Part 2 of the hateration

[telophase]

And tonight I continue with my hateread of Mercedes Lackey's latest Herald Spy book.

Look for even more entertaining autocorrects as I have also taken muscle relaxant because I did something weird to my upper back.

I'll keep updating this post as I think of things to say. SPOILERRRRRRRRRRS for this book (and Gaudy Night, of all things) abound.


Short version: if you haven't read my previous post, Lackey is rewriting Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night in Valdemar. Sigh. Go read the previous post now.

So was my prediction last night that the fragile girl who is taking the poison pen letters to heart would be a Cattermole analogue correct?

Oh *hell* yes it was. They fished her out of the river half-drowned.

Edit: So she can't do the romance plot if Gaudy Night because the protagonists are already married. But she CAN have them sit through a homily from one of the religious orders on the ideal marriage being the perfect marriage of equals, with both partners' jobs being equally important!

Edit 2: And now we're back to the idea of surveillance being good. Mags, who is a telepath, has been musing for a while that things would be so much easier if he could just scan everyone's mind to look for guilt, but that it would be unethical and no one would trust him afterward (but running a spy ring is A-OK!). But now one of the King's inner circle has brought it up and the magic horse has explained that it's ok if you get people's permission first, and Mags realtor Zoes that the innocent will have no problem with it and only the guilty will balk! So that idea's all hunky-dory!

Uh 'realizes' thanks autocorrect.

Edit 3: Oh wait they realize it's a bad idea now because someone might not want Mags in their head and they'd always be under suspicion.

And they just realized that of course they can do the Truth Spell that they USE IN COURT ALL THE TIME, and that several of the protagonists know, on people and ask if they know anything about the poison pen! Gosh how long did it take?

Edit 4: and you just can't have bad guys without making them irredeemably evil. The dastardly male cult has women in the kitchens who are beaten and raped whenever, by any of the inner sanctum who feels like it, the poison pen murdered a dog and mutilated the body, and the person who may be behind everything looks to be the father of a male tutor with pedophiliac tendencies towards the young ladies he was hired to tutor, who killed himself when the family found out. If you're keeping track of Gaudy Night refs, he would be the equivalent of the scholar who hid a letter that blew his thesis to shreds and killed himself over it. Only EEEEEEEVIL! And with a vengeful father instead of a vengeful wife, because having a woman do it would be too nuanced for this sort of book.

94% of the way through. On the how me stretch now!

(Home, autocorrect!)

Edit the Final: Done! And there was a slight bit of money sdirection: it wasn't the father but the BROTHER of the dead tiptoe! Tutor. And misdirection, autocorrect. And the big investigation where Mags went undercover in the temple and then was picked to be in the crew that went to kill the (woman) Kings Own (who is also Mags' wife)...? Took the last 5% of the book, so that the book still has the feel of every book in this and the last series, like most of the book is spent farting around until she goes OH WAIT I NEED A VILLAIN and pulls one out of her ass. Even though the plot was actually gore grounded FOREGROOONDED ... FOREGROUNDED. Arg. In the front for most of the book.

I'm on my phone with a car on top of me CAT DAMMIT, hence the autocorrect madness.


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