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Title: Wicked Bronze Ambition
Series: Garrett, PI #14
Author: Glen Cook
Rating: 2 of 5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 438
Words: 127K
| Synopsis: |
From Kobo.com
Garrett is a human detective in the fantastical city of TunFaire. And now he’s getting tangled up in the worst sort of laws…
In-laws.
Garrett is set to stow his wandering heart with his fiancée, Strafa Algarda. But for Garrett, even true love comes with its share of headaches—namely, the Algarda family.
Strafa’s family needs Garrett’s unique skills in the worst way. Rumors are spreading that someone is organizing a Tournament of Swords—a brutal contest that magically compels the children of sorcerers to battle until only one is left alive. The winner will absorb the power from those he has killed and thus become a demigod.
Strafa and her family want to protect her daughter, Kevans, from being forced to take part in the lethal contest…and they’ve asked Garrett to find out who is organizing the tournament and nip it in the bud. The only problem is that finding the culprit is most likely impossible. But the Algardas are used to getting what they want….
| My Thoughts: |
This is the final Garrett PI book and I have to admit, it wasn’t good. Garrett’s new almost-wife (they’re going to be married in a week or so) is killed right from the get-go and then is returned/resurrected/whatevered right at the end. I really disliked her being killed, but to have her return was even worse.
Then Garrett is about the stupidest I’ve ever seen him in the series. Cook uses the old “I’m in shock, I’m stressed, I’m excuse, excuse, excuse” but it was total caca. He wrote Garrett dumb and then shut the Deadman out of the picture to make this last longer. Pile on that many other characters DO seem to know what is going on but are not telling Garrett because of “you have to figure it out on your own” caca and you had a LOT of caca in this book.
Everything in this book felt like a whimper instead of bang. A series shouldn’t end like that. Bleh.
Is bleh better than blerk?
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Blerk feels more of an active dislike while bleh seems a bit more passive and apathetic.
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Thanks for this insight.
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I couldn’t hold my head up in the Master Wordsmithing community if I couldn’t differentiate between to such vastly different words 😉
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Pfft-blerk!
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Wow, I’ve never heard such respect before.
Hey, before you know it, you might be able to write up some sentences and start a cult of personality, I mean, a blog of your own!
Wouldn’t that be crazy?
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Need a few snaps of graters for a proper blog…
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Well, the way I hear it, you have some pretty shady connections that could get you those pix in a snap.
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Fraggle would sue for stealing her IP.
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Not steal, “long term borrowing”. It’s an accepted practice 😉
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Well he’s already stealing my words so I won’t be surprised if he has a pop at the pictures too. Sorry, ‘long term borrowing’ hah! Pfft.
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Bliddy ell that comment went in the right place! Woo hoo!
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A MIRACLE!
Quick, die. Then we can saint you
😉
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I am immortal. The Ancient One cannot be killed or get poorly.
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Dang. Well, no Saint Fraggle then.
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I am above sainthood. It has no meaning for me.
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I discussed long term borrowing with my brother the other week and we both agreed it was legit. So there you have it. A Consensus!
As for Ol’10, all I can say is that he’s never paid me those sardines he owes me for the New Constitution that we never got around to writing.
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No surprise there.
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😀 😀 😀
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There should be more options than just “like”, as there are on FB now… sad, and now I don’t now if I should even start with this series…
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I think I would have stopped reading this series 2-4 books back. I’d have to go read over the reviews.
This wasn’t so bad, as it was just pathetic.
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Ah, far-fooey.
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Yeah, pretty much 😦
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The plot sounds a bit shades of Highlander (there can be only one).
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I hadn’t made that connection but now that you mention it, there is no way I’m ever going to be able to not associate it now.
Since this came out in ’13 and the last Highlander movie was 2007 (I think), maybe Cook thought he could get away with it.
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I quite liked the 1st Highlander movie but actually preferred the TV series that it begat.
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I LOVED the first movie. I came to it later in life but man, it was great.
I tried the tv show for a couple of seasons but I couldn’t get past the guy they had playing the Highlander in that one. I think he was in the mighty morphin power rangers as the white ranger? And even if he wasn’t, he reminded me of the guy who was, So unpleasantness by association 😦
Plus, you know, I don’t exactly watch a lot of anything….
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Loved the Queen soundtrack to the first, Who Wants To Live Forever, bawled my eyes out when that came on. Sean Connery in that daft red frenchified suit 🤣 I liked the guy in the tv series, he didn’t have squinty eyes like Duncan Macleod of the clan Macleod.
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Sounds like a series to avoid if the ending is so weak.
Such a Shame when they don’t pan out decently.
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I like Cook’s writing, for the most part and I’d say 75-85% of this series was good. If I’d stopped several books back I’d have been just as far for Garrett’s personal life and the story would have felt better.
But you know us completionists. If there’s more, we have to know about it
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Well that’s a shame.
I’m not a fan of resurrecting characters in general. It just feels like lazy writing (in most cases).
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It was a shame. I’d almost have preferred a real self-destruction that I could rant about instead of this whimper. It almost made me embarrassed on Cook’s behalf.
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Ah, such a shame. It’s a bit like spitting in the fans’ faces, doing such a gimmick in the last book of the series. It was better to just leave it alone and not write the final book (or two, I remember you were unhappy with the arbitrary destruction of Garrett’s relationship with Tinkerbell?)
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Yep, whatever book it was that Cook nuked the relationship between Garrett and Tinny, the series should have ended one book before that.
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Ugh, the dead-then-resurrected-lover device! No, no, no, NO!
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It was pretty lazy indeed. You could just feel the “mail it in to pay the bills” attitude 😦
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I weirdly love that you used “caca” in a book review lmao.
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My scatalogical references may not be cutting edge, but they get the job done! 😀
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Nothing more disappointing than a poor series ender, indeed!
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And nothing I could even rage about. It would have been like kicking a drunk hobo lying in the ditch 😦
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You know it’s bad when you suddenly started saying caca this many times in one review!
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I haven’t really paid attention to Cook’s career, but I haven’t heard of him writing anything “good” since this. It feels like he gave up on writing with this book and karma bit him good for it.
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One of my pet hates in books is when everyone knows what’s going on but the main character either has to figure it out or is too stupid to figure it out (even long after the reader has fully grasped everything). Mentally, those kind of books feel like I’m reading way below my intelligence level and it hurts.
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Indeed. I hate when communication between characters is cut by the author for “reasons” to add tension, etc. It bugs me too!
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I not long finished a ‘thriller’ where the character POVs were in 1st person. Which made the fact that the characters feelings on the shared negative pasts and their future motivations being ENTIRELY hidden behind ‘clever misdirection’ was utterly pointless and unbelievable. Still seething over it.
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