How many Wicked Problems predictions did I get right?
This time last year I was desperately awaiting my ARC of Wicked Problems (it got lost, I was sad, Gladstone kindly arranged for me to get a replacement, what a guy), and so spent some time making predictions.
I got very few right for Dead Country, BUT in my defence it’s a very different book than the rest of the Craft Sequence. Will the same hold true for Wicked Problems?
If you read my spoiler-free liveblog, you may already know the answer…
Note: spoilers for Wicked Problems and Dead Country, but no future Craft Wars books because I know nothing. Wish I did. This article summarises ALL my predictions, as I carried a bunch forward from Dead Country when it turned out I was wrong.
Full text for original Dead Country / Craft Wars predictions can be found here, and for Wicked Problems here. I’ll be summarising below. Predictions are a mix of evidence-based speculation, and random things I personally would like to see.
1. Space spiders / skazzerai as the Big Bad
Hell yeah. This was already evident in Dead Country, but extra confirmed by Wicked Problems.
Full series about the skazzerai here!
Score: 1/1
2. Grimwalds will do… something
Okay, so we’ve got to remove the plural s here but YES I was extremely right here. Grimwald was extremely involved, until he wasn’t anymore. Because dead.
Read about Grimwald in Wicked Problems here!
Score: 2/2
3. Serpents as Chekhov’s gun
WE GOT THE SERPENTS. I still think they’ll be even more important in the future facing skazzerai proper, but they were integral to the endgame of Wicked Problems, and important enough that the bad guys tried to take them off the board entirely.
Score: 3/3
4. Denovo’s influence or allies will be important
This was another Dead Country one, but still counts!
Read about Alexander Denovo and what he wanted here.
Score: 4/4
5. Characters will continue coming together
ALL THE CHARACTERS!!! Well, most. We didn’t get Cat, Raz, or the Alikand gang. But everyone else, and it was brilliant.
Back in the original predictions post in 2022 I specifically asked for Elayne and Caleb, Temoc and Gal, Abelard and the King in Red, and Raymet and Mina.
I got 2 out of 4, so giving an addition 0.5 points for each of them! “Auntie Elayne” was everything I asked for, and the interactions between Abelard and Kopil are unmatched.
See how characters are connected here.
Score: 6/5
6. Fixing war damage / finding balance
SO, it wasn’t exactly God Wars damage, but we see exactly how the Two Serpents Group works at the spirecliffs, and the balance between different types of magic / views on the world is fairly central. I originally said:
It seems clear that one of the major themes and character arc resonances across the series is needing to find a new way in the world, fixing war damage and old wounds, and ultimately finding balance.
Whether that’s balance between gods and Craftsfolk (see: everything in Alt Coulumb), a way to balance the Craft itself and Applied Theology (see: Twin Serpents Group and Caleb’s ability to channel either magic), a balance in ways of life between old and new (…basically every book and character), I can only see this theme continuing into Dead Country and the Craft Wars trilogy.
Thematically this definitely continued, and we saw different ways of finding balance so I’m going to give myself this one.
Score: 7/6
7. Elayne will sacrifice herself
Not happened so far, but I still think it will by the end of the quartet.
Elayne, please live forever I love you.
Score: 7/7
8. Caleb will have a kid
Lots of Caleb, no child. With the direction his arc seems to be going, I don’t think we’ll see him as a father by the end of the quartet unless something significant shifts, but I still think it would be a great future step for his development.
Score: 7/8
9. Tara will be in a relationship (with Shale??)
Still no Shale, but we’ve already seen Tara situationshipping with Connor Cavanaugh, and having MAJOR sexual tension with Kai Pohala so I’m fully counting it.
Shale was worth a bonus point, so just the one mark here for me.
Score: 8/9
10. We’ll see a religious or cultural festival
I gave myself 0.5 for Edgemont’s funerary traditions and wake last time, but I don’t think I can add anything further this time. We got references to how the winter solstice is celebrated in Dresediel Lex (see my thread here for more) but we didn’t see it on-page, so I won’t count it. Keeping my original 0.5.
Score: 8.5/10
11. Belladonna Albrecht will show up
No on-page Belladonna, but I DID write an entire article about her for no reason other than how cool she sounds.
Read about Belladonna Albrecht here!
Score: 8.5/11
12. Mina will be back
Yasssss Mina! Mina had a small but important role, and I loved seeing her dynamic with both Caleb and Elayne.
(I slightly ship Mina and Elayne, have I mentioned that? Because I do)
Score: 9.5/12
13, We’ll see the demon world
No demon dimension, no points.
Score: 9.5/13
14. Character cameos
WE GOT ZACK.
Well, briefly. Before he sacrificed himself a few paragraphs after his intro and is no more.
We also got the return of Mal, but she wasn’t a cameo and I also didn’t want her to come back so not counting. That being said, I like her character far more now than I did in 2SR, so Gladstone done good there.
Score: 10.5/14
15. We’ll see new locations
In desperation I gave myself half a point last time for the Tellurian Annex and information about Alt Selene, but this time we ACTUALLY got new locations. So, so many new locations. Full point for Hannah.
We saw more of Ajaia’s kingdom, albeit a messed up bit at the spriecliffs. RIP Ajaia. We got the Arsenal, bits of the Shining Empire, Chartegnon in Iskar and wow I was so happy.
