ACoK: Chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11!

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Don't worry! Reading this post will not spoil anything! However,

DO NOT READ THE COMMENTS IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE SPOILED LIKE MOLDY BREAD!

It's here, Sounisians! Many of us now have our hand(s) on copies of the lovely new book known as A Conspiracy of Kings.
This system of posts is designed to put a little bit of organization in the chaos. Thus, if you want to discuss what happened in ACoK, leave your squeeings, questions, exclamations, and happy-sparrow-in-the-nest chatter in the comments. There will be a post for every four chapters, so it will be extremely lovely if the comments are placed in their approximate place. Of course, that isn't always possible for overall themes, etc. Don't worry. We won't put you in prison. :)
Also, THIS IS NOT THE ONLY WAY, of course. This chapter by chapter thingy isn't meant to monopolize discussion. It even may disappear after a few days in the deluge of excitement that's currently sweeping toward and around us, threatening to wash away everying more than a day old on the Recent Entries page. Yeah. So. Just remember to use lj cuts for any discussion of the content of ACoK!

Happy discussing! Be blessed in your endeavors! We are Sounisians, hear us roar like bears!

Comments

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

I don't seem to be able to muster up a book review of my own, but wanted to comment on the entire scene where Sophos goes to Baron Hanaktos's megaron to contact his father. I think this part of the book is a marvel. Sophos doesn't go there to start a battle, but when he learns that the Baron's plan threatens his father, he steps quickly into the role of leader.

pg. 83: "Lend me your shirt." "Why?" "Because if you don't, I'm going to hit you really hard and take it anyway." LOL!
pg. 86: Berrone and her "stupid kindnesses." What a great phrase.

Sophos's plan to cast doubt on the houseboy's story by breaking the amphora, was pretty clever. Ochto and Dirnes helping him! And his father doesn't even recognize him, but thinks quickly enough to slip him the lion ring. I love the desperate, slapstick scene where Sophos has to kick the poor, beleaguered houseboy in the privates to get the amphora to hit the floor.

pg. 96: "...I punched him in the face with the accumulated force of a thousand thousand shovels full of dirt." Great description.

pg. 98: "No one had seen the others fall. If they were wounded, they would be cared for. If they were wealthy, they might eventually be ransomed or bargained for in other ways if events went against Hanaktos. If events went for Hanaktos, they might someday be in the very barracks I had left, working for Ochto, building stone walls in my place." I'm not sure why, but that part made me go, "wow." Such a deep thought in the middle of an action scene.

Anyway, the whole scene sort of showed one of the running themes--loyalty, and questioning it, whether it's loyalty to your king, your baron, your family, friends, or to yourself.

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Yes, very true. And thinking about it now, I don't think Sophos would have been able to do all this amazing stuff before his enslavement. Even though he did have a nifty escape plan that he though of at the beginning with Malatesta.

Perhaps Pol didn't teach him to fight off a table, but he could teach himself.

[reader-marie.livejournal.com]

This is, indeed, a great scene. Schemes, plots, action, and comedy all in one.

I was relieved to see that there actually IS a lion ring in the book; since it was on the cover I kept expecting something like it to show up, so I'm glad it did, if only for a moment.

Your loyalty comment is interesting; I think in one of MWT's interviews/lead ups to the book she said that Sophos is a hero because he didn't have to be one--he could have stayed in Hanaktos, building walls. Even his father didn't recognize him; his disguise was solid. But he chose to place his loyalty in--well, in what? Something greater than his own wants, I guess.

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

I love the emnity (enmity? Help!) between Sophos's dad and the Magus. "The Mede AGAIN!" And how they were talking too loudly in the tent.

And, basically, Sophos's dad in general. He's fun to read about.

[drashizu.livejournal.com]

I was surprised to find that I liked Sophos's father's character, when after everything we'd heard in TT and in the beginning of CoK, he seemed to me like he would be such a harsh, villainous sort of guy. I think even Sophos might have thought of him that way in the beginning, but when his father turns around and hugs him on the horse first thing once they're away from Hanaktos's megaron, it was a moment both for Sophos and for the reader to realize that he has a lot more fatherly affection for Sophos than we'd been lead to believe. (Just another example of a character's perceptions skewing the facts, so that the reader is surprised later! I really liked MWT's reworking of Sophos's father's character and turning his "meanness" into an aspect of Sophos's perceptions. Squee.)