Bitterwood Chapter 2 -- Be Vewwy Vewwy Quiet, We're Hunting Humans!

So... something comes up in this chapter that hints at this book's twist later on.  More I won't spoil yet, but much like certain revelations in Revealing Eden, I suppose only time will tell if it's a good twist, a bad one, or a potentially good one spoiled by bad writing.

Chapter 2, "Circles," opens with Gadreel heading into a clearing in the forest...

 

I know, I know, yet another named character to keep track of.  Lots of writers seem to believe that it's not an epic fantasy book without Loads and Loads of Characters.  The problem with packing a ton of characters into a book, though, is that each one has to serve a purpose to the story.  Putting in extra named characters -- especially POV characters, characters who get parts of the story told from their point of view -- can be detrimental to the story, as it can make it hard for readers to keep track of who's who (especially if names are similar) and detract from the actually important characters.

Anyhow... Gadreel is heading into a clearing to meet with his master, "the finest tracker in the land."  Maybe we can get some proof of this before the text declares him "the finest tracker?"  Also, the tracker's name is Zanzeroth, because we are still in the Land of Silly Fantasy Names here...

Gadreel, Azkaban, and Zanzie are all in this clearing three miles from where Bodriel's body was found because Zanzie has declared it's where the prince died.  Also, Gadreel is apparently a slave.  What?

Gadreel suspected, however, that the king ignored him due to his status.  It was a simple matter to treat a human as a slave.  The notion of a sky-dragon such as himself forced into servitude made some uncomfortable. -- p. 41

Understandable, I suppose... and yes, we do get an explanation as to why a dragon is a slave.  And yes, it's stupid.

Also Zanzie -- who's apparently pink instead of red due to his age, something that makes me giggle uncontrollably -- turns out to be a Scarily Competent Tracker.

"Here is where the slave, Cron, skidded to a halt as Bodiel dropped from the sky.  See, the handprint here?... The human fell and had difficulty regaining his footing."  Zanzeroth moved his claw to direct the king's view to a patch of broken ground several yards away.  "That is where Bodiel dropped from the sky.  Cron's footprints then reappear several feet behind where he stopped -- he's jumped away out of fear of Bodiel.  There are signs that Bodiel toyed with the human, blocking his moves, prolonging the moment before the kill.  And then..."  Zanzeroth trailed off, his gaze flickering over the mud, studying it as one might study a book.  "And then Bodiel staggered backward.  See the marks?  Cron fled, passing through the brush... here." -- p. 42-43

I'd complain about this, but TV Tropes' page on Scarily Competent Trackers points out that there are real-life trackers who can not only tell the approximate age, sex, and health of their quarry, but see through their prey's efforts to disguise their path.  So I suppose this level of skill has some precedent, especially in a species that's a natural predator.  It still makes for somewhat boring reading.  It might have been nice to actually see this scene take place instead of hearing it secondhand through Zanzie the Pink Dragon.  

Suddenly this character is much less

threatening-sounding...

"We could follow Cron with ease but he's not the one who killed Bodiel."

"I know that" Albekizan said.  "Bitterwood's to blame.  The Ghost Who Kills haunts these woods tonight."

"Perhaps," Zanzeroth said.  "But I've yet to see a ghost leave tracks.  The murder of your son was merely a man." -- p. 43-44

Zanzie doesn't seem to understand nicknames or metaphor very well...

Zanzie continues, pointing out where Bitterwood tied his horse and where he took a shot from a tree branch.  He was apparently shot five times in the back, shoulder and throat, with the fifth and last arrow being the fatal one, but apparently Bitterwood wasn't satisfied with just killing him.

"The prince struggles to rise, unwilling to accept his fate.  He crawls toward the water, seeking relief.  Still the arrows come.  The archer knows Bodiel has mere moments to live but wants him to suffer.  The shots that follow aren't meant to hasten death, but to increase agony.  The arrows fall upon the tender flesh of the wings and tail.  Bodiel at last collapses, his left wing in the river.  Slowly, the speeding current drags him from the bank." -- p. 45

Okay, now I'm questioning Zanzie's tracking skills -- how is he going to know in what order the arrows hit Bodiel?  Also, how are we supposed to sympathize with Bitterwood at the moment?  He already proved with the dead sky-dragon last chapter that he knows where to hit a dragon to kill it instantly... yet here he's plainly tortured another dragon to death.  Not only is turning Bodiel into a scaly pincushion a waste of arrows (archers will tell you that making and fletching arrows is a pain in the butt, so conserve and save them wherever you can), but not exactly conducive to making Bitterwood a sympathetic, likable, or relatable protagonist.