I still want to see Alt Selene on page, pretty please?
Score: 11.5/15
16. Pop culture
Between Godsgloaming at the Grand Opera Iskar, and the tales about Rat King Mountain (the Undeadest Place in the World!), I’m claiming this one in full.
Score: 12.5/16
At this point last time I barely hit 25% right, and that was with some desperate half points. This time, we’ve hit 75%! As much as I did enjoy Dead Country, Wicked Problems is much more what I expected from the Craft Wars series.
So, let’s move on to my second lot of predictions after reading Dead Country!
17. Dawn and the craft-god will be essential, and get point of view chapters
Hell yeah Dawn and Sybil. Dawn, in fact, had the most POV pages of any character in Wicked Problems (check out my breakdown of POV here), and the pair of them were undeniably essential.
Score: 13.5/17
18. Seril and Kos will join the fight
Aaaand another one in the bag. Kos really only joins via Abelard (and, in the end, Caleb), but He and His power are definitely there and likely will be even more in the future. Abelard spends way too much time wondering what Kos will be like if He goes to war for us to not see it even more in the future.
Seril is even more involved - secretly hunting Dawn, using Shale as a spy and avatar, and intervening directly with Kai. Seril was HILARIOUS in this book, I didn’t realise how much I missed her voice.
As I made this a single prediction and I’ve done well so far, I’m only giving myself 1 point total, though I was tempted to give myself 2. Praise me for my restraint.
Score: 14.5/18
19. Dragons will do battle
No dragon battles thus far, but we’ve got two more books to go! I stand by my point from last time: can dragons stay out of a galactic war? Will Craftsfolk let them? If dragons are as powerful as they seem, with hoards of soul, they sound like a skazzerai’s favourite appetiser. I don’t think dragons will have much of a choice; I think we’ll see them enter the fight.
Score: 14.5/19
20. We’ll see more God Wars era weapons
On my first pass through the predictions I thought this one was a no, but having quickly gone back over the final battle in the Serpents’ cavern, I think we do in fact see some God Wars era weapons. We don’t have anything specifically named as being from that conflict (like gripfire in Last First Snow), but Kopil is said to be using war-Craft, which was presumably developed during said Wars, and we see him break through some fabric of reality so that the hands of dead gods can claw at the gray men.
So I’m giving myself a point here.
Score: 15.5/20
21. And there will be more Craft horrors
Well we definitely got this. The one that leaps to mind is the shipping container in the mountains:
“When Temoc had turned on the light, her first impression was that she stood within another Annex. Bodies in tubes, skinned to bare their anatomy. Then she realised their hearts were eating.
...
”This was, I believe, an experiment. Can a human being be rendered incidental to the generation of value? Strip them to desire and fear, lust, pleasure, and starlight. Reduce them to what the Craft needs. What it can use.”
...
The shipping container’s Craftwork hung about her like lightning cobwebs, showing the truth of the system: circles of temptation and ecstasy and pain. There was the ward that sustained life. There was the catchwork that gathered soul. There was the one that prompted dreams.
These people had been drawn to this place through machinations of debt, through agreements with implications they did not understand. They were stuck here now, just like everybody else. They deserved better.”
If that doesn’t count as Craft horrors, I don’t know what does.
Score: 16.5/21
22. Kopil, king of snark
“I’m manifesting the return of Kopil, his overdramatic performances, and his snarky af dialogue. If we all pray really hard, surely it will come true? Maybe pray isn’t the right word. Sign a contract in blood? Hand over part of our souls? Something along those lines.”
Whether my prayers came true or the contract in which I signed my soul away has come to fruition, we got Kopil, King of Snark. Have a couple of my favourite quotes:
“Also, someone had blown the roof off the place.
’Someone’ was a cautious way to put it. No matter how complex the battle field, when one of the people involved was a cackling skeleton wreathed in crimson, lightning, he’d feel pretty good placing a wager as to the instigating party.
...
”Why do you fight for her? I’m sorry, I know, you can’t breathe, I’m strangling you, fine. I’ll do your part. You BELIEVE in her.”
...
”So let’s all take an elixir of chill, put the super-weapons away, and make sure we’re not all playing into someone unknown third party’s hands, before I stop playing mister nice wizard.”
...
The King in Red revolved to face her. “And I was just starting to have fun.”
“I regret to inform you,” she said, “that your amusement is not the organizing principle of the cosmos.”
“I shall take a memo. ... Did I see you help Temoc?”
“I will not have that conversation with you at this time.”
“While I was up here fighting for my life?”
“You just said you were having fun. You can’t have it both ways.”
“Who says?”
“Logic.”
“I must take another memo.”
I must do a Kopil deep dive one of these days.
Score: 17.5/22
23. We’ll see Valentine get to know Tara’s new life
No Valentine - but I feel confident we’ll get her next time. Valentine is, as far as we know, still in Alt Coulumb. I’m convinced we’ll see Cat and Raz in book 3, and I can see Valentine showing up with them. It also appears that we’ll be returning to the Badlands, the place where Valentine and John raised Tara, so there could be a connection there.
Score: 17.5/23
So my total score is 17.5 out of 23, which is about 76%. VAST improvement on last time.
Now to develop my predictions for the next two books… got any good ideas I should include?
What do you think? Let me know - and don’t forget you can subscribe to be the first to hear about new articles and fun projects in the pipeline.
