Howdy, howdy! How’s everyone doing this lovely Wednesday? Things here are still a waiting game. I had to push a wheelchair meeting back from last week to this Friday (my fault, not theirs). I called Medicaid on the 11th and was told my review should’ve been done by August 28th, so she escalated it so someone should finish it soon. I guess I’ll have to call them every week until it gets done. Anyway, I don’t really have anything to ramble about today. But I promised an actual post, so I thought about it and I’m reading a new-to-me series that is both great so far and annoying as fuck. I guess I can rant about the annoying bit.

I started reading the Fourth Wing books by Rebecca Yarros. I made it through Fourth Wing and am about halfway through Iron Flame. I knew there was also Onyx Storm, but I didn’t realize there are at least two more books planned. I probably would’ve waited for them to come out before I started the series. But that’s beside the point. First, I should tell you what I like about it.

It’s a romantasy series and there’s sex on the page, so if you don’t like smut, it’s not for you. But I’m fine with it, so it’s not a problem for me. The premise is basically that the whole continent is at war, so there’s a war college where healers learn medicine, scribes learn to record events accurately, infantry learns to fight on the ground, and riders learn how not to get killed by their dragons. We’re focusing on the riders here. But what if those in charge are more busy hiding the truth than actually protecting their people??? Dun dun dun… Yeah, it’s not exactly original, but it’s fun so far.

I didn’t realize the main character was disabled when I bought the book, but I’m okay with that. Violet has an unnamed connective tissue disability, but given that the author has EDS, I’m guessing it’s something akin to that. There’s also a deaf character and some people know how to sign while others don’t. None of it is really a big deal. Sometimes, accommodations need to be made for Violet, but considering she bonded with the biggest badass dragon of her time, people just allow the accommodations to be made rather than facing the wrath of Tairn. Even when she’s in denial about needing different things, she eventually gives in and realizes it’s not cheating or whatever to do things that make her capable of doing what everyone else is already doing. It’s just part of life. So, I enjoy that aspect of the books.

But I did run into something that makes me irrationally angry. Bladed weapons are a huge part of the book. Most characters have at least one knife or sword or whatever. It’s so important that care and maintenance of the weapons is used as filler during dialogue sometimes. At one point it was mentioned that someone was sharpening their knife on a leather strap. But a strop doesn’t sharpen a blade, it hones it. Honing is realigning the cutting edge. Sharpening removes metal to create a new cutting edge basically. I’m no expert, but I do know the very basics and it makes me weirdly upset when I catch an author who hasn’t done a minimum effort of research. It makes me wonder what else is wrong with the book. Especially in fantasy and sci-fi, I count on the author to know what they’re talking about and when something simple crops up that’s wrong, it ruins their credibility. She got a little better in book two with honing vs. sharpening, but I feel like there’s still some confusion. Luckily, it’s not something that comes up often, so I try to ignore it when it happens, but it’s still eye-twitch inducing. And yes. I know it’s just a pet peeve. I’m being irrational. It’s just one of my things.

Anyway, I’m enjoying the series so far. The characters do seem to be much stupider in book two, so I’m not sure how I’ll feel by the end of it. We’ll see.