'I'm Straw!' she said, with a broad smile. 'I've been expecting you.' LANDOVEL The Truth Teller Epilogue // A year and a day later...

Thus I submit the theory: True's had secret dealings with Free for decades to further the scientific progress of both countries.

It would make at least some sense, right? Free has the mines/equipment/resources, and True has the complete lack of restricting oversight and a surplus of cheap labour as a result of their puppet-king and indoctrinated citizens. Both governments benefit from looking the other way, from hiding where exactly they got such and such breakthrough from.

Give me the complex backroom deals and exchanges. Give me the morally corrupt individuals and greedy corporations. Give me the secrets and traitors and spies and triple-crossing and sabotage. Give me the scientists who cannot care less about morals or allegiances or laws and have instead devoted themselves to that shining, cold, distant star of progress.

And not to say that Free's government knew the threat of attack was real, or knew about the giant doomsday weapon that True had in its arsenal. But maybe, say, if a few nobles and officials were tucked up in the Safe Sites instead of being in Alma City on The Day of the Comet "just in case" those pesky rumours of attack were real, and if perhaps they'd been accompanied by most of the country's top scientists too... well, then it would be no real loss for them if their useless queen and her warmongering generals were taken out of the picture, if suddenly all that land down in the south was free from governmental oversight.

Okay, so I'm in book three, truth teller now and ALL kinds of shit is being revealed, they're in the sub now with Lahain and Xena, chasing after poor Numb.

Lahain (asshole) is telling the story of the sailor and the El child BUT SOMETHING DOESNT ADD UP.

He's talking about the child as if it's Numb, but it can't be, Numb was born on the rock, his father died at sea but would have been an adult, the sailor described the El child specifically being in its larval-fish(?) state, meaning it was probably a pure El.

We also learned that when El get renewed they are sent as Children old enough to survive.

Children like, say, a little boy, six or seven years old with no memories before being in the captain's cabin of a ship taken by Kram the slaver, kept by the captain who didn't heed rumours of a curse because in Free, where they were bound, a real El would be worth the big bucks, an El who, when frightened might will itself unseen as we've seen them capable of, an El who would be unusually intelligent and adept at telepathic abilities being taught to him

✨ BOOK REVIEW ✨

Landovel by Emily Rodda

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️.5

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Roddacember 2025 💙

Roddacember runs during December to celebrate all of Emily Rodda’s books. With a new prompt every day, make a piece of fan content of your choice. You can draw some art, write fic, make a playlist, rant about something, or whatever you vibe with! Remember to tag it #Roddacember 2025 so we can check it out <3 I’ve also created an AO3 collection for those who would like to write fics!

Update

Trying out a different hybrid structure with the first half being questions or lil activities we can do together and the second is the traditional one-word prompts For the visual I condensed the prompts into a keyword so it would fit, but they are expanded below the read more. I have also created a master doc which contains the prompts of all years.

Notes

A reminder that you don’t have to commit to every day. Take care of yourself. You can make it more manageable by skipping days. Feel free to interpret the prompts as metaphorically or as literally as you want! If there’s anything you are confused about, feel free to ask me in the notes or DMs or whatever. You can also check out what the fandom did previously at #Roddacember 2024, #Roddacember 2023, #Roddacember 2022, #Roddacember 2021, #Roddacember 2020 and #Roddacember 2019.

Prompts in text:

- Google docs (recommended) - Below:

I'M ONLY HALFWAY THROUGH BOOK ONE so pls don't spoil but i love you Num & Say 💕

Queenie i would die for you 🔔🔔🔔🔔🔔