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.