Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 28
September 2, 2013
The Redemption of Althalus--Chapter One--Three
Because nobody picked, I'm picking for us. It's time for us to find out how well I can riff on a book that I actively like. The Redemption of Althalus.
And just in case you think I have any literary street cred whatsoever, let me establish that this is one of my favorite books. I understand that there are plenty of issues with it. I don't care. I love every word of it, every wrinkle, every misogynistic turn of phrase, every recycled joke, character and plotline. If I want to look smart, I'll read A Breif History of Time or something. If I want to just clock out and not be bothered for a day or so, I'm hitting Eddings.
And just because I feel like rambling, the biggest difference IMHO between writers like Eddings and Nina Bangs and writers like LKH, John Norman and Anne Rice is Eddings and Bangs get it. They know they are limited writers. They're not going to write great literature, and trying to be something they're not (a good writer) is just going to take their writing from mediocure to "Werewolf Superhero wanna be taking selfies with their iPhone." Rice, Norman and Hamilton are all here to Impress You With How Great They Are. Eddings and Bangs just came to play. Beyond that, they don't give a fuck. It might be dreck (and I personally think Eddings is a couple steps above dreck. Not many, but a couple) but it's good-natured dreck.
But because I know there are problems with this book, I've invented a David Eddings drinking game.
Take a sip when:
We introduce:
-The Irascibly Old Racist Misogynistic Drunken Wizard
-The Lovingly Maternal Sorceress
-The Heroic Young Boy
-The Pale But Beautiful Waif
-The Theif
-The Burly Warrior
-The Theif's Door Prize (aka female love interest)
-The Warrior's Door Prize
-The Heroic Boy's INCREDIBLY Annoying Door Prize
-The McGuffin
-The Deus Ex Machina(s)
When events are started or resolved by:
-Stealing the Mcguffin.
-Dumb Luck
-Obvious Ass-pull
-The incredible imbalance of power in the good guy's favor
-Critical information delivered by a country hick with a bizarre phonetically rendered accent
-The Deux Ex Machina
-Anachronistic Knowledge no one in this time period could POSSIBLY have
-The antagonistic character's own stupidity
-Divine Intervention
When a Deity:
-Is introduced
-Turns out to be a previously introduced character (two sips if a previously human character became the Deity)
-Joins the cast permanently
-Is adorably quirky
-turns out to be incredibly stupid.
When something problematic is played for laughs, ie:
-a character's misogyny
-Violence of any kind
-Murder (doubles up with violence)
-Crime
-Racism
-Religious war
Finish the drink and/or take a shot when:
-Somebody makes the defenestration joke
-The Lovingly Maternal Sorceress rolls her eyes and blames a character's behavior on their race
-Somebody gets hitched
-The Wizard and the Sorceress argue about bathing
Please note: I do not actually recommend playing this, especially if you intend to read more than one chapter of the thing in a sitting. You will probably die.
So without further ado, The Redemption of Althalus.
We meet Althalus in a tavern. We are going to be visiting a lot of taverns because Althalus is something of a one-trick pony. Althalus is also a thief with an overinflated opinion of himself. The book, delightfully, conveys said opinion via wanton abuse of a thesaurus:
So Althalus is a thief, and he's an incredibly lucky thief. He's lucky enough that he makes his home base of Hule a little too hot, and he decides to take his one man show on the road one night when he hears a story delivered by a country hick with the most adorable accent:
The Hick tells Althalus a story. The short version of that story is Kingdom sends soldiers down to take country with gold in it, soldiers become more interested in gold, kingdom sends more soldiers to make the previous lot of soldiers go back to being soldiers, and eventually the kingdom runs out of soldiers to send because there is apparently a lot of gold. Althalus decides that all that extra gold is just begging for him to drop on over and commence with the transferring of ownership, and he heads off south.
Unfortunately Althalus might be witty, but his planning abilities are roughly on a par with a rock. Maybe two rocks.
Thus, his adventures in civilization do not go well.
Althalus falling on his ass. Repeatedly.
See, his wonderful luck? It's decided to hate him. The entire first chapter in this book is dedicated to Althalus failing in every possible way a theif could fail, short of being actively arrested.
And that's the other thing I kind of like here. Althalus is an idiot, and he's meant to be an idiot. This is a part of the story. He's a kind of endearing ass with an overinflated sense of his own importance, and fuck if he isn't wallowing in how awesome he thinks he is. And because we're telling the story from his POV, every sentence is just dripping with "I am awesome".
Is he awesome? Well...
The first thing he does is hit a tavern to get a rich guy's name and address. Then he picks pockets until he gets enough for local clothes and heads on over to the rich guy's house to do some reconnaissance. Which he does by knocking on the door and asking for the name of another rich person because "Sorry, wrong address" actually works pretty well. He hangs around until nighttime, breaks into the house and runs right into the rich guy's massive dogs:
So he moves on to plan B: get the fuck out of town and go somewhere else. He robs random people, complains about robbing the random people because it's not what a Totally Awesome Theif does, and heads to the next city in line, Kanthon.
