like that in the book. Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a new fantasy series in the wake of the end of Wheel of Time. Its a long read, and thus far the author thinks that it will require four books for the full telling of it. There's no real indication if this will become the kind of bloated mess that Wheel of Time (in the middle) and Storm of Ice and Fire has devolved into, in my opinion. That said - the scripting is tight enough that I have hope it won't. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ puts the epic back in epic fantasy *by K***R on September 13, 2010* About a quarter of the way through The Black Prism I found myself thinking, "Oh no, not good, this awesome book is the first in a series and it only just came out...I will finish it wanting more, and instead I will have to wait and wait and wait." All the waiting is going to suck. But The Black Prism? The book? It did not suck. It was awesome. So let's see. What are some of the things I liked about The Black Prism. A good cast of characters. It was nice flipping between chubby, frequently pathetic Kip and gorgeous, endlessly charismatic Gavin. And all the characters in between. Each character faces severe challenges, and their individual storylines weave around one another in interesting ways. There are lots of twists and turns, many of them unexpected, and the pace is furious. Weeks seems to be really big on choices - there are lots of hard choices, and even the best choices often have terrible consequences. He's not afraid to make his characters suffer, or push them to do things that made me angry. That's all good. Given his focus on choices, it's no surprise that he often walks the reader through a choice as the character makes it. When it makes sense, this is great. But there were a handful of key moments where Weeks led us through a choice it rang utterly false to me. I didn't believe that the character would really think or feel that way. One early example of this is when Kip's mother dies. She's been a pretty awful, worthless mother - constantly strung out on drugs, unloving and abusive. As she dies, she makes Kip swear to exact vengeance on someone who's wronged her. She doesn't name the person, but Kip fills in the blank. That's already annoying enough; as a reader, I knew that I was being tricked. But then Kip agrees to dedicate himself to fulfilling his mother's wish for revenge, and he seems to really mean it. And, reading, I was thinking: really? Where'd that come from? They don't have enough of a bond to inspire that kind of passion for revenge. On top of which, Kip is way, way too smart to fill in a blank and then act like he's been given really specific marching orders. Naturally, Kip's promise to his dying mother turns out to be important...sometimes. Most of the time, he's aware that his mother was worthless and doesn't seem to mourn her particularly. But every once and a while, when it's convenient to the plot, he gets all passionate about avenging her. Something like that - important events that ring false; motivations that are here one minute, gone the next - can be pretty problematic if it's repeated too many times. And there are a good handful of them here. That being said, for the most part the characters - and their choices - ring true. Quibbles aside, I definitely recommend this book. If you can stand all the waiting. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Incredible, unique magic system and expansive world. New favorite series! *by K***E on September 4, 2019* In The Black Prism, magic is based on colors, where drafters can create a solid form from the different colors in light waves. Each color creates a different texture and has a different property. But the more you draft color, the closer you come to your death because the magic is slowly killing you. I have been looking forward to reading the Lightbringer series for quite a while, and that small bit about how the magic system worked was all I knew before starting. I didn’t know about the plot at all, but knowing about the color magic that slowly kills its user was enough to hook me into reading the book. While I’ve been excited to read this series, I’ve also felt a bit intimidated because each book is 600-700 pages and I knew it would be a commitment. I shouldn’t have been scared to start the series though because this book was so easy to read. I fell right into the story, even with the new and complex magic system, and I found myself engrossed in the plot and the characters and the magic. I usually can’t sit and read for hours on end but with this book I found it to be easy to do just that. I never wanted to put it down, but life’s duties kept calling. I actually started this book by reading through the whole glossary and appendix because, a few chapters in, I already had questions and I didn’t want to be confused. This helped me understand the magic system and the world right from the beginning, which I found to be super useful. This is one of those books that I constantly kept referencing the information at the back to keep everything straight in my mind, and I’m so glad the author included these reference materials. I’m also grateful for the map because I love to reference locations as they’re mentioned in the story. The only problem I had was that the map is upside down—South is at the top—and it took me five minutes