“Paris looked like a ghost town.”
A guiding narrative metaphor; the entire novel revolves around a medieval Viking assault upon the denizens of Paris. The ghostliness of Paris is an essential component as it implies that difficulty getting into and out of the city. And it just so happens that two essential characters are working from within those restriction to fight back against the Viking horde.
Science versus History
Dak is not so much a big fan of science. He prefers history. And he makes a pretty strong argument when you think about it. (One can also make an educated guess by virtue of his talent for metaphor where Dak stands on the more far-ranging debate of math versus English.)
“Science always seemed like a boring recitation of facts, but history . . . it was all one big adventure story.”
Descriptive Metaphor
The author limits her use of metaphor when it comes to simple descriptive prose which to the reader may not even register as metaphor. One of the few examples illuminates how familiar phrases can come to lose much of their figurative meaning because it seems like such a naturally literal description:
“Wave after wave of arrows and rocks pounded into the ground and crashed into nearby buildings.”
Time Travel Humor
Metaphor is a convenient tool for pulling humor out of the anachronistic setting of modern day young people trying to deal with being out of their own time. The need for males to dress in tunics provides just one such example:
“You look like my grandma in your little dress.”
Longer Makes it Funnier
An unwritten rule applies to similes: the longer they go on, the funnier they are. If you disagree, just try rewriting this example by taking out certain words. It will quickly be revealed that just sounding like Uncle Dick after eating is not nearly as funny as the addition of an Aunt named Lou, not to mention the fact specificity of how many beans are in her casserole. That her casserole is world famous is just icing on the cake.
“Sera had never been one for subtlety and she crashed around in the forest sounding like his uncle Dick after eating Aunt Lou’s world-famous six-bean casserole.”
Keep in mind this unwritten rule does not apply in every single case. A talented writer can certainly extend the metaphor within a simile so that it gets increasingly more tragic. That is a rare thing, however.