Naturally, he drops into the nearest tavern, where naturally people are arguing over who the richest person in the city is. Althalus becomes very interested in their conversation, gets names and addresses and heads off in that general direction...only to discover that neither house contains anything of value. It turns out that the new fad among the rich people in Kanthon is to buy horrible furnature and shabby clothes so that the tax collectors don't decide to up the ante and, you know, actually collect taxes. Also, everybody is hiding their money in their floors, under really good stonework.
This becomes important later.
Althalus is now two for two.
He heads on down into the next city, Perquaine. He spends a few minutes looking into the big fancy temple set up to the Goddess Dweia, and the fertility goddess statue, which is not exactly attractive:
This time he breaks into a merchant's strong box and finds that it's full of paper. Just chock full of the stuff, and nothing else. He takes a couple random sheets of paper and heads back out. A random passer-by tells him that the paper is what Perquaine is using for money right now.
Our Heroic Theif, boys and girls: Confused by paper money.
This hits on one of the things that does bother me about this book: I cannot figure out its time period. It's consistent, whatever it is, but I have no idea what that consistency is. Is this the barbarian period? Are we Medieval level? WHAT IS THE TECH BASE?
These questions will never be answered.
Althalus decides that paper money is the last straw, and civilization can go hang itself. He heads into the nearest clothier to get something that will survive the trip back home, and comes out to discover that somebody has stolen his horse.
Our hero, the master thief: Cannot hang on to his own livestock.
Next chapter
Althalus hikes through the nation of Arum and overhears a conversation about a dude named Gosti Big-Belly. He decides that he'll steal things from Gosti since Gosti is apparently rich and Althalus is not. He also liberates a wolf-skin tunic with ears on the hood from its former owner.
He manages to charm his way into Gosti's house by telling stories, and decides his best bet is to winter in the place. Gosti is Jabba-the-Hut level fat, but his place is warm and Arum is basically Norse/Viking territory and moving into winter. Althalus has no desire to hike through the mountains of Not-Greenland in the snow.
Which is why it takes Althalus until spring to realize Gosti doesn't actually have any money. Althalus gets pissed and flips tables in Gosti's storeroom before taking off. Gosti then tells everybody that Althalus robbed him blind, because Gosti wants the reputation of being a rich man more than he wants to be actively rich. Sadly, Althalus gets rid of his wolf-eared tunic and spends the rest of his hike back home thinking nasty thoughts about Gosti.
Next Chapter:
Althalus gets to Hule and, you guessed it, immediately heads for the nearest tavern. It's run by his buddy Nabjor, And it's less a tavern than a collection of tents wrapped around a fire and a still. Nabjor sells mead. Althalus likes mead. Althalus and Nabjor sit down to discuss how much civilization sucks over a jug of mead. They mourn his luck's departure. They wonder what the hell is making that very strange screaming sound, but neither of them can be arsed to go very far into the dark woods, which is probably the smart move given that guns do not exist yet.
A guy with glowing red eyes shows up at Nabjor's fire. For some reason Althalus decides it's a smart idea to wander over and say hello.
DUDE. GLOWING. RED. EYES. HE LOOKS LIKE A CORPSE AND HIS EYES ARE LITERALLY GLOWING RED. ALL HE NEEDS IS A NEON SIGN SAYING "VERY BAD GUY". WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO HIM?
His name is Ghend. Pronounce that. I fucking dare you.
He tells Althalus that he's been looking for him. Althalus is far too interested in transferring the ownership of Ghend's cape and horse to be creeped out by the glowing red-eyed guy actively looking for him.
Althalus is dumber than a post.
Ghend and Althalus review his adventures in civilization, and Ghend finally brings up that he wants Althalus to do something for him. He needs to go to the House at the End of the World and steal a book.
Althalus's response is kind of priceless:
Ghend takes out his book, which is a big, black box full of paper. Althalus handles the pages and decides that they are greasy and that the marks Ghend calls "writing" are ugly. Ghend describes the book he wants as being a white box full of paper that is just a little bit bigger than his.
Yeah, this is the McGuffin for this series. Drink up.
Also, apparently the book is the manuscript for War and Peace.
The House at the End of the World is in Kagwher (Again: PRONOUNCE THAT I DARE YOU) where "the sun doesn't shine in winter". So it's either Alaska or Siberia, and either way Althalus is hiking there. On foot.
Lucky him.
The next morning he asks Nabjor to keep Ghend drunk enough not to notice that Althalus took his cloak and heads off to the House at the End of the World.
Total number of drinks required this review: Four
And just in case you think I have any literary street cred whatsoever, let me establish that this is one of my favorite books. I understand that there are plenty of issues with it. I don't care. I love every word of it, every wrinkle, every misogynistic turn of phrase, every recycled joke, character and plotline. If I want to look smart, I'll read A Breif History of Time or something. If I want to just clock out and not be bothered for a day or so, I'm hitting Eddings.
