Well, that was a weird

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"It's not like I have a crush on you or anything, b-baka" moment.

Apparently there's only two chapters left (59 chapters, 288,900 words), but there are quite a few big and small plot lines still open, and

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a dragon on the loose.

 

Whelp.

Given the revelations in this chapter—assuming I parsed through this correctly—I'm wondering what would be a bigger blow to the Elect of the Confederation:

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The fact that the Deathly Regiment even exists and can be exposed to the public, or that they don't even provide the majority of the sacrifices to the Lands Beyond.

Also Alexandra continues to give in to her hormones at the absolute weirdest times. This book has been weird.

 

I liked this chapter. Great ending scene, a nice "Alexandria as more of an equal to father" type role.

I just hope the series doesn't end with some "Alexandria gives up magic forever" ending, for whatever reason I'm getting those vibes.

 

Well shit, that was the ending? Idk why but I thought there'd be more to it. The ending does make sense though, there are too many plots to tie up all neatly at the end so I guess we'll see those in the next.

Really looking forward to the next book now, and nice to see that

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All the wizards know about the Deathly Regiment now and some muggles have caught onto the Wizarding World existing, and also now Hucksteen is going to full out start treating Muggles like scum

two huge plot points for the rest of the books now, and it makes sense that Wizarding Cultures would be pissed off about the DR.

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Also, poor Bonnie.

 

This was, without doubt, the best book in the series. All that character development has finally paid off, and Alexandra is now a much more well rounded, likeable character, even she remains a well written, flawed and complex one. Well done Inverarity.

I echo the comments of one reviewer on ff.net who said it would have been nice to see some of Mr. Mudd's reporting, but this book is already much larger than any other in the series, so as @Majube says, it's perhaps better and inevitable that tying up loose plot ends will be saved for the next instalment.

The last few times Inverarity did a preview of the next book shortly after it ended. I wonder if this is going to happen this time too.

EDIT: Maybe it's because I'm not, and have never been a teenage girl, but I don't really understand where this weird love plot with Larry came from. Or where it's going. It's a lot like cotton eyed Joe in a way.

 

i enjoyed reading about everything that happened, but at the same time i feel like too much happened.

off the top of my head, alex:

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• went to the ozarker jubilee and learned how to open the various cracks/leylines in the world
• went to a near self-created wizarding community highschool/college and made acquaintances, several of whom (amongst others) disappeared. did to her version of umbridge what everybody had wished harry would do to his... then got arrested.
• used cracks in the world as get out of jail free card.
• training montage(!) with more half-sisters
• wizarding decathlon into a single chapter of invading stormking mountain
• single chapter denouement and yet another meeting with dad

yes, i dont think any plot points got lost on the way but taking a step back it didnt feel cohesive, and some events got much more focus than others when i felt like even more others deserved much more attention.

compare to say... lands below.

• the JROC arc
• the mors mordis society
• max’s reveal
• the journey through the lands below and return

most of these plots were interwoven into the narrative until the final arc, which was a long sprawling adventure. in contrast to this last entry where she went from place to place to place with nary a break, or glossed over timeskips.

again, i liked the journey but i dont like the rapidity with which the plot blew through it

 

I'll abstain from giving a definite opinion until I have reread the book in one go. So, please, take this just as a bunch of first impressions. I reserve the right to amend them in a second read.

As I said before, this book sets many irons in the fire and it is more Alex-centric, to the detriment of the rest of the cast. That might be a good or a bad thing, depending on the reader's tastes.

We also got a good chunk of juicy worldbuilding, which I definitely enjoyed: cultures, races, etc.

Regarding the Confederation

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I found its evilness rather cartoonish, crowned with the "it eats babies" final revelation. I'd rather have my villains a bit more grayish, but eh.

Also... Auror Tsotsie, w00t!!! I still motion for Tsotsie's Totemic Tales as an eventual original series to monetize the Quickverse.

 

White guy selling a story about a Navajo wizard based on Harry Potter fan fiction sounds like a great way to be the next Two Minute Hate on Twitter.

Not that I wouldn't do it if I thought it would sell... But that isn't actually in my plans. (I will say that you'll get more of Henry Tsotsie in the next book.)

As usual, I appreciate the reads and the feedback. Have at me here: AQATWA: Author's Notes.

 

I loved this chapter. I just don't like the

I really enjoyed this book. I thought the character development was well done and the worldbuilding excellent.

I do think the [literally powered by child sacrifice a day] mechanic is a bit over the top.

I have trouble understanding the point. Wizards in the UK have no problem not doing so. What do American wizards gain from killing kids?

The Elite child sacrifice thing made a degree of sense if it was motivated primarily by wanting to conquer the Native American wizards in a relatively quick way. Like maybe it let the wizard Puritans just skip over a lot of hard work and just win with that .

But what do they gain now?


I really hope you're not going for an ending where Alex stops the sacrifices but then every American wizards loses their magic or something like that. Would be at odds with HP magic, which seems mostly costless and not sacrifice based.

Maybe I missed something obvious, but again, why do other wizarding governments not have this human sacrifice in the background?

 

I imagine a lot of people will ask questions like that when I show up on reddit. I'm not going to give all the answers, obviously (you'll get some in the next book), but I did worry that a child a day was a little over the top. However, I definitely meant to reveal that it's more than one child every seven years, and fudging with something half-assed like "Actually, it's every equinox" or whatever would have been less thematic.

 

Just re-read the AQ series and then the world away over the last few days. They are very well written and Alexandra is a fantastic protagonist. Her impetuosity and arrogance are a little blunted in this one after all the stuff that's gone down in the first four books, but she's still quite unlikable, really, but still somehow very relatable. Possibly my favourite main character in fan fiction!

I thought the pacing of the world away was a little bumpy though - too many scene jumps and rapid resolutions to tricky situations.

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Alexandra's head must be spinning after rapidly progressing from hopeful re-enrolling Charmwood student to Ozark tourist / godlike empowered to Pruett student to prisoner to Granny apprentice to apprentice artificer to Ozark champion to ... prospective Thorn circle member?

I thought Inverarity could either cut a few of these scene changes out or spread them out a bit more to really build the world and flesh out each one. Everything was introduced then resolved too quickly, I felt like each deserved more time to really hit home.

But overall I really loved it. Certainly it's fast paced and I'm excited for the resolution over the next two books.

 

i think this might be a hint,

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In chapter 58

His face transformed, however, his expression darkening, then glowing with wonder.
"So," he whispered. "The Dark Lord was right."


it seems that Voldemort was the one who informed Abraham of the one child per day institution, so there must be some significance to europeans as well unless Voldemort knew these things purely as a magical scholar?

 

I think it's the latter