Dec-10-2010, 06:21 PM (UTC)
Yes, this topic IS in the correct room because this story DOES take place in the Realm of the Elderlings... in the good old Buck Duchy to be specific! 
Now, first I have to say I'm impressed how well Robin & co managed to keep this story and everything about it a secret.
Nothing about it was mentioned in any previews or blurbs, Robin was VERY elusive when asked directly and even the first reviewers never mentioned it was a RoTE/6D story! I had my suspicions because the character names were obviously very 6D-y, but then one reviewer called it "an Old English love story" or something like that and completely threw me off... anyway, at this day and age with internet and spoilers everywhere, WELL DONE! 
Sooo, the big question.... is Lord Just Just? Well he does seem to be very fair-minded so the answer is yes... but if you mean if he's Just, the son of Burrich and Molly - I don't know. I got excited when his "black curls" were mentioned, but then as Timbal later points out, that's the case of three-fourths of Buck (I was thinking about Farseer's theories the moment the hair colour was brought up!) We're never given a time-frame of when this story takes place, but it seems to me it's a time of peace and prosperity in Buck, and the King's Patrol seems to be very efficient. Somehow in my mind I imagined this to happen during the reign of Dutiful - or even Prosper, but I have absolutely nothing to prove that with. One oddity made me hopeful too - Timbal describes "the queen" bidding a farewell to an aristocratic couple and then when a king is mentioned I started to wonder what they were doing visiting such a minor keep... but then from the context it's clear that these titles refer to the lord and the lady of the keep. I don't know if this is young Timbal's mistake (or even possibly the authors) because obviously there's only one king & queen at a time in 6D. So, there's nothing to prove that Lord Just is an older version of the boy we met at the end of Fool's Fate and I think it would require a lengthy explanation to give him even a minor keep of his own (it's made clear it's his and not lady Lucent's) since he's one of the younger sons of Molly, and not Skilled or Witted.
This was a well-built "palantir" type of story - I mean the kind of tale where the gist is not to draw conclusions from the inconclusive evidence you're presented with and then act on it. It did make me wonder how different if would have been told from Azen's point of view. I also loved the way Eda & El were incorporated into the story and how the reader is never quite sure whether they really are fiddling with Timbal's life or whether she just assigns that meaning to her life events.
Also, because checking this is my new hobby - it passed the Bechdel test (which I honestly didn't except from a girl-falls-in-love-with-a-boy story).
Now, first I have to say I'm impressed how well Robin & co managed to keep this story and everything about it a secret.
Nothing about it was mentioned in any previews or blurbs, Robin was VERY elusive when asked directly and even the first reviewers never mentioned it was a RoTE/6D story! I had my suspicions because the character names were obviously very 6D-y, but then one reviewer called it "an Old English love story" or something like that and completely threw me off... anyway, at this day and age with internet and spoilers everywhere, WELL DONE! Sooo, the big question.... is Lord Just Just? Well he does seem to be very fair-minded so the answer is yes... but if you mean if he's Just, the son of Burrich and Molly - I don't know. I got excited when his "black curls" were mentioned, but then as Timbal later points out, that's the case of three-fourths of Buck (I was thinking about Farseer's theories the moment the hair colour was brought up!
) We're never given a time-frame of when this story takes place, but it seems to me it's a time of peace and prosperity in Buck, and the King's Patrol seems to be very efficient. Somehow in my mind I imagined this to happen during the reign of Dutiful - or even Prosper, but I have absolutely nothing to prove that with. One oddity made me hopeful too - Timbal describes "the queen" bidding a farewell to an aristocratic couple and then when a king is mentioned I started to wonder what they were doing visiting such a minor keep... but then from the context it's clear that these titles refer to the lord and the lady of the keep. I don't know if this is young Timbal's mistake (or even possibly the authors) because obviously there's only one king & queen at a time in 6D. So, there's nothing to prove that Lord Just is an older version of the boy we met at the end of Fool's Fate and I think it would require a lengthy explanation to give him even a minor keep of his own (it's made clear it's his and not lady Lucent's) since he's one of the younger sons of Molly, and not Skilled or Witted.This was a well-built "palantir" type of story - I mean the kind of tale where the gist is not to draw conclusions from the inconclusive evidence you're presented with and then act on it. It did make me wonder how different if would have been told from Azen's point of view. I also loved the way Eda & El were incorporated into the story and how the reader is never quite sure whether they really are fiddling with Timbal's life or whether she just assigns that meaning to her life events.
Also, because checking this is my new hobby - it passed the Bechdel test (which I honestly didn't except from a girl-falls-in-love-with-a-boy story).
"Green nubs on the dry sticks of the clematis promised that the appearance of death was not death itself." - Ship of Destiny
?! And you waited a YEAR to read DK 
??!! I am hereby gobsmacked 
!
But I'd love to hear what your criteria is for this?
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