And just because I feel like rambling, the biggest difference IMHO between writers like Eddings and Nina Bangs and writers like LKH, John Norman and Anne Rice is Eddings and Bangs get it. They know they are limited writers. They're not going to write great literature, and trying to be something they're not (a good writer) is just going to take their writing from mediocure to "Werewolf Superhero wanna be taking selfies with their iPhone." Rice, Norman and Hamilton are all here to Impress You With How Great They Are. Eddings and Bangs just came to play. Beyond that, they don't give a fuck. It might be dreck (and I personally think Eddings is a couple steps above dreck. Not many, but a couple) but it's good-natured dreck.
But because I know there are problems with this book, I've invented a David Eddings drinking game.
Take a sip when:
We introduce:
-The Irascibly Old Racist Misogynistic Drunken Wizard
-The Lovingly Maternal Sorceress
-The Heroic Young Boy
-The Pale But Beautiful Waif
-The Theif
-The Burly Warrior
-The Theif's Door Prize (aka female love interest)
-The Warrior's Door Prize
-The Heroic Boy's INCREDIBLY Annoying Door Prize
-The McGuffin
-The Deus Ex Machina(s)
When events are started or resolved by:
-Stealing the Mcguffin.
-Dumb Luck
-Obvious Ass-pull
-The incredible imbalance of power in the good guy's favor
-Critical information delivered by a country hick with a bizarre phonetically rendered accent
-The Deux Ex Machina
-Anachronistic Knowledge no one in this time period could POSSIBLY have
-The antagonistic character's own stupidity
-Divine Intervention
When a Deity:
-Is introduced
-Turns out to be a previously introduced character (two sips if a previously human character became the Deity)
-Joins the cast permanently
-Is adorably quirky
-turns out to be incredibly stupid.
When something problematic is played for laughs, ie:
-a character's misogyny
-Violence of any kind
-Murder (doubles up with violence)
-Crime
-Racism
-Religious war
Finish the drink and/or take a shot when:
-Somebody makes the defenestration joke
-The Lovingly Maternal Sorceress rolls her eyes and blames a character's behavior on their race
-Somebody gets hitched
-The Wizard and the Sorceress argue about bathing
Please note: I do not actually recommend playing this, especially if you intend to read more than one chapter of the thing in a sitting. You will probably die.
So without further ado, The Redemption of Althalus.
We meet Althalus in a tavern. We are going to be visiting a lot of taverns because Althalus is something of a one-trick pony. Althalus is also a thief with an overinflated opinion of himself. The book, delightfully, conveys said opinion via wanton abuse of a thesaurus:
So far as Althalus can remember, he has always been a thief. He never knew his father, and he cannot exactly remember his mother’s name. He grew up among thieves in the rough lands of the frontier, and even as a child, his wit had made him welcome in the society of those men who made their living by transferring the ownership rights of objects of value. He earned his way with jokes and stories, and the thieves fed him and trained him in their art by way of thanks.That chunk of sentence ought to be shot on sight...and yet I kind of like it. A lot. Because it's not stealing. Nope. It's just a transfer of ownership with non-con issues.
So Althalus is a thief, and he's an incredibly lucky thief. He's lucky enough that he makes his home base of Hule a little too hot, and he decides to take his one man show on the road one night when he hears a story delivered by a country hick with the most adorable accent:
“May all of my teeth fall out if they didn’t,” the storyteller assured him.I think that Eddings overheard a handful of sentences and one-liners and decided that they had to be in every single book. It manages not to be as annoying as Merry Gentry's endless recycling of little descriptive phrases, but "May all my teeth fall out" is a Sign Of The Hick. The Hicks all use it. FREQUENTLY. "Defenestration" in particular must have done something terrible to Team Eddings as a child because it gets rather thoroughly sodomized over the course of his writing career.
The Hick tells Althalus a story. The short version of that story is Kingdom sends soldiers down to take country with gold in it, soldiers become more interested in gold, kingdom sends more soldiers to make the previous lot of soldiers go back to being soldiers, and eventually the kingdom runs out of soldiers to send because there is apparently a lot of gold. Althalus decides that all that extra gold is just begging for him to drop on over and commence with the transferring of ownership, and he heads off south.
Unfortunately Althalus might be witty, but his planning abilities are roughly on a par with a rock. Maybe two rocks.
Thus, his adventures in civilization do not go well.
The city of Deika lay at the southern end of a large lake in northern Equero, and it was even more splendid than the stories had said it was. It was surrounded by a high stone wall made of squared-off limestone blocks, and all the buildings inside the walls were also made of stone. The broad streets of Deika were paved with flagstones, and the public buildings soared to the sky. Everyone in town who thought he was important wore a splendid linen mantle, and every private house was identified by a statue of its owner—usually so idealized that any actual resemblance to the man so identified was purely coincidental.You know, it's dry and bland, but that description gives you just enough of a picture to work with before it moves on to the important thing:
Althalus falling on his ass. Repeatedly.
See, his wonderful luck? It's decided to hate him. The entire first chapter in this book is dedicated to Althalus failing in every possible way a theif could fail, short of being actively arrested.
