Newcomb Part I

[Daedalus V2.0]

A little tidbit:

Apparently GRRM dislikes Douchecomb, but that's ok because Tairy is a Big fan.

From the Douchecomb forums:

o.0

Douchecomb takes pride that Tairy defends his work? And he thinks that it's mean for GRRM to disparage him in the comfort of his own home?!

???

Okay, that's enough for tonight. I'm going to bed. Look for the exciting recaps of chapter 4 (zomg, wizards) and 5 in the morning.

[Maid Sansa]

Hahaha, this thread delivers. I highly commend your fortitude, Daedalus. Can't wait till you get to the part where the sorceresses have the incredibly bright idea to BREED their minions. What fiendish cunning!

[The Man Who]

Is it bad that I own all three books in this series?

And all of Tairy's books?

[Myshkin]

Is it bad that I own all three books in this series?

And all of Tairy's books?

That's terrible!

[The Wolf Maid]

Is it bad that I own all three books in this series?

And all of Tairy's books?

Do you really need an answer to that question?

[The Man Who]

I refuse to be apologetic about it.

I didn't think it was excellent, but it was good enough to keep me reading, and while there is a lot of silly stuff in it, I have found that I have amazing powers of suspension of disbelief. And I miss really obvious things.

[MinDonner]

Daedelus, you are a martyr for our entertainment, and I applaud you, sir. I love to see bad books get a pasting. Keep up the good work!

[Atreides]

There cannot be a God.

From Publishers Weekly

Newcomb may be a newcomer to fantasy writing, but it doesn't show in this surprisingly original doorstopper. After wreaking all sorts of havoc in the kingdom of Eutracia, the evil sorceresses of the Coven were overcome and exiled by the wizards of the Protectorate. Now, 327 years later, Eutracian females are forbidden to practice magic, and males are made to swear a solemn oath to stay on the side of light and good. Across the ocean in Parthalon, the sorceresses still live, plotting to kidnap Princess Shailiha from Eutracia and use her to complete an incantation that will make them all-powerful or destroy the world. Prince Tristan, Shailiha's brother and our protagonist, is perhaps the most cookie-cutter of the characters, a classic reluctant hero who'd rather wave a sword than sit on the throne. But the wizard Wigg, Tristan's companion and adviser, is no caricature of the omnipotent magical sidekick: he makes incorrect guesses and poor decisions and often fails to keep the headstrong prince in check. This isn't done for comic relief, but to put Newcomb firmly in the George R.R. Martin camp of realistic fantasy as he creates a world where fully realized characters die, everyone is in the dark about something and sometimes things simply go wrong for no reason at all. Thanks to the author's passion for tying up loose ends, the finish is neat, but it leaves you wanting more. Fortunately, the planned sequels (at least two) will provide that, as well as ample room for further character development.

From what I've seen so far, I take it that this is horrendously wrong? On the bright side, it feels good that people are using ASOIAF as the example of the top.

[Moosicus]

Prince Tristan, who will become king of the known world in exactly 1 month. We learn that he is really good at the following: Archery, swordfighting, hand-to-hand combat, horse riding, knife throwing, philosophising, reading, athletics. He is also good at eveything else that he does, except politics. He does not want to be king, and as a result has slept with multitudes of women, but never got any of them pregnant and he always breaks off the relationship "like a gentleman".

The question is....does he have celery?

[Spectralist]

Wow, it sounds like newcomb's ripping off of jordan makes the yeard's ripping off of jordan look subtle.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Thank gawd for celery.

[The Man Who]

I obviously don't mind the book as much as some other people around here, but to call it realistic fantasy makes me wonder whether the reviewer read the book. And it gets worse (in terms of realism).

[The Real Will]

Across the ocean in Parthalon, the sorceresses still live, plotting to kidnap Princess Shailiha from Eutracia and use her to complete an incantation that will make them all-powerful or destroy the world.

Why are these always the only two options available to the super villains? Are there boxes involved? Has Shailiha memorised a book which they need in order to complete the incantation? Is it going to turn out, ten books from now, that they could never have succeeded anyway because they are evil?

Seriously, can we never have a super villain who only wants to dominate a cup of tea and a hot crossed bun? What is wrong with an ultimate carving knife of evil which will either slice the chicken perfectly or destroy the entire roast? Has the Super Villain Labour Union made world-domination-or-total-destruction-of-all-creation a non-negotiable condition of any labour contract?

I'm curious.

[kuenjato]

On Newcomb's "Archive" section at his website, he has a link to Harriet Klausner's book reviews

[Daedalus V2.0]

Okay, I'm awake. Chapter 4 coming soon.

Chapter 5 made me want to tear out my eyeballs.

ETA: This guy is ripping off everything. The magic and the whole prophecy crap are (in their current state) ripped directly from Star Wars, except with a little more focus on it being inherited. That's in addition to the obvious RJ-ripping and TG ripping. I swear, the reviewers who called this book origional...

[The Real Will]

I too have obtained a copy of Newcomb's first masterwork that I might read along. Having just completed chapter one there are a few things that I'd like to add to Daedalus's excellent dissection.

On the subject of knives: Tristan spends a good part of the first chapter designing, thinking about and playing with knives. He designed the knives himself and he also designed their quiver... Yes, that's right, he keeps his knives in a quiver. Twelve of them. Readily accessable over his left shoulder. I'm not an expert on medieval weaponry, but I have a feeling that knives are not usually stored in quivers, and I struggle to imagine a quiver that could effectively store twelve knives and have all of them be within easy reach.

