Julia Wilson
Added to listAll Time Favouriteswith 17 books.
Character: 1/5
Plot: 2/5
Prose: 1.5/5
OVERALL: 1.5/5
Well … that was a book.
A book full of typos and incorrect terminology (you do not holster a sword, a holster is for a firearm), and boring, inconsistent characters that I just … urgh. URGH. The best bit was reading it on Discord with friends, because that made it the funny kind of bad instead of the kind of bad where you have to suffer on your lonesome because you have no one to talk to about this book I have been reading and please I need to talk about it my GOD —. Anyway, this is how I want to read these YA/NA TikTok books from now on. For my mental health, see. I should probably stop reading them all together, but where’s the fun in that?
ONWARDS!
A Broken Blade is a story about our main girlboss, Keera, being a reluctant assassin for the evil tyrant colonising king. She then goes on a quest to find and apprehend a terrorist called the Shadow who has been targeting the kingdom, and learns more about the kingdom and those she serves than she’d ever dared to imagine. In order to free her fellow minorities, she must girlboss all over King Aemon (no, not a Targaryen).
Keera, as mentioned before, is our main girlboss. Just like Celaena before her, she is the bestest of best assassins ever, but she comes with a slight drinking problem, self-harm tendencies (kind of), and a truckload of depression enough to have a dramatic scream to the heavens when two people she has never met die in front of her. She was very frustrating to follow, being inconsistent with her motives (she does not want to be the Blade and tells us how much she despises taking life, but then will turn around and stab people for being collateral when there are literally other solutions available with about three seconds of thinking) and a crippling case of “I must be the most badass character in the room” and subsequently robbing people of being smart and capable themselves. Did you know you can capture a 5000 year old warrior elf just by sneaking up on her with a blowdart? Because how else is Keera going to show how much of a badass she is when she executes the rescue mission? Her whims and motives have the same unfortunate tendencies as one of our favourite BookTok queens, Sarah Maas’s, characters, that being their entire existences coast off “vibes”. In this part of the book, we want badass vibes so that she can cold-heartedly murder people. In this part of the book, we want dramatic vibes so that we can race the clock and ride our horses to death (despite the fact that huffing them up on magic cocaine is not a solution). In that part of the book, it’s tragic hero vibes when she almost blows herself up and asks to be left to die, for she is too damaged, and tired, and evil for this world, as her boyfriend tearfully carries her off bridal-style to try and save her life.
Can we stop writing YA protagonists whose entire personalities are vibes? Thanks! :)
The supporting characters were likewise frustrating to read about. They didn’t seem very smart or beholden to being themselves because of the whims of the plot. They defer to Keera for seemingly stupid reasons, they constantly hold the Idiot Ball so Keera can show off, and overall just plain suck. Their only purpose is to act as Keera’s cheerleaders. You go, girlboss! Go gaslight gatekeep them bitches!
Next, I want to touch on the insane number of typos in this book and the countless examples of misused terminology, such as the holster one mentioned above. We have characters who treaded off the main path, despite treaded only being a word in the context of “treaded tyres”, characters “setting the charges” for their gunpowder plots, despite setting charges needing electricity to actually work, the leaf of rabbit (wtf?), the constant “farther” vs. “further” confusions, etc. The typos were at least funny. You have characters avoiding each other in alleys by giving them “wide births”, one character biting the inside of his “check”, and a particularly memorable one at the end where the apostrophe in “don’t” is replaced by its unicode character (don2019;t). I hope these typos are not in the print version. Especially the last one.
This is an excellent part to segway into the poor prose. You can really tell this is one of the author’s first attempts at writing a book, if not the first. Overall, it was amateur. The characters are constantly communicating with the same five actions of body language (smirking, stiffening backs, brows furrowing, taking single steps towards another character/object, etc. did you know the word “brow” appears in the book more times than Keera’s name? (137 vs. 120)), and there is very little variety in the prose; lots of sentences starting with “I did action”, lots of fragmented sentences, and repeating words. The more egregious instances of the bad writing though were in the action sequences, which were written in a very wooden step-by-step manner of “I did this, my opponent did that, and this was the outcome. Repeat until scene is finished”. Very video gamey. Very IKEA manual. Slay, kween! This book definitely needed more time in the oven, and more drafts.
The worldbuilding was not that well thought out, especially, for me, regarding how old stuff is. You have characters who are hundreds or even thousands of years old, but acting like shitty teenagers or incredibly stupid adults who go through life by throwing literal tantrums. What? I think the idea of multiple celestial bodies such as the multiple suns or moons was cool, but it really feels like an afterthought. There wasn’t anything in the way how two suns might affect anything. Are the lengths of days and nights different to Earth’s because of how light falls on spheres? Do the suns and moons even have different names? There were mention of “gods” in the world, but what gods? What religion? Is Keera religious? Or is it just a left over expression from a time before the king oppressed religion and now everyone’s agnostic or atheist or they worship him as a god king? Be prepared to never find out because it’s only mentioned once at the end. For flavour like so much else.
Finally, the book wanted to do an exploration of a colonised people, but I felt this was a very surface level kind of exploration. There’s a lot of talk about Halflings being oppressed, but the oppression they face is very … I want to say “20th/21st century flavour” as in these characters aren’t allowed to do things full-blooded humans can because they have icky Elf/Fae blood, and are enslaved by either being put into brothels or made into assassins for the king or they’re put into work camps or something. I’m not actually sure, because it’s never really talked about other than as bad things that are happening somewhere vaguely on the map. The situation sucks, but it sucks in a very sanitised “over there” fashion. It’s something we as readers can all agree is bad without having to do much else. It’s a Colonialism Aftermath 101 online echo chamber, and for that it’s just boring, and kind of insulting. It’s acknowledging a very harmful, traumatised, hurting, and deepset issue in society, and just slapping a bandaid on it by having Keera roast other characters reminiscent of what one does when constructing clapback arguments in the shower. But the big solution to fixing this as presented by the book is our main cast plotting to kill the head of government. Because that makes sense I guess. Never mind that the government has been running on this system for seven hundred years and so produced dozens of generations of people (on both sides!) who like it and wouldn’t want it to change. Didn’t you know that discrimination stops being a thing when a head of government vacates their position and all the prejudices and policies and attitudes that are baked into the society they were the head of are just wiped out overnight? Damn, me neither. That’s what I wanted to explore. Keera girly, you stinky badger, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here.
