The sister is captured by the general of the opposing army after her brother gives into fear and breaks the war code of conduct. The first book, the original Crown Duel, begins with a rebellion led by a brother and sister, a count and countess of a small, rural, and isolated province in the greater kingdom of Remalna, ruled by a tyrannical king, self-important and uneasy it seems to me on the throne, leading by threat and fear, imposing brutal taxes on lower classes, and occasionally arranging “accidents” for detractors, family of detractors, and potential detractors. It would be a difficult thing to plan so well. Though I’m not sure if that was providence or plan. “ and kicked the door shut behind us.”īecause the line goes to the very bottom of the page, there’s no indication that this is the end of the story till one turns the page and sees two blank, white, facing pages staring out at the reader like the shut doors, saying “what happens now is not your business.” The very bottom of the last page reads (and I’m truncating the sentence to avoid spoilers): That short story I can set aside as wonderful, fluffy fluff but with perhaps the best use of page formatting and white space that I have seen in a long while. This edition includes two novels that were originally published separately (as Crown Duel and Court Duel) and a short story that was published first in this edition. This is going to be a difficult book to review in that I’m not sure if I’ve just finished one book or two or three. I’ve tried to avoid names as much as possible, but there are spoilers.
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