About this deal
So does Playmate sometimes, though he's been a bit laid up with the cancer. And what was the point of giving him cancer if it didn't mean anything? Before the cancer he ran his stable and wanted to put some brains into his brother in law. After the cancer, he runs his stable, and wants to put some brains into his brother in law. Nothing functionally changed in the man, he's still strong as an ox, he still holds firmly to his beliefs, as far as we can tell. Don't give the man cancer if you're not gonna do anything with it!!! Finally, the mystery was very weak. The bad guys are inept at best. Their motivation was weak and felt contrived. Garrett seemed to have more problems solving this mystery because of distractions in his persona life and because the bad guys were doing things in a more random (idiotic) fashion than any logical person would do. Let me preface by saying that I love the Garrett series. I liked him when he was a head-thumping alcoholic, and I still like him as he’s becoming less of a smartass and more of an adult. I liked his riotous, 12-book affair with Tinnie Tate, and I like that he’s moved on, left her behind and gotten engaged. Seriously, Garrett's fiancee/wife is murdered and the emotional fallout is less than when he broke up with Tinnie Tate. I kept waiting for some kind of emotional breakdown, but ol’ Garrett just plods on. He does have a single night’s drinking, but even that doesn’t hurt; magical hangover medicince mitigated the effects.
Some notes: Firstly, while this is a review of WBA, it's also going to pull in my opinions on some of the other books, and the series as a whole too. Not the best of the series, but not the worst by any means. Either way, this appears to be the *last* of the series :-( It's been six years since this was published. In the past, a new Garrett, P.I. novel showed up every 18 months or so. Sad, but every well runs dry, eventually. Enter Strafa, or enter again, really. These last three books really do feel like a sort of trilogy with her family at the center, or at least the outer core of it all. She's great, she's fine, she's smart and cute and everyone loves her, even Garrett. I was willing to get on board with her, really i was. I didn't like how Tinnie got thrown under the bus. I thought it was a bad narrative choice this far into the series, but I was like alright, i can get on team Strafa, she's nice, and makes things a whole hell of a lot easier for Garrett. He get a competent sorceress partner out of it all. However, I can't help but like the Garrett series, even if we're now at 14 books with no real end in sight. There's just something oddly charming about them, and about Glen Cook's often peculiar, and quite stylish (not always good, mind you), way of writing. I usually dislike 'urban fantasy' series that run too long, or that stray too close to the tropes of that sub-genre as they are almost universally terrible. I'll spare you a rant about Jim Butcher, here.Another thing that made this book hard to follow at times is the sheer size of the cast. Over the series, a lot of characters have been introduced into Garrett's life. It seems every single one of those characters made at least an appearance in this story. Plus a whole bunch of new characters are introduced. And while i'm on the subject of Garrett's inner thoughts, what was up with everyone breaking him out of his thoughts all the time? His thoughts never really took up real time before, and honestly they don't really have to, so why now? He was broken out of some genuinely insightful thoughts for no real reason. It wasn't humorous and i honestly didn't appreciate everyone stopping the investigator from y'know, investigating. And then people had the nerve to roll their eyes at him for being slow!? Let the man think, you dinguses! It's uncharitable of me to complain about this. I just like being surprised, and this bit of plot was not surprising. I'm kind of happy about the whole deal, actually. It just means that the next book can expound on their relationship a little more. I mean, now that they're married, and everything. In the first couple of chapters, Strafa dies. Garrett’s response to this: Be briefly angry. Initiate investigation. Walk around woolgathering while the mysteries are cleared up by other people. The end. On the plus side: this is a Garrett novel. It's funny, fast-paced, full of interesting characters and odd quirks and the vibrant, so-weird-I-want-to-go-there city of Tunfaire. I mean, if you liked the previous Garrett books, you're going to read this one and you're probably going to enjoy it.
answered already. Comments alerting us to typos or small errors in the post are appreciated (!) but A grand underground tournament has been set up and is meant to be a battle-royale type: the kids are in it if they want to or not and whether they have actual magic powers or not. This case gets very close for Garrett personally because someone he loves has died and now he is out for revenge.
Benefits of Tanning
only Garrett’s friends reacted to her death in any way; Garrett and Strafa's family sort of shrugged it off. But instead she's killed off, to literally no effect. No one emotes. Sure, Shadowslinger says something to the effect of 'take time to sort out your feelings' and there's a minor time skip and all, but it isn't enough. Not for me at least. And then she's replaced like fifteen percent of the way by another sorceress off the Hill palling around with Garrett, guiding him through all these various interactions and getting him debugged after his run in's with Relway and company. Why the hell couldn't that have been Strafa!? Maybe let us get to know the woman who ousted Tinnie in the span of one fetching book!