Finally, we’ll touch on Keera’s drinking. Her alcohol dependency was not well written. She can kick it with very little effort other than some cravings every so often to remind us that that was a thing. Because didn’t you know, if you just try hard enough, you can bin any of your drug dependency habits just like that! If you’ve got the willpowerrr! What do you mean it can come with health effects? What do you mean going cold turkey after thirty years of drinking daily until you’re blind drunk can kill you? The same lack of thought is taken regarding the self-harm. Keera cuts the names of her targets into her skin every time she kills them, and says she does it to remember her victims. I thought this was a cool idea until she mentions that she makes her scars look pretty by designing them like Elven warrior tattoos, which really distorts the message being delivered. Are you doing penitence, do you actually have mental health issues regarding self-harm, or are you just doing it to give yourself edgy tattoos?
I guess mixed messages is the ultimate message of the book, and I hope the next books Melissa Blair writes have gone through more rounds of revision. But for now, I’m just glad it’s done.
Character: 1/5
Plot: 2/5
Prose: 1.5/5
OVERALL: 1.5/5
Well … that was a book.
A book full of typos and incorrect terminology (you do not holster a sword, a holster is for a firearm), and boring, inconsistent characters that I just … urgh. URGH. The best bit was reading it on Discord with friends, because that made it the funny kind of bad instead of the kind of bad where you have to suffer on your lonesome because you have no one to talk to about this book I have been reading and please I need to talk about it my GOD —. Anyway, this is how I want to read these YA/NA TikTok books from now on. For my mental health, see. I should probably stop reading them all together, but where’s the fun in that?
ONWARDS!
A Broken Blade is a story about our main girlboss, Keera, being a reluctant assassin for the evil tyrant colonising king. She then goes on a quest to find and apprehend a terrorist called the Shadow who has been targeting the kingdom, and learns more about the kingdom and those she serves than she’d ever dared to imagine. In order to free her fellow minorities, she must girlboss all over King Aemon (no, not a Targaryen).
Keera, as mentioned before, is our main girlboss. Just like Celaena before her, she is the bestest of best assassins ever, but she comes with a slight drinking problem, self-harm tendencies (kind of), and a truckload of depression enough to have a dramatic scream to the heavens when two people she has never met die in front of her. She was very frustrating to follow, being inconsistent with her motives (she does not want to be the Blade and tells us how much she despises taking life, but then will turn around and stab people for being collateral when there are literally other solutions available with about three seconds of thinking) and a crippling case of “I must be the most badass character in the room” and subsequently robbing people of being smart and capable themselves. Did you know you can capture a 5000 year old warrior elf just by sneaking up on her with a blowdart? Because how else is Keera going to show how much of a badass she is when she executes the rescue mission? Her whims and motives have the same unfortunate tendencies as one of our favourite BookTok queens, Sarah Maas’s, characters, that being their entire existences coast off “vibes”. In this part of the book, we want badass vibes so that she can cold-heartedly murder people. In this part of the book, we want dramatic vibes so that we can race the clock and ride our horses to death (despite the fact that huffing them up on magic cocaine is not a solution). In that part of the book, it’s tragic hero vibes when she almost blows herself up and asks to be left to die, for she is too damaged, and tired, and evil for this world, as her boyfriend tearfully carries her off bridal-style to try and save her life.
Can we stop writing YA protagonists whose entire personalities are vibes? Thanks! :)
The supporting characters were likewise frustrating to read about. They didn’t seem very smart or beholden to being themselves because of the whims of the plot. They defer to Keera for seemingly stupid reasons, they constantly hold the Idiot Ball so Keera can show off, and overall just plain suck. Their only purpose is to act as Keera’s cheerleaders. You go, girlboss! Go gaslight gatekeep them bitches!
Next, I want to touch on the insane number of typos in this book and the countless examples of misused terminology, such as the holster one mentioned above. We have characters who treaded off the main path, despite treaded only being a word in the context of “treaded tyres”, characters “setting the charges” for their gunpowder plots, despite setting charges needing electricity to actually work, the leaf of rabbit (wtf?), the constant “farther” vs. “further” confusions, etc. The typos were at least funny. You have characters avoiding each other in alleys by giving them “wide births”, one character biting the inside of his “check”, and a particularly memorable one at the end where the apostrophe in “don’t” is replaced by its unicode character (don2019;t). I hope these typos are not in the print version. Especially the last one.
This is an excellent part to segway into the poor prose. You can really tell this is one of the author’s first attempts at writing a book, if not the first. Overall, it was amateur. The characters are constantly communicating with the same five actions of body language (smirking, stiffening backs, brows furrowing, taking single steps towards another character/object, etc. did you know the word “brow” appears in the book more times than Keera’s name? (137 vs. 120)), and there is very little variety in the prose; lots of sentences starting with “I did action”, lots of fragmented sentences, and repeating words. The more egregious instances of the bad writing though were in the action sequences, which were written in a very wooden step-by-step manner of “I did this, my opponent did that, and this was the outcome. Repeat until scene is finished”. Very video gamey. Very IKEA manual. Slay, kween! This book definitely needed more time in the oven, and more drafts.
The worldbuilding was not that well thought out, especially, for me, regarding how old stuff is. You have characters who are hundreds or even thousands of years old, but acting like shitty teenagers or incredibly stupid adults who go through life by throwing literal tantrums. What? I think the idea of multiple celestial bodies such as the multiple suns or moons was cool, but it really feels like an afterthought. There wasn’t anything in the way how two suns might affect anything. Are the lengths of days and nights different to Earth’s because of how light falls on spheres? Do the suns and moons even have different names? There were mention of “gods” in the world, but what gods? What religion? Is Keera religious? Or is it just a left over expression from a time before the king oppressed religion and now everyone’s agnostic or atheist or they worship him as a god king? Be prepared to never find out because it’s only mentioned once at the end. For flavour like so much else.
