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sheepfics · 5 months ago

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The Warden (Daniel M. Ford) The sword-and-sorcery romp that probably wasn’t supposed to be a comedy.

3.75 ⭐

Ok. So. This was sold to me by some shlub at [INSERT GIANT LOCAL BOOKSTORE] with the promise it has lesbianism and is Like The Locked Tomb. The book claims its Like Twin Peaks But With Wizards. This raises the important questions: Is This Like The Locked Tomb? Is this Twin Peaks But With Wizards?

No.

This is Northern Exposure if you replaced Dr. Fleischman with Aelis, a bisexual 22 year old workaholic Wizard. This has “pros”, and this has “cons”. Here��s the non-spoiler list that could help you decide if you might like this book.

“PROS”.

Cozy Sword-and-Sorcery adventure, heavy ttrpg pulls, but not serial-numbers-filled-off levels of referencing. Hearkens back to an older era of ‘cheap’ fantasy novels.

This 22 year old workaholic study-hard-party-harder Wizard girl sucks just the right amount.

Enough foreshadowing to indicate something is important, novel enough connections to spark interest in how things are important.

Great setup for interesting future adventures/world.

Solid and descriptive fight scenes.

“CONS”.

Necromancy in this book is not raising the dead, it just helps you be really good at practicing medicine. (see Northern Exposure Comparison)

Ignore the redhead elf on the new-edition cover, this is a book is only about the other girl.

This is a Fantasy with hints of Romance, not a romance-fantasy or a romantasy.

Not as Meta/Intellectually Meaty as TLT.

Not as Ethereal/Supernatural as Twin Peaks.

Overall Non-spoiler Review: The Warden is a lighter-fare adventure fantasy read. Even if you only dabble in fantasy, you will find this to be a tasty little snack of a read. Chapters are short, pace is a bit odd at times but not overwhelmingly so. I finished this in about three days.

Despite the book covering both a lot and very little time, The adventure pacing is acceptable. The time it takes for each fraction of the mystery to unfold makes reasonable sense. I find Aelis to be appropriately bitchy and hardworking, and I do really like that about her. I enjoy main characters that have strong enough personalities that they can definitively suck. I can see why people might not like Aelis, but I think her personality makes perfect sense with her origin and how she is told to relate and understand her job. She considers the feelings of others, but certainly doesn't need good bedside manner when her job is to exist outside, but in reach of, a specific community. Her affair with Maurenia is also appropriate in its intensity (or one’s perceived lack thereof). It feels like a very early-twenties-I'm-here-on-a-temp-gig affair. Tun is really fun and I like the mutual respect him and Aelis have for each other and how that is forged throughout the work.

If you can’t tolerate Aelis within about 5 chapters, I don’t think you’re going to like this book. This book might have two gals on the cover (depending on your edition) but its not about both of them. Its about Aelis. And if you aren’t even kinda rockin with her by the halfway point, its probably worth a DNF. It took finishing the book for me to go from “yeah she’s fine” to “ok yeah I wanna read more about her”.

I am interested in seeing how the next book progresses. The mysteries of this book were enjoyable and (enjoyably!!!) predictable at parts. There was a good set-up of people/places/things where you could attach things that could be connected, and then be rewarded with how they were connected.

If you want to read this book, I think you loose about 20-30% of the value of reading it if you get spoiled with the following review, so proceed below with that knowledge.

WITH SPOILERS/The Long Form Below.

I'm not covering main plotpoints here, I don't want this to devolve into a summary, because this is my first attempt at a book review and I know I am prone to such things. My notes on the overall plot are that: 1. This Is Very Much The First Book In A Series, 2. The Stakes Are Reasonable, At This Time, and 3. We're keeping MacGuffins to a minimum.

Ok, now the real review.

It took me until the end of this book to be fully convinced on Aelis, but now that I’ve put the book down (and waiting on my hold of the second book to come in) I can say more confidently that I like her. I don’t think I would be bothering to think particularly hard about her if I didn’t have that second book on route. The Warden is a book about Aelis. This series is a series about Aelis. Everyone and everything is tangential to her. I think that the OG cover (left) and the new cover (right) portray this book as two different books.

