CBR Bingo “left” because the Dervish (Dervish? he sometimes is The Dervish and sometimes just Dervish, it’s hard to tell) has been left behind, without his mercenary party, and will keep being so given the whole immortal being hanging out with human meat
Having not re-read Swordheart nor Clocktaur Wars
Which is to say, unfortunately this book didn’t quite do it for me, at least not as much as the much-belatedly-read Swordheart did.
We meet the second of three (?) enchanted swords in this, the second go-around in the Swordheart series and the nth visit to the World of the White Rate. Learned Edmund, he of the misogynistic “women will turn your nether regions into dust” temple of the Many Armed One, has decided that after completing One Final Mission he will abscond from his order, despite his life priorities being 1) learn 2)tell people what he’s learned 3) go back to #1. He’s too worn out from trying to change things from within. His payload on his last courier trip is a bunch of books (ofc) and a wrapped up sword. Bandit appear, he pulls the sword, and suddenly he’s the wielder of The Dervish/Dervish, another soldier trapped in an enchanted weapon. They journey, pick up additional castaways (including an utterly delightful pillbug who, like Edmund, only wants to read books), and deal with the Sainted Steel acolytes that caused havoc the last go around. Oh, and the kiss, from time to time.
A lot of my feelings on this book were validated by Kingfisher’s author’s note, wherein she explains that this book was initially a pandemic draft which was “emotinally sludgy.” She picked it back up more recently, newly invigorated, added some bits (Large Francis the pillbug!) and published it, despite thinking initially that the next book would be Anghahard’s (Shieldmaiden, I think?). While I have much empathy for the overall squishiness of the pandemic, I fear that some of the dragginess of that initial draft survived into the final. For example, when Dervish first appears Edmund has been beaten a bit by the bandits, and then they sit around for at least four (?) days to wait for his concussion symptoms to subside as Dervish does some mental and out-loud monologuing to introduce us to his backstory. I actually groaned when, on day two, Edmund tries to get up and sees stars–one star for medical verisimilitude, which of course I am on the record as supporting, but minus a star because no one wants injuries to heal in real time unless it’s the reason that a long simmering UST is resolved. But then the parts with Large Francis sing, which makes sense if they were added in the second go around.
That being said, I will continue to read these books until kingdom come, and continue to wish for a novel or three entirely from the perspective of overly handsome Dreaming God paladins.