And that's the other thing I kind of like here. Althalus is an idiot, and he's meant to be an idiot. This is a part of the story. He's a kind of endearing ass with an overinflated sense of his own importance, and fuck if he isn't wallowing in how awesome he thinks he is. And because we're telling the story from his POV, every sentence is just dripping with "I am awesome".
Is he awesome? Well...
The first thing he does is hit a tavern to get a rich guy's name and address. Then he picks pockets until he gets enough for local clothes and heads on over to the rich guy's house to do some reconnaissance. Which he does by knocking on the door and asking for the name of another rich person because "Sorry, wrong address" actually works pretty well. He hangs around until nighttime, breaks into the house and runs right into the rich guy's massive dogs:
Althalus immediately changed his plans. The open air of the nighttime streets suddenly seemed enormously attractive.No shit.
So he moves on to plan B: get the fuck out of town and go somewhere else. He robs random people, complains about robbing the random people because it's not what a Totally Awesome Theif does, and heads to the next city in line, Kanthon.
Naturally, he drops into the nearest tavern, where naturally people are arguing over who the richest person in the city is. Althalus becomes very interested in their conversation, gets names and addresses and heads off in that general direction...only to discover that neither house contains anything of value. It turns out that the new fad among the rich people in Kanthon is to buy horrible furnature and shabby clothes so that the tax collectors don't decide to up the ante and, you know, actually collect taxes. Also, everybody is hiding their money in their floors, under really good stonework.
This becomes important later.
Althalus is now two for two.
He heads on down into the next city, Perquaine. He spends a few minutes looking into the big fancy temple set up to the Goddess Dweia, and the fertility goddess statue, which is not exactly attractive:
Fertility meant motherhood, and motherhood involved the suckling of the young. The statue suggested that the Goddess Dweia was equipped to suckle hundreds of babies all at the same time.Althalus repeats his usual act: Go to tavern, get name and address, go to house, fail to aquire money. You know, Al, the defintion of insanity is repeating the same behavior over and over, expecting a different result. I don't think this plan of yours actually works.
This time he breaks into a merchant's strong box and finds that it's full of paper. Just chock full of the stuff, and nothing else. He takes a couple random sheets of paper and heads back out. A random passer-by tells him that the paper is what Perquaine is using for money right now.
Our Heroic Theif, boys and girls: Confused by paper money.
This hits on one of the things that does bother me about this book: I cannot figure out its time period. It's consistent, whatever it is, but I have no idea what that consistency is. Is this the barbarian period? Are we Medieval level? WHAT IS THE TECH BASE?
These questions will never be answered.
Althalus decides that paper money is the last straw, and civilization can go hang itself. He heads into the nearest clothier to get something that will survive the trip back home, and comes out to discover that somebody has stolen his horse.
Our hero, the master thief: Cannot hang on to his own livestock.
Next chapter
Althalus hikes through the nation of Arum and overhears a conversation about a dude named Gosti Big-Belly. He decides that he'll steal things from Gosti since Gosti is apparently rich and Althalus is not. He also liberates a wolf-skin tunic with ears on the hood from its former owner.
He manages to charm his way into Gosti's house by telling stories, and decides his best bet is to winter in the place. Gosti is Jabba-the-Hut level fat, but his place is warm and Arum is basically Norse/Viking territory and moving into winter. Althalus has no desire to hike through the mountains of Not-Greenland in the snow.
Which is why it takes Althalus until spring to realize Gosti doesn't actually have any money. Althalus gets pissed and flips tables in Gosti's storeroom before taking off. Gosti then tells everybody that Althalus robbed him blind, because Gosti wants the reputation of being a rich man more than he wants to be actively rich. Sadly, Althalus gets rid of his wolf-eared tunic and spends the rest of his hike back home thinking nasty thoughts about Gosti.
Next Chapter:
Althalus gets to Hule and, you guessed it, immediately heads for the nearest tavern. It's run by his buddy Nabjor, And it's less a tavern than a collection of tents wrapped around a fire and a still. Nabjor sells mead. Althalus likes mead. Althalus and Nabjor sit down to discuss how much civilization sucks over a jug of mead. They mourn his luck's departure. They wonder what the hell is making that very strange screaming sound, but neither of them can be arsed to go very far into the dark woods, which is probably the smart move given that guns do not exist yet.
A guy with glowing red eyes shows up at Nabjor's fire. For some reason Althalus decides it's a smart idea to wander over and say hello.
DUDE. GLOWING. RED. EYES. HE LOOKS LIKE A CORPSE AND HIS EYES ARE LITERALLY GLOWING RED. ALL HE NEEDS IS A NEON SIGN SAYING "VERY BAD GUY". WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO HIM?
His name is Ghend. Pronounce that. I fucking dare you.
He tells Althalus that he's been looking for him. Althalus is far too interested in transferring the ownership of Ghend's cape and horse to be creeped out by the glowing red-eyed guy actively looking for him.
Althalus is dumber than a post.
Ghend and Althalus review his adventures in civilization, and Ghend finally brings up that he wants Althalus to do something for him. He needs to go to the House at the End of the World and steal a book.
