RANTS AND RAMBLES
DISCLAIMER: When I review books, weaknesses and inconsistencies tend to dominate my discussion; therefore, I will emphasize that any particular rant (and, yes, they can be long-winded) does not have special bearing on my unified opinion of the book. For this, please refer to my overall star rating. Additionally, this review is my personal opinion, intended to help like-minded readers navigate the plethora of available options. Use it as a tool but do not assign undue importance to it (i.e. feel free to disagree with me).

• Technical issues with the writing abound in this volume. Examples include:
  • A paragraph that ends with a comma {As the hours sped by,}
  • Words that are used incorrectly {Maluem stood stalk still, hiding her body deep in the shadows of a tree’s trunk} {the practice did little to curve the physical appetite} {she clutched upon a random scroll and quickly foisted it in front of her face}
  • A missing letter makes a word into another word, but the wrong one {she craped the more burnt portions of their breakfast over to one side}
  • Occasionally, entire words are missing
  • Words are occasionally used when synonyms would function much better {Once again, Maluem realized that what she felt was certain, and what was fact, were two completely different entities.} The word ‘things’ would have worked better here and while ‘entities’ is technically a synonym, it doesn’t quite work in this case.
• The vocabulary of this book seems larger than it is due to the inclusion of quite a few made up in-universe words. This is not inherently bad; in fact, it helps to flesh out the universe in which the story takes place. That fact that I actually looked up a few of these words (despite them having no English definition) shows how well they fit in the context. There are a few instances, however, where a made-up word is integral to the meaning of a sentence, so I still don’t know what Mangold is trying to convey. For example, what is a ‘kulking choat?’ Is it simply an insult or is it a descriptor for the character the words are applied to? I don’t know. It is probably best, in the context of this story, to leave invented words to the realm of creature names, insults, oaths, etc. where their meaning is obvious.
• As mentioned in the main review, the first few chapters of the book do a great job at efficiently and entertainingly setting up the world. There is, however, an odd fascination with clothing while describing people, odd because such an emphasis is never put on clothes again. If the main character or society put a lot of stock in how people looked in their valuation, or imposters were important to the story, or clothes factored significantly in any way, this could work, but since none of these things are true, the descriptions seem out of place.
• Exploration and examination of things like magic, personal history, politics, and geography are spread out across the novel and not introduced in info dumps. Information is added as necessary and mostly organically. There are a few instances where the execution of this is a little clunky, but overall it is competently handled.
• SPOILERS: While trying to rescue Maluem, Volo attempts to recreate something she taught him, that is, inscribing runes on an object to create a time-delayed spell; however, his poor handwriting skills prevent the spell from creating the fireball he intended and instead make a flame-wreathed copy of himself. This mostly connects with a previous conversation about modifying spells, though bad handwriting seems like it should have a very different, probably detrimental effect to the one it did. Volo immediately puts this happy accident to use rescuing Maluem; therefore, this mistake seems more like a plot contrivance than anything else. It wouldn’t feel this way if 1) he had experienced this mistake earlier in a situation for which it was very inconvenient but repurposed it here to good effect, or 2) had to work around the sub-par spell created by the mistake in order to succeed rather than using a convenient mistake to free his friend.
• SPOILERS: Maluem happens to notice a small, easily missed note on a new scrap of map which refers to an old city, one which hasn’t existed for thousands of years. This is the key to detecting a Soul Leech demon. It is super convenient that she happened to notice it then and not an hour later at which point she and Volo would already have been dead.
• MASSIVE SPOILERS: The end is a bit of a mess. It is less satisfying than it could have been because the events in the book don’t build to it properly. The leviathan, the boss fight in the climax of the book, is added last minute, so defeating it means very little. A proxy of other monsters and weather as a common antagonist throughout the story could have worked to unite the novel if Maluem had an ongoing contest essentially with nature itself. This would have given her defeat of the leviathan more impact. Or if Maluem struggled with some flaw and had to overcome it to defeat the leviathan. Anything to tie it back to the best of the story would have been helpful. Then there is the treasure room and the road to it. It is essentially a rip-off of the ending of Indian Jones and the Last Crusade, complete with traps and a pick-the-right-one-or-you-will-die scenario. It’s a fine concept, but it doesn’t jive with the feel of the story up until this point.
• MAJOR SPOILERS: The dagger Maluem uses to figure out which staff is the correct one (see above rant), comes out of nowhere. It was never mentioned previously in the book save a ham-fisted explanation about how Maluem got it from an eccentric gypsy but never had a use for it until today. This dagger and the wound she inflicts with it are important (I cheated and have read a few chapters of the sequel already), but the whole situation is weird. Why do neither Volo or Maluem have a normal knife? If this is Maluem’s only knife, why has she never used it before? Why did she believe the gypsy when he said the knife would save her life one day? And it is clear she believed him, or she would not have bought the dagger, nor would she have kept it for so long without use. The whole situation comes out of nowhere and smells of plot contrivance.
• MASSIVE SPOILERS: Volo dying in the final conflict amounts to nothing emotionally because the reader barely knows who he is. He has almost no defining traits, and Maluem is a jerk to him for the duration of the book. We are meant to believe that she is torn up over losing him, but that is hard to believe considering their interactions for most of the story. This situation comes across as an unearned attempt to solicit an emotional response, and that attempt does not work. It feels less like someone dying and more like a dead-weight character simply being erased.
• MASSIVE SPOILERS: The main antagonist of the story does nothing in this book. At least, I am assuming he is the main antagonist because, as I said, he has no impact on the story and is only mentioned twice. It seems like there is a desire to imply he is pulling all the strings on Maluem’s journey (perhaps he was the one to give her the visions?), but for him to truly function as a foil to Maluem, they need to interact in some meaningful way, and they simply do not. I think this lack of interaction is what ultimately led to the subpar ending. If this character played more of a role, Maluem could have fought him. She would have lost due to succumbing to her character flaw. Then Volo’s death would have meant something to the story. The loss of her friend could force Maluem to either grow or further embrace her flaws. This encounter could also set up this villain in a visceral way as being very dangerous, making future confrontations terrifying.