Track of the White Wolf - Introduction and Prologue

[kalinara]

I must be a masochist, because even after the hellish experience that is Legacy of the Sword, I've come back to try to review the next book in this god forsaken series.

To be fair, I don't remember hating Track of the White Wolf. I definitely don't remember hating Niall nearly as much as I hated Donal, so there is that. And there are minor characters that I really like.

We're not quite halfway through the series yet, but this is the book that I think sets the tone for how the series continues from here. It's a generational epic, and we saw what that means in Legacy. All four of our original lead characters are dead. We're going to see a lot more familiar faces meet their end as the series continues. There's a much heavier focus on the "prophecy" from now on. No more ambiguity there. There's a specific goal that our characters are working toward, and we're going to see that develop.

And that means there's going to be a whole lot of cousin fucking. Also this book begins the tradition of the spoiler-family tree.

Basically, after the ever present map (no major changes), we get a lovely little family tree that traces the generations so far. We're still pretty early on, no actual cousin fucking has happened yet. But it will. In fact, the family tree even tells us what Niall and Gisela's children's names will be.

And apparently, Niall, like Donal, will have a second partner at some point. (Marriages are denoted with an "m." while unmarried partners are listed like so:

Carillon m. Electra x (Tynstar)

So, from this tree, we know Niall will have a wife and a partner (god willing he'll be less of a dick about it than Donal was), his half-brother Ian, who briefly appeared in Legacy as an adorable but traumatized four year old, will also have a partner, and their sister Isolde will marry and have a child.

It might be worth noting that the tree doesn't distinguish between rape and a consensual partnership.

You can take that as the not-so-subtle warning that it is. This is the Chronicles of the Cheysuli, and there is, as always, rape. Ya-fucking-hoo.

There is one nice point though, which I've already told you about in my Legacy reviews. Finn's daughter Meghan has indeed married Evan. I'm happy about this. Evan was one of the few tolerable characters in Legacy of the Sword. And I like the thought that his courtship (in which he proved he can actually take no for an answer) eventually became successful.

I'm also happy that Meghan and any descendants will have happily escaped the cesspool of rape and cousin-fucking that will result from this.

Anyway, we do have a prologue, so let's begin.

( And brace ourselves accordingly )