Althalus's response is kind of priceless:
“What in blazes is a book?”I can't decide if Althalus is supposed to be that stupid or if this time period doesn't have books. It would help if I knew what the fucking time period actually was.
Ghend takes out his book, which is a big, black box full of paper. Althalus handles the pages and decides that they are greasy and that the marks Ghend calls "writing" are ugly. Ghend describes the book he wants as being a white box full of paper that is just a little bit bigger than his.
Yeah, this is the McGuffin for this series. Drink up.
Also, apparently the book is the manuscript for War and Peace.
“How much bigger than yours is the book we want?” he asked.
“It’s about as long and as wide as the length of your forearm,” Ghend replied, “and about as thick as the length of your foot. It’s fairly heavy.”YOU DON'T SAY.
The House at the End of the World is in Kagwher (Again: PRONOUNCE THAT I DARE YOU) where "the sun doesn't shine in winter". So it's either Alaska or Siberia, and either way Althalus is hiking there. On foot.
Lucky him.
The next morning he asks Nabjor to keep Ghend drunk enough not to notice that Althalus took his cloak and heads off to the House at the End of the World.
Total number of drinks required this review: Four
August 31, 2013
Eternal Prey--chapter 17
Sorry, guys. I had a headache yesterday. Read as "migraine". Read as "the kind of migraine that smells purple" if that makes anything resembling sense.
So when we last left our heroes, they had defeated this novel's big bad by means of ladybug.
You know, I have many many MANY insecurities re: my writing, but I can say this: I make my characters fucking buy their happy endings. And I have never beaten a bad guy by means of handing them a beetle.
Oh, and Utah proposed to Lia. So how long do we have to wait for the wedding? Not long at all. It's being preformed now. Right now. As in chronological seconds after Lia agreed to marry her very special Flaming Bag of Dicks, the wedding has to happen. Because:
I've had close relatives marry with literally one day's notice, and I've been greatful to be allowed to attend the ceremony. Suffice to say the assumption has me feeling more than a little grumpy.
This is really going to be weird, isn't it? Please don't involve blood letting. Please.
AND the flaming bag of dicks gets the "Stalker of the Year" award.
There is nothing more romantic to me than a couple politely agreeing that unhealthy behavior WILL negate the marriage if it perpetuates. Because, you know, this indicates that they value the well being of the other party more than they do their own pride.
And apparently this means that Lia has to literally enter Utah.
Utah sends her to go find Tor. She does, and then comes back. Meanwhile, her Mommy issues are healed by means of scabs.
I have no idea.
So Lia enters Utah and ventures into Jurrasic Park, and experiences the end of the dinos. Great. Then she goes further back, and finds Utah as a human. And he was married with a wife and child who died horribly and randomly.
Please don't be Atlantis please don't be Atlantis PLEASE DEAR GOD DO NOT BE ATLANTIS.
Fin shows up randomly, makes Omnious Pronouncements, and then vanishes. Good for Fin. Lia runs around in the ruins of Unnamed but Cataclysmically Destroyed City (that is probably Atlantis) until she finds Utah again...AND EVERYTHING EXPLODES INTO RANDOM LIGHT.
So just so we're all on the same page, Utah is a flaming bag of dicks because at some point Fin's cycle of immortal destruction killed his wife and child. Because that backstory wasn't done to death fifty years ago.
YOU DO KNOW IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO RECOVER FROM A SHITTY ROMANCE, RIGHT?
And nothing about what we read is scary.
Much romantic bickering ensues. None of it is interesting.
Adam died offscreen. He contributed exactly shit to this narrative. I'm so glad he was here. However, he is useful in death, because Lia insists on Fin giving them a wedding gift by shoving Rap's soul into Adam's dead body.
There is so much wrong with that. SO MUCH WRONG.
And this actually happens.
So basically now Fin has a guy in control of every vampire ever. AND THE DUDE DIED OFFSCREEN.
WOW.
And then we get dialogue that is either terminally stupid, or incredibly cool. I can't tell:
Please, Loyal Readers. Tell me how to feel about this.
Lia and Utah drive home. Nina Bangs fails at physics:
Lia decides that 2012 is the beginning of all things and the book ends.
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST MY FRIENDS.
SO. IN LIGHT OF THIS ENDING I have gone though the library and I have these suggestions, some good, some horrible:
-More LKH.
-James Allen Gardner's Expendable. It's space exploration as told by redshirts, IF the redshirts were redshirts because of hideous deformity. It's one of the best sci-fi series I've ever read.
-Something by Julian May. Either the Jack the Bodiless series or the Hundred Concerns series. Both series kick ass.
-David Eddings. We can do either Redemption of Althalus or the Eleniad/Tamuli. (It's a six book series and I would do the ENTIRE THING)
-More Mission Earth
-More Gor.
-Sequel to the Lake Sex book.
It is up to you.
If you do not vote it will probably be either Althalus or Expendable. It depends on how I feel. I'm just in the mood to do a book I'd enjoy for a change.
So when we last left our heroes, they had defeated this novel's big bad by means of ladybug.
You know, I have many many MANY insecurities re: my writing, but I can say this: I make my characters fucking buy their happy endings. And I have never beaten a bad guy by means of handing them a beetle.