Finally, the book wanted to do an exploration of a colonised people, but I felt this was a very surface level kind of exploration. There’s a lot of talk about Halflings being oppressed, but the oppression they face is very … I want to say “20th/21st century flavour” as in these characters aren’t allowed to do things full-blooded humans can because they have icky Elf/Fae blood, and are enslaved by either being put into brothels or made into assassins for the king or they’re put into work camps or something. I’m not actually sure, because it’s never really talked about other than as bad things that are happening somewhere vaguely on the map. The situation sucks, but it sucks in a very sanitised “over there” fashion. It’s something we as readers can all agree is bad without having to do much else. It’s a Colonialism Aftermath 101 online echo chamber, and for that it’s just boring, and kind of insulting. It’s acknowledging a very harmful, traumatised, hurting, and deepset issue in society, and just slapping a bandaid on it by having Keera roast other characters reminiscent of what one does when constructing clapback arguments in the shower. But the big solution to fixing this as presented by the book is our main cast plotting to kill the head of government. Because that makes sense I guess. Never mind that the government has been running on this system for seven hundred years and so produced dozens of generations of people (on both sides!) who like it and wouldn’t want it to change. Didn’t you know that discrimination stops being a thing when a head of government vacates their position and all the prejudices and policies and attitudes that are baked into the society they were the head of are just wiped out overnight? Damn, me neither. That’s what I wanted to explore. Keera girly, you stinky badger, I thought you were supposed to be the smart one here.
Finally, we’ll touch on Keera’s drinking. Her alcohol dependency was not well written. She can kick it with very little effort other than some cravings every so often to remind us that that was a thing. Because didn’t you know, if you just try hard enough, you can bin any of your drug dependency habits just like that! If you’ve got the willpowerrr! What do you mean it can come with health effects? What do you mean going cold turkey after thirty years of drinking daily until you’re blind drunk can kill you? The same lack of thought is taken regarding the self-harm. Keera cuts the names of her targets into her skin every time she kills them, and says she does it to remember her victims. I thought this was a cool idea until she mentions that she makes her scars look pretty by designing them like Elven warrior tattoos, which really distorts the message being delivered. Are you doing penitence, do you actually have mental health issues regarding self-harm, or are you just doing it to give yourself edgy tattoos?
I guess mixed messages is the ultimate message of the book, and I hope the next books Melissa Blair writes have gone through more rounds of revision. But for now, I’m just glad it’s done.
Character: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Prose: 3/5 (I always forget how much Paolini loves making people tttrot~)
OVERALL: 2.5/5
Let it be known that, just like Eragon, Murtagh is not very bright. It must be from Mum’s side of the family.
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, but I’ve had mixed feelings on the whole affair since the announcement. Like many, the Inheritance Cycle was my all-time favourite series from when I was about nine to somewhere in my early teens, and Murtagh the character left such a huge impression on me as a kid that his archetype (the angsty, angry, yet tragic bad boy loner with paternal issues) is still one of my favourite things ever. I drew dragons (specifically Saphira) for years, the first ever book I finished writing was Eragon fan fic, and you betcha that I have Inheritance, the chapter from Eldest in which Murtagh reveals all to Eragon, memorised, and it’s still my most favourite and revisited moment in the series. Hell, I was so obsessed that Eragon lore and plot and what have you will probably be burned into my brain even when I’m 108 years old. That being said, I think the magic for the series started fading in my eyes with the release of Inheritance, which I didn’t love, and my admiration for Paolini as a writer dulled with his other novel To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which I thought was pretty … meh; it took me five weeks to finish and the only thing I could and can really say about it was, “yup, that was indeed a book I read”.
So I was excited to revisit my OG bad boy, but I was worried about Paolini’s ability to deliver a *good book*. And mixed feelings is a good way to put it now that I’ve finished.
Firstly, I adored getting to see Murtagh’s, and his dragon Thorn’s, psyches, seventeen years after being introduced to them and deciding that these two would be my favourite poor little meow meows/blorbos (or whatever the kids say nowadays). My throat did all the closing up and my heart ached whenever I read the passages about their experiences in Urû’baen at the hands of Galbatorix and his court. A shining beacon throughout the novel was in watching the two of them struggling with and addressing the trauma they experienced, most notable in Thorn’s fear of confined spaces and the ugly consequences that follow.
Yet, as a personal gripe, I’m sad that the Murtagh we saw at the end of Eldest seems to have only appeared once. The character who gleefully played the part of villain and didn’t give one damn about stomping on others, was swapped with someone who didn’t have a choice about 95% of this, my dudes. Seriously, go back and have a look at Murtagh on the Burning Plains. That guy and the guy we see in the flashback sections of this book aren’t the same person. Following on this, I wanted Murtagh to be a book about him and Thorn navigating a post-Galbatorix landscape where they must deal with the fact that they’ve committed these atrocities. I wanted the main conflict to be centred around the fact that people don’t trust Murtagh and Thorn. I wanted a character-driven piece of storytelling.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t what I got. The book is mostly plot-driven, and this plot has not left me a happy camper, as it stumbles into the age old sequel-problem of oh shit, we need to escalate the stakes. So it’s an action adventure book, it’s a book with all the swords and gore and magician duels of the previous books. It’s a winning formula, but, this time around, not for me.
Firstly, I want to talk about the structure of this book, as it was … a Choice.
Paolini is what I call a set-piece writer, in that you think of the “set-pieces” of a story (monster fight here, magic trap there, etc.) and write around those. It’s worked well in the past for him, but this really runs the risk of bloating stuff out because look at my set-piece, everyone!
The first third of this book is set in the city of Gil’ead, which we’ve been made familiar with from the original series, and it shakes out like a side-quest. And by that I mean, the main plot felt like it was barred from going forward because Murtagh had to complete a quest line for the werecat Carabel before she took away the roadblock of learning more about the witch Murtagh originally came to see her about. I spent the time waiting to get back to what we were supposed to be doing, which is never how you want an audience to feel.
Yeah, Paolini is still not the best plotter in the world. But, whatever. I’m sure my mild annoyances at how often he pulls out “and THIS was a thing all along!” are just a me thing (the Eldunarya, the Dauthdaert, and now the random general advice Umaroth gave Murtagh at the end of Inheritance has been changed into a dire warning upon which a plot hinges).
(Fucking dragon eggs being stashed away after being told for three books that Saphira, Thorn, and Fírnen’s eggs were the only ones in existence left fourteen-year-old me so infuriated because God forbid Galbatorix’s reign have lasting consequences.)
