The Not a Book Club Club discussion

Please keep all discussion and speculation to the events of Chapter 42-End

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 friends.

Please do not discuss events from later chapters/books.

Pretty happy with the ending. Not a total cliffhanger (though we only have to wait few more days for book 2 :)

So Bill you were right to suspect the Il Tornja. You would have thought thought that she would have looked at the book earlier, given it was her sole inheritance :)

It's unclear if the priest was actually guilty at this point or was involved at all? Sure he was a charlatan and a leach and believes in the divine providence of religious rule, but did he kill the emperor or did Il Tornja? It'd make sense that Il Tornja would want the priest dead if Il Tornja was the true killer.

I wonder who the true mastermind of the conspiracy is - it has to go beyond Il Tornja. We know they want to bring the Csestriim back. He sent Ut and Adiv (who may be Csestriim) to kill Kaden. He had Yurl and Balendin go after Vayln. (is it Yurl and Balendin that killed the imperial guard sent to rescue vaelin? If so, I am not too impressed with the Aedolian guard...they pretty much got butchered in every fight).

Adiv and Balendin seemed to have escaped and are still at large. Kaden and Tan are going to go find this hidden order of Shin that hunt the Csestriim. Valyn and his wing are returning to Annur to try to see what is going on in the capital and bring some order. Adare is about to try to kill Il Tornaj.

Looks like a lot of fun waiting for us next week :)

A few days..I read this last year. I don't recall it being too bad as far as cliffhangers go.

Sadly your dicussion reminds me jsut how little I remember. I'm hoping it's mostly just the names. I remember the monk brother and the warrior brother. I remember the monk brother's teacher being a total badass and the warrior brother's female friend getting killed during their trial.

I remember there being some kind of plot to overthrow the government that appears to have the ones responsible for their father's death.

Also, looks like their is a review copy of book 2 available. I asked for it, but not idea if I'm getting it, and if so when I'll get it. If they have to mail me the CDs it may be a few weeks for me.

You have the most of it :)

Kaden - monk brother, emperor
Valyn - warrior brother, leader of the wing
Adare - Sister, minister of finance, had sex with the general that killed the emperor
Tan - Monk badass trainer
Il Tornja - General, named regent to head the empire until Kaden returned. Killed the emperor
Adiv - High ranking government official, probably Csestriim, the ancient race predating humans that live for thousands of years. Fought long war with humans. Humans win because we breed like rabbits (reminds me of elves vs humans in Ryria). Csestriim created gates they could teleport through, almost turned the war in their favor. Gates still exist. The Shin monks were created to guard the gates in case they ever return
Balendin - Leach (basically have magic powers) that tried to kill Valyn and his cohorts along with his wing commander Yurl (now handless and deceased.)
Balendin and Adiv escaped the final battle and are still at large.

It will come back to you I think.

I love kindle x-ray feature!

X-ray is amazing.

The book wrapped up nicely. I'm ready to jump into the second book.

I know it worked for the plot but why would Valyn's wing go with him? They barely worked together and poorly at that I don't think they would jump into the mission that now makes them hunted fugitives so eagerly.

Yeah...The only explanation given in the book was that they were all rebels that eschewed authority, which made them crappy when Valyn tried to play by the rules but ready to go renegade...Seemed a little thin/hurried to me as well.

I enjoyed it - there were a few things I wondered about, but they may even be explained in the next book.

Cool. I think unlike goodkind, the plot and world are fascinating here. I've cooled down a bit after being pissed at the last 25% of the book, so I'll go on to the next after I finish Lives of Tao and Annihilation (assuming those are finished before The Autumn Republic comes out)

The 3 mystery stories around Kaden, Valys, and the Emperor weren't overly complex and fit nicely together.

The last 20% where the brothers had to get together felt a bit rushed or forced considering the overlong exposition.
Especially Kaden developed too fast to be plausible - 8 years of training without overperforming and then achieve the desired state in a stressful situation where other monks have to train for many more years?

It's good to know that a lot of the world is left open to discover in the second volume.

Andreas wrote: "The 3 mystery stories around Kaden, Valys, and the Emperor weren't overly complex and fit nicely together.

The last 20% where the brothers had to get together felt a bit rushed or forced consider..."

I felt the same way too regarding Kaiden.

Also Staveley left a lot of ideas unexplored in the book.

But overall I liked the book.