Newcomb: Episode Two

[Ecchi-Oni]

Probably people hate skylights?

[Daedalus V2.0]

Ok, the first bit for the good guys. We finally figure out what had Wigg and Faegan so worried a bit earlier: the Paragon is slowly losing it's power, which may mean the complete loss of magic in the world. Well, this can't be good, so they go to find Shailiha (weren't they already in her room?) and tell her and Tristan what's up. Shai tells the wizards that Tristan is off to visit the graves (I think Tristan and Wigg dug them in the disconnected gravedigging scene in the firs book, although I'm not sure.), so they'll have to wait before spilling the bad news. Meanwhile, Tristan shows up at the front gate of the palace to find a dead Consul with a hole in his head and a threatening note from Scrounge. Looks like this one's going to get personal... Also, just a note, but the phrase "The insanity never ends." Has been used well over 100 times between the middle of the last book and this point in this one. Tristan thinks it at least twice a chapter. It is becoming somewhat more frustrating even than a certain reptillian species reminiscing about how much better things would be if only their intel wasn't 800 years old .

So, the entire gang (including Shannon, Joshua (the Consul who showed up) and Geldon, but not the other gnomes, because they're uncool) gather together to discuss what's going on. Tristan tells about the dead consul, and shows off his body, at which point Geldon confirms that Scrounge is the killer, while Wigg states that the bolt that hit him was poisened with dried blood stalker brain fluid, a horrible slow-acting poison that debilitates the victim. Tristan hates Scrounge even more for using such a cruel weapon (like a poisened bolt makes any difference to a shot to the brain?). Now then, Wigg and Faegan share their news, and Tristan and Shailiha are suitably dismayed. Wigg then proposes that it is necessary for them to go grab the Tome from the Cave of the Paragon, so that Tristan can read the Prophecies and start his Training (sorry, couldn't resist capitalizing). Too bad they don't know that Nicholas has the Tome, eh? Anyways, Tristan suddenly remembers what happened at the end of their visit to Parthalon, and decides the send Joshua and Geldon there in one of Faegan's portals to make sure that everything is going well with the Minions. Tristan has a short private conversation with Shailiha, and mentions the pretty girl he met at the graves. Shaililiha is quite surprised when she learns Tristan not only failed to obtain the woman's name, but her virginity as well, and she good-naturedly berates him over his clear degredation of charm.

I'm going to end things here, since I'm tired and this is a pretty good place in the narrative to hop off. I'll probably be going back to chapter-by-chapter at this point, since they seem to be getting a bit beefier.

[pat5150]

I haven't been paying attention to the Newcomb threads, so I wonder where the nickname "the Duke" came from!?!

Patrick

[The Man Who]

Robert Newcomb -> Duke Newcomb -> Duke Nukem -> The Duke

[Daedalus V2.0]

So, chapter whatevernumberthisis. Geldon and Joshua are in Parthalon, having been teleported just outside of the former Ghetto by Faegan (notice, this took them three days, due to the intense calculations involved or some such. It was specifically stated that the reason Wigg and Tristan were not teleported to the cave was it would take too long to do the calculations for an entirely new place, despite the fact that they did so for the other team). The Ghetto is looking pretty nice, with the walls repaired (I thought they were indestructible?) and some such. When Geldon and Josh try to go up to the door, Minions warn them off. After a short dialogue which involves Josh blowing a medium-sized hole in the drawbride (nothing like causing difficult-to-repair damage to convince people you represesnt the Chosen One), the Minions are convinced that these are indeed messengers from Tristan and let them in. Well, it seems that there's been some sort of trouble here in Parthalon, despite the Minion's best efforts, so they've been sending pidgeons to Shadowood asking Tristan to get over there or something. Some very dire allusions are made, before Wigg and Josh are sent on their way via Minion-basket flight to the Recluse (didn't the whole thing disintigrate about a month ago?), where they Will meet with Traax and attempt to find out what's going on and make sure that Tristan's will is being carried out. Also, the Minions we see in this chapter have done complette character 180s- they are now emminently honourable creature's who's only goal is to complete the directives laid out by the Chosen One. They have also become extremely concerned with the preservation of life, both of Minions and the regular population. Indeed, they seem to have borrowed their personalities from the Royal Guard they had such fun maiming and disemboweling.