I read the one on the left, and when I got it off the hold shelf I checked my phone make sure it was the correct book. That alternative cover really indicates that this will be a different kinda book. The Aelis & Maurenia cover indicates that Maurenia is going to be Cool and Fight in this book- and she doesn’t. She shows up, brings in a plot device, sleeps with Aelis, and then dips for a while before U-hauling back up. This isn’t a book about the two of them. This is a book that focuses largely on Aelis and then has a lot of screentime for Tun, who’s in the background of the OG cover. I think the first cover is far more accurate to the vibe of this novel than the newer one, and would argue that the newer one is almost false-advertising.

So Where’s the Dykes? An Addressing of the Queer/Romantic Elements this book is sold on.

Aelis is Bisexual, if her pre-Lone Pine Wardendom casual polyamory is to be read face-value. I found it very funny that 1. She allegedly boned a dude named Humphrey on the reg and 2. She liked Miralla more than him and her boning Humphrey was potentially her trying to best Miralla. Great stuff. This does bring me to her Tension with Maurenia. As stated earlier, we don’t know shit about Maurenia, even at the end of the book. Aelis notes this, but is reasonably apprehensive about pursuing romance, although she does think about it. I hope there is drama about this in the next book, because Maurenia seems wayyyy more into this than Aelis is. This makes their relationship very interesting, in a way some other reviewer called ‘very masculine’ while claiming both characters had a lot of ‘masculine energy’ and thats not important here its just really fucking funny to me. I had to get that into this review. Holy shit it made me crack up laughing. I just think Aelis is, like me, too focused on the grind to be thinking toooo much about emotional satisfaction. I would make a “while you were having sex I was studying the blade” joke, but she was doing both, so. Even after the semi-tasteful fade-to-black sex scenes that happen (Good call, Mr. Ford.), Aelis is debating wether to take this seriously. She didn’t seem to be taking the previous ones seriously, or at least, not as serious romantic relationships. She’s not dating the people she’s fucking, she doesn’t have any previous heartbreaks that we know of. I think her focus on (previously, her education), and now, her job, makes all that stuff a little difficult.

Her job, at present, focuses heavily on this pioneering town that’s mostly sheep, where everyone there is afraid of her because she was mainly educated as a necromancer. I don’t think we’ll be seeing much of the townspeople after this, for adventure calls!I wish I could expect more from/with them, but I don’t think I’m going to get that. Mostly because I can sense our inevitable adventuring party, which brings me to my footnote paragraph about Tun.

Tun is a half-orc druid/woodsman/bear man. He’s really fun and I like him. He reveals just enough to be interesting, keeps enough secrets to keep me hooked, highlights when Aelis is being a bitch, and spurs her to make some tweaks. Coworkers-growing-to-respect-each-other sort of vibe. I liked it a lot. I like him being a werebear, the hints as to his well-educated past and orc-connected present, his I think his main thread being solved with very little intricate explanation from Aelis was a bit of a letdown, but I’m hopeful for book two.

Maurenia must, certainly, be important for book two, because Necrobane only ever has had one cover design and its got her and Aelis on it. Aelis doesn’t know much about her, she says as much, I have no complex thoughts about her other than what I’ve already mentioned. Mostly that this book ain’t about Maurenia, its about The Warden.

