***SPOILERS***
Delphi
and Gods
Since almost the start, the readers
know that Jionat’s half-brother Sverrin had died; information about how and why
it happened is trickled in throughout the novel in the guise of world-building.
This kept the suspense tight.
The
family of Jionat’s mother has an interesting name. The Delphi originates from
Ancient Greece, being a single individual that was a prophetess for Apollo. The
Hermatia Cycle, however, is firmly Celtic in its routes. But ‘Delphi’ and
‘Sibyl’ (a Roman prophetess) alike have become synonyms for ‘seer’ so I
wouldn’t say it was a bad choice of words. Indeed, Sibyl is often used as a
first name and having a family name of ‘Seer’ would give Jionat’s family a
monopoly on the Sight.
On
another note of seeing knowledge, Jionat wonders if in hurting Rufus he doomed
himself in ‘the omnipotent eyes of the gods’. Instead of omnipotent
(‘all-powerful’), the correct word choice would be omniscient ('all-knowing’).
The country of Hermatia was
established by the same-named family in conjunction with the Delphi. The latter
are the product of Sidhe mated with humans from the Otherworld, bestowing upon
the Delphi the Sight and a mystical connection to the dead.
The
Hermatia family considered the Delphi to be too magical and faerie to rule over
humans. The Delphi agreed as long as no magical Hermatians lead the country,
either, on threat of assassination. This was Prince Sverrin’s fate. This made
Jionat the heir but as both a Delphi and as a magical human he shouldn’t be
able to rule. Perhaps they cancel each other out?
Zachery
and Jionat blame each other for Sverrin’s death: Jionat should have made his
Delphi Knights stand down whereas Zachery, Sverrin’s magi guard, shouldn’t have
given Sverrin magic books. It was because of this feud that Jionat fell out
with Rufus (his magi guard) and Rufus fell out with Zachery, the two soured
relationships that I wanted answers to. (It annoyed me that Jionat tried to
escape with Rufus, someone he loathed, until I knew the answer.)
When Zachary corners the
protagonists, the goddess Athea possesses Rufus. In voice, actions and
intentions, Rufus’ body is Athea’s, has become Athea’s (as stated in the book),
and yet male pronouns are used.
There’s a
technical issue for this. Yes the body is male but the character is female and
also already has a female form. If a
woman swapped bodies with her husband, she would still be female even though
she was in a male body.
On a
grammatical point, using female pronouns for Athea would have provided clarity.
Seeing as there are four other males and only one other female character in
this scene, choosing female pronouns for Athea would have allowed for better
distinction between the characters and their actions. With five male pronouns,
it was very easy to get lost.
Grammar,
Punctuation and Stylistic Choices
Goodness, gracious, where to begin?
Perhaps
I’ll start with two instances of… adventurous punctuation. Two phrases,
‘in-love’ and ‘each-other’, are hyphenated when they’re not normally done so.
Two-word phrases are often hyphenated before becoming one word (like today
coming from ‘to-day’ and ‘to day’ before that) so there’s no issue with the
author doing this with those phrases.
There
are a few instances where speech marks (“x” rather than ‘x’!) go awry, put not
on speech but on surrounding prose or even missed out entirely. This is without
out due to printing errors rather than editing issues. Like any machine, a
printer can malfunction. A full stop is missing from Chapter Three’s last
sentence (which is an incomplete sentence) which, I suspect, is also due to
printing error.
A
miniscule mistake appears when ‘Jionat asked, “There must be an exit near.” If
something is asked, it is a question, so it should have a question mark. Or a
different verb should be considered to replace ‘asked’, such as with ‘mumbled’.
A
common problem is the comma problem. Things like ‘Just because he stopped
seeing me as a friend, doesn’t means I stopped being one’ crop up every few
chapters. The purpose of commas is to separate clauses and to separate items on
a list yet this comma does neither of these things. In fact, this comma doesn’t
do anything. It’s pointless.
There are a few stylistic choices
that are easy to fix.
Queen
Reine has the honorific of ‘Your Grace’ but as the principle consort, she is
the same rank and should thus have the same honorific as King Thestian (‘Your
Majesty’). ‘Your Grace’ is no longer fashionable as an honorific for royals
(being more commonly used for dukes and duchesses) but it isn’t incorrect. If
King Thestian had been referred to as ‘Your Grace’ even once, this wouldn’t be
an issue.