It's a minor quibble, I know, but it bugs me. When I read things I like to imagine how they work, and when I can't my mind tends to get a little stuck. How wide would a quiver have to be in order to fit twelve throwing knives in it? How deep would it be?

Tristan also hunts with his knives, bringing down deer and wild boar with well placed head shots. Again, it's not my area of expertise, but I've always understood boar to be particularly difficult to hunt. It seems that throwing knives at them would not be the standard approach.

On the subject of Horses: Daedalus gave some description of Tristan's horse, Pilgrim, but I was still not quite prepared for what a soppy beast it really is. There was clearly a large amount of slobbery Labrador somewhere in Pilgrim's pedigree as well as a small amount of Betty the Goat. I warn you, he is a noble horse.

The horse pawed the ground twice with his left front hoof and snorted softly at him, as if he had already put up with quite enough of Tristan's foolishness and was more than ready to go back to the stables. Nudging Tristan from the back had been one of his favorite habits ever since he was a colt. But this spot had definitely not been the place for it.

Note here that the first suspense of the book occurs when Pilgrim accidentally nudges Tristan off a cliff. There is a rousing few minutes in which we wonder whether Tristan will manage to swing back from the branch he's happened to grab, or whether our hero will fall to his death in the first pages.

Aside from all this Pilgrim also runs across a field to fetch a carrot that Tristan throws for him. The large butterflies then arrive and the horse proceeds to frolic amongst them, leaping and bucking. When the butterflies fly away the horse runs after them at top speed.

I told you, he's just a big puppy. Isn't he adorable.

And just one more thing, and this has been mentioned already but it absolutely needs to be quoted.

Because of his good looks and royal position, the realm was positively overflowing with women who were more than willing to try [to capture his heart]. Sometimes, during his public appearances at court, he couldn't decide which flapped faster, their batting eyelashes or the unfolded fans that each of them always seemed obligated to flutter while trying to cool the quick blush of their cheeks. Many, to the increasingly obvious chagrin of both his family and the Directorate, had ended up in his bed.

But he had never fallen in love.

None of the women he had encountered so far had moved him to the point of wanting more than a brief dalliance. It wasn't that he was cold or uncaring toward them. He treated them kindly, and always ended his affairs like a gentleman. That was simply his nature. He laced his fingers behind his sore head, cushioning it from the saddle, and watched as a particularly interesting cumulus floated over. Reminding himself that at least there had been no scandalous pregnancies, he sighed.

That's right, Tristan is a gentlemanly Gene Simmons without the face paint. He uses his fame to lure women into his bed. In fact it's even worse because he's leading on women who he knows full well are looking for a relationship with him, when he has absolutely no intention of anything of the sort.

The only bright side is that Tristan is either infertile or that quiver he invented for his knives makes a very effective condom. With any luck the bastard isn't going to breed.

[Daedalus V2.0]

Alright, here's chapter 4. This one begins in a council chamber, where the King, Nicholas, and the Wizards of the Wizengamot Directorate are in a meeting. Wigg walks in and tosses the axe from the blood stalker on the table. It slides along the table before flipping up and balancing on one of it's edges. Nice throw Wigg! Anyways, everyone goes all "WTF? Blood stalker?!" for a while, and are very concerned. Then wigg bring out the really bad news: Tristan was in the cave of the Paragon! And he bathed in the red water! Everyone get's into a huge uproar, and are all very concerned, because they love Tristan very much and this is apparently something very bad for them. They then make a whole bunch of cryptic references without explaining anything, and decide to bring Tristan in.

Anyways, the pov shifts back to Tristan, who is thinking about how huge the Palace is, and how opulant it is, and how much all of the citizens take pride in it because of it's hugeness and it's opulence. Then Wigg shows up and tells Tristan to come with him. They take a huge route through the palace, going through no less than three secret passages, before ending up in... an Elevator! A hydraulic elevator! Zomg, steampung. Anyways, Wigg has a little chat about how magic isn't always the solution, while his "infamous eyebrow: raises itself about 10 times. They then reach the bottom level and step out into Hogwarts the Redoubt of the Directorate. There are a whole bunch of mages walking around! Wigg explains to Tristan all about the Hedge wizards, lesser wizards who have taken the outh and the death enchantments but not given the time (immortality) enchantment. These wizards apparently go around doing good deeds and being generally nice to people. Oh, and Wigg raises his eyebrow 8 times.

They then go into a classroom where a bunch of children (who have taken the oath and the death enchantments) are learning to use magic. Some of them are no older than 5 years of age. Tristan acts all incredulous and Wigg raises his eyebrows about 200 times before they end up in the council room. Here everyone tells tristan how bad he's been, and that even though they all love him more than life itself, they are very disappointed in him. Wigg raises his eyebrow 15 times. We then have a touching family moment before the chapter ends.

Do I have to recount chapter 5 in all it's horrible horror?

[The Real Will]

Do I have to recount chapter 5 in all it's horrible horror?

Yes. You started it. No icecream until you give us the horror.

[Daedalus V2.0]

Oh, cool. Somebody to share the book with. How about this: I'll keep going with plot summaries and pointing out the ugly things, you can go into detail of particularly bad scenes and bring the prose to the masses. That way, we can significantly increase the penetration of this book on the masses.

ETA: I'm going to have some breakfast. Chapter 5 should be around in 90 minutes or less. Be warned, this is far worse than anything you have been subjected to up until this point.

[diabloblanco18]

*raises his eyebrow*