The Warden, which is Aelis. She’s been shoved to Lone Pine in Bumfuck Nowhere to go serve as a government-sanctioned Wizard detective/helper/advisor. The motivations or details behind this system are hardly explored, and only expanded in the limits of the position. How Aelis can act in regards to financial issues, law enforcement, and other such things. Being a Warden is a 2-year tenure, and it is still unclear to me why exactly she wanted to be a Warden, other than proving that women can do it. That’s a fine motivation, but I wanted more substance on why she gives a shit about the things she does. She’s primarily a necromancer, but theres little time spent on why she wants to be a top necromancer or Wizard or Warden, other than just to flex. Towards the end of the book, she herself states that she doesn’t think like a Necromancer, she thinks like an Abjurer with the talents of a Necromancer. I am hoping she’s forced to explore necromancy more intensely as the series progress. I would like less school flashbacks and more details on how she’s tweaking her abilities and spells to suit her. The descriptions of her surgeries were very interesting though and followed solid logic and fantasy-adjusted practice. The way fight scenes flow with her were also very good! There are many good things about her. There are many bad things about her. The biggest thing about this book is that it’s all about her.

If you can’t get with Aelis, you will not like this book. There’s not much more I can expand this. I’m repeating myself from the non-spoiler section. If you ain’t rockin with her, you’re not gonna like this One Bit. I can live with that, because I think she’s super funny to read about. She’s an enjoyable type of mildly-pretentious intellectual. Other reviewers I have read have found her to be horribly insufferable for not Grasping The Call Of Adventure and being Mildly Rude To Peasants. I don’t care about that. I like that she’s very willing to do her job, but is understanding that a lot of it might be suckage. She wants to prove a point. She’s ambitious, and that's what makes you a good Wizard. At least, that’s what she tells us makes a good wizard.

That brings me to my final note on the book’s content. I found Aelis’s isolation to be absolutely fascinating. She’s so goddamn lonely. Sure, there may be people around her, but as a Warden, she’s to serve as a Lighthouse, not a Tavern. She is not to become one of them. She’s there to be the voice of the Lyceum and the Crown upon a town that asked for her. Her choosing to ask for help from Tun is a big step for her, but also, Tun and Maurenia’s refusal to even offer company or further assistance to her when she goes off on her own, in winter, on undisclosed business? That solidified that this was an Aelis book. I expect the other books will also very much be Aelis books, but to a lesser degree.

As mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t be thinking nearly the same amount of this book if I caught it when it had just come out. I think I would have read it, went “huh, neat”, and moved on. I think I may be giving this book more grace than I ought to, but that’s alright. I think if I could get into Aelis earlier, and I wasn’t sold a GTN-like with a Twin Peaks Twist, this would be a ⭐⭐⭐⭐ read.

I do think that grey goat that breaks into her tower is going to be the BBG though. (That’s only partially a joke.)

#sheep reviews #The Warden #Daniel M Ford #booklr #book review #storygraph #3.75 stars #3 stars

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carriagelamp · 8 months ago

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Read some delightfully impactful books this month, it was a very satisfying assortment of stories! My biggest recommendation is Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books, I'm telling everyone I can to read that book. Funny, meaningful, and sort of lights a fire under your ass, makes you want to make the world better.

Doctor Who: Forever Autumn

My obligatory Halloween-y read. Like many Doctor Who books of this particular calibre it was a fine and entirely forgettable read. It was fun to have an autumn-themed setting and villain, and I always love when Martha’s around. They wind up needing to deal with “no no it’s not magic it’s definitely just science we don’t understand for sure for sure” and some pumpkin-headed terrors. It was a pleasant thing to have playing as an audiobook while driving to work amid autumn leaves.

A Lady for a Duke

This had so much potential but honestly failed to live up to it imo. This story is very deliberately tipping its hat to Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night and the initial set up is really promising. Injured and presumed dead during the Battle of Waterloo, transwoman Viola Carroll seizes her chance to remake her life and live the way she wants. She becomes the lady's companion to her brother’s wife (the only two who know that she’s alive) and with their help begins figuring out how to fit into this new life. However when an old childhood friend, the Duke of Gracewood who had fought alongside her in Waterloo, seems to be in a bad state she finds herself being forcefully drawn out of her quiet, secluded life and put at risk of being recognized by someone who had known her before.

