Free The Prophecy Con (Rogues Of The Republic, #2) Written By Patrick Weekes Offered As Text

W. E. S. O. M. E.

Mr Weekes, thanks ever so much for rescuing my poor soul after the sitelinkIced fiasco, The Prophecy Con was just what I needed to get my book life back on track,

As I was reading the character recap at the beginning of the book I just knew this was going as fantastic as sitelinkThe Palace Job.
I was wrong. It wasn't as fantastic as sitelinkThe Palace Job, it was even better, Nonstop kickass action, everexpanding worldbuilding, brilliant plot and hilarious character interactions,



What I like most about Rogues of the Republic The Rogues obviously! What a crazy bunch of misfits, I love them all! Loch kicks butt as a newly appointed Justicar.
Pyvic is now a captain and part of the dysfunctional family, Kail is hilarious as ever with his mother lines he kicks butt too!, Ululenia the shapeshifting unicorn kills me whenever she coaxes minds to befuddlement "Arrogant apple, babbling brook, creeping cat" hahaha!, Tern the super cool alchemist/safecracker/crossbow expert and her boyfriend Hessler the wizard/university dropout with a very limited field of expertise or not.
Desidora the kick ass love priestess turned death priestess turned love priestess and Ghylspwr her talking, magical warhammer, Indomitable Courteous Fist aka Icy the Imperial acrobat/contortionist and former monk and his vow of nonviolence, Rybindaris aka Dairy, Champion of Dawn and Ululenia's designated young muscular virgin or not,

What I love here is the way the author plays mix and match with the characters as the story evolves.
He keeps changing the teams, which is fantastic in terms of character dynamics,

Weekes has created an amazing cast of characters, The Rogues are fantastic of course but so is the rest of the cast, From Princess Veiled Lightning, Gentle Thunder and Shenziencis, to Irrethelathlialann the elf "Ethel" hahaha!, Mister Dragon, the Godsdamned Knights of Gedasar, Cevirt, Bertram and Gart Utt'Krenner the dwarf.
Even minor characters in the story are brilliantly developed,



Oh it might be time to talk about the story now, Right. Sorry about the character fangirling, Since the book is pretty much nonstop action it would be difficult to summarize the plot line so I'll keep it short: in order to avoid war Loch amp her crew have to steal back The Love Song of Eillenfiniel, the elven manuscript they stole then returned to the Elves in sitelinkThe Palace Job.
Obviously nothing goes according to plan and everything that can go wrong does, What a wild rollercoaster ride this is: great action scenes, pursuits, traps, distractions, fantastic fight scenes it

never stops.
And the twists! Weekes is one of the very few authors whose unexpected tricks amp twists I never see coming.
One word of advice here: read the book to the very last page, When I say to the very last page I mean the part after the Acknowledgments, Trust me on that, What else The humour! sitelinkThe Palace Job was funny but The Prophecy Con is downright hilarious, It's one crazy line after the next, This book is just brilliant from beginning to end,

Let's end this with a list of random awesomeness shall we:
Lapitects, The museum theft. Winddaemon powered airships. The Elven book of sex poems, Firedaemon powered trains. Tern fangirling like a teenager every time Veiled Lightning is around, Crabs in the library, Zephyrclass airships. Iofegemet. Zombie armies. The sufgesuf tournament. Dwarves. The Voyancy. Elven treeships. Jyelle. The train scenes.



This is only one of the coolest books ever, Mr Weekes, please write a sequel, I need more Rogues in my life!

Book: sitelinkThe Palace Job
Book: sitelinkThe Paladin Caper The adventures of Loch and her friends continue in the second instalment of what is now called the 'Rogues of the Republic' saga.


Fresh off her deadly encounter with Archvoyant Silestin, Loch escorts a diplomatic mission to the Temple of Butterflies where they must assuage the Empire's fears over the firing of the Heaven's Spire.
But when Imperial Princess Veiled Lightning traps Loch and Kail a ploy is revealed to surrender Loch to the Empire in order to prevent the breakout of another war.
Narrowly avoiding capture, and after an enlightening chat with the new Archvoyant Bertram, Loch learns of a way that might just save her skin and avoid outright war.
Unfortunately, it involves retrieving one ancient elven manuscript by the name of "The Love Song of Eillenfiniel," the same one she already handed back to the elves!

