Customer Reviews

The Scrolls of the Ancients (The Chronicles of Blood and Stone, Book 3)

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The man simply can't write. Fifth Sorceress had a lot of potential, but its been all downhill from there. Objectively, here are the problems with this series:

1) It's extremely formulaic. In each of the first 3 books, the villain comes back from "but I thought they were dead/out of the way." In the first book, it's Failee, the head of the sorceress' coven, who was banished hundreds of years earlier. In the second book, it's Nicholas, Tristan's stillborn son, revived from the dead and turned into a master of evil magic. In the third book it's Wulfgar, Tristan's half brother who was thought out of the way.

2) Tristan kills family: In the first book, he's forced to kill his dad. In the second, he has to fight his revived son. He was out of family for the third, so Newcomb falls back on hackneyed soap-opera techniques, and poof, a long-lost half brother. Don't be surprised if someone gets amnesia in the latest book, or Tristan's evil twin schemes to take over JR's business.

3) Free will doesn't exist: Newcomb's system of magic has opposing forces - the good vigors, the bad vagaries. In the first book, this was fine. Then he screws himself up by making it more and more complex. See, it turns out that you are drawn to good or evil by your "blood signature", which you are born with. If your blood signature leans left you are irresistably drawn to practice the evil vagaries, if it leans to the right you are irresistably drawn to practice the good vigors. In other words, characters' actions are driven by genetics, not free will. An interesting philosophical point, but it makes for horribly dull characters. Worse, the blood signature of a character can be changed by magic, so a good character can become bad or (theoretically, it hasn't happened yet) a bad character good by manipulating their blood signature (keeps Newcomb from having to worry about messy things like character development). Wulfgar is actually a decent guy for half of this book, then "poof" the evil wizards flip his blood signature and he becomes the embodiment of evil. Yawn.

4) Forestallments: the worst part of Newcomb's magical system. Magical abilities are gained by having them granted to you through "forestallments." Like the blood signature changes, its Newcomb's no fuss, no muss, no character development way of having villains become all-powerful (or "all-powerful-except-for-the-small-flaw-the-forces-of-good-can-use-to-defeat-them-for-yea-verily-evil-shall-not-profit-in-the-end")

5) Newcomb's writing: The guy who quoted out "whump, whump, whump" had it right. to overcome all these flaws Newcomb would need to have Jordan's ability to turn a phrase, and he doesn't. He's on the Goodkind level of skill. Anyway, I'm getting faklempt just thinking about it. Talk amongst yourselves - I'll give you a topic. The goodkind level of skill is neither good nor kind to his readers. Discuss.

I can't believe this man was allowed to publish 2 miserable sequels to the train-wreck that was The Fifth Sorceress. Every word this man is allowed to put into print is an affront to the Fantasy literary tradition. Thank goodness it's finally over.

'The Scroll of the Ancients' is so bad that reading it is a somewhat surreal experience. I first became acquainted with Newcomb's writing through his legendarily awful debut 'The Fifth Sorceress', which was later selected by fans at Bubonicon as the worst book ever written. I wasn't particularly interested in a repeat performance, but when a friend offered to pass on a copy of 'Scrolls' I decided to give it a shot. After all, Newcomb had nowhere to go but up, right? Wrong.

Tristan, an alleged thrity-year-old who acted like an angry stupid kid in the first book, has now advanced to acting like an angry stupid kid. I guess character development isn't Newcomb's strong suit. Tristan and Gandalf-clone Wigg take on some uttrerly ridiculous villains who have concocted an evil plan to control the cheddar cheese industry. Wait, my mistake. Their evil plan is to take over the world. I guess originality isn't Newcomb's strong suit. Also thrown into the mix is Tristan's long lost brother Wulfgar. Luckily, Newcomb avoids the good brother vs evil brother cliche. Well, actually he doesn't. Tad Williams, you might have a plagarism lawsuit here.

Anyway, Tristan merrily hacks his way through crowds of bad guys, and also spends A LOT of time agonizing about how awful it is to have to fight your own brother. Then comes a 'climactic' showdown where Newcomb once again invents an arbitrary magic trick that gives the good guys the victory. And that's it. No real story, no surprises, no humor, no attempts at suspense, no nothing.

