Frustration, Part 6

Yes, that’s right. Will Norrington, the Scourge of Evil, the Bane of Wickedness Incarnate dies after nine hundred pages of adventuring.

And that is the end of book two. Will dies, leaving his companions dumb struck.

The End.

Or rather "Next book coming soon; I know, I know, Write faster"

So, I didn’t panic. I knew it was going to be a trilogy before I started the second book. I even read the back of the third book to see if it actually belonged to the trilogy, so I knew Will was going to die from page one of book two. I just didn’t know anything about the scenery on the drive there.
But I did know this: I was reading a fantasy.

I finished Book Two thinking, "Okay. They killed him. I knew that was coming. But he has dragon blood in him. He’ll come back some how. Stacky will bring him back some how. Lets find out how."

So, I went to the library and procured The Grand Crusade. And discovered it to be anything but.

The focus of the story was told mainly from that Princess that you’ll remember I could have taken or left, the Golden Wolf (I now remember that her name is Alyx, but I won’t call her that) and Crow.

For half the book they are lamenting the loss of Will the Norrington. Wondering what they are going to do, and doing what ever they have to.

For half the book I am waiting for the return of Will, the one that got me hooked some one thousand pages earlier. For half the book I am waiting for him return and say, "Here I am! Lets go kill the NorWitch!"

And finally, after dragging through two hundred, three hundred pages of Stackpole’s increasingly grating voice (more on that to come) I am finally told that Will’s not dead, he’s just waiting for some of his companions to find him.

Finally. At last.

So some set off to do just that, while others go off to fight in high combat.

Of course I am interested only in the rediscovery of my hero, Will the Nimble, King of the Dims, the Norrington.

And what do I discover? Stackpole has turned him into an enraged golem. At first I think that it really is a golem, in the pure Jewish sense of it being a cocoon, and that Will is incubating within the fire eyed stone monster. Or some such other High Fantasy nonsense. After all, he has dragon blood in him, and, and . . .

Wrong.

Will never does return. He never gets paired with the beautiful Lady Snowflake Isaura, who, though Evil Chytrine’s heir, helps to overthrow her.

Chytrine is killed and the various companions go on to be big muckity-mucks throughout the varied kingdoms. And what is left of Will, or rather what I am supposed to believe is left of Will, goes off into the Far North to relentlessly eradicate the remains of Chytrine’s army.

The End.

I felt so cheated. Robbed. Hood winked. For nine hundred pages I had been following the truly dynamic character that I first discovered hanging from a rope in a rainstorm, waiting to break into the room of the badest dude in the Dims.

And what do I get instead? Some forty-something, scar covered, white haired man named Crow crying like a little girl with a Princess that I found as intriguing a package of steel wool.

I want my money back! Oh, wait . . .

Thank goodness for libraries.

I want my time back! I want my emotional investment back! Oh, well, I didn’t really get in to it that much. In fact, I pretty much had to force myself to finish the last book.

So now you know the general points. Let’s now discuss the important points.

To be continued . . .