Excellent premise! The characters are fun, Viola is an enjoyable protagonist, Gracewood is a decent romantic lead, and Viola’s sister-in-law is easily my favourite character in the book, she’s a DELIGHT, especially when paired with her husband. The first half of the book is also pretty well done, with lots of mistaken identity and pining, very much in the spirit of Twelfth Night. Unfortunate the second half is where it loses all momentum. The dialogue becomes repetitive and the romance rather dull, the B-Plot is really the only thing dragging the plot along at that point. It also loses any real touch with historical attitudes towards queer issues — it was always a light touch, but it quickly becomes everyone repeating All The Right Things to each other ad nauseum, without any real exploration of queer identities in a Regency period. Which, to be fair, is probably what some people want, very low stakes and chill romance, but for me it took the wind out of the book’s sails, I would have loved more discussion. It would have made the sex more interesting at least.

That being said, if you want a soft, pleasant, historical trans romance, I would honestly give it a shot. If nothing else the first half is REALLY quite good, I couldn’t put it down, and the last half isn’t so bad that it damns the whole thing. It’s worth it if this is what you’re keen on.

Lula Dean’s Little Library of Banned Books

Easily my favourite book from October, this book managed to hit on very topical subjects with both tact and humour. In a small town in Georgia, Lula Dean has spearheaded a book banning crusade, managing to get a number of “problematic” books removed from the library and has made a show of setting up a Little Free Library in her yard full of “appropriate” books instead. When Beverly Underwood visits her mother and hears about this she’s so exasperated with it all that she quickly hatches a plan. The night before she leaves for home, she takes the banned library books from where they’re being stored and swaps out their dust jackets with the ones in Lula Dean’s Little Free Library. The rest of the story is about various people in the town who borrow a book from Lula Dean’s library and how the book they got instead ends up impacting not just themselves but their town. The first story involves a penis cake. Can’t recommend it enough, starts out humour and quickly becomes something you want to rally around.

My Neighbour Totoro

This was an enjoyable read just because I like Totoro in general, but it was not the best novelization I’ve ever read. Honestly I think it mostly suffers from a less-than-ideal translation… the whole thing comes across as quite stilted and I have a feeling the language was prioritised over the flow and intention. It was fine, cosy to sit and read, gives a couple scenes that aren’t in the movie that were interesting, but overall it won’t deliver anything the movie doesn’t do better.

Ogres

Absolutely fascinating novella, and a very rare example of a story told absolutely perfectly in second-person. If you’re looking for something a bit different and thought-provoking, this was a good read.

Ogres rule this world. They’re bigger than you. Stronger than you. Have magics you could never comprehend. The natural order of the world is for humans to serve ogres. However you, as the son of the village headman, live an idyllic sort of life… until the ogre landlords come to call and everything begins to go wrong and you're facing realities and secrets you never could have imagined.

The One and Only Family

I read this one mostly because I wanted to finish off the series. The One and Only Ivan is a fantastic novel that is a fictionalised account of a real silverback gorilla that was poached and brought back to the United States to live in a small cage in a roadside mall. The first story is about him, his friends Bob and Ruby, and his life in captivity. The second and third book are about Bob the dog and Ruby the elephant respectively, and this last book focuses back on Ivan, his new life in a zoo, and his growing family. Honestly all the other books in this series were fine for kids, had some good ideas behind them, but were otherwise somewhat bland. I’m glad I finished the series but they don’t hold a candle to the first book.

The Pushcart War

Now this was a fun children’s novel, recommended to me by my New York girlfriend who says it’s a staple in New York classrooms — and I can see why, it’s an incredibly fun read. A prime example of a well-done under-dog story, very satisfying! The book is a “historical account” of the “New York City Pushcart War”, in which the city streets are hopelessly congested and everyone is suffering. The worst offenders are the big trucks which just seem to get bigger and bigger, and pushier and pushier. The trucking companies hatch a plan on how to gradually push out all other competition: they’ll start with the little, old-fashion pushcarts, try to villainize them until they’re entirely removed from New York City... and if no one speaks up for them, then how hard will it be to push out the taxis next? Or the automobiles? However, the scrappy little push-cart owners fight back. It’s very much written to be an allegory for actual wars, played on a smaller scale which some delightful wit and an interesting narrative voice.