And yes, I get it, it's possible for a character to be an anti-hero... but in my opinion, anti-heroes are boring and unpleasant to read about.  And somehow I get the feeling that we're supposed to be siding with Bitterwood here...

Zanzie slips in the mud, and Gadreel goes to help him up, but Zanzie gets up on his own and splatters Gadreel with mud "that smelled faintly of dung."  Again, fair warning, Maxey is obsessed with poop in this novel, and this is probably the mildest incident involving refuse that crops up.

Not posting an actual picture of poop... you get

this meme again.  I have some standards.

Zanzie declares that Bitterwood fled on horseback, just as a group of earth-dragons show up with two "ox-dogs" -- basically ox-sized dogs like the one that showed up in the "prolog," though whenever the name "ox-dog" crops up I can't help but think of an actual horned dog.

To be fair, this totally looks like the kind

of dog a dragon would own...

Earth-dragons were solid and squat, no taller than humans but twice as broad, with thick muscular arms instead of wings, and powerful shoulders to support their thick-boned tortoise-like heads.  They were strong as mules but their strength did little to slow the powerful dogs. -- p. 46

So basically they're the lizard-people that some conspiracy theorists like to claim are in control of human society?  Is Maxey a Reptilian theorist?  

The hounds find the scent -- though wouldn't they need a sample of Bitterwood's scent first? -- and Zanzie looses them to find their prey.  As the chase goes on Gadreel follows, and we get an info-dump regarding Gadreel's past... which probably should have been saved for a quieter moment instead of a tense chase scene.  Here it just breaks up the flow of the story.

Apparently three years ago Azeroth imposed a new tax... one that had to be paid in slaves instead of money or goods.  The sky-dragons held a Council of Colleges -- a meeting of dragons representing various schools and libraries throughout the kingdom -- and decide they don't want to part with any human slaves because they feel the menial labor of "cooking their own food or emptying their own chamber pots" is beneath them.  So instead they decide to pay using sky-dragon students who are failing at their studies.  I guess that's one way to give students incentive to improve their grades?

I dunno... this reasoning just seems stupid to me.  Why demand a tax of slaves when you can just raise gold taxes and buy them yourself?  And won't turning dragons into slaves just increase the unrest in your kingdom?  It feels like this bit was just thrown in to make the dragons EXTRA EVIL instead of for any logical purpose.

Anyhow... so Gadreel served as a messenger for awhile before King Azkaban lost him in a bet to Zanzie, and now Gadreel's hoping to impress the king enough to win his freedom.  Good luck with that, Gaddie...

More of the dogs sniffing around, and then they emerge from the forest and spot a riderless horse in a grassy field.  Zanzie kills it and realizes they've all been had

"Where is he?" Albekizan said as he touched down nearby.  "Where's Bitterwood?"

"We've been tricked, Sire."  Zanzeroth said.  "This is the horse we've been following.  I can smell it.  But Bitterwood must have dismounted early in the chase.  I saw no sign.  Perhaps he clung to an overhead branch."

"Damn your incompetent hide," the king shouted.  "If we've lost my son's murderer due to your carelessness, I'll have your head!" -- p. 49

Hey, Zanzie's actually been pretty dang competent as a tracker.  Also, Maxey, maybe you should have corrected that typo instead of playing the retcon game during your revisions...

Zanzie crawls along the ground, sniffing the hoofprints -- though if dragons have a keen enough sense of smell to pick up scents, what do they need dogs for?  Finally they get back to the stream, and he decides that Bitterwood dismounted in the water and ran through it to lose his scent.  They run a dog along either bank to find the spot where he stepped out of the water, which I admit is pretty dang clever.

