kippurcritiquesbadbooks | Incest! And single tears!

To counter act the effects of this book, I bought Black Powder War. Novik's series is growing on me, which is always nice.

Chapter two is about fifty pages long. I am not doing the fifty pages in one sitting.

Here we meet Triscuit's twin sister Shailiha who is riding with Earwig (it takes us a page and a quarter to learn that's who she's riding with. Newcomb apparently has issues with naming people. Earwig contenplates about how Shailiha shouldn't be out riding because she's five months pregnant. He does it as a "As you know Bob."

"I needn't remind you that you are in the fifth moon of your pregnancy"

As you know Bob such statements are called obvious info-dumping when the author wants to give the reader certain information but doesn't know how to do it, so he puts it in dialog as two characters talk to each other filling each other in with information they already know. Also notice the use of the word "moon" this is Newcomb making it seem like it's really a different woooorld. Look. See! It's moon! Not month! They're different! Even Tolkien used the word month. There's nothing wrong with the word month. Using moon just makes you look silly.

As you know Bob Shailiha and Earwig are riding out to find the missing prince Triscuit. There's an odd POV shift where it goes from Earwig to Shailiha who starts musing about how Earwig used to be handsome.

She looked over to her right, at the old wizard's craggy profile. Over three hundred years old, he was still one of the most powerful men in the kingdom. The tan, creased face held a thin mouth and under arched brows were bright aquamarine eyes that never missed a thing. His gray hair, pulled back from a widow's peak ended in the traditional Directorate wizard's tail of braided hair that fell down his back. Simple gray robes draped loosely over his still-muscular body, and the hands that held his horse's reins were large and strong. It suddenly occurred to her that when he was young - before the application of the time enchantments - he probably would have been one of the most handsome men she had ever seen, almost as handsome as Tristan.

Two things. First I think someone is in love with their wizard. Second off... anyone else getting incesty vibes off the sister? Or is it just me? What sort of book is this when even the guy's twin sister wants to jump him? I mean really is the author trying to prove how manly this guy is that even his family wants to have sex with him? I'm not sure if that's the sort of thing I want to be reading about. ~~Though I shouldn't talk really, I have a pair of incestuous twins myself. But it's generally acknowledged that they're fucked up in the head.~~

Earwig is apparently a benevolent wizard who hangs stable boys upside down over manure piles to threaten them to not tell a secret. Because, apparently ordering the kid not to do it isn't good enough. I'm not really sure what sort of kingdom they're running if they have to physically threaten people not to do something. As they ride along Earwig sprinkles magical oddly colored powder as they go. Shalilllayhgha finds this curious but doesn't ask about it. I think it's like those bread crumbs Hansel and Gretal used when trying to find their way back from the woods.

Apparently sister dear is as dense as a rock because she wants to know why he's generally acting like a spoiled brat. It is, of course, because he doesn't want to be king. Sister is surprised to learn this, because she never realized that his practically saying he doesn't want to be king means that he doesn't want to be king.

Sister is stupid and clueless. Even my mom is more observant than her. Which is saying a lot.

Earwig tells her that they're tracking Triscuit through magic and that the reason why he knows that Triscuit doesn't want to be king is because Triscuit told him. He didn't use any powers of observation or anything. He only knew because Triscuit told him.

God. How dense are these people?

There's some babble about the wizard's eyes... which are blue and tend to twinkle with mischief...don't Dumbledore's eyes do that? OH NOES HE STOLE DUMBLEDORE'S EYES!! No wonder Dumbledore fell off the tower! He couldn't see where he was dying!

*coughs*

Right. Moving on.

Blah, blah, blah, infodumping while Shalilah muses about the kingdom and how wonderful it is. I skim. Sister then realizes well if Triscuit wasn't found she might be made queen. And this is a horrible fate. She uses the word "forced" in this musing. Apparently,we learn, no women have been trained in the art of magic. Since the EVIL Sorceresses were stopped. Because all women are Evil when they have Magic.

And then she cries a single tear. No. I'm not kidding. Really, she cries a fucking single tear.

"A tear began to trace a shiny path down one cheek".

Yes, ladies and gentlemen we are hitting every cliche in the book here. And we're only on page forty three! What do you think the rest of the book will have in store for us?!

Finally they reach a clearing. There's a drooling monster with misshapen male genitals. Yes. The text actually says that. Eragon much? The monster attacks Earwig who stands frozen until the last moment where he tumbles away. I have no idea why Earwig didn't shoot ugly down with magic. But instead Earwig dances and dodges while his horse bites the dust. Earwig finally kills the monster and Sister faints from all the horseflesh

When she wakes up Earwig is crying over the monster's body. Apparently the monster was a friend of his who was tortured by the Evil Sorceresses into a monster. We also learn that the Evil Sorceresses raped wizards in the hopes to breed more endowed children. *sniggers*

"Breeding. Because the union of two endowed people is the most likely to produce an endowed child, they raped teh wizards repeatedly hoping for a pregnancy that would yield a special girl child to raise as a sorceress. The male babies were simply killed outright. We never understood the importance of such a child to them. Had they not spent so much of their power and their time trying to achieve this birth, we may never have prevailed.

You know, if the men went around training the girls as well as the boys, they wouldn't have had this problem. And the reason why they wanted a girl child is because girls are better than boys according to them. Finally, if I had a bunch of potentially magical boy children I would raise them up to know how to use their powers and then be canon fodder. But that's just me.

Apparently our dead monster had his brain turned acidic when he was transformed by the Evil Sorceresses.

I'm not really sure how that one works. I mean... acid isn't very conducive to you know brain functions. And it tends to eat through things eventually.... so... um... I'm confused. Especially since the acid is so terrible if it even touches a human they die instantaneously. I think this is Newcomb's use of "It's Magic" to explain this away. Blah blah, magic happens when you kill one of the monsters because of something and something else that Earwig can't tell her because he's all secretive like that. This will become an Issue later when the hero could have been Better Prepared if he knew about it sooner.

And there's a break that should have been a chapter break, but it's not. I'm still stopping here.