Series of Unfortunate Events 4-10

I continue to read A Series of Unfortunate Events. As a child I had only ever read up to The Carnivorous Carnival so it’s exciting to strike into new territory with The Slippery Slope. I really enjoy the slippery slope you see the Baudelaires beginning to get caught in as the series progresses, how they have to start making concessions and doing things they wouldn't have considered doing at the beginning, and how their views of the world is beginning to evolve. Austere Academy, Ersatz Elevator, and The Vile Village are my favourite of this set.

The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System v3

I finished the main series of The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System and I’m not ready for it to be over ;^; I’m in the process of reading the last book of bonus stories and trying to savour it. I was hugely judgemental about this series and was tempted to skip it entirely, but I’m so glad I actually sat down to read it. Out of all of MXTX’s series, this one has, in my opinion, the least palatable main relationship and I say that with deep and profound affection. It's passionate and complicated and slightly horrifying but I don't think you could write it any other way. Every single thing about this story is messy and I think that really works in its favour.

Shen Qingqiu is an incredibly biased narrator, and it’s really interesting to read a story in which the main character tends to think of those around him more as characters in a book than as genuine people. You get to see how him viewing himself as a passive observer instead of an actual person with agency who can have an impact on others continuously trips him up, and how his actions have far reaching consequences that he fails to recognize. It makes this entire series a very meta exploration of storytelling and the impact people's personal narratives have on themselves and others. It really consistently shows how cruelty begets cruelty... but also how the choice to step away from easy resentment can break endless cycles. That's a common theme across her works, but the way its handled in this book particularly struck me.

Over all, it’s a fun, silly story with way more heart than I anticipated -- this last book really made me cry! I was so unprepared for the series to be over that I had to stare at the ceiling for a while to try to digest it all. If you were feeling debating whether or not to try this series, I’d honestly give it a shot because it brings way more to the table than the surface level plot would suggest.

This Census-Taker

Fucking weird novella. I grabbed this from the library because I quite enjoyed Railsea so I thought I’d try something else by this author. And I really liked it! But also what the fuck. Still don’t know if I absorbed everything that I was meant to absorb, but it’s obviously a book with a lot to say and did it through the most deranged and intriguing world building. China Miéville is great at creating unique worlds that feel alive and vibrant — this is the sort of world real people could live in, no matter how strange.

Goodread’s summary because gun to my head I’m not sure I’d be able to come up with a more functional explanation: “After witnessing a profoundly traumatic event, a boy is left alone in a remote house on a hilltop with his increasingly deranged parent. When a stranger knocks on his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation are over—but by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? Is he the boy’s friend? His enemy? Or something altogether other?” This doesn’t even scratch the surface but it does give a functional idea of the surface level plot. If you want something to sink your teeth in to and flex your analytical muscles, this one will do it for you.

The War That Saved My Life // The War I Finally Won

Absolutely stunning YA novel series, can’t recommend it enough. This series is centred on Ada, a girl born in the East End of London to an abusive mother who scorns her for her club foot. Ada is forced to stay in the apartment, is severely neglected and mistreated, and does her best to take care of her younger brother during all this. When news of WWII arrives though and people begin sending their children away from London to live in the country, Ada is determined to run away with her brother and get them both onto one of those trains, to find a better life far from the threatened bombs and their mother. The story followers Ada and Jamie finding a new home and contending with the trauma they’ve lived through during the throes of World War 2.

(* in regards to the queer content of this book: it is entirely subtext however it is such obvious subtext that I feel fine labelling it as queer, it's beautifully done -- very much a "haunting the narrative" sort of plotline)

The Warden

A “cosy fantasy” novel that was a fairly decent attempt at the genre. I find some cosy fantasies fail (for me at least) just because… nothing happens. This novel sort of straddles the line between cosy fantasy and standard fantasy in a way that I found quite satisfying and kept things from getting boring.

