Wastrel’s Reviews > Pawn of Prophecy > Status Update
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Wastrel
is on page 78 of 332
Good: I like the fact that there's not only a map at the beginning of the novel (the continent) but also one at the beginning of the story proper (the local country). Sadly, the latter map is virtually illegible.
I also like that Eddings has put time and effort into distances, with a character quoting the average speed of travel by wagon, and then a days-travelled a few pages later. Adds more solidity.
— Jun 11, 2024 11:51AM
I also like that Eddings has put time and effort into distances, with a character quoting the average speed of travel by wagon, and then a days-travelled a few pages later. Adds more solidity.
Wastrel
is on page 70 of 332
This is... far better than I was expecting/remembering!
The prose of the Tolkien-rip-off prologue is pretty bad. But the prose of the main story is (while old-fashioned, almost Victorian) pretty decent, with some nice turns of phrase, and the characterisation so far is simple but effective. Very little has happened, but it's intriguing.
I still expect it will go downhill...
— Jun 10, 2024 12:24PM
The prose of the Tolkien-rip-off prologue is pretty bad. But the prose of the main story is (while old-fashioned, almost Victorian) pretty decent, with some nice turns of phrase, and the characterisation so far is simple but effective. Very little has happened, but it's intriguing.
I still expect it will go downhill...
[all NPCs from a given culture are virtually identical*, their cultures are two-dimensional rip-offs of historical stereotypes, there is no connection between cultures (Romans and Vikings and Mediaeval Knights living next to one another without transfers of culture and technology), and the history involves everyone sitting still and remaining completely unchanged for thousands and thousands of years at a time]
...and the genuine care and attention given to, for instance, economics. We've had discussions of weights and measures, coinage purity (and implicitly face-value-to-real-value ratios), profit fractions (by which I mean how much of final market price goes to various participants in the supply chain), and price variance between areas as the driver for trade. We've even briefly discussed... what I think (as a financial layperson) are forwards contracts!?
It doesn't actually read that weirdly, so far, because the infodumping is fairly organic (having a protagonist who is entirely ignorant about the world who is travelling with an experienced merchant is a good setup for organic infodumping!).
What it does do is provide the otherwise paper-thin worldbuilding with an inherent sense of depth and solidity that it desperately needs. Knowing that Sendarian and Tolnedran silver coins have different precious metal contents is not actually relevant to the plot in any way... but knowing that the author knows this helps create a sense that we're in safe hands (or, at least, somewhat mitigates the ample evidence that we aren't...).
*except the pseudo-Romans, who are divided into decadent, fat, orgy-attending noblemen and dour, practical legionaries.