[theMountainGoat]

So as we have seen there are many things that Robert Newcomb has copied from his beloved muse Terry Goodkind, gaping plot holes, ridiculous deus ex machina resolutions and incredibly stupid characters, but I have just uncovered another cornerstone of Tairy's work which has been lifted straight from the Yeard. The hero of the book, Prince Tristan, is in fact a Gary Stu. Gasp! Yes it is true take this exchange from page 262 of The Fifth Sorceress for example, this is from the scene where Tristan has tea with his mother and sister:

'This kingdom is about to become yours, and you must grasp it firmly, yet tenderly, the way a man would hold a woman he loves most, never letting her go.'

She has a special way about her, especially when it comes to loving and understanding me, he thought. She always has. He slowly removed his hand from her hand and smiled into the lovely face before him. My sister. My twin, and my best friend.

'HAIL TO THE KING, BABY! LETS ROCK!' Tristan said, fearing that his voice was about to crack. 'IT'S TIME TO KICK ASS AND CHEW BUBBLE GUM, AND I'M ALL OUT OF GUM.'

Or how about this from earlier in the same chapter when Tristan wakes up in bed with Evelyn of the House of Norcross:

'Good morning, Your Highness,' she said tentatively. She looked around in amazement at the sumptuous decorations of his private bedroom, still holding the sheet up to her chin like a shield in battle. 'Apparantely we fell asleep last night,' she said, a hint of mischief crowding into the corners of her mouth.

'IT'S GOOD TO BE THE KING, BABY!' Tristan said smiling, his hand once again in her hair. 'SUCK MY BOOMSTICK!'

Still don't believe me, how about this from page 473 where Wigg and Tristan attempt to cross the chasm into Shadowood and meet Shannon the Small for the first time:

'We have come to see Faegan,' Wigg said simply.

At the mention of the wizard's name the little gnome sat up straighter in his chair and narrowed his eyes. 'Master Faegan to you,' he called back rather sarcastically. 'The master sees no one. But when I return to his presense, who shall I say tried unsuccessfully to cross the canyon this day?'

'I am Wigg, Lead Wizard of the Directorate of Wizards and this is Tristan of the House of Galland, prince of Eutracia,' Wigg said. 'I strongly suggest you let us cross.'

'I am to see that no one crosses. Not since the unpleasantness in Tammerland. Go away and leave us alone.'

'I'LL RIP YOUR HEAD OFF AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NECK!

LET GOD SORT 'EM OUT!

I FEEL LIKE DRINKIN' A GALLON O' TURPENTINE AND PISSIN' ON A BRUSH FIRE.'

'You don't understand,' Wigg said quietly. 'Even if we cross the bridge and overpower him we will still need his permission, or Faegan will sense an unauthorised crossing. He would most certainly go into hiding, especially considering everything that has transpired in the last few days.'

Tristan could not believe his ears, 'YOU'RE AN INSPIRATION FOR BIRTH CONTROL.

BURN PIGGY BURN!

NUKEM 'TILL THEY GLOW THEN SHOOT 'EM IN THE DARK!

COME GET SOME!

YOUR ASS, YOUR FACE, WHATS THE DIFFERENCE?'

So as you see Duke Newcomb is clearly guilty as charged.

[Daedalus V2.0]

Well, the next chapter is actually quite long, but unimportant and really quite pointless. All you need to know is that Wigg acts like a dick (don't help those people, Tristan. Sure, you could probably take their attackers out, but we can't be sure and we are more important!), Tristan gets a good look at Scrounge (another full page of description! Yay for Robert Jordan Newcomb!), and even more reason to hate him. The lizard bird creatures can shoot lasers out of their eyes, but they're wimpy lasers used to detect things (no, I have no idea what he was thinking). Also, Tristan and Wigg make it to the Cave of the Paragon with no harm done, and ominous ominousness about the powers of their unseen and unknown adversary.

[The Wolf Maid]

MG, I love you. That is all.

[Daedalus V2.0]

Okay, so the following chapter is with Faegan. HE goes to meet with Shailiha, who is in her room making a tapestry of her murdered parents using the loom that Faegan conjured for her. Faegan thinks about how great a way to releave stress and heal wounds this is, and silently congratulates Shailiha on her good thinking. He then takes her to see the big butterflies, because he thinks it will cheer her up. Immediately one lands on her arm, and she becomes telepathically linked with it. Faegan breaks the link, and thinks about how special this will be. He tries to ponder the reasons that something such as this would happen to an untrained person, then realizes that it was either something to do with her Chosen One status or a Forestallment. He immediately decides to go off and do some research.

