YMMV / The Runelords

• Awesomeness Withdrawal: The next book in the series, A Tale of Tales, has been five years in the making so far, and there are no signs of a release anytime soon. Longer waiting periods between books in the series have been the norm for some time, but the situation is growing grim. Not to mention that the author is growing old...
• Fridge Logic: The ramifications of any of the endowments. The series steadfastly refuses to worry about this, and by doing so earns a lot more Willing Suspension of Disbelief than if it'd waved its hands left and right to cover.
  • One glaring problem, though: Forcibles are rare and expensive to the point that only the nobility can afford them — and even then, not every one. How did Myrrima's family get enough money to afford her starting forcibles — and why didn't they use that money to get out of poverty, instead of crippling the family so Myrrima could make a good marriage... to get out of poverty?
    • Because their problem isn't just a lack of money, it's a lack of sustainability. The economy in the series is more feudal than capitalistic in nature, making opportunities to rise in stature difficult to come by, and the culture (with the refreshing exception of Fleeds) is patriarchal, making it especially hard for women. Myrrima's father has died, her remaining family is a mother and two sisters. Even with a large sum of money on hand, their opportunities for investing it into a sustainable source of income are limited (can't buy land or a business without men to work it). Once the money runs out, they're back where they were before. Marry a noble with lots of income, though, and you're set for life.
    • Additionally, the true price of endowments is not only the expense of obtaining the forcible itself, but the cost of finding a willing dedicate. A forcible is worthless without someone to use it on. Lords can offer protection, resources, and opportunities to contribute to higher causes in order to recruit dedicates, but an average peasant who obtains a forcible has nothing to offer someone in exchange for cripping themselves, so they're better off selling the dang thing unless they already have enough wealth or standing to influence dedicates. Myrrima happened to have willing dedicates already in the form of her family, so they saved themselves the cost of bribing strangers.
• Narm: The author's habit of referring to testicles almost exclusively as "walnuts" makes it difficult to take some scenes as seriously as they're intended.
• Villain Decay: Several books after Raj Ahten became a flameweaver only to end up dying horribly, it is revealed that he had been possessed by a locus, and wasn't responsible for his actions.
  • Reavers might as well be ninjas. Loci are worse about it.
  • Fire, as a power. The first quadrilogy presents it as an unrelenting enemy of mankind, unresistable, corrupting, dehumanizing, and altogether alien. The second quadrilogy has Fallion almost effortlessly resisting Fire's calls to surrender himself to it, while at the same time wielding its power with magnificent results. Somewhat mitigated by everyone eyeing Fallion like a loaded gun for a while, and Fallion himself being an old soul well-used to the power, but when, right in the first book, Binnesman insists that Fire is not and will not be mankind's ally in the age to come...

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