I'm no stranger to bad genre fantasy books. The sins of the sword and sorcery lot are familiar to me, but sometimes I'm thrown for a loop. Like when two authors with half a century in the genre create some of the worst books I've ever finished.
Normally I'd say, "don't waste your time and TBR on things you hate." Life is short, and unless you are obligated to do so (like you make a bad book podcast, or you're being paid to edit or review such a work), you aren't going to get anything out of finishing dreck. In this particular case, I can almost use the trilogy as examples of what NOT to do in epic fantasy.
I am an unapologetic reader of Mercedes Lackey. I will not recommend her to other people without caveats, but she was one of my introductory authors into the genre, back when I was a wee lass. Her work isn't revolutionary, but it does the job. If I want to turn my brain off, and think about magic talking horses, that's what I go to. It's the literary equivalent of a grilled cheese sandwich at a diner. That said, her last decade and a half of output has been more like a grilled cheese sandwich left in that diner's bathroom. I haven't bought one of her books in years, and I stick mostly to borrowing her works from the library (as I did with this series).
Normally her flaws are mitigated by working with a co-author. In this case, James Mallory and her have partnered for several trilogies in a universe, the first of which are called the Obsidian Trilogy. These books are largely unremarkable, but basically fine. I can sleep to these books, no problem. They're standard epic fantasy fair: elves, unicorns, dragons, magic, demons, Chosen Ones, everything solved by the power of love and sacrifice you know the drill.
The second trilogy (The Enduring Flame) is a whole 'nother story.
I went in expecting more or less of the same as the first time. Hey, a thousand years have passed, and wouldn't you know Dark Is Rising Again! Ain't that always the way? And now two MORE younglings have to go on an Epic Quest to Save The World. The first book was what I had anticipated, some feckless youngsters hanging out in Armethelieh, thinking about what they're gonna do with their lives. Harrier Gillain is the harbormaster's son, so he's probably gonna take over that, but boy he doesn't feel like he'll be good at it (get used to that refrain, you hear it so. Many. Times.)! And his best friend in the whole world, Tiercel Rolfort who's a noble (doesn't matter, promise) who finds a book about High Magic, which has inexplicably disappeared from their world in the thousand years since the events of the first trilogy. Turns out he's a High Mage! Queue hi-jinks!
So in the first trilogy, there were two kinds of magic, Wild Magic, and High Magic. Wild Magic was the kind that you were Chosen to do, whereas High Magic was developed from the Wild Magic specifically to fight the Endarkened (and yes, they're just demons, red skin and wings and all). By combining the two, you could actually kill these immortals, but the deal with High Magic was you needed a bunch of external power (which at the time they harvested from people who lived in the mage city). So this fell out of fashion, and apparently nobody remembers that shit, in spite of the fact that all the events from the first series have become mythology with their own pageants and festivals and whatnot (and probably Kellen the Poor Orphan Boy t-shirts and Idalia WildMage fucking stick puppets).
And that's the first book, trying to figure out how High Magic works and if it can even still be done, and going to the Elves to ask what the hell they're supposed to do. It's boring, and repetitive, and undoes a lot of continuity from the first series, but whatever. If that were all that was wrong with it, it would be merely disappointing. But then the second book happens, and holy gods.
If you had handed me this manuscript and told me that it was a first effort from someone who'd been playing a lot of Pathfinder, I would absolutely believe it. It's amateurish, banal, lingers on details that never matter, and advances the plot not a goddamn bit. There are PAGES dedicated to what is in the wagon they get from the Elves. I felt like Ye Olde Wagon Inspector for most of it. Does any of that shit matter? Are the horseshoe nails that are described ever going to come into play? Do we need to know what kind of cider they have in their barrels? NO. NONE OF THIS EVER COMES INTO ANYTHING. A few hundred pages later, this wagon gets burned up in a sacked city, and it never, EVER matters. And this is not the last time that happens! We spend an ungodly amount of time with some desert-dwellers (and yeah, they're not dealt with well, lotta EXOTIC FOREIGNERS, AND THEIR MYSTERIOUS CUSTOMS nonsense in this trilogy) who go deep into some ruins. These ruins have their inventory meticulously described...and then they're like, "Well, we don't have any use for this shit. Bye!" WHY DID YOU WASTE MY TIME WITH THIS?! These books are hundreds of pages, there was no need for this padding!
All of the prose when we're in the desert becomes laughably ornate. Here's an example.
So...groups of 20? You can just say 20. Unless the people of the desert have less or more toes than standard humanoids, you could just. Say. 20.
Extrapolate that from the prose with our boys from the Big City.
Excellent.
Finishing the third book was torture. I cranked the audiobook up to 1.5 speed so I could just get it OVER with, because I needed to know how much worse they could do with this material.
What if I were to tell you that the plot of the third book is that they failed, and now they're just kinda wandering around the desert aimlessly for hundreds of pages? That they never think to send a message for aid until 50% of the way through the book, and then handwave it away with, "Oh, it probably won't get there"? That they can manage to make daily attacks by unstoppable zombies and goblins dull? That neither of these characters ever grow in any substantial way, and they're both tiresome milksops or screamy assholes for the entire rest of the series? That they take on refugees and never bother to explain the rules of the camp to them, and then act surprised when they break rules and try to run away? That they tack on a love story for no fucking reason? That they spend half the book wandering away from a place...to return to that place?! For reasons!
So what can we learn from this utter goddamn disaster of storytelling? Even in epic fantasy, simple is better. You can fill pages with unpronounceable nonsense (and William Dufris deserves credit for not stumbling over all these bullshit place names), and it still doesn't make it interesting. You can make everyman characters, but if you don't instill in them some kind of growth, nobody will connect with them. And that you can just tell me there's a wagon, and I will assume that you have shit you need, please don't tell me what all is stowed in there. I'm good. No, really. I don't need to see your receipt for the dried fruit, it's FINE.
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