Oh, and Utah proposed to Lia. So how long do we have to wait for the wedding? Not long at all. It's being preformed now. Right now. As in chronological seconds after Lia agreed to marry her very special Flaming Bag of Dicks, the wedding has to happen. Because:
“It’s our mating ceremony. It’s a little different from a human wedding.”Right. Because all humans get married in a church with the full ceremony and bridesmaids and a year's worth of planning.
I've had close relatives marry with literally one day's notice, and I've been greatful to be allowed to attend the ceremony. Suffice to say the assumption has me feeling more than a little grumpy.
This is really going to be weird, isn't it? Please don't involve blood letting. Please.
Utah raked his fingers through his hair. “Look, marrying any of us comes with a shitload of ugly baggage. Any woman who loves us should understand what she’s signing up for, and then decide if she’s willing to make a lifetime commitment. During the ritual, you’ll see some of my past— the good, the bad, and the oh-crap stuff.” He smiled as he touched her lips. “Because you know this, Lia, we will be bonded forever. I’ll never let you go.”
AND the flaming bag of dicks gets the "Stalker of the Year" award.
There is nothing more romantic to me than a couple politely agreeing that unhealthy behavior WILL negate the marriage if it perpetuates. Because, you know, this indicates that they value the well being of the other party more than they do their own pride.
And apparently this means that Lia has to literally enter Utah.
“My love for you creates a physical response that opens me to you.” “You do know that what you’re describing has a major ick factor.” She tempered the words with a smile. “What I meant is that my body becomes incorporeal so that you can enter.”The further I venture into this chapter, the more I realize that I probably blocked it out due to traumatic experiance.
Utah sends her to go find Tor. She does, and then comes back. Meanwhile, her Mommy issues are healed by means of scabs.
I have no idea.
So Lia enters Utah and ventures into Jurrasic Park, and experiences the end of the dinos. Great. Then she goes further back, and finds Utah as a human. And he was married with a wife and child who died horribly and randomly.
Please don't be Atlantis please don't be Atlantis PLEASE DEAR GOD DO NOT BE ATLANTIS.
Fin shows up randomly, makes Omnious Pronouncements, and then vanishes. Good for Fin. Lia runs around in the ruins of Unnamed but Cataclysmically Destroyed City (that is probably Atlantis) until she finds Utah again...AND EVERYTHING EXPLODES INTO RANDOM LIGHT.
So just so we're all on the same page, Utah is a flaming bag of dicks because at some point Fin's cycle of immortal destruction killed his wife and child. Because that backstory wasn't done to death fifty years ago.
YOU DO KNOW IT IS ENTIRELY POSSIBLE TO RECOVER FROM A SHITTY ROMANCE, RIGHT?
“I went, I saw, and it scared me witless, but I still want you, raptor.”At this point, Utah is the soul of a man that posessed a dinosaur that then posessed a human. This is now the mobius strip of WTF.
And nothing about what we read is scary.
Much romantic bickering ensues. None of it is interesting.
Adam died offscreen. He contributed exactly shit to this narrative. I'm so glad he was here. However, he is useful in death, because Lia insists on Fin giving them a wedding gift by shoving Rap's soul into Adam's dead body.
There is so much wrong with that. SO MUCH WRONG.
And this actually happens.
So basically now Fin has a guy in control of every vampire ever. AND THE DUDE DIED OFFSCREEN.
WOW.
And then we get dialogue that is either terminally stupid, or incredibly cool. I can't tell:
Rap grinned. Then he frowned. “I’m not in the same body. What do I look like?”
Lia studied him. “You’ve got dark hair, gold eyes, and a perfect face. Women will love you.”
Rap looked relieved. “Good. Women are important.”
Please, Loyal Readers. Tell me how to feel about this.
Lia and Utah drive home. Nina Bangs fails at physics:
Finally, she spoke. “You know, I think I’ve figured things out.” “Uh-huh.” One mile to Fin’s. “It’s all about perspective.” “Sure.” A half mile to Fin’s.I know we can drive really fast, but I doubt you can consume an entire half mile in the space of one sentence.
Lia decides that 2012 is the beginning of all things and the book ends.
ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST MY FRIENDS.
SO. IN LIGHT OF THIS ENDING I have gone though the library and I have these suggestions, some good, some horrible:
-More LKH.
-James Allen Gardner's Expendable. It's space exploration as told by redshirts, IF the redshirts were redshirts because of hideous deformity. It's one of the best sci-fi series I've ever read.
-Something by Julian May. Either the Jack the Bodiless series or the Hundred Concerns series. Both series kick ass.
-David Eddings. We can do either Redemption of Althalus or the Eleniad/Tamuli. (It's a six book series and I would do the ENTIRE THING)
-More Mission Earth
-More Gor.
-Sequel to the Lake Sex book.
It is up to you.
If you do not vote it will probably be either Althalus or Expendable. It depends on how I feel. I'm just in the mood to do a book I'd enjoy for a change.