Then everyone skids to a halt, and we get our first sign that this is no ordinary fantasy -- something someone merely calls "the lines."

Straining his neck to see around Zanzeroth, Gadreel could see that whoever had spoken had been correct.  They had reached one of the bleached, cracked stone lines that stretched endless miles through the kingdom.  Some scholars claimed the lines were only ancient roads, built by a long-vanished race of giants.  A more common belief was that the barren, flat stone marked a web of evil energy that ran through the earth.  In the presence of this cursed ground, the night was unnaturally quiet. -- p. 51

Okay, so remnants of an ancient civilization are fairly commonplace, if somewhat cliche, in fantasy... so what makes this one so different?  Read on...

The sun-dragons and Gadreel are unnerved enough by the "haunted stone" line to continue the chase from the air, while the earth-dragons and ox-dogs go on foot.  (Yes, Maxey's in love with his hyphens...)  The road passes through a tunnel, and the dogs go in... but there's a yelp and only one comes out.

Zanzeroth peered into the dark opening.  Gadreel strained to see and spotted the first ox-dog, dead, its head crushed by a heavy stone.  Zanzeroth took a spear from his quiver, pushed the shaft along the floor, then lifted it to reveal a loop of thin rope.

"A deadfall," he muttered.  "The killer has booby-trapped his escape route.  Cunning, for a human." -- p. 52

Okay, just how much of a head start did these guys give Bitterwood anyhow?  If they waited long enough to give him time to booby-trap his escape route, they're freaking incompetent.  Though I feel sorry for that dog... it didn't do anything wrong, just its job...

Here, have some cute Rottweiler pups

to make up for it

The chase continues with the last dog... and we get Sign #2 that something fishy's going on...

Gadreel followed, growing ever more nervous.  They were walking along the diamond.  All the winged dragons were familiar with the place for it could be seen from the air for miles: four gigantic stone circles surrounded by an even larger diamond of stone.  There were several of these constructs throughout the kingdom, in places where the mystery lines crossed in elaborate networks of ramps and bridges.  The last remnants, perhaps, of a long-vanished culture.  These places were much feared, for four circles were the symbol of death. -- p 53

Wondering what this thing is?  Here's a hint:

That's a cloverleaf interchange, usually used when two freeways or otherwise busy roads cross and allows cars to move more easily between them.  They're pretty much exclusive to roads with motor vehicle traffic... so what's one doing in our bog-standard fantasy novel?  

I'll let you, my good readers, ponder over the implications of this for awhile.  Because it's our first hint as to the weird and troubling twist that comes later on in the nove.

I will also point out here that I wish Gadreel had explained WHY four circles are a symbol of death.  Symbols are meant to represent an idea, but there's usually a reason why a particular symbol is used to represent a particular idea.  Just announcing "4 sirkls iz DEATH" isn't enough.

The dog ends up veering away from the interchange toward a "large field of broken stone" and an ancient brick building.  But then the dog gets an arrow through the eye and dies.  Geez, Maxey what have you got against dogs?

Here, have more puppies

King Avada Kedavra sends the earth-dragon soldiers into the building to flush Bitterwood out.. but evidently Bitterwood's been very busy while they've been chasing him.

"He's fled deeper," said Zanzeroth.  "Or perhaps-"

His words were cut short as a dragon cried out from the darkness, his voice followed by a thunderous rumble.  The doorway glowed suddenly with a light to rival the rising sun.  A ball of flame rolled forward. led by a blast of searing, turpentine-scented air that threw Gadreel from his feet. -- p. 54 

Just how much of a head start DID they give this guy?

While the earth-dragons get fried alive (how ironic), Bitterwood runs off across the field.  Zanzie dives to grab him, but he pries up a "rusty iron disk" and jumps down a hole.  Here's a hint as to what exactly this convenient mystery-hole is:

I'm pretty sure most of you have already guessed the big twist by now... but let's let it simmer a little longer.  Because Maxey manages to make the big reveal of the twist even stupider than you think it is.

