Daedalus V2.0 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 Did I mention that the magazine was circular and the weapon never, ever needed cocked? And that it could fit on a forearm without being visible under the sleeve? And the fact that up until this point there had been no crossbows mentioned in the series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ecchi-Oni Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 So we have repeater crossbows now... Someone take the knowledge of repeating roman ballistas out of Comb's head. Full auto trebuchets next I guess. The rest is pretty much standard Duke and been vomited on before. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus V2.0 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 So, chapter 4 is quite short. Tristan visits the throne room where his family was murdered, and is somewhat surprised to find that someone cleared out the corpses. Too bad they forgot to clean up the ankle-deep blood, but what can you do. He thinks about how bad it was that his family and friends died, before deciding that everything's okay since he killed the Sorceresses. Then he hops on his trusty steed and heads over to the gravesite. He gets sad again, before seeing a really beautiful woman who does not recognize him. She starts running towards a conveniently-placed cliff, but Tristan saves her by tackling her to the ground before deciding that she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen (what happened to Narissa, Tristan? Didn't she just die like 3 weeks ago?). He tries to hit on her, but she gets all suicidal and "I hate life", so he says something along the lines of "Don't kill yourself, you're too sexy to die!". She leaves and the chapter ends. I'll bet $50 that we just got introduced to Tristan's new love interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
potsherds Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 I'll bet $50 that we just got introduced to Tristan's new love interest. Some emo girl? I betcha $50 that she isn't his only love interest in this book. The Duke is off to a great start, here. Promises to be even more sucktastic than the first! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Some emo girl? I betcha $50 that she isn't his only love interest in this book. I'm with you on that. I'm betting that we'll get at least two hawt babes per book for Big T to fall in love with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shryke Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Nah, he's gonna fall in love with his sister. Keep the bloodlines pure and all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Nah, he's gonna fall in love with his sister. Keep the bloodlines pure and all. Oh my god, how could I have missed that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus V2.0 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 Chapter 5 is... No, I don't have the time nor the stomach to continue today. More tomorrow. Oh- it gets worse. Oh so much worse. Remember when I said there were over 1000 consuls? I lied. There are at least 2500 of them. I have lost all respect for wizards. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wolf Maid Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Chapter 5 is... No, I don't have the time nor the stomach to continue today. More tomorrow. Oh- it gets worse. Oh so much worse. Remember when I said there were over 1000 consuls? I lied. There are at least 2500 of them. I have lost all respect for wizards. There is one word for this book: Dracarys. Frankly, the incest relationship between Tristan and his sister would be a much better plotline. Where is his sister, by the way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinDonner Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 I'm still quite gobsmacked by all that anarchy and lawlessness. Where even the merchants have to pay thugs to protect their business, most of the men are happy to form orderly queues to enjoy the best prostitutes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Pita Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 The horrors of anarchy... ORGANIZED LINES? NEVAR! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Man Who Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Sounds like they are English. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Edda van Heefmstra Ruston Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 Daedalus - I really appreciate this. I do. I am enjoying laughing the absurdity at these books without having to read them myself. But please, please could you put some full line breaks in? I'm finding your posts very difficult to read all at once, and have to reread a few times to get all of the detail. Though in fairness, I'm still ahead over exposure to the original text. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alaerien Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 What kind of hack opens his prologue with a loving account of his protagonist staring at himself in the mirror? Bad author! No cookie! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sophelia Posted December 4, 2007 Share Posted December 4, 2007 You know how sometimes you get a bad tune stuck in your head, or a particular phrase? This especially happens when you have to wake up early for work and have a shower while not fully woken up, but sometimes the thing persists all day... well, even since I read this thread this morning, I have a terrible not-quite pun stuck in my head, and now cannot but think of Daedalus as a 'comb-raider'. (And 'comb' isn't even pronounced like 'tomb') Somebody save me, I think all this bad prose is sending me loopy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus V2.0 Posted December 4, 2007 Author Share Posted December 4, 2007 Daedalus - I really appreciate this. I do. I am enjoying laughing the absurdity at these books without having to read them myself. But please, please could you put some full line breaks in? I'm finding your posts very difficult to read all at once, and have to reread a few times to get all of the detail. Though in fairness, I'm still ahead over exposure to the original text. Sorry about that. I've