Also: Will, are you still around and reading along, or have you given up on the books? I really don't mind if you have stopped reading, and would in fact recommend that you do, but I wouldn't mind hearing from you, so I can start sampling off prose for our good readers.

[Daedalus V2.0]

So, this will be the last installment before I go to bed. Or at least it would, if anything important actually happened. Instead, it's a long, boring scene during which Geldon and Josh watch a couple hundred Minions kill a swamp shrew (a really big predatory amphibeous creature, which has popped into existence since Wigg and Tristan left). The only thing that will be remotely important is that a big, brave and exceptionally stupid Minion named Ox gets his foot lopped off during the battle (he was the bait, since he's the bravest one there.), and Josh puts the foot and the end of the leg in stasis, to be healed by Wigg or Faegan upon returning to Eutracia (no doubt this Minion will accompany them, and possibly even act as a bodyguard for Tristan). I'm really getting tired of these stupid scenes during which nothing of significance happens. Too bad so many more are coming...

[Daedalus V2.0]

So, Tristan and Wigg are in the Cave of the Paragon. Wigg senses that some other endowed blood has been here recently, so decides to avoid using magic and masks their blood (like he was doing in Parthalon. Can't use magic while he does it.). So, they head into the caves with their handy torch, and eventually come upon the room with the Waters of the Paragon. Tristan goes crazy and wants to jump in, but through an immense measure of self-restraint passes out instead. Wigg drags him into the tunnel, and notices that the all-important magical protective shield is no longer in place. Tristan wakes up and they start going in, but their torch goes out.

Wigg, realizing that being in pitch blackness is bad, decides that using magic to light up the room's light crystals is wise, and does so. Unfortunately, black stone walls slide down all around them. They're trapped. In the minute or so they have before they die of suffocation (hehe, rediculously accelerated asphyxiation, to go with growth rates and pregnancies), Tristan's mom starts speaking in a disembodied voice, saying that in the labrynth ahead they must always follow the path marked by Tristan's family crest. Then one wall of the cage melts, letting the pair out. Wigg remembers that there is no labrynth ahead, and is confused for a while, before they advance further and find that there is indeed a junction, with one corridor marked with the aforementioned crest. They decide to trust the disembodied voice and follow that tunnel. End of chapter.

[Maid Sansa]

A crest. Not an arrow, or a thread, or WRONG and RIGHT in mystical ancient writing. A crest. How convenient. Can I guess that this is Kid Nicky's idea of spending some quality time with his daddy?

[The Wolf Maid]

A crest. Not an arrow, or a thread, or WRONG and RIGHT in mystical ancient writing. A crest. How convenient. Can I guess that this is Kid Nicky's idea of spending some quality time with his daddy?

At least he's creative with crest...I think.

[The Real Will]

Also: Will, are you still around and reading along, or have you given up on the books? I really don't mind if you have stopped reading, and would in fact recommend that you do, but I wouldn't mind hearing from you, so I can start sampling off prose for our good readers.

I am still around. I'm sorry folks. I realise that I have fallen down on the job a little recently; I had a Japanese test last week and had to study. I've been going Newcombian cold turkey and it it has been surprisingly hard to fall back off the wagon. I'm happy to go on posting--though I'm a fair bit behind now--if people have no objections to my jumping back to book one and continuing from where I left off. I'll try to go at a slightly more accelerated pace. I don't know, just yet, if I'll be able to come by book two extra-financially, and I can assure you all the I have no intention of feeding the Duke.

[Daedalus V2.0]

So then, this chapter goes back to the bad guys, or Ragnar the blood stalker in particular. He thinks about how great it will be messing with Wigg and such, and how crappy it is to be addicted to one's own brain fluid. He then remembers how Failee turned him into a stalker hybrid by doing some special thing, and how this made him into something like the most useful of all of their anti-wizard weapons. Then there's some sort of stange battle, and... you need to read this for yourself. It's downright horrid.

The battlefield Ragnar lay on was staggering. At least one hundred civilian troops were dead, their bodies strewn carelessly across the lush, contrasting grass of the field like so many fallen leaves. Smoke from the recent struggy rose faintly up into the sky. Carrion birds had already begun to circle, so that the y might start to pick apart their next easily stolen meal. The stench of death was all around him, and nothing moved, nor was there any sound.