Zanzie stabs into the hole with a spear, only to get an arrow slicing open his face and delivering a healthy dose of Eye Scream for his trouble.  Ouch!  Albus-Dumbledore gets down on his belly and starts pawing around inside the hole, though you'd think his hunter losing an eye just seconds ago would be a sign that that's not a good idea.  Is every dragon in this book a raging idiot?

Gadreel sees his chance to prove himself and earn his freedom, and volunteers to go in after Bitterwood.  See above note about dragons and idiocy... He enters the Absurdly Spacious Sewer and goes a little ways, only for something to tangle up his legs and trip him up, washing him back to where he started.  Said "something" isn't a net or some sort of fancy snare -- it's just Bitterwood's cloak.  

How did these dragons manage to conquer humanity?  They're portrayed as so incompetent that they couldn't take over a McDonald's.  Seriously, how are these creatures so threatening again?

The king hauls Gadreel out of the sewer and asks if he found him.  Gadreel considers lying and telling him he fought the killer, but confesses that he got away.  I half-expected Afghanistan to start beating Gadreel or at least chewing him out for his failure, given how one-dimensional Maxey's made his villains so far, but surprisingly he just tells him "you did your best.  Be grateful to have escaped with your life."  Wow... does the king have a spot of decency after all?

Zanzie's tending to his wounded eye with a bloody bundle of leaves.  There's an aside that no one knows more about medicinal plants than Zanzie and "the entire world was his pharmacy," but fresh leaves don't exactly make an absorbent bandage...

"We'll head back to the castle for more earth-dragons and fresh dogs [said Zanzeroth].  The hunt will continue.  In daylight our prey no longer has the advantage of shadows."

"No," Albekizan said.  "I admire your spirit, old friend, but we need not chase this demon into further traps.  There's a solution to this problem, an obvious one.  We've paid a horrible price this night.  I vow this -- the debt of Bitterwood will be repaid in blood." -- p. 57

Seemed appropriate

I was sorely tempted to just lay out the entire twist in this chapter, especially since I figure it's really obvious at this point, but I'll give it a little more time.  Maybe wait for more hints to be dropped.  I'm just dying for a chance to use the "what a twist!" GIF from Robot Chicken again...

Bitterwood Chapter 1 -- If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten

For those wondering if there was a glitch and we started sporking the wrong book by accident, don't worry -- the dragons actually show up in this chapter.  Whether that improves things or makes them worse I'll leave up to you, gentle reader...

Chatper One, "Lightning," opens in the year 1099 DA (Dragon Age), in Year 68 of Albekizan's reign -- twenty-nine years since Preacher Man slaughtered half a village and forcibly converted our protagonist and his girlfriend/forced wife to God.  After that promising start, you'd think there'd be nowhere for this book to go but up, huh?

And because the name Alba-whatever is even more unwieldy than Eragon's villainous name Galbatorix, I can promise you I'm going to bungle it up every time I type it.  You decide if it's accidental or I'm just doing it on purpose to amuse my readers further...

Or a blog full of people eager for a

little schadenfreude

The sad little fire gave out more smoke than warmth.  The hunter crouched before it, turning a chunk of ash-flecked meat on the flat stone he'd placed amidst the coals.  The movement of the stone stirred more smoke.  The hunter coughed and wiped soot from his eyes.  He stretched his bony, knotted fingers above the embers, fighting off the chill.  He was a thin man, hair shoulder-length and grey, the deep lines of his leathery face forming a permanent frown.  He pulled his heavy cloak more tightly around him.

In the tree above him hung the body of a dragon, blood dripping from its mouth. -- p. 25

Aw man, the first dragon we meet and it's dead.  Curses.  Also the author packs a LOT of separate actions into that opening paragraph, which just makes it feel overly busy.  If all the actions were connected in some way, a logical chain of actions (reach out, check the food, flip it over, put it back), it wouldn't be such a big deal.  As it is, it feels choppy.

The dragon is apparently a sky-dragon, which seems pretty redundant -- most people picture dragons as flying creatures, even the wingless Chinese l'ung that are technically not dragons but get called that anyhow for lack of a better translation.  Apparently sky-dragons get called that for their pretty blue color.  Imaginative...

