I’ve finally gotten my hands on this, and I thought I should read before starting Tempests and Slaughter.
- Alanna’s letter read quite formally for someone writing to her husband, especially when she was referring to Jon and Thayet as Their Majesties
- Alanna’s retirement as KC is interesting, I had thought of it more as a job for life?
- I would have liked to have known more about George’s spy network. I liked Stefan was still around and Evin was a nice surprise
- Evin is both a head spy and Commander of Queen’s Riders?
- I like the book cover too
- I was glad to see that the map is the same as in T&S, as I was worried that map was another time discrepancy
- the way religion was spoken of felt different?
- I liked all of the seals, even if I had pictured them differently or didn’t quite get some - Myles is a bowl?
- The Bazhir tribes are named here a lot more then I think they have been previously?
- George’s notes were interesting, as were Evin’s
- I think overall it’s a lot shorter than I would have wanted because the text is huge
- is the bump on Thayet’s record the assassins that were coming after her? It sounded more like an accidental pregnancy
- I was prepared for the Sarge profile, one on Onua would have been interesting too
- Yay for first of two Kourrem appearances, I hope we see this in the flesh
- hoping by the missing pages that we see up to Jan 445 with Numair and the project
- Hostler Onua - so is Onua a Hostler for horses or a Hostler for George too?
- the profile on Kuni Yoro was interesting, especially as it was someone we hadn’t but could have seen - Yamani and connections with Lalasa possible - and the description of the stitch magic and messages reminds me of Sandry and Briar having a similar conversation in WotE
- Padraig ha Minch looks like someone we should see more of. If not just because he looks cool with the ponytail.
- Her Majesty and the ladies were attacked by killer unicorns while escorted by the pages? I wonder if this was supposed to be Wyldon and the younger royals?
- the cooks diary was interesting but felt a bit long and out of place. Maybe less so if there were also the recipes included?
- the Killing Devices look nothing like I pictured them. I think I thought of them as some sort of stainless steel transformer thing?
- Yay for Duke G, boo for rumours of his ill health
- I did like the interchange of letters between them though
- Coram and Rispah’s children’s love for Stormwings is interesting when you consider everyone else is terrified. Would have liked to have seen more of them, though it did feel like they were a bit out of the loop
- the Immortals notes were interesting
- I liked Ilane’s letter to Shinko, as it gave us more details about the Yamani way of life, though a bit heavy handed
- I think there have been two references to women who can fight and they have both been specifically only to Alanna and Thayet, like Thayet would be next in line to battle after Alanna?
- I did like the Diplomat’s guide because it had useful information
- 15 million people seems like a huge amount of people. Australia only has like 22 million and that is now in modern times.
- measuring size in days of ride is so helpful for fic writing, I think that was one of my favourite parts?
- feasts were interesting for what we haven’t seen before
- Thom’s timeline - I kind of felt like this was leading to explaining the next series of when the Immortals get sent to the Divine Realms?
- Beka’s books end at Tortall in Civil War. This would be an interesting area for continuation?!?
- Gareth’s practice reminds me of something but I can’t think what, curious as to what others thought of this
- so is Queen Margarry Gareth’s wife? It still seems so odd that we see boy Gareth and yet know that the Gentle Mother? Cult takes over. Maybe that is the fault of Jasson II though.
- Barzuns conquest seemed a bit too recent to Prince Roald being alive, so it’s good it’s a timeline discrepancy when I can flick forward a few pages?
- So Owen and Roald are distantly related? That’s cute.
- From what we know about the Old King, it’s interesting he abdicated.
- Neal’s notes were interesting. Would possibly have liked more of his notes from Alanna, but that could have gone either way I think.
- I spotted the Lisafer nod
I’m so glad we finally get to see the timeline in print.
- It does make my heart hurt that there are multiple contradictions in the book though - if someone has gone to the effort of making a timeline for you, and balancing out all of the contradictions of dates and adding in all of the details, why wouldn’t you refer to it when putting years on things within the same book? Odd exclusion of Beka timeline too.
- Alan is interesting. I totally buy the not wanting to do traditional page training, but in TC doesn’t he say he started late and he was too busy at the palace to see Aly?
- the Tricksters covers advertised in the back look very cool
Longer than I intended >.<
TL;DR: I liked it, enjoyed parts, probably would have enjoyed if longer and went into more depth and more details. All of the character profiles! It felt a bit surface skimming, and I need to remember how to enjoy things without letting contradictions get to me! I think it’s an interesting balance - is this a book to get you into Tortall? Is it for the diehard fans? Or just general fans? I’m reminded of JKR once releasing a pic of her plotting for OoTP, and how each plot line went into each chapter. That’s the sort of thing I would have liked to have seen, like those books while HP was still being published that broke everything down? While parts of this felt like the HP History of Magic books they published for the British Library Exhibition?
I’m so glad we finally get to see the timeline in print.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!