been trying to indent them, but that doesn't seem to work well for some reason. I'll just double-tap the enter key from now on. On that note, it's time for another visit to Duketown. This chapter takes place in the POV of Faegan, for the first time evar! So, Faegan is sitting in the Music Room/Conservatory he built the instant they arrived at the Redoubt, playing his 300 year old violin. The gigantic butterflies, who he brought with him, are cavorting around him in time to the music. He explains how he plans to teach them to count so that they can be used as spies, due to their ability to fly anywhere unseen (by which I mean fly around displaying their huge, brightly-coloured wings to the world). Then he starts levitating himself all around the room- playing with the butterflies, if you will. At this point Wigg walks in, acting all dour, so Faegan remembers that spell they used in Harry Potter and turns him upside down, hanging by the ankle. Wigg says how childlike Faegan is, and then they both go to see Shailiha. This is apparently the final session of therapy that Shailiha needs to return completely to normal. They have been curing her using the Paragon Waters from the Well of the Redoubt, which although they cause her terrible pain are the only way to heal her. So they do it, a Poltergeist comes out of her body and rearranges the furniture, and she's cured (does anyone find it ironic that they're curing her of the results of torture by torturing her?). Something really important happens at the end of this chapter, Wigg and Faegan are shocked, but we don't know what it is and the chapter ends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Wolf Maid Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 Rearranges the furniture? Is that a new one I haven't heard of? How does this connect to healing her? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus V2.0 Posted December 5, 2007 Author Share Posted December 5, 2007 Rearranges the furniture? Is that a new one I haven't heard of? How does this connect to healing her? Okay, to be fair it wasn't a poltergeist, it was a manifestation of the Vagaries being expelled from her body. It's just that apparently the particular form of magic used by the sorceresses acts exactly the same as being posessed by a ghost, in every way. So, the Vagaries pop out and all of the furniture gets moved around and she's cured. What not to understand? I'm going to depart from my usual style for a while, since the chapters at this point are extremely short, and just focus on what happens between where I've summarised to and where I am in the book. First post is in the bad guys' line, second one is the good guys, seeing as how the next chapter was for the bad guys. So, Ragnar the blood stalker goes to a meeting with the child, who from this point onwards insists on being called Nicholas (just in case somebody was slow enough to miss the fact that he's Tristan's son previously) in the Catacombs. I do not know where they are, but they're special. All of the captured Consuls are here, approximately 2000 of them (remember when I said there were 2500 of them? I lied again. There's about 3000.), lying unconscious in coffins. There are also a few hundred thousand eggs which will hatch into those magic-immune lizards we saw earlier. Nicholas details his plan, sort of, which is basically to in some vague way destroy his father, using the lizard things, as well as somehow turning the Consuls to his side. He comments on how the Consul who the protagonists found in the Redoubt was all part of his plan, before going into some room with veins of some sort of magical blue ore running through the walls. This room will play an important part in his plan, not that we actually know what it's for. Ragnar then leaves. An undisclosed amount of time later, Nicholas, who now looks to be about 14 (he's aged 14 years in less than two months? This is actually worse than the uber-speed pregnancy...) is levitating in the middle of said special room (this would be more impressive if Faegan hadn't been zooming around in the air in a wheelchair a little earlier...), while blue lightning from the walls hit him repeatedly. Something important is going on, but too bad because we don't get to know what. Ha! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sal Paradise Posted December 5, 2007 Share Posted December 5, 2007 I know that by this point I should not be surprised by obvious errors in The Duke's plot/worldbuilding/characterization, but something you recently reported really needs to be mentioned again. The bodies of Tristan's extended family have been presumably laid to rest, as he visited their gravesite earlier in this second book; and yet nobody has taken the time to clean their blood from the throne room? Again, I realize that The Duke does not concern himself overmuch with continuity, rational thinking, or deep characterization (anything that can not be explained away by means of magic ((i.e. the superaging of Nicholas, imbued carrier pigeons)), or a penchant for throwing knives), but is it too much to ask that someone edit the novels for common sense before publication? What bothers me most is the lack of shame. I imagine the folks at Del Rey receiving each new manuscript with resigned horror, and simply sliding them off to underlings (Myrtle the Miniature???) without even a cursory glance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daedalus V2.0 Posted December 5, 2007 Author Share Posted December 5, 2007 Actually, there's nobody in the palace at this point in time. Apparently, empty fortresses with exceptional architecture<gutted, overcrowded city which was mostly burned to the ground not too much earlier. What bothers me is not the shamelessness, so much as the outright lies Del Ray managed to get people to tell about the book. Most famous, I do believe, is the "Firmly in George R.R. Martin's camp of realistic fantasy!" followed by "Epic Fantasy of the Year!". Now, if you can consider The First Sorceress to be either of these, I'm not sure exactly what is wrong with your brain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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