The text also makes it a point to say that the sky-dragons are the smallest species of dragon and aren't particularly dangerous despite having claws and "saw-like" teeth, and indeed are highly civilized and "fancied themselves as artists, poets, and scholars."  So when the text also brags that the hunter's killed plenty of sky-dragons over the years, it really doesn't make him seem more badass or awesome -- just that he likes to target the weakest dragons possible.

The hunter had brought the sky-dragon down with a single arrow, expertly placed on the underside of the jaw, the iron tip coming to rest dead center in the dragon's brain.  The beast had fallen from the air like a suddenly dead thing, catching in the crook of a tree.  -- p. 26

Maybe because it IS a "suddenly dead thing?"  Similes don't exactly work when the thing in question is Shaped Like Itself.  According to Dictionary.com, a simile is "a figure of speech in which two unlike things are explicitly compared."  (Emphasis my own.)  Saying that the dead dragon fell from the sky like a suddenly dead thing is like saying "a rose is like a rose" or "a bad fantasy novel is like a bad fantasy novel."  It doesn't work except for humor purposes (like the famous "that snorkel's been just like a snorkel to me!" in Weird Al Yankovic's "Albuquerque"), and I really doubt that's what Maxey was going for here.

Also, I think this scene would have worked much better if the chapter had actually opened with our hunter shooting down the dragon instead of skipping directly to the aftermath.  Show, don't tell, folks.

The hunter stole the dragon's satchel, stared at its head and decided it reminded him of a goat's head, and cut out its tongue, which is the source of the meat now cooking on the fire.  He roots through the satchel, finding a bottle of wine, bread, apples, jerky, and something called "horch" which is a paste made of fermented fish guts and chilies.  Ew...

I gotta ask, though -- why is a dragon carting around this kind of food?  The jerky is understandable, but apples and bread?  The dragon was described as having crocodile-like jaws and teeth, which indicates a meat-eater that's not really built for being omnivorous.  Wouldn't it make more sense for this dragon to be packing meat instead of human-style food?  I think Maxey wanted the human-style food to be a convenient find for his hunter and didn't think of the logistics...

There's a few other items in the bag, including a silk blanket and a jar of ink "made from vinegar and walnut husks."  I don't know why that's important enough to be emphasized.  There's also quills made from the dragon's own feather-like wing-scales (neat, but not sure how that's important either) and a leather-bound book full of sketches and notes about flowers.  Poor dragon, he just wanted to study flowers before getting shot down...

Rendered in dark walnut ink, the flowers had a life and beauty.  The blossoms swelled on the page seductively enough to tempt bees.

The hunter ripped out the drawings and fed them to the crackling fire.  The paper writhed as if alive, curling, crumbling into large black leaves that wafted upward with the smoke, the inky designs still faintly visible until they vanished in the dark sky. -- p. 27

I find that quite a few writers will try to spice up their writing by including random "flowery" bits like the above -- sections of description that stand out against the plain-ness of the rest of the story, Purple Prose against Beige Prose.  Not only does the inconsistency stand out, but extra description like this should really be saved for important details, not random bits.

The hunter used his knife to retrieve the roasted tongue and sat back against the tree, oblivious to the blood soaking the trunk.  As he chewed his meal, he stared at the ink bottle.  It stirred memories.  Memories for the hunter were never a good thing. -- p. 28

See what I mean?  The step up in descriptive writing would have served this paragraph much better than the previous one of randomly burning paper.  It's the more important passage, and thus needed the extra emphasis, not the Beige Prose.

The hunter picks up the book, doodles on a page with one of the quills, and then writes his ABCs until "it all came back to him."  I'm going to guess Maxey means his writing skills, though he's unclear here and could be referring to anything, really.

Also the paper's apparently "white like an apple blossom.  White like a young bride's skin."  Again, know where it's appropriate to insert random ornate description, people...

The hunter starts writing a letter to Recanna.  It's probably obvious who our hunter is by this point -- our "hero," Bant Bitterwood.  At this point are we going to learn what happened to him and his wife and their homicidal teacher since we last met them?  

Nope -- Bant quits writing the letter halfway through and tosses the book on the fire, saying "this was not a night to lose himself in memory and melancholy."  So much for fleshing out our hero a little more... or answering any questions...

