12: Time Wars #1: The Ivanhoe Gambit Simon Hawke

John, [singular fruit]

Shit, my bad. I remembered wrong and only half read my source.

Mithras Orienteers as Frosty

Oh that's such a great time travel move. I am all in with the villain. Did we know what his motivation is?

GDC

Either way, this is a time sword. It should be like, a gigawatt.

Mithras Orienteers as Frosty

I didn't mean it when I said you could never be a real man Simon.

gellaho

He wants to be the King of England

Mithras Orienteers as Frosty

Oh, I thought that was like step 2 of 7

gellaho

I'm being treated to a long ass logistical discussion about time travel

John, [singular fruit]

If one dude can fuck up the timeline so bad, how can they ignore the thousands/millions of time soldiers?

I give up trying to make sense of this.

gellaho

Boy do I hate it

Mithras Orienteers as Frosty

Am I mad or do modern books have larger spaces in-between paragraphs.

That looks scrunched up like a crazy person's notebook

GDC

Seems like all this time travel stuff is more trouble than it's worth.

John, [singular fruit]

Depends on the book. This looks like some of my cheaper books that try to use as few pages as possible to reduce costs,

Mithras Orienteers as Frosty

Time travel has been invented many times. In every timeline it has been, the very next act after invention, is a weary person popping into existence to kill the inventor burn their research and fade away.

GDC

I know that was the exact plot of an episode of the X-Files.

gellaho

Here's Marion. All women need to be young

gellaho

This is weird

gellaho

Lucas got attacked by the lady knight and now he's being taken care of by some old hippie

gellaho

Future hippy

John, [singular fruit]

I call bullshit. No one would choose to live in the 12th century and give up every amenity.

gellaho

He has a time machine

gellaho

Which implies that he has a way to generate electricity

Mithras Orienteers as Frosty

Now we're talking.

gellaho

You wanted to know Irving's motivation? He's trying to prove a theory

John, [singular fruit]

Shouldn't they already know the answer? That first referee's job was to die as King Richard.

GDC

This is the sort of thing you should figure out before you send LARPers back in time.

gellaho

This is a brilliant idea. If, like, birds and weather didn't exist

John, [singular fruit]

Thankfully Earth, the sun, and galaxies are stationary in space, right guys?

Apparently there's no room in the budget to give everyone a jet pack.

Deleted User

See all of this proves my point from way earlier, he keeps trying to get real inepth with how time travel would work but ends up creating more plot holes

GDC

And why don't they just skip a step and give the soldiers those floater packs?

Deleted User

If he just didn't bring it up I wouldn't either because like, who cares it's a story? But since he has brought it up I must now actually care

gellaho

This deserter's story only works if we hadn't already met the merry men

gellaho

The army implants follow coconut on the head rules

Deleted User

Has hawke ever written a love interest old enough to drink?

gellaho

Raven was 22

Deleted User

I thought she was 18 when they first met?

GDC

The time army doesn't know how time travel works and all their equipment immediately breaks. This army sucks.

gellaho

No, she was a teenage prostitute for many years

This future hippy is wild

John, [singular fruit]

No, he bizarrely described her as a 22 year old with the face of a 16 year old and an 18 year old's body or some shit.

Deleted User

Ok yeah, definitely way better then

gellaho

These future guys decided that hygiene is the most important part of training. Also the last sentence is something else

GDC

To be fair, I would do that in the middle ages too.

I mean, not the moderating my drinking part, obviously.

gellaho

Turns out that kid who was time travel garroted did it to himself to prevent being tortured and interrogated by Irving

gellaho

Seems like there are better ways to commit suicide

This dude is fucking crazy

gellaho

These guys are fight by time traveling back and forth. One has a Tommy gun, and the other a sword. This does not work in text

gellaho

This isn't going to fuck with time at all, no siree

gellaho

The bad guy dies on accident. He pulls back the lady knight as she's trying to kill a knight and she kills Irving instead

GDC

So far the plot of this book is that unlikable, incompetent people with shitty equipment fuck up history and then fail to fix their own fuckups.

gellaho

After that they go home and Lucas becomes a Time Commando. The last two chapters are devoted to the lady knight killing the knight who killed her brother. She also saves the Jewish woman from the beginning.

She's hanging out with the old crazy future hippy

GDC

I had assumed Simon Hawke had forgotten about her.

At least she has a name.

gellaho

She showed up every once in a while, she got kidnapped by some knights. But she didn't really do anything

She keeps getting called a healer, but she never healed anybody

GDC

Maybe she just made them get rid of their pubic lice, too.

gellaho

The epilogue is literally just about Lucas recruiting people at a recruitment center

GDC

Our hero, perpetuating the horror.

gellaho

Anyway, that was pretty boring. Don't know how there are 12 of these

gellaho

This is the only good part of the book

GDC

The more he worldbuilds, the less the world makes sense.

gellaho

Anyway, one more book down. Onto the next adventure

GDC

ALL HAIL STEELETRON

gellaho

The worst part is that, despite all the explanations, the book never really explains how or why the world agreed to this form of combat

Brendan

Hannibal was NOT a berserker general, Hawke, you HAVE to know this.

jakesy “the korf magician”

Minimal lip action. Not ideal!

Deleted User

Well, turns out simon hawke got better as a writer

Not good but better