(ELDUNARYA STRENGTH SMACKDOWN BEING THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT WITH MOUSTACHE TWIRLING GALBY I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT STILL MAD ABOUT IT TWELVE YEARS LATER AAAAAH —)
Following their side-quest completion at Gil’ead, Murtagh and Thorn can finally engage with the plot and fly off the northern edge of the map, arriving in the village of Nal Gorgoth. Nal Gorgoth is very mysterious, very cult-like, and home to the witch we’ve been chasing for 51% of the book — the half-elf, half-human Bachel.
Bachel is weird and elusive, and after Murtagh remains staggeringly oblivious for some time about how she wants to use him and Thorn to take control of the world on behalf of her cult’s deity to wash it anew, she reveals that Galbatorix, after losing his original dragon, was groomed by her to be the downfall of the Riders.
w h a t
I mentioned before the instinct of sequels to escalate the stakes. The best way to explain this is: the country was in dangerous in the first instalment, so in order to make the second more exciting, it’s now the world that’s in danger! Galbatorix being manipulated by Bachel and the Dreamers for the sake of Azlagûr (basically Alagaësia’s Cthulhu) has the same vibes of “Snoke was actually just an extension of the Emperor’s power”. I’ve always thought Galby was a bit of a shit villain, and this isn’t helping.
Bachel enslaves Murtagh and Thorn to her using magic when they refuse to co-operate, and the rest of the book involves exploring that trauma of Murtagh and Thorn’s re-enslavement, and the final clash as they take down the Cthulhu cultists … for today.
But the central driving force of this plot is the characters being mind-bogglingly dumb. I was so, so tired by it.
At the beginning of the book, during the Muckmaw/Gil’ead side quest (which, in my humble opinion, is a great Pokémon name), Murtagh is tasked with obtaining one of Glaedr’s scales from his and Oromis’s graves to use as bait for Muckmaw. This grave is protected by both enchantments and those devoted to the memories of the Riders, making the task of getting this scale not particularly easy, but my immediate question which is never addressed is … why can’t Murtagh use one of Thorn’s scales as bait? It’s never said, by the rules established within the plot, that this scale needs to be Glaedr’s — only that they need “a dragon scale”, and Murtagh just happens to be one of three people in the world who have easy access to dragon scales whenever they please. There was a whole subsection of Inheritance where Saphira laments about her scales shedding! Just take one of Thorn’s shed scales!
Later, when Murtagh and Thorn arrive in Nal Gorgoth, they have a moment, on the day they arrive, that they realise this could be a place the Riders of old feared after being told by one of the old dragons do not ever, ever go there. Do they 1) retreat before they put their feet through it entirely and ask Umaroth for more information, or 2) go on ahead and decide to confront the danger themselves without knowledge because heroics. If you picked two, you’d be correct. I don’t see why deeper reasoning could be in place for them to stay if it’s important to the plot that they be in Nal Gorgoth. Instead of them choosing to stay, get them stuck there. Maybe Murtagh and Thorn try to flee but find they magically get turned around; maybe they can’t leave because they fear Bachel will retaliate (before she ends up doing just that almost ten chapters later); maybe Murtagh’s prideful nature comes to a head and he and Thorn argue about getting help from Eragon, which has previously been established as something Murtagh’s reluctant to do because he’s a stubborn git; it would also make for interesting conflict between Murtagh and Thorn. Just anything other than “hurp, guess we gotta stay here! For the safety of the hatchlings Eragon is guarding!” Dudes, if that’s your motivation, it would be smarter to just. Leave. And let Umaroth and Eragon know about this creepy fucken place you found. I have now been screaming at the book for 360 pages.
And it’s not just in Murtagh that this stupidity is present, but the underlying situation when it comes, for me, to Galbatorix and how he treated Murtagh and Thorn like personal playthings rather than powerful assets to help keep himself in power. The more the book went on about Galbatorix and his treatment of Murtagh always being bad from the start, as much as it twisted my heart, I mourned that it kept Murtagh back from a layer of nuance that would have been greatly appreciated (where is Eldest Murtagh? I ask yet again). What would it have been like if he grew up in an environment that wasn’t wholly antagonistic to him? What if he helped Galbatorix, with a certain amount of freedom, in keeping his Empire intact? And then, when he’s truly faced with a choice about keeping the familiar, comfortable, and “they’re not good, but they’re not that bad” empire, vs. the “I have to do what’s right, and that’s uncomfortable and scary” new world, is it an agonising, selfishly rooted decision?
So overall, I just wanted more depth. I wanted a (Red Rising spoilers) Cassius situation for Murtagh. Again, Eldest Murtagh. He had confidence in his bad decisions and an anti-hero edge to him. I wanted that, but the Murtagh we’ve had in Inheritance, and now in Murtagh, is an unquestionable good guy.
Zzz.
Criticisms from the original books that have been addressed and I am super happy about!
- The Empire’s soldiers aren’t all just comically evil anymore! Hooray! Care is taken to point out that many of these soldiers were drafted against their wishes, and Murtagh talks about how he had a kind of camaraderie with them (as much as there can be when common soldiers are breaking bread with Dragon Riders), and how he feels sad about their deaths and wonders where the survivors are.
- Murtagh is also, unlike Eragon, not ridiculously bloodthirsty. Sure, he is dangerous, but he’s not going about punching people so hard their hearts stop and coming away with the conclusion of “huh, I should change my knuckles to kill people even harder”, or “man, I wish I could kill three more people for my literal murder mountain so I can have an even headcount of two hundred”. Murtagh and Eragon may be equally stupid, but at least Murtagh (mostly) escaped the psychopath gene that Eragon and Roran have.
However …
- Murtagh and Thorn’s relationship feels very much the same as Eragon and Saphira’s in that the Rider is definitely in charge and the dragon is, at best, a flying sidekick. Very frustrating. There are nice scenes between Murtagh and Thorn which show them as equals in the relationship, don’t get me wrong, and I love how they’re in each other’s corners, but Murtagh’s the one making the big decisions and calling the shots, with Thorn always going along with what Murtagh wants to do. So I’m not really sold on this being an equal partnership.
- We also return to the weirdly worded pseudo-medieval speak, and I’m still not a fan. Pls Chris. And whilst we’re on the subject of dialogue, can we stop with the written accents please. It’s so frustrating to read these “not-quite-Cockney-but-aping-on-something-vaguely-East-London” accents and I wish the trend would die. Just stop.
