Well. I finally got around to reading The Unwilling Warlord, and I must say that, despite the world of Ethshar being mildly interesting, the book is disappointment. It builds up nice and well in the first 2/3 of the book, but in the last 1/3, when you expect it to unfold and flourish in some interesting, surprising, revealing manner, Watt-Evans instead decides to pursue the lamest, boringest plot possible, all the while insulting the reader's intelligence.
For the last 1/3 of the book, Watt-Evans attempts to make the eventual reasons for Vond's undoing a "mystery". He suggests that Sterren knows the answer, but the reader is not told what it is. When the end finally arrives, it is a disapointing anti-climax as Watt-Evans chooses the most non-eventful possible outcome that has been blatantly obvious all the while.
He employs an exceedingly lame plot device where Vond is so stupid he just doesn't see it coming. The author neither takes the opportunity to explain what the Calling is, nor does he have Sterren take Vond down in a more interesting manner, such as having Sterren go to the Towers of Lumeth and turning them off, or something.
Yes, the writing has some positive traits such as Eliezer described, but overall it's much lamer and more amateurish than I expected. Given the recommendation, I would have expected this to be much better fiction than it turns out it is.
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Re: Dice game
Two reasons why someone would choose sequence 2 over sequence 1, one of them rational:
1) Initially I skimmed the sequences for Gs, assumed a non-fixed type font, and thought all the sequences were equal length. On a slightly longer inspection, this was obviously wrong.
2) The directions state: " you will win $25 if the sequence you chose appears on successive rolls of the die." A person could take this to mean that they will successively win $25 for each roll which is a member of a complete version of the sequence. It seems likely the 2nd sequence would be favored in this scenario. The winners would probably complain though, so this likely would have been caught.
This was a really nice article, especially the end.