So, in other words, there's lots of dead civilian soldiers and stuff (). Does anybody else notice that the Duke likes to have things in rediculous numbers (3000 Consuls, 300,000 Minions), but battles are staggeringly huge when 100 civilian soldiers (I love it!) die in one place? Anyways, Wigg and another Directorate goon capture him and carve a hole in his skull before he runs away. This gets him hooked on brain fluid, and so he hates Wigg so much that he plans to do something so horrid that Wigg will feel the torture of it for the rest of his life. And the chapter ends here.

[The Real Will]

Alright, here goes again. Sorry, but this is jumping way back to where I left off in book one.

It looks like I did leave off at an inopportune moment as the next scene is the massacre in the throne room, which you will all remember fondly from Daedalus’s retelling. It all takes place in a room which smells of "pleasantly of potpourri, fresh-cut flowers, and anticipation." Not that there is anything wrong with it, but I do enjoy the fact that room smells like dry flowers, fresh flowers and what is, presumably, some kind of pheromones.

I know it has already been gone into, but let me, for a moment, just reiterate how bloody stupid the whole contrivance with the Paragon is in this scene. You have the all-powerful-superduper-magic-of-magicalnessâ„¢, which can never be defeated by anything anytime ever, except that it has to be taken off and becomes useless for two hours between users and everyone with any power becomes powerless during this period. OF COURSE it is stolen during this time and the other side become indestructible until they have their ceremony where their power becomes useless and then OF COURSE they lose the stupid thing again. If you had a magical item like this would you hold your ceremony of vulnerability in public under a skylight? Would you?

...a shaft of light slowly rose from the stone... and perfectly encircled the stained-glass domed ceiling and bathed it in a beautiful bloodred glow.

That’s symbolism right there, although I’m not entirely convinced that the Duke did it on purpose; when something is bathed blood-red you know that it has to be bad news.

There is so much big crap in this book that it is hard to concentrate and then I find the really little crap starts to bug me. Like the entire thing with Evelyn in this scene. It is a little... odd. She’s described more like a love interest than someone Tristan slept with and then threw into a carriage with a satisfied nod safe in the knowledge that he was never going to have to deal with her again... at least not unless he was feeling randy. Here are some quotes:

She smiled up at him knowingly, and he managed a little smile back. Her father, the prince saw, didn't quite seem to share her great admiration for Tristan just now...

...Tristan caught Evelyn's admiring gaze...

...He again saw Evelyn, beaming proudly...

...Instinctively, he thought to look for Evelyn and her parents...

Do you get it? When Tristan sleeps with a girl, she stays slept with. Being dumped by Tristan after a one night stand is better than any number of long and fulfilling relationships with lesser people. How could you resent that piratical leer?

And why the hell is she so proud of him anyway? He doesn’t want to be king, in fact he’s given every indication that he’s going to be a terrible king. The only reason anyone has had to be proud of him recently is that he threw a knife rather nicely at that harpy… not very effectively, but nicely nonetheless. Ah, but she gets the warm and happy memory of being the last woman he used before he became king. That’ll be something to tell her grandchildren. Anyway...

Next comes Tristan’s vows of office. They are pretty vows, dignified and with a great deal of gravitas:

True peace of mind comes only when my heart and actions are aligned with true principles and values. I shall forsake not, to the loss of all material things, my honor and integrity. I shall protect the Paragon above all else...

Does that make sense? And if it does could you perhaps explain it to me? Sadly, it’s at this point that the minions come in through the skylights so we don’t get to hear the complete vows.

I wish I could quote for you the entirety of the minion attack because it marks a true high point in the history of really bad writing. One can only imagine that the Duke was possessed by some lesser god of inadequacy as he pounded this one out. It is an ecstasy of idiocy. It is, in the immortal words of one of Goodkind’s search tags on Amazon, filled with stupid. There is no one to fairly convey this in a cut down form. So I’m not even going to try. Instead, let’s play count the clichés.

Tristan went for his knives, not sure how many he had left, but knowing in his heart that he would keep throwing until they were either gone or he was dead. His arm moved like lightning as, one after the other, the silver dirks flew through the air toward the killer.

But the winged monster was too fast, and Tristan watched in abject horror as the winged, musclebound freak easily used his curved sword to deflect each of the knives as they came at him.

How many did you get? I say five depending a little on how you count them. There are a couple of pages of this kind of action and I am quite confident that a conservative count of clichés there would easily top 50, possibly 100.

And then we have the aftermath.