- Paolini still cannot write poetry and verse. I automatically skip these now because they’re the reading equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
- There is still a looot of filler going on here. Flying around filler, random musings filler, random worldbuilding filler, descriptions that are so lengthy that they become, for me at least, ineffective. This book could have easily been 100 pages shorter if the filler was either cut or strictly edited down.
Nevertheless, despite my criticisms of the book, I look forward to reading the next one and more about my girlies Murtagh and Nasuada and when they finally kiss. KISS, DAMMIT! We were robbed at the end.
Character: 3/5
Plot: 2/5
Prose: 3/5 (I always forget how much Paolini loves making people tttrot~)
OVERALL: 2.5/5
Let it be known that, just like Eragon, Murtagh is not very bright. It must be from Mum’s side of the family.
This was one of my most anticipated books of the year, but I’ve had mixed feelings on the whole affair since the announcement. Like many, the Inheritance Cycle was my all-time favourite series from when I was about nine to somewhere in my early teens, and Murtagh the character left such a huge impression on me as a kid that his archetype (the angsty, angry, yet tragic bad boy loner with paternal issues) is still one of my favourite things ever. I drew dragons (specifically Saphira) for years, the first ever book I finished writing was Eragon fan fic, and you betcha that I have Inheritance, the chapter from Eldest in which Murtagh reveals all to Eragon, memorised, and it’s still my most favourite and revisited moment in the series. Hell, I was so obsessed that Eragon lore and plot and what have you will probably be burned into my brain even when I’m 108 years old. That being said, I think the magic for the series started fading in my eyes with the release of Inheritance, which I didn’t love, and my admiration for Paolini as a writer dulled with his other novel To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, which I thought was pretty … meh; it took me five weeks to finish and the only thing I could and can really say about it was, “yup, that was indeed a book I read”.
So I was excited to revisit my OG bad boy, but I was worried about Paolini’s ability to deliver a *good book*. And mixed feelings is a good way to put it now that I’ve finished.
Firstly, I adored getting to see Murtagh’s, and his dragon Thorn’s, psyches, seventeen years after being introduced to them and deciding that these two would be my favourite poor little meow meows/blorbos (or whatever the kids say nowadays). My throat did all the closing up and my heart ached whenever I read the passages about their experiences in Urû’baen at the hands of Galbatorix and his court. A shining beacon throughout the novel was in watching the two of them struggling with and addressing the trauma they experienced, most notable in Thorn’s fear of confined spaces and the ugly consequences that follow.
Yet, as a personal gripe, I’m sad that the Murtagh we saw at the end of Eldest seems to have only appeared once. The character who gleefully played the part of villain and didn’t give one damn about stomping on others, was swapped with someone who didn’t have a choice about 95% of this, my dudes. Seriously, go back and have a look at Murtagh on the Burning Plains. That guy and the guy we see in the flashback sections of this book aren’t the same person. Following on this, I wanted Murtagh to be a book about him and Thorn navigating a post-Galbatorix landscape where they must deal with the fact that they’ve committed these atrocities. I wanted the main conflict to be centred around the fact that people don’t trust Murtagh and Thorn. I wanted a character-driven piece of storytelling.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t what I got. The book is mostly plot-driven, and this plot has not left me a happy camper, as it stumbles into the age old sequel-problem of oh shit, we need to escalate the stakes. So it’s an action adventure book, it’s a book with all the swords and gore and magician duels of the previous books. It’s a winning formula, but, this time around, not for me.
Firstly, I want to talk about the structure of this book, as it was … a Choice.
Paolini is what I call a set-piece writer, in that you think of the “set-pieces” of a story (monster fight here, magic trap there, etc.) and write around those. It’s worked well in the past for him, but this really runs the risk of bloating stuff out because look at my set-piece, everyone!
The first third of this book is set in the city of Gil’ead, which we’ve been made familiar with from the original series, and it shakes out like a side-quest. And by that I mean, the main plot felt like it was barred from going forward because Murtagh had to complete a quest line for the werecat Carabel before she took away the roadblock of learning more about the witch Murtagh originally came to see her about. I spent the time waiting to get back to what we were supposed to be doing, which is never how you want an audience to feel.
Yeah, Paolini is still not the best plotter in the world. But, whatever. I’m sure my mild annoyances at how often he pulls out “and THIS was a thing all along!” are just a me thing (the Eldunarya, the Dauthdaert, and now the random general advice Umaroth gave Murtagh at the end of Inheritance has been changed into a dire warning upon which a plot hinges).
(Fucking dragon eggs being stashed away after being told for three books that Saphira, Thorn, and Fírnen’s eggs were the only ones in existence left fourteen-year-old me so infuriated because God forbid Galbatorix’s reign have lasting consequences.)
(ELDUNARYA STRENGTH SMACKDOWN BEING THE FINAL BOSS FIGHT WITH MOUSTACHE TWIRLING GALBY I AM ABSOLUTELY NOT STILL MAD ABOUT IT TWELVE YEARS LATER AAAAAH —)
Following their side-quest completion at Gil’ead, Murtagh and Thorn can finally engage with the plot and fly off the northern edge of the map, arriving in the village of Nal Gorgoth. Nal Gorgoth is very mysterious, very cult-like, and home to the witch we’ve been chasing for 51% of the book — the half-elf, half-human Bachel.
Bachel is weird and elusive, and after Murtagh remains staggeringly oblivious for some time about how she wants to use him and Thorn to take control of the world on behalf of her cult’s deity to wash it anew, she reveals that Galbatorix, after losing his original dragon, was groomed by her to be the downfall of the Riders.
w h a t
I mentioned before the instinct of sequels to escalate the stakes. The best way to explain this is: the country was in dangerous in the first instalment, so in order to make the second more exciting, it’s now the world that’s in danger! Galbatorix being manipulated by Bachel and the Dreamers for the sake of Azlagûr (basically Alagaësia’s Cthulhu) has the same vibes of “Snoke was actually just an extension of the Emperor’s power”. I’ve always thought Galby was a bit of a shit villain, and this isn’t helping.