Aelis de Lenti is a newly graduated necromancer from the Lyceum who has accepted the position of Warden in the remote village of Lone Pines. Admittedly she had been hoping for a posting in an actual city with actual modern amenities but here she is. Surrounded by sheep shit and villagers who don’t trust her, in a crumbling wizard’s tower. Great. The story is about her gradually finding her space in this community, learning how to handle her position, and generally getting to kick ass and take names. It was a fun read.

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jenyifer · 1 year ago

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The Warden by Daniel Ford

We have a 10/10 book here folks been a while. But I truly think this is one of the best witch books ever.

The Sell: MC is a newly graduated magic user who is sworn to protect a village on the edge of the kingdom with exciting action scenes and intriguing villains or obstacles for our MC. MC is extremely lovable but in a sassy funny way. She’s a brat, but she has a drive that makes you want to sell your soul so she could be successful. I adore her personality. The magic system is familiar and yet feels totally new the author does a good job of showing you her education so it feels like you and MC are slowly gaining knowledge. MC’s magic isn’t the your run of the mill system. She’s a Necromancer Charmer and Enchantress. The romance and relationships feel organic not rushed. I really can’t find anything to dislike about this story. I don’t want to spoil anything but the conflicts of the book were great. I thought the story was over but MC’s work continues because she is 10/10 bad ass. I do have a slight issue with the cover of the book because it looks like MC and her love interest are the main part of the story. Love interest half elf is super attractive she’s a dream girl and she has her own life and goals which I really enjoyed her life doesn’t revolve about MC. I’d say… the village MC goes to is the Main Love interest and while I enjoyed her romance with the half elf it’s not the focus and she’s not around all the time. However MC falling in love with the people she is sworn to protect will steal their hearts and yours.

In conclusion: I haven’t had this much fun with a book in forever. I can’t wait to force everyone I know to read it. ALSO MY FIRST SAPPHIC BOOK TO GET 10/10. A true achievement.

Okay I have 1 spoiler I want to write down so that when I read the second book maybe I’ll be able to say I told you so.

If the goat isn’t part of the villains soul I’m going to eat my hat.

#the warden #Daniel m ford #The Warden Daniel Ford #lgbt book review #lgbt book #lgbt book recs #book review #sapphic reads #lgbt fantasy #fantasy books #Jenny’s books #wlw books #wlw fantasy

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nzbookwyrm · 1 year ago

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April 2024

#necrobane #daniel m ford #warden #book recommendations

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ilikereadingactually · 1 year ago

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The Warden

The Warden by Daniel M. Ford

i have mixed feelings about this one. i liked it enough to want to review it, i have some positives, but also some of the elements weren't quite for me. i think there's definitely an audience for it who will really like it though, and that feels worth writing about.

so! this has a lot of fun stuff going for it. there's an interesting variety of magic, and we get to see it used in different ways. there's a tantalizing amount of worldbuilding, establishing some of the rules of magic and of law, and a bit of history. that felt really delicately done to me, for the most part, especially the history! just enough to be interesting and keep me reading, not so much that i couldn't follow or remember it. we've also got a queer protagonist, which i always love, and a thread of storyline about her romantic interests, which is not generally my thing but was fun here. and i really liked the community aspect: the protagonist is assigned as a Warden, a kind of magical protector/civil servant, to a remote town and has to build relationships with the people there.

all of that felt like a great base to me, and i liked a lot of the characters; the townspeople, the friendly loner on the outskirts, the cute kid, the traveling adventurers, a great combo of personalities. but i just never really felt that much for the protagonist! we're in her POV, i wanted to like her. i think she made some good choices, she's capable and powerful, she's a rich city kid and it was fun seeing her earnestly try to adjust to small village life. but some of the quirks that i think were meant to humanize her and make her charming fell flat or were actually irritating to me.

