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.