Bachel enslaves Murtagh and Thorn to her using magic when they refuse to co-operate, and the rest of the book involves exploring that trauma of Murtagh and Thorn’s re-enslavement, and the final clash as they take down the Cthulhu cultists … for today.
But the central driving force of this plot is the characters being mind-bogglingly dumb. I was so, so tired by it.
At the beginning of the book, during the Muckmaw/Gil’ead side quest (which, in my humble opinion, is a great Pokémon name), Murtagh is tasked with obtaining one of Glaedr’s scales from his and Oromis’s graves to use as bait for Muckmaw. This grave is protected by both enchantments and those devoted to the memories of the Riders, making the task of getting this scale not particularly easy, but my immediate question which is never addressed is … why can’t Murtagh use one of Thorn’s scales as bait? It’s never said, by the rules established within the plot, that this scale needs to be Glaedr’s — only that they need “a dragon scale”, and Murtagh just happens to be one of three people in the world who have easy access to dragon scales whenever they please. There was a whole subsection of Inheritance where Saphira laments about her scales shedding! Just take one of Thorn’s shed scales!
Later, when Murtagh and Thorn arrive in Nal Gorgoth, they have a moment, on the day they arrive, that they realise this could be a place the Riders of old feared after being told by one of the old dragons do not ever, ever go there. Do they 1) retreat before they put their feet through it entirely and ask Umaroth for more information, or 2) go on ahead and decide to confront the danger themselves without knowledge because heroics. If you picked two, you’d be correct. I don’t see why deeper reasoning could be in place for them to stay if it’s important to the plot that they be in Nal Gorgoth. Instead of them choosing to stay, get them stuck there. Maybe Murtagh and Thorn try to flee but find they magically get turned around; maybe they can’t leave because they fear Bachel will retaliate (before she ends up doing just that almost ten chapters later); maybe Murtagh’s prideful nature comes to a head and he and Thorn argue about getting help from Eragon, which has previously been established as something Murtagh’s reluctant to do because he’s a stubborn git; it would also make for interesting conflict between Murtagh and Thorn. Just anything other than “hurp, guess we gotta stay here! For the safety of the hatchlings Eragon is guarding!” Dudes, if that’s your motivation, it would be smarter to just. Leave. And let Umaroth and Eragon know about this creepy fucken place you found. I have now been screaming at the book for 360 pages.
And it’s not just in Murtagh that this stupidity is present, but the underlying situation when it comes, for me, to Galbatorix and how he treated Murtagh and Thorn like personal playthings rather than powerful assets to help keep himself in power. The more the book went on about Galbatorix and his treatment of Murtagh always being bad from the start, as much as it twisted my heart, I mourned that it kept Murtagh back from a layer of nuance that would have been greatly appreciated (where is Eldest Murtagh? I ask yet again). What would it have been like if he grew up in an environment that wasn’t wholly antagonistic to him? What if he helped Galbatorix, with a certain amount of freedom, in keeping his Empire intact? And then, when he’s truly faced with a choice about keeping the familiar, comfortable, and “they’re not good, but they’re not that bad” empire, vs. the “I have to do what’s right, and that’s uncomfortable and scary” new world, is it an agonising, selfishly rooted decision?
So overall, I just wanted more depth. I wanted a (Red Rising spoilers) Cassius situation for Murtagh. Again, Eldest Murtagh. He had confidence in his bad decisions and an anti-hero edge to him. I wanted that, but the Murtagh we’ve had in Inheritance, and now in Murtagh, is an unquestionable good guy.
Zzz.
Criticisms from the original books that have been addressed and I am super happy about!
- The Empire’s soldiers aren’t all just comically evil anymore! Hooray! Care is taken to point out that many of these soldiers were drafted against their wishes, and Murtagh talks about how he had a kind of camaraderie with them (as much as there can be when common soldiers are breaking bread with Dragon Riders), and how he feels sad about their deaths and wonders where the survivors are.
- Murtagh is also, unlike Eragon, not ridiculously bloodthirsty. Sure, he is dangerous, but he’s not going about punching people so hard their hearts stop and coming away with the conclusion of “huh, I should change my knuckles to kill people even harder”, or “man, I wish I could kill three more people for my literal murder mountain so I can have an even headcount of two hundred”. Murtagh and Eragon may be equally stupid, but at least Murtagh (mostly) escaped the psychopath gene that Eragon and Roran have.
However …
- Murtagh and Thorn’s relationship feels very much the same as Eragon and Saphira’s in that the Rider is definitely in charge and the dragon is, at best, a flying sidekick. Very frustrating. There are nice scenes between Murtagh and Thorn which show them as equals in the relationship, don’t get me wrong, and I love how they’re in each other’s corners, but Murtagh’s the one making the big decisions and calling the shots, with Thorn always going along with what Murtagh wants to do. So I’m not really sold on this being an equal partnership.
- We also return to the weirdly worded pseudo-medieval speak, and I’m still not a fan. Pls Chris. And whilst we’re on the subject of dialogue, can we stop with the written accents please. It’s so frustrating to read these “not-quite-Cockney-but-aping-on-something-vaguely-East-London” accents and I wish the trend would die. Just stop.
- Paolini still cannot write poetry and verse. I automatically skip these now because they’re the reading equivalent of nails on a chalkboard.
- There is still a looot of filler going on here. Flying around filler, random musings filler, random worldbuilding filler, descriptions that are so lengthy that they become, for me at least, ineffective. This book could have easily been 100 pages shorter if the filler was either cut or strictly edited down.
Nevertheless, despite my criticisms of the book, I look forward to reading the next one and more about my girlies Murtagh and Nasuada and when they finally kiss. KISS, DAMMIT! We were robbed at the end.
So this is just Dishonored but *checks quickly* uhhhhh not good?
Admittedly I picked this book up knowing it was going to be a hot pile of garbage (just the vibes, you know?), but my goodness. My goodness.
Firstly, the overarching conflict was so juvenile it was frustrating. Richard Swan, who's the author of The Justice of Kings, talked about how one of his frustrations with fantasy that led to worldbuilding and character choices in his book was that he noticed “sides” were presented as monoliths, i.e., everyone in the good kingdom is good, and everyone in the bad kingdom is bad. Granted, Richard's example was Tolkien, but damn, if that wasn't true for this book too. Everyone in the good kingdom is good and righteous, and everyone in the invading empire, down to the gruntiest of grunts, is a zealot for their God Emperor, and it doesn't ring true as to how humans work. Shades of grey are well and good in stories, and many don't need them, but it would have been nice to see some variety to characters on both sides, whether it be Guard #1026 screaming battle cries as he runs towards certain death, to the people caught in the middle who maybe put loyalty to their lives and themselves above loyalty to any one righteous cause.