particularly, she talks out loud to herself--not in little believable affirmations or exclamations, but in actual full sentences about what she's doing and thinking. but sometimes we get her inner thoughts in italics, as well, and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when she's talking out loud (even at times when she's in a dangerous situation and making noise could give her away) and when we see her thoughts. we also get a TON of tiny flashbacks to her schooling, which frequently do end up being at least topically related to what she's doing at any given moment, but that didn't feel to me like they added anything. she recollects long bits of lectures in detail that i didn't gain extra insight from, and it wasn't until maybe the last quarter of the book where the flashbacks became actually part the ongoing plot via one specific teacher who is causing her problems in the present. then the story just...stops, at the turning point of an adventure, after several nested previous adventures had already wrapped up. it felt, to me, like the last chapter or two of this book should have been the beginning of the next one.

again, these are just things that didn't suit my taste--maybe they will be charming and great to someone else! so as always, ymmv.

the deets

how i read it: an ebook on Libby. and yes, i did pick it up because it involves necromancy and is called The Warden and i'm still deep in my Locked Tomb phase...

try this if you: like watching an academic snob make good in a podunk town, dig some travel through the woods, or have fun putting together a light mystery!

a bit i really liked: i can picture this posture exactly

Aelis's back straightened with the precise caution of the drunk who believes no one else can tell they're drunk. "I apologize, Magister," she began, slowly and formally. "Oh," the gnome signed, waving a hand vaguely in the air. "I remember my own graduation week."

#books and reading #bookblr #booklr #book recs #book reviews #the warden #daniel m ford #queer sff

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nfinitefreetime · 1 year ago

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Blergh

It was a crazily busy weekend, at least by my current middle-aged standards; one of my oldest friends was in town with two of her kids all weekend because her son had a travel hockey tournament in town, and there was an all-day thing at my son’s school yesterday that both he and my wife got roped into, and all three of us spent the whole weekend peopling and pretending we are social human beings…

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#books #daniel m. ford #family #friends #life #Necrobane #reading #socializing #the warden #weekend

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torpublishinggroup · 2 years ago

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5 Dragons Daniel M. Ford’s Adept Wizard Could Beat in a Fight

Dragonslayers have been around almost as long as dragons, but what makes a dragonslayer? Truthfully, a dragonslayer can be anyone. Your nephew, that street performer, your mail carrier… But what about a young necromancer, fresh out of school and with a chip on her shoulder? Yes.

For more on that, we bring you Daniel M. Ford to discuss the dragonslaying capabilities of Aelis de Lenti, the main character of his fantasy novel The Warden.

Check it out!

by Daniel M. Ford

Aelis de Lenti, the main character of my book The Warden, is, well, a warden, which is to say a wizard with a specific mandate to protect an area or group of people, as a kind of marshal/investigator/magistrate. And as my readers will know, her magic is not generally of the explosive, openly powerful, full-of-offensive-potential kind. So if Aelis was to go hunting dragons, she’d have to be very careful, select her targets well, prepare, and look for weaknesses other people might not see. Thankfully for her, Aelis is, while not a world class planner, really good at making it up as she goes along, and she has a couple friends—Tun, the half-orc woodsman, and Maurenia, the half-elven adventuress—that can generally be convinced to help her out.

Fáfnir

Reaching way back into the origins of European dragons here, I think it’s reasonable to say that Aelis could come up with the idea of digging a hole and waiting for the wyrm to slither over it so she can stab it in the belly. There’s also the fact that eating the heart of this particular dragon is said to bring knowledge, which combines two things Aelis can’t get enough of; fancy cuisine and knowing things other people don’t.

The Sleeping Dragon from The Sleeping Dragon by Joel Rosenberg

Right away, the Sleeping part is a giveaway for exactly how Aelis will approach this fight.

Quietly.

