Chapter 2: The story is moving forwards again! A miracle!

Chapter 2.

Oh boy. This one’s a good one. The Seagull returns to Old-Bear’s village, bringing us back to where we were two chapters ago. It is apparently announced in advance by the booming of its sail.

Ok, sails can make a fair bit of noise if loose in a strong wind. Two minor nitpicks:

1)      A sail making noise isn’t very well trimmed. The entire point of keeping the sail taut is that as much energy as possible is captured from the wind pushing against it and converting it into forward motion. A sail flapping around is by definition losing energy.

2)      SAILS ARE NOT LOUD ENOUGH TO ANOUNCE YOUR SHIP’S PRESENCE BEFORE IT COMES INTO SIGHT ON THE OPEN FRIKKING OCEAN! I don’t care how loud it is, in any weather where you have not stowed the sail it is not going to be loud enough to carry beyond line of sight.

We get some more dialogue as Old-Bear and Longbow discuss whether he’ll leave now and why. All the dialogue in this story seems forced and unnatural, which is a real problem when, you know, you have four novels full of it. DE, you can do so much better than this. You have done so much better than this! Why did you put so little effort into this series?!? WHY?!?!?

Moving on… Longbow boards the Seagull, and we find out that Zelana and co. have ousted Sorgan from his cabin for the duration of the voyage. We also find out that Red-Beard has come along for the ride as well. Finally, we get an introduction to another of Eleria’s charming quirks: getting carried and repaying it in kisses. And I use the word charming quite wrongly. Also, ‘beloved’, take another shot.

Longbow uses… well, I’d call it his Mary Sue powers but actually it’s reasonable observation to notice that the Maags’ lips aren’t syncing up to what he’s hearing and deduces how the gods are getting around the language barrier. I only have one problem with this: it should have been Red-Beard, not Longbow, who spotted this. Why?

Well, Longbow has had little to no human contact for the last 20 years. Red-Beard is a socialite and peacemaker. If one of them has to notice that something is off about people it should be Red-Beard, while if something is off about their surroundings then Longbow should notice it.

Now one final thing. In this chapter we have Red-Beard and Longbow first meeting. It is specified as their first meeting. They are very formal because they don’t know each other. You’ll see why in about a year and a half when I get to Crystal Gorge, but suffice to say that if you do remember it then you’re doing better than the author.

Chapter 1: in which I return to life and wish I hadn't.

Chapter 1.

Ah, it’s good to be out of the cloning chamber and… I’m reviewing this? Still? Let me back in the chamber!!!

Drat, someone disabled my suicide pistol.

Ok. No escape.

This is chapter 1 of a new section, ‘The Land of Maag’, for those keeping score. These resets are a real annoyance, but no biggie. After all, Sir Terry Pratchett has managed for years without using chapters AT ALL, and you can’t exactly say that his work suffered for it. Call it a pet peeve.

We open the chapter with “Now Old-Bear was chief of the tribe, and though he seldom spoke, Longbow’s parents had told their son when he was but a child that Old-Bear was very wise.”

Hang on, did I miss something? Was there a chapter somewhere that I missed?

Nope.

Meh, it’s just an odd way to open a new section of the book. I would have to be a petty, nit-picking internet text reviewer to start on someone for something like that… *Cracks knuckles* so let us begin. Firstly, and most importantly, the very first word is a lie. It’s not ‘now’, it’s ‘then’. That’s right, we’re getting a new character introduced via their life story. I personally hate this narrative technique, as it really hurts immersion for the reader and it’s really quite lazy. I’ll give The Painted Man a pass on this as that book needs to introduce multiple characters, have all their backgrounds explained and their personalities nuanced, and to add to the difficulty of that they only meet up at the end. If it weren’t the first book in a series I would still consider it poor writing, but it was well executed and gave us a really solid understanding of the main characters for the rest of the series. Then came The Desert Spear and… BETRAYAL! Screw you Peter Brett! You derail your own characters! It could have been so good, and you ruined it!

I’ll get to that one day. PB is a talented writer, but he’s too constricted by his plans to let his characters evolve on their own.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yes, first word of the first sentence. This is gonna suck.

The sentence has a somewhat ambiguous structure. If it had started with “Now, Old-Bear” it would have made more sense as the start of a separate part of the narrative. Not a whole lot more, but now comma is not an uncommon start to ye olde retelling. Now without the comma implies that there was a before, which in this case there is not. I’m not going to go into the wanton abuse grammar suffers in this chapter any further so that this post doesn’t become longer than the rest of the blog combined, so let’s move on.

This chapter introduces Longbow (in fact it is a recounting of his life up to what we’re dubiously calling the present) and a couple of supporting characters. Their names in this blog will be the chief, Chief Stereotype, and the shaman, Dr Plotexposition. Yes, Dr Plotexposition’s real name is hyphenated. I may take a leaf out of Linkara’s book and kill this thing with fire after I’m finished reviewing it, but in the mean time take another shot. Now begins the start of the countdown to Mary Suedom for Longbow (male, so technically a Marty Stu).

1)      Made an orphan? Check.

2)      So hansom that all the girls in the village fall in love with him? Check.

3)      Has a one true love? Check.

4)      She’s the most beautiful girl in the world (not hyperbore)? Check.

Next page!

5)      Special power (Never misses with his bow. Ever. I am so getting back to that later)? Check.

6)      Everyone is in awe of him? Check.

7)      True love is murdered by villain on day of the wedding? Check.

Next page!

8)      Dedicates life to vengeance, thus becoming a tragic loner? Check.

Other.

9)      Being a tragic loner never has any bearing on the story beyond the scene he’s introduced, and he is routinely quite sociable? Check.

10)   Angst? Only when we need to be reminded how tragic he is.

11)   Can beat the beings that created the gods at their own games with little to no effort? Yup, check that too.

12)   Opinions are always viewed as right by the narrative? Big check.

I have read self-insert fanfics that avert Mary Sue better than this. You can make a strong hero with a tragic past WITHOUT going this route. The Painted Man does it really well, with all of its characters… until The Desert Spear comes along.

I hate that book. It can burn alongside this garbage.

Anyway, long story short Longbow begins his lifetime of vengeance… and does it wrong. I mean, he doesn’t once say the words “That’s it, Misty-Water. To avenge you, I shall become a bat!”

He kills every servant of the Vlagh that comes into the western domain (an area close on the size of the western coast of the USA by my reckoning), then gets recruited by Zelana to help her gather outlander armies to fight off the invasion. The one half-decent thing this chapter might have done was at least give us some epic Sue-on-Sue battle of wills between Longbow and Eleria, but nope. I suppose that the plot continuum wouldn’t have been able to hold as irresistible plot met immovable plot, so maybe this was for the best.