Chronicles of Blood and Stone

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A series of High Fantasy novels by Robert Newcomb, notable for a) a literal gender war, with women as the baddies, and b) an amazingly vehement Hatedom, partly because of the gender war and partly because of rampant cliches.

The order of the books is:

• The Fifth Sorceress (2002)
• The Gates of Dawn (2003)
• The Scrolls of the Ancients (2004)

The sequel trilogy is known as Destinies of Blood and Stone. There were plans for a third trilogy, Victories of Blood and Stone, but publisher Del Rey cancelled Newcomb's contract after the second trilogy was released.

Read a recap of the first book here.

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This series of books provides examples of:

• Action Girl: By the third book, Shailiha is one of these. Also in the third book is Tyranny.
• Aerith and Bob: We have Tristan, Nicholas, Morganna, and Shailiha all coming from the same family. In the same world, we also have Failee, Succiu, Wigg, Shannon the Small, etc.
• Airport Fantasy
• All Animals Are Dogs: Pilgrim the horse. It even plays fetch.
• Anticlimax
• Anything That Moves: A common result of sorcery, but Succiu deserves special mention, as her appetites include men, women, slave boys, dwarves, gentically mutated minions, other sorceresses, and both the main character and his twin sister.
• You Fail Biology Forever: Apparently, Succiu can go through a full-term pregnancy in less than a month without suffering any ill-effects.
  • Considering some of the other stuff she's done, accelerating her pregnancy through black magic is par for the course.
• Author Appeal: Newcomb seems to be really into nudism, although only villains are nudists.
• A Wizard Did It: Common Hand Wave.
• The Baroness: Succiu.
• Because Destiny Says So
• Chosen One: Tristan. He and his sister are literally called the "Chosen Ones."
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: The Vagaries. In particular, the combining of the Vigors and the Vagaries.
• Distracted By the Sexy: Tristan. Wigg, in contrast, is never bothered.
• Double Standard Rape (Female On Male): Averted. The sorceresses are reviled for the "rape and torture of both sexes" and Tristan is horrifically raped by Succiu.
• Drunk On the Dark Side: Why not to use the Vagaries. It starts with becoming a Depraved Bisexual, and goes from there.
• The End of the World As We Know It
• Everything's Better With Princesses
• Evil Feels Good: "Hugely sexual longings" commence when using the Vagaries.
• Face Heel Turn: Shailiha. She gets better.
• Fantastic Arousal: The minions have a sensitive area on their wings. Succiu often licks this area while sexing up minions.
• For the Evulz: Motive of the sorceresses.
• Functional Magic: The Vigors and the Vagaries.
• Good Is Dumb: Yes, very dumb.
• Half-Human Hybrid: The minions.
• Heroes Want Redheads: Tristan falls for Lilith in the first book who turns out to be a sorceress in disguise and Celeste in the second, both of who have red hair.
• Honor Before Reason: The wizards tend to follow this to the point of insanity. It gets all but one of them killed very early on.
• Kick the Dog: Newcomb wants to make sure we know that all women the sorceresses are evil.
• Lego Genetics: Minions are humans who are given bat-like wings by magic.
• Long-Lost Relative: Wulfgar, who is Tristan and Shaihila's half-brother.
  • Also Celeste, who is Wigg's daughter.
• Love At First Sight: Tristan towards THREE different girls. First Lilith who is a sorceress in disguise and tries to kill him then Narrissa who dies. And in the second book it happens again with Celeste.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Inverted. It's more of a 'Luke I Am Your Son' moment, between Tristan and Nicholas II in the second book.
• Magic A Is Magic A
• Ms. Fanservice: Succiu walks around naked as much as possible.
• New Powers As the Plot Demands: Tristan.
• Old Master: Wigg.
• Plot Hole: Many, often due to bad editing.
• Rape As Drama
• Really Seven Hundred Years Old: Most of the wizards and sorceresses are around 300-400 years old.
• Sequel Hook: Tristain's father appears to him in a dream for the sole purpose of giving a Sequel Hook. Gee, dad, thanks for confirming that my life will continue to suck even if I survive this book.
• Single Tear: "Single tears" are very common. At one point, a character cries two tears, and the author manages to write it out as two single tears.
• Stupid Good, Too Dumb to Live: 327 years ago, after defeating the sorceresses in war, the wizards decided to exile them instead of executing them, despite the leader's warning that they would return.
• The Usual Adversaries: Minions, harpies, blood stalkers, etc.
• Villainous Incest: Face Heel Turned Shailiha makes some less-than-sisterly comments about her captive twin brother, though fortunately she doesn't get a chance to do more than that.