of staring at it to realize this. I hope this has some important meaning we find out later because otherwise what’s the point of an upside-down map? The description of the Chromeria with colorful buildings that turn to always be facing the sun sounds so neat and I wish I could see a city like that in real life, or at least some fanart depiction of it. But as much as I love the Chromeria so far, I feel like it is actually not a very good place. This book had some pretty great characters. Gavin was a really neat protagonist. I enjoyed learning about him as the Prism and what those duties entail as far as keeping all the colors balanced in the world. He has a lot of secrets, and I loved discovering snippets of these throughout the story. For example, what are his seven purposes? I really want to know! I also rather enjoyed Kip and the mystery surrounding his parentage because it was clear from the beginning that Gavin wasn’t telling anyone the full story. We got bits and pieces along the way, and I love a good mystery aspect in a book. Although I will say that Kip was rather impulsive at times. He would blurt out offensive statements then immediately be like “crap why did I say that?” I just wasn’t sure why he was acting that way but I guess that’s just who he is. I still don’t know how I feel about Dazen. It’s interesting that we learned right from the beginning that he wasn’t dead as everyone suspected, and I’m curious to see how this will play out in future books. Because of very spoilery reasons, I actually feel sorry for him right now. Karris was okay. I mostly just felt like she was angry the whole time, but I guess part of that can be expected because of her history with Gavin. I kept waiting for her to learn the full truth because I wanted so badly to see her reaction. I think I will like her more as the series progresses. I really liked Liv from the first chapter. And knowing what her mission was and that the Prism didn’t know what or who she was in the beginning just added to the suspense and made me even more excited to keep reading about her. Plus I really like that she’s a superviolet drafter. For some reason, that’s the most interesting color to me, so I loved seeing what she could do with it. Also, she has me very intrigued with what she could do given her position at the end of the book. I’m very excited to see her character progression. Even though I know Lord Omnichrome is the villain and a terrible person, I can’t help but agree with some of his ideals. What he says about the Chromeria makes sense in a way. The good are not always fully good and the bad are not always fully bad. I’m very curious to see how his beliefs affect other characters and the rest of the story in other books. One minor problem I had was the writing style at times. Weeks’s writing was good for the most part but occasionally he would explain something and I wouldn’t understand what he was saying and I would be confused about that aspect of the world or magic system. I did have to reread a few paragraphs because of this issue, but for the most part, I thought the writing was good. One thing, though, that was kind of jarring about Weeks’s writing style was that thoughts in the first person were not italicized. It really threw me off for the first few chapters that I saw it, but it gradually became a normal part of the story and I stopped noticing it as much. I thought this was an interesting way to approach writing in third person, and even though I didn’t think I would like it, I did. It was kind of like third-person limited mixed with first-person. Something else I didn’t really like was how long the final battle scene was. It was almost two hundred pages long, and by the end, I was just exhausted of reading about the drafters fighting. I much preferred the non-combat scenes of the book. I’m positive there will be many more fight scenes in the later books, so I can only hope they do not last as long or they are written in a way that is more entertaining to me. I was fine with the first three-fourths, but during the very ending I was just wanting to be done with battle and I didn’t really care what happened anymore. This book was very compelling, not only because of the story itself, but also because each chapter ended on a cliffhanger but the next chapter would be a new character’s perspective. I had to keep reading to find out what happened next for each of the five character perspectives. It’s been awhile since I read a book like this, one where I was actually excited to know what would happen next in such a way. Overall, I thought The Black Prism was a fantastic book. It has a very unique and impressive magic system, a well-built world, a great cast of characters, some mysterious aspects, intense fight scenes, vivid imagery, and a compelling plot. The writing did take some getting used to in the beginning, but eventually I came to enjoy it. I would recommend to anyone who is looking for an enthralling fast-paced epic fantasy. I’m very much looking forward to where this series takes me on its journey. “Moments of beauty sustain us through hours of ugliness.” --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.ae/products/5880720-the-black-prism](https://www.desertcart.ae/products/5880720-the-black-prism) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Arab Emirates* *Store origin: AE* *Last updated: 2026-06-15*