Page break, and we get drums, a choir of sky-dragons, a royal chamber, and a brand new character!  Aren't you excited?

Jandra shivered with excitement as the ceremony began.  She was sixteen now, and this was the first time she'd persuaded Vendevorex to allow her to attend the contest.  For centuries the sun-dragons had used this ritual as the first step toward the enthronement of a new ruler.  She would be the first human to ever witness the ceremony.

More precisely, she reminded herself, she would be the first human to ever witness the ceremony and survive.  She looked at the two human slaves in their cages across the room.  She knew her sympathy should lie with them.  Alas, it was difficult to feel any connection to the brutish, wild-eyed men in the cages.  Wearing her blue satin gown with an elaborate peacock headdress, Jandra felt more kinship with the dragons that surrounded her. -- p. 29

Vendevorex?  Maxey's names for his dragons aren't QUITE on the level of "decide your fantasy names by letting your cat walk across the keyboard," but they're still ridiculous.  I hereby dub Vendevorex Vortex, because I can.

And because it amuses me to picture a

Decepticon hanging out with dragons as I

spork this book

Vortex is the king's personal wizard, and the king puts up with his quirks -- including having raised Jandra from infancy as his apprentice -- because he's supposedly "the most clever dragon in the kingdom."  If the dragons are as harsh as Maxey will have us believe later on in the book, I can't see them allowing a human to be trained as a wizard's apprentice.  Kept as a pet maybe (and we will meet human pets later on in the book), but not treated as an equal.  

There seem to be three kinds of dragons in attendance at this ceremony -- "brutish, thick-muscled" earth dragons, "elite, scholarly" sky-dragons, and sun-dragons (named for their red-and-orange coloring, apparently) who are apparently the nobility of the dragon clans.  

Twice the size of sky-dragons, they ruled the world with their heads held high in the regal air that came so naturally to them.  -- p. 30

Please tell me I'm not the only one who finds that phrase awkward...

The info-dumping on the types of dragons is interrupted by two sun-dragons flying in -- King Azkaban and Queen Tanthia (hey, a name that's actually halfway not-ridiculous!).  Then we get another infodump describing the ceremonial hall, a circle "hundreds of yards in diameter" half covered with a dome and half open to the sky.  Sounds like a Super Bowl stadium to me...

Also, dragons are apparently bipedal and walk like "toothy, scaly chickens."  Which kind of ruins any attempt at giving us a sense of grandeur at these creatures...

The king and queen sit down on mounds of cushions on a dais as golden doors open to admit the High Biologian, an old sky-dragon named Metron.  How come some characters have names that are halfway reasonable and others get silly ones?  Also, High Biologian?  Why not High Wizard?  I have no idea right now...

Then two more dragons fly in, landing with "downy grace" in the center of the hall.  Downy grace?  Downy is defined as "fluffy or soft" or "covered in down."  I can see these dragons landing with "gentle" grace or even "soft" grace (though that last one is a stretch), but "downy?"  Don't just pick the first word in the thesaurus, people -- make sure it actually fits what you're describing!

Not sorry for abusing this meme

These dragons are apparently named Bodiel and Shandrazel.  Someone's really in love with their silly names...

Bodiel was radiant.  The crimson of his open wings blended with the sunset behind him as if all the sky were part of his being.  The wind ruffled his feathery scales, making the mane of his long, serpentine neck flicker like flame.  Light played on the rings of gold that pierced his wings.  He stretched and relaxed the long, powerful talons at the mid-joint of each wing, displaying sharp claws painted with powdered emerald.  The crowd nodded with silent approval at the display.  Jandra's heart fluttered at Bodiel's beauty. -- p. 31

Dear Primus, no, please not a dragon/human romance.  We just got our overdose of borderline-bestiality from the last book we sporked...

Shandra-whozit doesn't get such a vivid description -- he just scowls and stares at the floor.  Guess which one of these two is going to be the one that gets offed and kicks off the plot proper...

Metron gives a long and flowery speech about Alakazam's two mighty sons, and how each his his pride and promise.  Then we finally get an explanation of how the rite of succession works for dragons... and boy, is it a doozy.