But there’s more to it. In Rosneberg’s Guardians of the Flame series[1], dragons have a pretty well known and debilitating weakness. There is an herb known as dragonbane—a little on the nose—that is commonly found and widely known to interfere with a dragon’s magical metabolism. This generally keeps dragons of this world from messing with humans too openly. Once Aelis gets her hands on some of this herb, a few hours in a decently stocked alchemical lab—even the not very well stocked lab in her tower would probably do—and she can definitely refine it into something extra lethal. Then it’s just a matter of getting close enough, quietly enough, with some crossbow bolts or arrows to get the job done.

Or, more likely, convincing Tun and/or Maurenia to get close enough to get the job done. After all, an Abjurer’s job in a fight isn’t necessarily to deliver the killing blow so much as it is to cover those who are better prepared or equipped to do so. At least, that’s what she’d tell her friends while she talked them into it. Can her wards stand up to dragon breath? Of course they can! Probably. But we won’t even need to find out, right?

Verimthrax Pejorative, from Dragonslayer

A classic fantasy film dragon that proves very dangerous to even an experienced wizard, as seen in the film, Vermithrax Pejorative is tough to take via a conventional approach to dragon-slaying.

Aelis de Lenti is anything but conventional.

In the film, Ulrich the wizard is able to discern that Vermithrax is affected by a disease that bothers all dragons as they age, a scale-rot that causes constant pain. Aelis could certainly diagnose this, and after coaxing the dragon to get close by staking out the goat[2]to provide a free meal, and then offering to treat her scale-rot. Once she does start treating that disease, her Necromantic abilities will teach her all about draconic anatomy and weaknesses, giving her something she can surely exploit. Maybe Vermithrax dies quietly in her sleep, maybe her firebreath is suddenly disabled, maybe the next time she flies she finds that the muscles of her wings have mysteriously atrophied and she crashes into a hill. There is no equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath in Aelis’s world.

A Dracolich, any Dracolich

Sure, sure, Dracoliches like Daurgothoth the Creeping Doom are a menace to fantasy worlds. When you marry the magical power and resistances of a lich with the thousands of years of experience, intelligence, and magical abilities of a dragon, you get something fearsome.

And not one of them has ever dealt with something like a Lyceum trained Necrobane. Aelis is at her best and most powerful when fighting the undead. Once she’s got some practical experience against living dragons and is able to put that together with her Necromantic power, she can surely find a way to take down a dracolich.

Rand al’Thor, The Dragon Reborn[3]

Yes, I hear you. Rand is catastrophically powerful. If he’s got any of his angreal or sa’angreal around, like Callandor, he can probably destroy the world, or close enough as makes no difference. Aelis can’t match him with magic. She probably can’t match him blade to blade, either, as Rand is a confirmed blademaster and she is competent. Her friends wold surely know better than to even try. So why do I think Aelis could take him?

Quite simply, (at least in the early books) Rand is terrified of women, especially one that acts even a little bit interested in him. And later books Rand flat out refuses to fight a woman. Is this cheating? Fine! Aelis isn’t above cheating to achieve a goal! She can easily take Rand al’Thor[4]based on these two data points alone.

So, there you have it; the Top 5 Dragons Aelis de Lenti can take in a fight. It requires a little unorthodox thinking, because Aelis doesn’t flash the kind of power you might expect from a fantasy wizard. But she excels at getting the most out of what she does have; her wards, her Necromancy, her friends, and her willingness to cheat[5].

Notes

[1] A portal fantasy where a group of college students get transported to the world they play a fantasy RPG in and decide to Do the Industrial Revolution in order to end slavery. It shows its age in spots (it began in 1983) but it’s worth a read.

[2] If you’ve read The Warden you know exactly which goat I mean

[3] I do not suggest that Aelis could handle the armies surrounding Rand, the Far Dareis Mai who guard him, or Elayne, Aviendha, and Min. Just Rand.

[4] Provided we ignore all the stuff about his world-shattering power and the massive armies, incredible resources, and similarly powerful people who’d be invested in his victory.

[5] Please understand that I have great respect, even love, for all the dragons mentioned here.

#dragon week #tor books #daniel m. ford #the warden

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