August 30, 2013
More artwork
So yeah. Moved the picture down because the composition worked that much better as a book cover.I hate her dress. I hate her dress. I really hate her freaking dress. WHY DO I HAVE TO GIVE CHARACTERS LONG FLOWY THINGS TO WEAR. IT IS SUCH A PAIN TO PAINT.
Every time I do a painting I feel like Jeff Goldblum in Lost World. Yeah, it's oooh ahh now but you missed the running and the screaming.
Also: White is not white. White is never white. White is all the colors, and if you do it wrong you get purple. I remember reading that part in Catching Fire where Peeta tells the dying stoner babe about how colors work and thinking "YEP. PREACH IT".
AND OH YEAH: WHY DO DRAGONS HAVE TO BE SCALY. I WILL HAVE TO LINE AND SHADE EACH OF THOSE BUMPS INDIVIDUALLY.
In short: Things are going rather well.
August 29, 2013
Eternal Prey--Chapter 15-16
What happens in Chapter 16: Seir and Fin break Lia's brainwashing and Lia and Utah have sex.
Neither segment is all that interesting. We discover that Lia is afraid of ghosts. Fin and Seir have Family Issues (No shit) and want to stay apart even though they really do love each other. Nina Bangs can actually use the word "cock" in a sex scene and manage to make it kind of sexy. Lia feeds as a vampire and is able to stop from killing Utah in the process through the Power Of Love, though she refuses to actually say "I love you" because Lia Has Mommy Issues.
In other words, we've shot the plot dead for sex. Again.
I hate sex scenes in books.
So we're going into chapter 15 now. We've got no idea where Christine is, where The Thing Lia needs to kill Christine is, or how to move forward, and emotionally, all the salient plots that have driven this book have been resolved. Only one left is killing Christine, and honestly, have any of us given one flying fuck about the entire plot of this novel? Christine wants to grow a garden that Oscar Wilde's Nightengale could be proud of. Get back to us when she starts killing puppies.
In other words, it's time for the Plot Resolution Fairy to come flying out of somebody's ass.
Next chapter:
I swear to god half of these things have started with somebody banging on a door. At least it's not a dry twig.
So everybody has to go to the Media Room. Much lingering and kissing is done before Utah and Lia head down.
I have also just discovered that there is a character named "Lio", short for a dino name I will never be able to pronounce OR spell. Up until now I thought that was a misspelling. Yeah, it's not smart to have two characters with names one vowel apart, unless they are related fraternal twins who always appear together and their mother is supposed to be an uncreative hack with a heavy side of the cutesies.
Fin shows up and says that the city is about to be evacuated because RANDOM VOLCANIC EXPLOSION (and also bribed city official). Apparently this is Christine's going away party.
Well, as Plot Resolution Fairies go, this one is at least a little inventive.
Also: Kione and the Vampire Five will be working together.
So they all go to Random Explody Mountain, and Utah tries to talk Lia out of being the hero because he loves her and he doesn't want her to die (...legit. That ain't "you're a girl" talk, that's "you're valued over and beyond my own hide" talk.)
Seir shows up randomly. His dialogue summerizes the entire book:
Everybody hikes up the mountain in a melodramatic fashion. We must fight but I don't want to die and MOUNTAIN EXPLODING sums it up pretty well. The dino guys go dino.
Utah still takes time out to examine Lia's ass. Flaming bag of dicks, ladies and gents. He'll never change.
And then Utah finds a ...no. NO. YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS, LITTLE BOOK. EVEN WITH THE OTHERKIN AND THE DINOSAURS AND THE VAMPIRES AND THE RANDOM VOLCAINO THIS IS TOO CRAZY EVEN FOR--you're serious.
So Utah turns back into a human and picks the yellow flower and takes it over to Lia, who is having an "OH SHIT I FORGOT ALL MY KICK ASS WEAPONS" moment, because she forgot all her kick ass weapons and is standing right in front of Christine.
Lia realizes that the flower does not have seven petals, she drops it to the ground, falls on her knees in front of it, waits to die...and then sees something that she missed the first time.
It's a book about men posessed by the ghosts of dead dinosaurs, Bella Swan with a sword, perm and spine, Number-obsessed immortals who have the collective maturity of a two year old, a random dark Elf who we borrowed from Merry Gentry for a while, Random Panthers, Random Otherkin, Random Exploding Mountains and the big bad of the week gets defeated by a freaking ladybug.
WELCOME TO THE MIND FUCK.
AND THE CHAPTER IS NOT EVEN OVER.
Christine begs Fin for help. Fin is suddenly really interested in his manicure. She disappears. Adam appears! He wants to kill Utah. Utah talks him out of it. Lia and Jude share a "Let's kill Adam in his sleep" look.
Utah and Lia discuss her last minute, I'm-going-to-die-now "I love you". Utah did not reply with "I know". There is no justice in the universe.
Utah proposes. Lia says yes.
There is still another chapter in this book.
ALSO: WE NEED TO PICK THE NEXT BOOK.
Options:
-More Laurel K. Hamilton.
-More Mission Earth
-The sequel to that book about the woman who has sex with a lake.
