The Black Prism
Gavin Guile is the Prism, the most powerful man in the world. He is high priest and emperor, a man whose power, wit, and charm are all that preserves a tenuous peace. But Prisms never last, and Guile knows exactly how long he has left to live: Five years to achieve five impossible goals. But 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.
Where The Black Prism keeps showing up
Three of our editors' lists feature this novel.
What you might want to know about The Black Prism
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
First in the Lightbringer series. Gavin Guile is the Prism, the one magician able to split light into all the colors of magic. He has five years to live, five great purposes to fulfill, and a son he never knew about.
Brent Weeks's Lightbringer series has five books: The Black Prism, The Blinding Knife, The Broken Eye, The Blood Mirror, and The Burning White. The series is complete.
Both feature elaborate magic systems with rules and limits (color-based drafting in Lightbringer, metal-based Allomancy in Mistborn). Brandon Sanderson and Brent Weeks are often recommended together as authors of hard-magic fantasy.
The Black Prism was written by Brent Weeks, published in 2010 by Orbit.
The Black Prism is 659 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Black Prism takes most readers 10 to 14 hours to finish.
The Black Prism is a standalone novel by Brent Weeks, not part of a series.
The Black Prism is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
