The Scrolls of the Ancients: Volume III of the Chronicles of Blood and Stone: 3 (Chronicles of Blood and Stone, Volume 3) [Hardcover]

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.