The gaping holes in the 'plot' are too numerous to mention. Every time a new band of of all-powerful magicians wanders on stage, you'll be wondering why these people didn't show up a lot earlier. Likewise, all the characters are just too stupid to be believed. If any of them ever used basic common sense, the book would end a lot quicker.

Of course, what was most putrid about the 'The Fifth Sorceress' was Newcomb's agressive misogyny and advocation of violence against all women. So, has the guy managed to grow up since then? Nope. If anything, the treatment of women in this new book is worse than in the original.

I could continue ranting about the absurdly bad writing and non-stop plagarism. But suffice to say, there is no way that any intelligent adult could look at 'Scroll' and see a valid attempt at writing a fantasy novel. This series is an insult to George R R Martin, Tad Williams, Robin Hobb, Martha Wells, Stephen Donaldson, and all the other authors who have worked so hard to make fantasy respectable. I don't know where Del Rey managed to find this woman-hating, illiterate, porn-addicted, one-man freak show, but it's about time for them to toss him back.

I had the misfortune of by this book.I got it from a library sell. I could not finish it. He is one of the worst writers I've ever read.

There are some negative comments out there about the first book in the series "The fifth sorceress" but I found the book to okay and it looked like a good start to what would easilly be a great series.

Oh how wrong I was. This book introduces a few new characters to us, the most interesting of which is a lady turned pirate named Tyranny who's character is very cliche and very under utilized.

The good guys in this series are nothing short of stupid. They are constantly underestimating the enemy and making mistakes and as another reviewer pointed out, they've only managed to win by last minute technicalities.

In three books Tristian and his twin sister are no where closer to fulfilling thier destiny. The constant fight against long lost, thought dead, family members is moronic. Book 3 shows us just how bad conditions have gotten inside the capital as anarchy ensues and only emphasises the fact that Tristan has done absolutely nothing about it yet. Cleaning up that mess would haev been a far more interesting book than this.

I started out reading Newcomb very happily, having found yet again something new that seemed like it was on a larger scale than typical fiction. I have to say that I like the Chronicles of Blood and Stone, despite some definate shortcomings.
I was prompted to write this simply because of the comparison it has to Goodkind, Jordan, and Martin on it's inside cover, and while I do enjoy Newcomb, I have to say that he sadly (because it seemed at first that he might) does not equal up to those three, and I still very definately favor Carey, Williams, and Brooks ahead of him.
Now, as far as The Scrolls of the Ancients go, I'm about halfway through it right now, and while it is surely keeping me interested and reading, I still find myself lacking several things. Some really in depth character development for Shailiha, some concrete base for which I can form a full sense of their magical system (which he seems to not have worked out beforehand, and just kind of changes and adds to when it suits him, which seems kind of irresponsible). Vigors and Vagaries are nice and all, but it seems in some ways that the Vagaries aren't truly evil, although they're regarded as such, and what really is the difference between them? How do they differ in how they work, other than a name? It seems so far, out of each of the books, that using the Craft is just one entity already, although I'm sure it's just not explained yet.
I have found more than one inconsistency in the books, that were obvious (several, actually), which makes me feel kind of bad, but the plot is still engaging, so I continue reading. It would be kind of cheap, but I find myself hoping all of Tristan's talents are brought out through the use of Forestallments so that we don't have to endure an entire book of him attempting to learn to use the Craft, and just have one that has him using it and fullfilling his destiny (if indeed Newcomb releases a fourth book).
All in all, it is definately worth reading, and I very much like Tristan, Faegan, Wigg (especially the amusing bickering between the two of them), and a few of the others (although I think that while Celeste has the excuse of still being relatively new to the group, Shailiha is way overdue for some serious character development, rather than the occasional tidbits we've gotten so far). I actually find myself already liking Wulfar as much as some of the good guys, and rather miss Nicholas (it was a real shame to finish him off in a way that made the entire second book seem pointless, since it would have happened to him even if they had all ran and hid themselves in a hole somewhere that they would have been safe). He was an excellent villain, and while failing in the second book, he shouldn't have killed him off, since Krassus seems like a generic stand-in, and Nicholas would have been far better performing the things that are being done, and it's pretty out of character for him that he modified Krassus at all and left him behind to do all this(he had been 100% confident of his superiority and success, the concept of failure didn't even exist for him, and rightly so, really, so why would he have gone through such measures in case he failed? How could he have failed other than he did, which he in no way suspected? Seemed rather convenient to just add that in to me).
Anyway, the writing could be better, and I think Newcomb has the talent, he just, for God only knows what reason, isn't utilizing all of it. As far as the graphic content, I've read MUCH worse as far as graphic, and with better writing. Carey's Kushiel's Legacy, for example. Anyway, if he would only slow down a bit and do some serious outlining instead of just writing whatever came into his head at the time, I think he could (with his next saga, and whatever furthur sequals to these that he writes, since he can't really go back to re-write the first three) equal up to those other Elite writers mentioned earlier.
Newcomb, don't be in such a rush to be a success! You're really good, you just need to define your world a little better, instead of adding stuff in that sometimes conflicts with what you've said earlier to convenience what you want to do next.