The Duke loves a good aftermath, he revels in it like a little child. We get a lot of talk about arms legs and heads "scattered crazily at random". The household guard evidently "died well", which seems to mean they were slaughtered utterly having had little effect. There is, of course, the obligatory "small sea of Eutracian blood", which the survivors are made to kneel in as they are "[struck and abused]", and while seas of blood are usually metaphorical one gets the feeling that this one might be intended literally it probably laps silently along a beach of ground bones, although the Duke doesn’t go quite so far as to tell us this. All in all, it’s a really decent aftermath and one gets the feeling that if the Duke could write an aftermath on every page then he’d be a jolly happy man.

So the bad guys win and Succiu rants, rants, rants... and then came this little line:

"Is this day tragic irony, or poetic justice?" she asked coyly. "You tell me."

And now I have to imagine Succiu as an ultra sexy dominatrix babe with Danny DiVito’s voice. Do you think that Newcomb does it intentionally, or is his brain just a huge sponge soaking up other people’s phrases, dialogue, plots, themes, characters, beliefs, prejudices, settings... and spitting them back out having forgotten their original source? Why is Succiu quoting the Penguin for crying out load?

Look, again I have failed you all. There is no one anyone can reasonably quote these books and even hope to come close to the raspy, grating, sour, faint-scent-of-urine feel of the original. I will, however, leave you all with this touching moment.

"My son," he heard his father's voice say..., "your mother and I brought you into this world with an act of love. You must now take me from that same world with another different, but just as important, act of love."

Finally...Tristan understood that he must obey his father, and his king.

As if in a dream, he saw himself move slowly to the altar as Kluge and the sorceresses grinned wickedly. He looked...into his father's eyes, and...kiss[ed] him on the lips.

"Good-bye, Father," he heard himself say, impossibly.

I beg the Afterlife, let my aim be true, he heard a voice say. A voice that was distant, yet at the same time deep within himself.

Tristan brought the full weight of his strength down with the dreggan, cleanly cutting the king's head from his shoulders. Blood erupted everywhere as the head rolled off the altar and onto the floor. Morganna screamed and collapsed.

[Fanatic-Templar]

Civilian troops? Like... militia or levies or something?

[The Real Will]

Oh for crying out loud! This is impossible. I do my quotes for that whole chapter and I miss out this:

Tristan would never forget what the monster called Kluge did next. Holding the dagger with the rope attached in his right hand, Kluge picked up the head of Slike and pushed the knife directly into the skull's right ear. Then, with a grunt, he turned the head over and banged the end of the dagger's handle on the altar until the blade had been pushed through the brain and out the other ear. He pulled the dagger through that ear as casually as if he were working on a needlepoint, the bloody rope still attached, until the rope was completely through the wizard's head.

He is actually threading heads on a rope by pushing a dagger in through one ear and forcing it out the other. He get seven heads on his rope before he stops. Now I don’t know anything about biology, but this seems... improbable at best.

[The Real Will]

For as long as there has been magic in fantasy (and that makes up a fair whack of fantasy history), fantasy authors have had to ask themselves one question: “How can I limit this stuff.†The solutions to this question have been legion: talent of the wielder, physical exhaustion, mental exhaustion, need for special equipment, study, training, natural talent, basic limitations in the magic itself. The Duke, like many a great author before him, also has a system for limiting magic. For magic to function correctly in Tristan’s world it requires only one thing: stupidity. Yes, that’s right, stupidity. Oh mundane, usual and boring magic will work, but in order to pull off anything really special the intention, the setup, the requirements of the spell itself, everything needs to be really, really stupid. Do you remember Daedelus telling us how Tristan escaped from the slaughter in the throne room? Basically the wizards set up a magical escape hatch. Wigg had to touch the podium and then he, and everything he was touching, would turn invisible. The only catch was that the timing would be completely random and no one would know when it was going to happen. This was the best protection they could come up with even though they had a bad feeling that something was going to go wrong and they had days to prepare.

The timing was completely random and they had no control over it! The best they could do was limit it to within a two hour period! I’m serious, in this book the stupider the magic the better it works. I could have thought up a better defense with no magic and a couple of two by fours... I would have just boarded up the stupid skylights!

The rest of the next chapter is just Wigg crapping on about history. I’m not going to quote anything except this.

"I thought that the wizards of the Directorate didn't drink spirits," the prince

commented. "I have never seen you with a glass of wine or ale before."

The Duke apparently believes that wine and ale are spirits.

[Daralys]

In reading the two accounts of the slaughter in the throne room, I'm still not clear on why exactly Tristan has to kill his father. Could someone explain? I don't get it.

Admittedly my eyes have glazed over a bit in reading even the summaries so maybe I missed it. If so, my bad.