The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Section 4

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Chapter 48 - Chapter 63.

No spoiler tags required. Though it would be highly appreciated if you Uncheck Add to my Update Feed to avoid accidentally spoiling this for your good read friends.

Please do not discuss events from later chapters/books. Referring back to events from a previous section/book is fine.

How Prisms become Prisms is touched on in book 3.

And in later books (and maybe sections, can't remember), you see more drafting from white light, as all the colors are there. I think the glasses and such are somewhat psychological boosters.

The hair thing was gross.

And after reading all 3 back to back to back, I started saying "Sweet Orholam" in my head but in Simon Vance's voice for a week or so when I went to curse.

Finished with this section now as well.

That assassin was really bad. Between "knife while he sleeps", Poison, Drafting, a pistol shot...she went for "let him wake, steer him to the balcony and try to push him over?" Who hires such idiots?^^

I liked the whole arc Liv had. Bringing her into the position to be blackmailed and due to these experiences making the wrong conclusion in the end about her father was a good move. I can see her line of thinking.

King Garadul on the other hand remains a low point. I fear I have read too many really good villains within the last two years, so this mustache twirling fop stands out by a mile. I seriously hope he's just a pawn and doesn't survive the first book.

The assassin, IMO, was comic relief. But when you know who set up said attempt, it doesn't seem like that person would be so sloppy.

Alex wrote: "I have a hard time believing you couldn't tell Gavin and Dazen apart if you were even remotely close to them. (Though I guess the excuse here is that all the people who were close to them are dead? What about Karris then?)"

I agree, this has been bothering me - others who were very close to Dazen recognize him - why doesn't Karris, who was in love with him, recognize Dazen?

Been a while since we've heard much from dear brother in the blue prison, he must be due to make his move soon. That is going to put a new spin on pretty much everything. Maybe the White can take him down. :)

Yeah thats a good point, wouldnt his father recognise the difference in the voices.

also liv problem with her father working for gavin seems to be a pointless part of the story as she is doing the same thing.

Haha, Mark. I guess she did say she didn't have all the same views as her father, and she didn't fight against Gavin like her father did, but still - her outrage is a plot device to throw trouble at the Prism. Hoping she doesn't succeed too horribly.

And ya - his father was one of the people I was thinking of when I wrote that - maybe he can't see, but he can hear. Maybe he does know and is playing some kind of weird wily long-game, but no evidence of that yet and I was surprised as well - his mother knew him.

I'm with you guys on the Dazen/Gavin stuff. Really hard to swallow that no one would catch on, especially someone like Karris who spent a lot of time with both pretty intimately. In their father's case, I guess it's because he's blind? Apparently they spoke somewhat differently though, so yeah, the voices.

The assassination attempt was almost comically inept, especially given that there was some discussion afterwards about what a deadly guild that assassin belonged to.

I'm liking the explanations of chromaturgy more than I did before and more than I thought I would. I do like the way he's doling out the information gradually.

Oh yeah, Liv's misinterpretation of her father's reasons for working with not-Gavin are clearly going to have massive implications. Between that and Kip thinking his mother wanted him to take revenge on Garadul (I'm assuming she actually wanted him to kill someone else - probably Gavin), this book looks like it's going to turn out like a tragic episode of Three's Company, with misunderstanding piled upon misunderstanding. Seems like at this early stage it already feels like he's gone to that well once too often, and in the case of Liv/Corvin, it feels contrived.

I agree with Mark, Liv is being a massive hypocrite: "How can you work with Gavin! He killed our mother! He's pretty hot though, so I'm pretty much down for doing whatever he wants."

I'm really rooting for Kip to get together with Liv, but I can't see a way that it happens naturally. I don't really like the way she teases him and strings him along - she knows exactly how he feels about her and I think she gets a real thrill out of sending mixed messages and torturing him: "hey Kip, you sexually non-threatening, platonic little brother that I never had... come sleep in my bed, come check out my sexy undergarments!"

It's pretty clear at this point I guess which character is causing the most problems for me.

I don't think get the feeling Karris spent a lot of time with Gavin...It seemed like it was one dance and one bad sexual encounter, and then he went off to war and Dazen came back.

I like the double bait and switch - Gavin is good/Dazen is evil, then Gavin is really Dazen and vice versa and we think the good brother is imprisoned, but now after Karris's description of Gavin, it seems like maybe Dazen was the good one after all?

Who was the color wight/drafter in the first chapter? Did he actually know kip? I thought he said something like "You are the reason I am here"...Did he actually know Kip? Or was this just framing for the invasion by King Garadual?

I'm still reading this. Just been a lot of distractions to go with my slow reading pace...

Ch 48

Aglaia is a boring villain. She's like a cartoon character. I really don't like antagonists that are so extremely evil. Threatening to sell her friend into slavery. And of course Liv is forced to go along with it. *sigh*

Ch 49

Dazen's mother knows he's not Gavin, but believes the real Gavin is dead. Did he only come clean about his identity because he was already caught? He can't trust her fully, since he lies about it.

Ch 50

I don't get why the assassin tried to throw him off a balcony? Trying to pass it off as an accident? Why not bring a weapon or use magic to kill him instead? The whole thing felt bizarre to me.

Ch 51

Kip nearly broke the test? And passing the test is worse? Is that just because Dazen did it?

Ch 57

One assumes when "Gavin" talks of embarrassing women at a party as a youth, he really means his brother. Although if it happened before Gavin came of age, maybe it was both of them.

Ch 58

It's nice to finally get some more details on the magic system. I still wish it came sooner than chapter 58 though. I continue to dislike Kip. His internal monologue makes it worse too.

Ch 59

I know very little about him so far, but I already like Corvan Danavis a lot more than most of the characters, which doesn't speak well for them.

Ch 60

So Corvan knows that Gavin is really Dazen. Probably why he was spared.

Ch 62

So Dazen is a superchromat but Gavin isn't. Is that what makes him able to do some of the stuff we've seen him do? Presumably he's hiding his ability though.

I still don't like Kip, but Gavin has grown on me, and Ironfist is awesome.

Ch 63

Liv has the wrong idea about her father and Gavin. I wonder if his keeping the truth from her will bite them in the ass. She's already sworn revenge on Gavin.

So about the glasses..

As Liv explains, you need access to light of the correct color. So things that appear that color work best because they absorb all but that color so it makes seeing the color easier.

The glasses I suspect work like a prism. She mentions how white works best because it contains all the colors. So I suspect the glasses are more than a confidence booster, and enhance the wearer's ability to see their color by breaking them apart when something that reflects their color isn't available.

I really found Liv's behavior a bit hypocritical because when she meets Gavin for the first time she gets blown away by his V shape and all and at that time she does not remember that he was responsible for her mother's death. Then when she meets her father she accuses him.

Corvan is the only character whom I have liked in this book so far.

Also the green drafter handed Kip the rope during the test what was that about?.