Foz Meadows’s Reviews > Throne of the Crescent Moon > Status Update

I'm confused. On page 119, Raseed was told he had a strict time limit to get the crimson quicksilver to Litaz because the seal had been broken and open air was creeping in - implying that it would be ruined somehow, or made worthless. But now she's talking about using more of it tomorrow?

Raseed is worrying he loves Zamia. They've had ONE CONVERSATION. *facepalm*

Personal bugbear the first: so Zamia can shapeshift clothes as well as flesh? People so often gloss this point as a convenience with shapeshifting, and it bugs me.

Personal bugbear the second: so Raseed is apparently the only man to ever make Zamia think about romance? They just met, and she's already thinking about marriage and kids to restart her clan essentially because he smells nice! GAH.

The story is flowing well, and I'm enjoying myself. But even by my standards, mentioning a character's eye colour three times in the course of a single page - 'eyes like green fire,' 'green-eyed little girl', 'emerald eyes' - is pushing it.

A small point, this, but Adoulla's book has fallen out of the narrative. He had it at the tea shop, we learned it was a treasured and expensive item, but when he got up to leave there was no mention that he brought it with him, and nor did it reappear when he got home. A minor discontinuity, but a discontinuity nonetheless.

Not bad so far, bar some narrative double-handling, but points off for starting a sentence with the words "Back when he'd been a street brawling youth on Dead Donkey Lane". I'll take that sort of nomenclature from Tamora Pierce and Terry Pratchett, but nine pages in to a new author's debut, it's a little on the nose.