That definitely puts Loch in a bit of a quandary, doesn't it The gang's all back for another job, with the exception of Dairy who's off being fine according to Ululenia.
If there's something I can say without a shred of doubt about 'The Prophecy Con' is that it's certainly actionpacked, Indeed, the action is practically nonstop, Even something relatively harmless as doing research in a library can suddenly turn into Harry and friends trying to dodge Death Eaters in the Ministry of Magic.
That's what it reminded me of anyway,

In any case, the job appears to be pretty straightforward, After some diligent tracking on the part of boyfriend Pyvic not part of the crew, but he's okay they manage to trace the manuscript to a dwarven museum.
Seems like a straight crash and grab, doesn't it Now throw in the Night Fox from Ocean's Twelve in the form of the elf Ethel did you really think I'd memorize his real name, as well as Princess Veiled Lightning and her entourage, some crazy Van Helsinglike Knights from the Republic set out to capture Loch, and you should have a pretty good idea things don't go nearly as planned.


Back in my review of 'The Palace Job' I noted how Loch suffered from something akin to writer omniscience in that she always knew what her enemies were planning usually when us readers didn't and consequently had a counterplan of her own.
While Loch still shows her cunning in planning ahead from time to time, this is nowhere near as prevalent as it was in the first instalment.
In fact, more often than not, Loch and her team get oneupped in 'The Prophecy Con' and we get to see Loch dealing with the fallout.
. . and Kail usually having to pay the price of said fallout, cough cough

With so many involved parties all after each other, but mostly after Loch, the action can be at times overwhelming and feel a bit repetitive.
Indeed, there came a point when my brain would simply switch on an appropriate action sequence for the scene being described while I skimmed through the words.
Understand, it's not that the action is bad far from it, it's just that there's too much of it,

See, there's a part I love about any good heist movie/book and that's the preparation, Every member of the crew has a part to play in the con/heist that requires careful planning, This prelude is every bit as important as the con itself and in 'The Prophecy Con' it's lacking, Again, this comes down to how much more fastpaced this book is, with Loch racing against time to prevent a war with the Empire.
Having said that, the last con, incidentally Loch's last chance to recover the elven manuscript, is more drawn out yes! and it features a battle of wits rather than swords in a pokerlike tournament that is oddly reminiscent of the movie 'Maverick.
' And while I didn't even try to understand the rules of sufgesuf it was no less exciting, even if I did guess Loch's ace in the hole early on.


The characters are also a bit of a mixed bag, Some are dealing with the aftermath of the first book, such as Kail, Dairy, and Desidora, Kail appears to remain his usual wisecracking self though he has gained a measure of perchance wisdom he shares with a depressed Desidora, who laments the loss of her powers as a Death Priestess.
Dairy, on the other hand, has to come to terms with life after fulfilling the prophecy and a unicorn scorned,

Icy's just Icy and Ululenia's after more virgins so I guess that leaves Tern and Hessler for the crew, I think it's fair to say I enjoyed their interactions the most, The fact that they're now dating allows us to see more of their personalities or perhaps a different side of them, not to mention it sets the stage for some humorous situations.
If I had to choose one character as my favourite in this book, it'd probably be Tern,

With regards to Loch and Pyvic, . . Sigh. Another reason I enjoyed 'The Palace Job' was that catandmouse game between Loch and Pyvic that inadvertently hit its peak in a certain kavha house.
. . Okay, I'll stop here before I reminisce too much and embarrass myself, This dynamic no longer exists in 'The Prophecy Con' seeing as Loch and Pyvic are now dating, This isn't a problem per se, Our leads being in a relationship could make for some interesting reading, . . if they shared more screentime what, should I call it pagetime together,

Early on, the story separates the two with good reason but reason be damned! and negates any possibility of establishing a dynamic similar to the one Tern and Hessler have going.
Worse, in the few scenes they are together they behave exactly as two Scout Captains rather than a couple, I have to side with Desidora here, it wouldn't hurt if these two showed a bit more range in their feelings and interactions with each other.


To that end, why not have the two run a con together in the next book Maybe they get trapped behind enemy lines and have to make it back These two need some time to learn about each other, work off each other, and I can think of no better scenario than having them rely on each other and noone else.


There is A twist that I'm not going to spoil that has to do with the title of the book, The twist does come as a surprise, mostly because we remain largely ignorant of 'the prophecy' until the very end, what prevents us from pondering a very logical question.
As usual, Loch was fastest putting the narrative clues together but I don't begrudge her much seeing as Poirot does this every time.
Nonetheless, I have to admit the breadcrumb trail was not very clear for the reader to follow if there was one at all.
Furthermore, the more I think back on it, the more certain pieces don't fit the puzzle and the odder or convenient the actions of certain parties appear to have been.
Perhaps a more critical second read is due,

In the end, I flashed through 'The Prophecy Con' much like with 'The Palace Job' if for different reasons, With the first book it was the question of, "What will happen next" that encouraged me to devour it, With 'The Prophecy Con,' however, I think it was the hope that something else would occur, something more, and it succeeded and failed in equal measure.


I'm still definitely looking forward to Bookthough so keep 'em coming,

PS: I almost forgot, Why didn't you make the dwarf part of the crew!!,