Apparently these aren't King Alakazoo's oldest sons -- he's had several before.  But tradition decrees that the heir to the throne is banished from the kingdom, then must return and kill the king in order to claim the throne.  So... the dragons are essentially the Sith?

Sorry, but this just seems wasteful.  What happens if none of the king's sons are able -- or willing -- to kill him and take the throne by force?  What happens if the king ends up killing off all his offspring and dies without an heir?  And doesn't this kind of succession just breed hostility in the royal family instead of a strong line that'll, I dunno, actually rule effectively instead of constantly worrying about being stabbed in the back Starscream-style?  I mean, it works for the Sith, because anger and hostility and treachery fuel the Dark Side, but in this case it just seems counter-productive.

Pictured -- not the best person to give advice

on how to get ahead in politics

Also, whoever wins this contest will be the son banished from the kingdom to plot his taking of the throne, while the other will be castrated and sent to the libraries to serve Metron for the rest of his days.  Again, not effective.  Wouldn't you want some kind of backup ready to take the throne in case Abracadabra kills off the rest of his progeny and kicks the bucket without an heir?  You're essentially sterilizing half the family tree just to keep up a stupid tradition.

And while I'm all for Maxey giving these dragons their own culture and traditions, they have to make sense.  Most traditions in the real world have some basis, whether it's religious or flat-out common sense.  Here it feels inserted just to ensure the dragons are especially barbaric, when in reality a tradition like this would wipe out the royal line within a couple generations.

As the sun set, few in the great hall doubted that before dawn Bodiel would defeat his brother... Jandra saw no reason to doubt the consensus of the crowd.  She believed that one day Bodiel would return and vanquish his father to seize the kingdom.  She hoped he would be a fair and wise ruler. -- p. 33

Yup, Bodiel's gonna die... 

The contest itself involves releasing the two human slaves -- Cron and Tulk, which sound more like cave men than anything else -- and having the dragon princes hunt down their assigned slave and kill it.  So the future of the kingdom rests on who can best squish a human.  Lovely.  I get that these ARE predators, and they'd probably want the ultimate predator on their throne... but here it just feels like Maxey's doing everything possible to make his dragons EVIL and bloodthirsty and entirely against humans.

The humans are released and run away.  Albatross grumps that "humans these days are worthless" and why can't they find any more good prey.  Metron points out that they've always culled the best men from the human villages for hunts, so it only makes sense that humanity's in decline.  I have a feeling I might actually like Metron -- it sounds like he may be one of the few logical characters in the book.

Vortex suggests banning the sport of human-hunting to let "the human stock" recover, but Albus blows him off and accuses him of being soft.  He says they make "fine pets and adequate game" but he hates how their stench sullies his kingdom, even though Vortex points out that humans provide dragonkind with food and gold.  Can we make these dragons any more Obviously Evil?

Albeedo declares that the hunt can begin, and Bodiel flies off.  Shandrazel stays where he is, though, and refuses to join in the ceremony.

"Father," Shandrazel said, then paused to take a breath.  After a moment he looked up, facing the king squarely.  He said in a firm but respectful tone, "You know my feelings.  I do not desire your throne.  I will not hunt Tulk.  This ceremony is archaic and cruel.  There is no need for blood to be shed.  Simply appoint Bodiel as your successor.  Your word is law." -- p. 35

Looks like we have our token sympathetic dragon here.  I predict that at some point he runs into Bant and forces Bant to overcome his prejudice against dragons to make an alliance of some kind with him.  (This is not a spoiler -- it's legitimately been so long since I read this book the first time that much of the plot is foggy to me...)

Afghanistan rages at Shandrazel, spit flying -- you know a character is the bad guy when they go into a literal spitting rage.  But while the king's distracted yelling at his son, lightning flashes and Bodiel can be seen diving into the trees beyond the hall... and the queen screams.

"Oh!" Queen Tanthia cried.  "Oh no!"

"What is it, my love?" Albekizan asked.  "Is our rebellious son breaking your heart?"

