The Fifth Sorceress by Robert Newcomb
I admit that the only reason I tried reading this book in the first place was to see if it was as phenomenally stupid as these sporkings said it was. How could anything be that dumb?
This book was so bad I couldn’t even finish the first chapter after the prologue.
It was so bad that I turned to Paolini’s Brisingr for comfort. Sure, it may have a completely unnecessary Crazy Cult scene where a priest amputates himself to show how evil he is to the reader, and a bruise comparison contest in which Eragon drops down his trousers and doesn’t pull them back up again, but it at least has the decency to make its teenage hero a teenager.
Why is this a redeeming quality? Stay tuned to find out.
So the prologue starts off with a ship leaving Eritrea, your typical generic fantasyland, so they can execute four evil sorceresses who have terrorized their land. Traveling with them is a wizard named Wigg. Yes, the Wise Old Mentor in this book is named Wigg. No, it doesn’t rhyme at all with earwig or clash in a world with characters named Shailiha and Tristan, not at all….
(drags self back to reviewing the prologue)
Okay, so we have our evil sorceresses weakened and ready for execution by drowning right? After all, they did go on a murderous rampage and nearly succeed in taking over Eritrea. Eritrea’s wizards had to capture them and weaken them in order to stop this. Surely that would be enough reason for their execution right?
Wrong. Apparently, everyone was eager to execute them until they saw how vulnerable these attractive women looked when they were weak. All of a sudden, they felt sorry for them and couldn’t bring themselves to have the sorceresses executed. So instead of drowning, or even better hanging or beheading them, they’re going to send them out on a leaky boat and hope that they just die. Right.
(head explodes)
WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE IDIOTS THINKING?
They made these sorceresses weak so they could execute them in the first place. Why in the world would they suddenly have a fit of pity and decide “Oh no, these women look so weak. We can’t execute them now!”? After all, it’s not as if they have the magical ability to communicate over long distances. Four highly-skilled sorceresses could never do such a thing. They’re just weak women who will die after their scant rations run out! After all, it’s not as if Wigg has to remind himself not to feel drawn in by the seductive wiles (oh wait, he does actually. Even when they’re starving he and the sailors have to resist the urge to bone them. Charming, isn’t it?).
Honestly, there’s every sign that the sorceresses are still dangerous and everyone ignores them. God, I almost hope the sorceresses do survive and invade Eritrea again. (They do, but I don't make it that far)
And….after the sorceresses are cast off, they *gasp, shock manage to contact another sorceress who helps them get back to their own continent which happens to be only a few days away. Who would’ve guessed?
After this exercise in idiocy, we reach Chapter One and cut to Our Hero Tristan. Who’s throwing knives in the forest with his loyal horse Pilgrim by his side because he’s wangsting about becoming King and all the responsibilities it entails. Seriously, his entire thought process revolves around how he doesn’t want to grow up and be King. Legitimate if somewhat annoying for a teenage hero, right? Guess his age.
Thirty.
He’s wangsting like a modern teenager at the age of thirty in a medieval world. I’ll let the stupidity of that sink in for a moment. You would think that by the age of thirty, he would have had some life experiences that would make him grow up such as getting married, going on military campaigns, navigating court politics (wait, Eritrea’s court has no discernable politics. Never mind). My brain, it hurts.
Anyways, moving on. We find out that Tristan is throwing knives with only Pilgrim for company because the first time he tried to throw knives in public, he was bad at it and everyone laughed at him. Therefore, he trained himself to throw knives in the woods and he’s now the best knife fighter ever, but nobody knows it because he’s never showed anybody! Isn’t this awesome?
My brain just jumped out of my head. How in the world would he know how to train himself? How would he catch his mistakes if no one else is watching him? Wouldn’t he just develop bad habits? As someone who has studied a martial art to some degree, I can tell you that there is no way I can catch all my mistakes by myself or learn new moves by myself. It just does not work that way in the real world. But of course, Tristan is just that Special. Between this and his teenage wangst, his Gary Stu vibes just went through the roof.
After Tristan finishes his knife throwing, we get a lovely scene between horse and rider as Tristan plays fetch with his horse. Let me repeat that. He plays fetch. With. His. Horse. He literally holds a carrot in front of Pilgrim and then throws it for him to fetch.
Need I explain how stupid this is?
Then we get another touching scene where Pilgrim pushes Tristan off a cliff as a way of showing his “affection”, and that was it for me. I gave it back to the library. It is literally the worst piece of fiction I have ever attempted to read. It is so bad that it makes wince just thinking about it right now.
My advice for reading this book: DON’T!
ETA: As lady_of_elves was kind enough to point out, Eritrea is also the name of a real country in Africa. The research fail demonstrated in this book never ceases to amaze me.
ETA#2: I was wrong about the generic kingdom's name. It's Eutracia, not Eritrea. Similar, but not the same thing at all. I'm sorry for misleading you about that.