Secondly, the religious aspect of this book was not handled well. I think the most frustrating thing about this was I thought Dalglish intended to write a sincere depiction of how religion plays into people's daily lives, and the pain they experience when it's been banned by an overpowering nation, but it comes off as someone who's very areligious and has been coasting along on those dang vibes again to write the book. The only theology that seems to be in place is “our dude/s are better than your dude/s and we'll prove it by killing you in a gruesome fashion”. I felt like the competing religions were treated more like sports teams which wasn't ... great.
Thirdly, there was a whole lot of logic lacking in this. Like, sure, the deposed heir assassinating his way back into power is like, a sick and timeless fantasy trope, but there are so many ways these characters could have strengthened that premise, you know? Just by asking some few, obvious questions or having some sense of empathy for people other than the main cast. The plan to make Cyrus the one and only Vagrant was ... questionable? If he's to hide behind a mask, make lots of them! Don't put all your eggs in one basket! Maybe that way you can help the people of Thanet in the meantime whilst you're training Cyrus up because he's the one who knows the secrets of the ones in power or something. I was disappointed. What happens if he refused to be trained? What happens if he dies on a mission through random bad luck? What if he quits because he can't stomach it anymore? Does your whole rebellion then fall apart? Again, it just felt like a lot of very simple questions were not thought about.
(Also made me laugh that this evil empire is intent on conquering a small island nation that has the same distance between itself and the empire's mainland that Europe and North America have, if it takes two to three months to reach it via sail.)
Finally, my other sticking point is that the narrative felt unfocused. The first and last parts felt solid, but the core of the book really did feel like a bunch of scenes mushed together until they were book length. I didn't feel much of a cause and effect going on; it was just characters running from gory scenario to gory scenario, only for them to wait and be directed towards the next bad guys they had to take down. It felt like a bunch of side quests?
Overall, even though I wasn't expecting much going in as, in my experience, assassin premises are executed more poorly than not (why is that anyway? It's weird that the only “good” assassin book/s I tend to hear about are the Night Angel ones (also provided you close your eyes to the sheer amount of rape going on in those)), I wish more thought was put into character and drama instead of sneaking, swordplay, and gore as I love assassin/rogue archetypes :(
So this is just Dishonored but *checks quickly* uhhhhh not good?
Admittedly I picked this book up knowing it was going to be a hot pile of garbage (just the vibes, you know?), but my goodness. My goodness.
Firstly, the overarching conflict was so juvenile it was frustrating. Richard Swan, who's the author of The Justice of Kings, talked about how one of his frustrations with fantasy that led to worldbuilding and character choices in his book was that he noticed “sides” were presented as monoliths, i.e., everyone in the good kingdom is good, and everyone in the bad kingdom is bad. Granted, Richard's example was Tolkien, but damn, if that wasn't true for this book too. Everyone in the good kingdom is good and righteous, and everyone in the invading empire, down to the gruntiest of grunts, is a zealot for their God Emperor, and it doesn't ring true as to how humans work. Shades of grey are well and good in stories, and many don't need them, but it would have been nice to see some variety to characters on both sides, whether it be Guard #1026 screaming battle cries as he runs towards certain death, to the people caught in the middle who maybe put loyalty to their lives and themselves above loyalty to any one righteous cause.
Secondly, the religious aspect of this book was not handled well. I think the most frustrating thing about this was I thought Dalglish intended to write a sincere depiction of how religion plays into people's daily lives, and the pain they experience when it's been banned by an overpowering nation, but it comes off as someone who's very areligious and has been coasting along on those dang vibes again to write the book. The only theology that seems to be in place is “our dude/s are better than your dude/s and we'll prove it by killing you in a gruesome fashion”. I felt like the competing religions were treated more like sports teams which wasn't ... great.
Thirdly, there was a whole lot of logic lacking in this. Like, sure, the deposed heir assassinating his way back into power is like, a sick and timeless fantasy trope, but there are so many ways these characters could have strengthened that premise, you know? Just by asking some few, obvious questions or having some sense of empathy for people other than the main cast. The plan to make Cyrus the one and only Vagrant was ... questionable? If he's to hide behind a mask, make lots of them! Don't put all your eggs in one basket! Maybe that way you can help the people of Thanet in the meantime whilst you're training Cyrus up because he's the one who knows the secrets of the ones in power or something. I was disappointed. What happens if he refused to be trained? What happens if he dies on a mission through random bad luck? What if he quits because he can't stomach it anymore? Does your whole rebellion then fall apart? Again, it just felt like a lot of very simple questions were not thought about.
(Also made me laugh that this evil empire is intent on conquering a small island nation that has the same distance between itself and the empire's mainland that Europe and North America have, if it takes two to three months to reach it via sail.)
Finally, my other sticking point is that the narrative felt unfocused. The first and last parts felt solid, but the core of the book really did feel like a bunch of scenes mushed together until they were book length. I didn't feel much of a cause and effect going on; it was just characters running from gory scenario to gory scenario, only for them to wait and be directed towards the next bad guys they had to take down. It felt like a bunch of side quests?
Overall, even though I wasn't expecting much going in as, in my experience, assassin premises are executed more poorly than not (why is that anyway? It's weird that the only “good” assassin book/s I tend to hear about are the Night Angel ones (also provided you close your eyes to the sheer amount of rape going on in those)), I wish more thought was put into character and drama instead of sneaking, swordplay, and gore as I love assassin/rogue archetypes :(
So this is just Dishonored but checks quickly uhhhhh not good?
Admittedly I picked this book up knowing it was going to be a hot pile of garbage (just the vibes, you know?), but my goodness. My goodness.