A tunnel
is described as being ‘like a giant black pupil’. I love this simile but
because pupils are inherently black, describing a pupil (or things being described
as a pupil) as ‘black’ is redundant.
The reader
gets one paragraph from Lily-Anne’s perspective. It’s wedged directly between
two different perspectives without any demarcation or separation: it means when
you read her perspective you’re in the mind-set of the last character and that
when you read the next perspective you’re in the mind-set of Lily-Anne. It was
nice to have an insight into Rufus’ heartbreak but this is dealt with elsewhere
in the book so I would have considered cutting out Lily-Anne’s view point
entirely.
The author confuses common nouns for
proper nouns as a hobby. Giving common nouns majuscules would be fine if the
novel was published in German but doing so in English is incorrect.
Common
nouns are for objects like ‘cat’ or ‘table’ whereas proper nouns are for names
and titles like ‘Gertrude’ or ‘Secretary of State for Health’. There are
instances where a noun is borderline common-proper but this author has erred on
the side of caution. A good way to find out is to replace it with a firm common
noun. Let’s go with ‘cat’.
The two
immediate examples are ‘the rightful King’ and ‘the only Princess that matters’
which should be ‘king’ and ‘princess’. In these instances, king and princess
aren’t being used a titles. If it had
been ‘the rightful King of Hermatia’ then, being a title and hence proper noun,
the majuscule would have been acceptable. If it had been ‘the Princess of
Bethean is the only princess that matters’, the miniscule would still remain.
Moving on
from majuscules being put where they shouldn’t, now we have an example of
majuscules being absent from where they should be. ‘Sarrin town’ is
consistently used as a proper noun so it should have a majuscule to be ‘Sarrin
Town’. It would be like writing ‘the United kingdom’ or ‘Vatican city’. Whilst
the second words don’t have to be present to name the places, this doesn’t
escape the fact that they are used for the name as well.
The final
one really bugs me. Individual members of the Night Patrol are referred to as
‘a Night Patrol’. What?! That’s like calling every police officer ‘a police
force’. It is rather odd. Maybe ‘a Night Patroller’ would have been a better
choice.
Foreshadowing
I’ve never read anything with such
masterful foreshadowing. Little throw-away comments and observations leave the
reader curious which are revealed in a way that brings them to the forefront of
the plot. Well, the plots, because there’s foreshadowing in this one that
applies to ‘Blood of the Delphi’, book two of the Hermatia Cycle. Here are a
few.
Torrin
makes a joke about being Rufus’ dad and Nora says, “Of that we’re sure.” That
instantly rang my attention. Is Nora saying she’s not Rufus’ parent? Is she
being sarcastic? Then it’s revealed that Nora is Rufus’ stepmum and was midwife
to his birth mother.
Eliade is
noted to look at Rufus intently, something the other characters assume to be
hatred but, of course, it’s because she’s looking at her son. When Rufus offers
to go after Jionat, Eliade wants guards to join them, making the characters think
she doesn’t have faith in him. But she just didn’t want her boys to get off.
Then when Rufus leaves, Eliade gives Rufus a kiss on the cheek. This is
presented as an intimate gesture (thinking it’s romantic or lustful in nature)
but now I think it was the action of a desperate mother.
When
Michael, Rufus’ uncle, saw Jionat, he recognised the prince because he
recognised in him King Thestian and Lady Eliade. Michael lives in Bethean
rather than Hermatia and Michael is a commoner rather than a noble so it seems
unlikely that he would have looked at either Thestian or Eliade, let alone
seeing them well enough to recognise them in a face that he’s never seen before
(Jionat). The first thought I had was that Michael worked as intelligence but
then, more fitting with the story, it’s more likely that Michael is associated
with the Delphi. The latter turns out to be true.
This novel
made for a satisfying read. I mulled the story even as I went about my day: few
stories do this when I’m focused on other tasks. It sets a really good example
for how to write a strong stand-alone novel yet also how to distribute
information and develop characters across a series. Plus it provides a gentle
introduction into Celtic mythology.
Reviews:
The Hermatia Cycle (M. E. Vaughan)
The Sons of
Thestian (Book One) 1/2
The Blood
of the Delphi (Book Two) 1/2
The Blood
of the Delphi (Book Two) 2/2
https://frostgriffin.blogspot.com/2019/09/review-blood-of-delphi-hermatia-cycle_28.html
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