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Reading The Ruin of Kings: Chapter 17

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Column The Ruin of Kings

Reading The Ruin of Kings: Chapter 17

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Published on February 4, 2019

OMG, Tor.com, The Ruin of Kings is almost here! Here, have one more chapter to tide you over! Come on in, the water’s fine!

(Well, no, the water’s actually filled with maelstroms and kraken and death, but, you know.)

This blog series will be covering the first 17 chapters of the forthcoming novel The Ruin of Kings, first of a five-book series by Jenn Lyons. Previous entries can be found here in the series index.

Today’s post will be covering Chapter 17, “Waking the Old Man”, which is available for your reading delectation right here.

Read it? Great! Then click on to find out what I thought!

Holy kidnapping dragons, Batman!

So, this chapter was insane, in a good way. You know the fit has hit the shan when the giant kraken piggybacking on your ship’s arse end is one of your background problems. Sheesh.

Seeing as the entire series is called “Chorus of Dragons”, I’m guessing it’s pretty significant that we have now finally met an actual dragon. I have absolutely no idea whether Kihrin being kidnapped by one is a good thing or not (though frankly with that kid’s luck I’m likely safe to assume it’s going to epically suck), but I am definitely interested in finding out.

Also, I guess I should apologize for impugning Kihrin’s character last week when I assumed he was going off to kill Juval, when of course he was doing the much more noble act of freeing the slaves. I mean, I’m not sure of the utility of his decision, seeing as even if they hadn’t all been about to die from some combination of whirlpool/kraken/dragon, the slaves would not likely have been in any condition to successfully mutiny and take over the ship anyway, but hey, it was a nice thought.

Also nice is that Juval died anyway, along with his first mate (and probably the galley slave-whipper guy too). Good riddance to all of them. Down with slavers! Plus a bit of a LOL moment that Kihrin didn’t need to do a thing to protect Teraeth after all, from Juval or anyone else.

And fine, I guess Teraeth gets a couple more points in the Non-Asshole column for saving Kihrin’s life. I mean, obviously there’s a vested interest there but it’s still preferable to the alternative.

Another thing I was (maybe) wrong about: apparently Khaemezra is less of the Goddess of Death and more… a dragon mom? I guess? Not sure how that works. There are lots of stories where dragons can take on human form at will, though, so maybe that’s it.

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The Ruin of Kings
The Ruin of Kings

The Ruin of Kings

Of course, maybe she is still the Goddess of Death. If that other goddess, Laaka, could give birth to kraken, there’s nothing saying another goddess could have dragon babies, why not? The inherent association implied there between death and dragons does not make for comforting thoughts, though. Too much to hope that these dragons are luck dragons, eh.

I wonder if Teraeth told Kihrin to sing to the dragon because maybe singing in general would soothe it, or if it was singing from Kihrin specifically that Teraeth thought would do the trick. I guess we’ll find out, eh?

And very soon, too! As you may have noted, my dears, this post went up a day early, because tomorrow (February 5th) is The Ruin of Kings’ release date, yay! Now you’ll be able to read the whole thing in one swell foop!

And so will I, incidentally. But don’t nobody go nowhere, because I can also now announce that the Powers That Be at Tor.com have asked me to keep this blog series going, post-release, and I have said Sure. Whoo!

However, we’ve agreed that continuing it as a “first read” style commentary would be more trouble than it’s worth, so instead I will be taking a wee hiatus to read the rest of the book myself, and then we’ll start up again in “reread” format.


So! Happy Drop Date, my peeps, and enjoy the book! And then come on back week after next for a hopefully lively and totally clued-in review of Chapters 18 & 19! Cheers!

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Leigh Butler

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