Firstly, the overarching conflict was so juvenile it was frustrating. Richard Swan, who's the author of [b:The Justice of Kings|58293284|The Justice of Kings (Empire of the Wolf, #1)|Richard Swan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635718816l/58293284.SY75.jpg|91388035], talked about how one of his frustrations with fantasy that led to worldbuilding and character choices in his book was that he noticed “sides” were presented as monoliths, i.e., everyone in the good kingdom is good, and everyone in the bad kingdom is bad. Granted, Richard's example was Tolkien, but damn, if that wasn't true for this book too. Everyone in the good kingdom is good and righteous, and everyone in the invading empire, down to the gruntiest of grunts, is a zealot for their God Emperor, and it doesn't ring true as to how humans work. Shades of grey are well and good in stories, and many don't need them, but it would have been nice to see some variety to characters on both sides, whether it be Guard #1026 screaming battle cries as he runs towards certain death, to the people caught in the middle who maybe put loyalty to their lives and themselves above loyalty to any one righteous cause.
Secondly, the religious aspect of this book was not handled well. I think the most frustrating thing about this was I thought Dalglish intended to write a sincere depiction of how religion plays into people's daily lives, and the pain they experience when it's been banned by an overpowering nation, but it comes off as someone who's very areligious and has been coasting along on those dang vibes again to write the book. The only theology that seems to be in place is “our dude/s are better than your dude/s and we'll prove it by killing you in a gruesome fashion”. I felt like the competing religions were treated more like sports teams which wasn't ... great.
Thirdly, there was a whole lot of logic lacking in this. Like, sure, the deposed heir assassinating his way back into power is like, a sick and timeless fantasy trope, but there are so many ways these characters could have strengthened that premise, you know? Just by asking some few, obvious questions or having some sense of empathy for people other than the main cast. The plan to make Cyrus the one and only Vagrant was ... questionable? If he's to hide behind a mask, make lots of them! Don't put all your eggs in one basket! Maybe that way you can help the people of Thanet in the meantime whilst you're training Cyrus up because he's the one who knows the secrets of the ones in power or something. I was disappointed. What happens if he refused to be trained? What happens if he dies on a mission through random bad luck? What if he quits because he can't stomach it anymore? Does your whole rebellion then fall apart? Again, it just felt like a lot of very simple questions were not thought about.
(Also made me laugh that this evil empire is intent on conquering a small island nation that has the same distance between itself and the empire's mainland that Europe and North America have, if it takes two to three months to reach it via sail.)
Finally, my other sticking point is that the narrative felt unfocused. The first and last parts felt solid, but the core of the book really did feel like a bunch of scenes mushed together until they were book length. I didn't feel much of a cause and effect going on; it was just characters running from gory scenario to gory scenario, only for them to wait and be directed towards the next bad guys they had to take down. It felt like a bunch of side quests?
Overall, even though I wasn't expecting much going in as, in my experience, assassin premises are executed more poorly than not (why is that anyway? It's weird that the only “good” assassin book/s I tend to hear about are the Night Angel ones (also provided you close your eyes to the sheer amount of rape going on in those)), I wish more thought was put into character and drama instead of sneaking, swordplay, and gore as I love assassin/rogue archetypes :(
So this is just Dishonored but checks quickly uhhhhh not good?
Admittedly I picked this book up knowing it was going to be a hot pile of garbage (just the vibes, you know?), but my goodness. My goodness.
Firstly, the overarching conflict was so juvenile it was frustrating. Richard Swan, who's the author of [b:The Justice of Kings|58293284|The Justice of Kings (Empire of the Wolf, #1)|Richard Swan|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1635718816l/58293284.SY75.jpg|91388035], talked about how one of his frustrations with fantasy that led to worldbuilding and character choices in his book was that he noticed “sides” were presented as monoliths, i.e., everyone in the good kingdom is good, and everyone in the bad kingdom is bad. Granted, Richard's example was Tolkien, but damn, if that wasn't true for this book too. Everyone in the good kingdom is good and righteous, and everyone in the invading empire, down to the gruntiest of grunts, is a zealot for their God Emperor, and it doesn't ring true as to how humans work. Shades of grey are well and good in stories, and many don't need them, but it would have been nice to see some variety to characters on both sides, whether it be Guard #1026 screaming battle cries as he runs towards certain death, to the people caught in the middle who maybe put loyalty to their lives and themselves above loyalty to any one righteous cause.
Secondly, the religious aspect of this book was not handled well. I think the most frustrating thing about this was I thought Dalglish intended to write a sincere depiction of how religion plays into people's daily lives, and the pain they experience when it's been banned by an overpowering nation, but it comes off as someone who's very areligious and has been coasting along on those dang vibes again to write the book. The only theology that seems to be in place is “our dude/s are better than your dude/s and we'll prove it by killing you in a gruesome fashion”. I felt like the competing religions were treated more like sports teams which wasn't ... great.
Thirdly, there was a whole lot of logic lacking in this. Like, sure, the deposed heir assassinating his way back into power is like, a sick and timeless fantasy trope, but there are so many ways these characters could have strengthened that premise, you know? Just by asking some few, obvious questions or having some sense of empathy for people other than the main cast. The plan to make Cyrus the one and only Vagrant was ... questionable? If he's to hide behind a mask, make lots of them! Don't put all your eggs in one basket! Maybe that way you can help the people of Thanet in the meantime whilst you're training Cyrus up because he's the one who knows the secrets of the ones in power or something. I was disappointed. What happens if he refused to be trained? What happens if he dies on a mission through random bad luck? What if he quits because he can't stomach it anymore? Does your whole rebellion then fall apart? Again, it just felt like a lot of very simple questions were not thought about.
(Also made me laugh that this evil empire is intent on conquering a small island nation that has the same distance between itself and the empire's mainland that Europe and North America have, if it takes two to three months to reach it via sail.)
Finally, my other sticking point is that the narrative felt unfocused. The first and last parts felt solid, but the core of the book really did feel like a bunch of scenes mushed together until they were book length. I didn't feel much of a cause and effect going on; it was just characters running from gory scenario to gory scenario, only for them to wait and be directed towards the next bad guys they had to take down. It felt like a bunch of side quests?
Overall, even though I wasn't expecting much going in as, in my experience, assassin premises are executed more poorly than not (why is that anyway? It's weird that the only “good” assassin book/s I tend to hear about are the Night Angel ones (also provided you close your eyes to the sheer amount of rape going on in those)), I wish more thought was put into character and drama instead of sneaking, swordplay, and gore as I love assassin/rogue archetypes :(