"It's the shadows," Tanthia said, quivering.  "The shadows in the room have grown so dark.  I feel their chill in my soul." -- p. 36

First off, while dramatic lightning is cool, it is a bit of an overused trope.  Second of all, unless it's been established that the queen is clairvoyant, having the cliched premonition of doom is tiring and a bad way to foreshadow something bad happening.  Just my thought.

At that moment, a mournful, anguished howl rose from the distant forest.  Lightning flashed and thunder washed away the voice.  The wind twisted, whipping back into the hall with a harsh blast of cold rain, sending the torch flames dancing wildly.  Tanthia gasped as one of the torches extinguished, a soul forever lost.

"He's dead!" Tanthia cried.  "My son is dead!" -- p. 37

Okay, it was NOT established that the torches are linked to the dragon's lives at all.  Why would a torch going out be proof that Bodiel's dead?  I get that it's a clumsy attempt at being symbolic and all, but it just feels melodramatic and cliche here.

The king and the other prince stop fighting and fly off to go find Bodiel.  Vortex tells Jandra they should go and sprinkles some silver dust that apparently makes them invisible, then leads her away... and another page break.

THIS section is from Shandrazel's point of view, and here the author hammers home how he's one of the few good dragons in a species of complete villainy.

Shandrazel hated flying in the rain... yet duty drove him, duty and love.  Despite their differences, he loved his father and cherished his spirited younger brother.  He hoped that no harm had come to either of them.  -- p. 38

Because no other dragon can be capable of love, am I right?  But wait, there's more... and we get THIS doozy of a line.

Despite his father's keenness for the sport of hunting humans, Shandrazel saw no more challenge in it than he did in his mother's appetite for devouring baskets of white kittens. -- p. 38

Delicious and nutritious, taste just like chicken!*

BWAHAHAHAHAAH seriously?  It's not enough that the dragons hunt and oppress humans -- Maxey literally has to make them so evil that they eat kittens!  This is so cartoonishly evil that it ceases to be at all believable.  Maxey is obviously not interested in making compelling, complex villains.  He just wants to take the shortcuts to make his characters as obviously, cartoonishly evil as possible.  Even if kittens have to be sacrificed to ensure it.

Sorry... I'm a firm believer that villains can be complex and even sympathetic, and it drives me nuts when writers don't even bother to develop their villains beyond "hahaha, look at me, I'm EVIL!"

Shan (just gonna call him Shan from here on out) spots a dead dragon in a tree, but it's the sky-dragon Bant killed much earlier.  Also, the corpse stinks because "the sky-dragons bowels had loosened after death."  Fair warning -- Maxey is obsessed with poop.  It'll come up quite a bit in this novel...

"His name was Dacorn," said Shandrazel.  "A biologian.  He taught me botany during my summer on the Isle of Horses.  Who would do such a thing?  He was a gentle soul.  He had no enemies." -- p. 39

Who is Shan talking to?  I know people talk out loud to themselves on occasion, but I think musings like this work better as private thoughts.  Also, having the dead dragon be a "gentle soul" doesn't exactly endear Bant to me any more...

When Shan finally finds his father, he's holding the "arrow-riddled" body of Bodiel to his chest.  Called it...

The king dropped Bodiel into the mud and rose to his full length.  In his fore-talon he held a single arrow and he studied the bright red fletching of the arrow as if he were studying his soul. Lightning struck nearby, again and again, shaking the ground.  Fire spouted from the tops of the tallest, most ancient trees.  Albekizan didn't flinch.  Shandrazel couldn't move.  As the thunder faded from their ringing ears, Albekizan held the arrow to the sky and shouted a single, bone-chilling word.

"Bitterwood!" -- p. 41

Skyward Scream?  Check.  Say My Name?  Check.  Dramatic Thunder and Empathic Environment, complete with Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death?  Check, check, and mate.  Maxey evidently leaves no cliche unturned when creating a dramatic death scene.

So far we've gotten a handful of characters, but none that are terribly sympathetic or developed at the moment.  And the few moments of worldbuilding we've gotten have been cliche or don't make a lot of sense.  Not a promising start...

*The author of this spork does not condone the actual consumption of kittens and makes no guarantees as to their taste and nutritional value.  The author claims no responsibility or liability for anyone who attempts to eat kittens.