This book was so bad I couldn’t even finish the first chapter after the prologue.
It was so bad that I turned to Paolini’s Brisingr for comfort. Sure, it may have a completely unnecessary Crazy Cult scene where a priest amputates himself to show how evil he is to the reader, and a bruise comparison contest in which Eragon drops down his trousers and doesn’t pull them back up again, but it at least has the decency to make its teenage hero a teenager.
Why is this a redeeming quality? Stay tuned to find out.
So the prologue starts off with a ship leaving Eritrea, your typical generic fantasyland, so they can execute four evil sorceresses who have terrorized their land. Traveling with them is a wizard named Wigg. Yes, the Wise Old Mentor in this book is named Wigg. No, it doesn’t rhyme at all with earwig or clash in a world with characters named Shailiha and Tristan, not at all….
(drags self back to reviewing the prologue)
Okay, so we have our evil sorceresses weakened and ready for execution by drowning right? After all, they did go on a murderous rampage and nearly succeed in taking over Eritrea. Eritrea’s wizards had to capture them and weaken them in order to stop this. Surely that would be enough reason for their execution right?
Wrong. Apparently, everyone was eager to execute them until they saw how vulnerable these attractive women looked when they were weak. All of a sudden, they felt sorry for them and couldn’t bring themselves to have the sorceresses executed. So instead of drowning, or even better hanging or beheading them, they’re going to send them out on a leaky boat and hope that they just die. Right.
(head explodes)
WHAT THE HELL ARE THESE IDIOTS THINKING?
They made these sorceresses weak so they could execute them in the first place. Why in the world would they suddenly have a fit of pity and decide “Oh no, these women look so weak. We can’t execute them now!”? After all, it’s not as if they have the magical ability to communicate over long distances. Four highly-skilled sorceresses could never do such a thing. They’re just weak women who will die after their scant rations run out! After all, it’s not as if Wigg has to remind himself not to feel drawn in by the seductive wiles (oh wait, he does actually. Even when they’re starving he and the sailors have to resist the urge to bone them. Charming, isn’t it?).
Honestly, there’s every sign that the sorceresses are still dangerous and everyone ignores them. God, I almost hope the sorceresses do survive and invade Eritrea again. (They do, but I don't make it that far)
And….after the sorceresses are cast off, they *gasp, shock manage to contact another sorceress who helps them get back to their own continent which happens to be only a few days away. Who would’ve guessed?
After this exercise in idiocy, we reach Chapter One and cut to Our Hero Tristan. Who’s throwing knives in the forest with his loyal horse Pilgrim by his side because he’s wangsting about becoming King and all the responsibilities it entails. Seriously, his entire thought process revolves around how he doesn’t want to grow up and be King. Legitimate if somewhat annoying for a teenage hero, right? Guess his age.
Thirty.
He’s wangsting like a modern teenager at the age of thirty in a medieval world. I’ll let the stupidity of that sink in for a moment. You would think that by the age of thirty, he would have had some life experiences that would make him grow up such as getting married, going on military campaigns, navigating court politics (wait, Eritrea’s court has no discernable politics. Never mind). My brain, it hurts.
Anyways, moving on. We find out that Tristan is throwing knives with only Pilgrim for company because the first time he tried to throw knives in public, he was bad at it and everyone laughed at him. Therefore, he trained himself to throw knives in the woods and he’s now the best knife fighter ever, but nobody knows it because he’s never showed anybody! Isn’t this awesome?
My brain just jumped out of my head. How in the world would he know how to train himself? How would he catch his mistakes if no one else is watching him? Wouldn’t he just develop bad habits? As someone who has studied a martial art to some degree, I can tell you that there is no way I can catch all my mistakes by myself or learn new moves by myself. It just does not work that way in the real world. But of course, Tristan is just that Special. Between this and his teenage wangst, his Gary Stu vibes just went through the roof.
After Tristan finishes his knife throwing, we get a lovely scene between horse and rider as Tristan plays fetch with his horse. Let me repeat that. He plays fetch. With. His. Horse. He literally holds a carrot in front of Pilgrim and then throws it for him to fetch.
Need I explain how stupid this is?
Then we get another touching scene where Pilgrim pushes Tristan off a cliff as a way of showing his “affection”, and that was it for me. I gave it back to the library. It is literally the worst piece of fiction I have ever attempted to read. It is so bad that it makes wince just thinking about it right now.
My advice for reading this book: DON’T!
ETA: As lady_of_elves was kind enough to point out, Eritrea is also the name of a real country in Africa. The research fail demonstrated in this book never ceases to amaze me.
ETA#2: I was wrong about the generic kingdom's name. It's Eutracia, not Eritrea. Similar, but not the same thing at all. I'm sorry for misleading you about that.