I have the whole series of books Mr. Newcomb wrote, but I was lacking this one...I'm so glad I was able to get it. It arrived in good time and in great shape...thank you.

This novel is filled with grim scenes of cruel slavery, sadistic torture, and killing, which I found a bit tedious. The characters' lives are predetermined by their "blood signature" characteristics and no one can stand before the power of the Craft.

This world is developed enough to have medieval weapons, sailing ships, and a highly developed arcana of magic lore, yet most of the world is "unknown" on the map, with only a handful of cities. Where do all these hundreds of ships sail to? It's hard to believe that a whole civilization rises to this level of sophistication with only two or three cities.

It seems to me that the author's use of "forestallments" became an overused "Deux ex Machina" plot device whereby some character would develop some new ability or something new would happen out of the blue. Whenever something happens, it just so happens that the characters suddenly realize the significance of another obscure prophecy from the Scrolls of the Ancients. There are things within the system which do not seem consistent. For example, why doesn't Faegan, with his power of "Consummate Recollection," (which evidently does not include the power of consummate comprehension, since he must recite the text again before understanding its application to the situation,) simply read the scroll from end to end, then they don't need to keep studying it, nor do they need to worry if it is destroyed? Questions like this are the downfall of a plot that is too convoluted for its own good.

However, as light reading I did like this book enough to finish it, and curious enough to seek out the next book in the series just to see what happens next.

This review is based on my reading of the entire series.

It seems that there are 2 types of fantasy readers. Ones who look for deep plots, multi-dimensional characters, and a fantasy world that feels real. Then there is the other type, people who read for insane action, cool characters, and can ignore literary flaws if the book is exciting enough to read. This series is, without a doubt, meant for the latter.

First, the negatives. Much of the content is familiar. There are many scenes that are pages of magic garble that do get boring. The characters are not very deep. It is very easy to see that this is Mr. Newcomb's first series. For my so-called "Type 2" readers, this will not bother them very much, as the stories have enough action and "Whoa! I did NOT see that coming!" moments to make the read through worthwhile.

Now for the good. As previously stated, this series has enough suprises to keep you interested. Many times I ran the potential resolutions of the situation through my mind, and only once was I right, and it was a minor scene as well. Mr. Newcomb comes up with some VERY clever solutions to situations that seemed impossible. This is why I finished reading the series.

I would recommend this series to new fantasy readers looking for action, excitement, and guilty pleasure. Try not to get offended by some of the content, it's just a book.

It's difficult to know what to say, really. So many bad things have been said about Rob's books, that somebody should step up on his side. And I'm one of them that will.

After reading the first review on this page, I wanted to tear my hair out. So much of what the person said is wrong, incredibly wrong.

But enough ranting. In short, this book is my favourite of Rob's first three books. It has more humour (the Dreng scene had me laughing out loud), more action, more characters... It's a pleasure to read it. The characters are genuinely likeable, and you find yourself becoming attached to them, and actually caring about them. When they face danger, you worry. When something good happens, you feel genuinely pleased.

The most important part of this book was, for me, the development of the relationship between Prince Tristan and Celeste. Also, it interested me to see Shailiha, Tristan's sister, develop as a warrior.

Overall, this is a must-have. Now I must patiently wait forbook four, Savage Messiah.