-Something by Frank Peretti (IE The Oath, This Present Darkness, basically he was the John the Baptist for the Left Behind series)
-YOUR SUGGESTIONS.
Neither segment is all that interesting. We discover that Lia is afraid of ghosts. Fin and Seir have Family Issues (No shit) and want to stay apart even though they really do love each other. Nina Bangs can actually use the word "cock" in a sex scene and manage to make it kind of sexy. Lia feeds as a vampire and is able to stop from killing Utah in the process through the Power Of Love, though she refuses to actually say "I love you" because Lia Has Mommy Issues.
In other words, we've shot the plot dead for sex. Again.
I hate sex scenes in books.
So we're going into chapter 15 now. We've got no idea where Christine is, where The Thing Lia needs to kill Christine is, or how to move forward, and emotionally, all the salient plots that have driven this book have been resolved. Only one left is killing Christine, and honestly, have any of us given one flying fuck about the entire plot of this novel? Christine wants to grow a garden that Oscar Wilde's Nightengale could be proud of. Get back to us when she starts killing puppies.
In other words, it's time for the Plot Resolution Fairy to come flying out of somebody's ass.
Next chapter:
I swear to god half of these things have started with somebody banging on a door. At least it's not a dry twig.
So everybody has to go to the Media Room. Much lingering and kissing is done before Utah and Lia head down.
I have also just discovered that there is a character named "Lio", short for a dino name I will never be able to pronounce OR spell. Up until now I thought that was a misspelling. Yeah, it's not smart to have two characters with names one vowel apart, unless they are related fraternal twins who always appear together and their mother is supposed to be an uncreative hack with a heavy side of the cutesies.
Fin shows up and says that the city is about to be evacuated because RANDOM VOLCANIC EXPLOSION (and also bribed city official). Apparently this is Christine's going away party.
Well, as Plot Resolution Fairies go, this one is at least a little inventive.
Also: Kione and the Vampire Five will be working together.
So they all go to Random Explody Mountain, and Utah tries to talk Lia out of being the hero because he loves her and he doesn't want her to die (...legit. That ain't "you're a girl" talk, that's "you're valued over and beyond my own hide" talk.)
Seir shows up randomly. His dialogue summerizes the entire book:
“Live volcano, psycho immortal, wacko followers. Not a great place to take your date, Utah.” Seir wasn’t smiling.Beautiful.
Everybody hikes up the mountain in a melodramatic fashion. We must fight but I don't want to die and MOUNTAIN EXPLODING sums it up pretty well. The dino guys go dino.
Utah still takes time out to examine Lia's ass. Flaming bag of dicks, ladies and gents. He'll never change.
And then Utah finds a ...no. NO. YOU CANNOT BE SERIOUS, LITTLE BOOK. EVEN WITH THE OTHERKIN AND THE DINOSAURS AND THE VAMPIRES AND THE RANDOM VOLCAINO THIS IS TOO CRAZY EVEN FOR--you're serious.
When he had finished, he was surrounded by dead wolves, blood, and . . . a yellow flower...Lia would want the flower. The flower was important.Oh. Oh my god. I totally forgot about this.
So Utah turns back into a human and picks the yellow flower and takes it over to Lia, who is having an "OH SHIT I FORGOT ALL MY KICK ASS WEAPONS" moment, because she forgot all her kick ass weapons and is standing right in front of Christine.
Christine started to turn when Lia was about twenty feet away from her. Oh no. Lia looked frantically around for a seven— buttons on a shirt, anything. Where the hell was the freaking seven Fin had said she’d find?I am laughing so hard right now I can barely type.
Christine laughed. “How sweet. He’s bringing you a flower. We’ll put it on your grave.” Her laughter faded. “I could’ve destroyed all of your little attack party if Fin hadn’t used some of his power to protect you.”You can't top this. You just can't.
Lia realizes that the flower does not have seven petals, she drops it to the ground, falls on her knees in front of it, waits to die...and then sees something that she missed the first time.
And as Christine reached out to take her heart, Lia scooped up the ladybug with its glorious seven spots from the flower’s petals and placed it on Christine’s outstretched hand. “There. A going-away gift from me to you, bitch.”So just to recap what this book is:
It's a book about men posessed by the ghosts of dead dinosaurs, Bella Swan with a sword, perm and spine, Number-obsessed immortals who have the collective maturity of a two year old, a random dark Elf who we borrowed from Merry Gentry for a while, Random Panthers, Random Otherkin, Random Exploding Mountains and the big bad of the week gets defeated by a freaking ladybug.
WELCOME TO THE MIND FUCK.
AND THE CHAPTER IS NOT EVEN OVER.
Christine begs Fin for help. Fin is suddenly really interested in his manicure. She disappears. Adam appears! He wants to kill Utah. Utah talks him out of it. Lia and Jude share a "Let's kill Adam in his sleep" look.
Utah and Lia discuss her last minute, I'm-going-to-die-now "I love you". Utah did not reply with "I know". There is no justice in the universe.
Utah proposes. Lia says yes.
There is still another chapter in this book.
ALSO: WE NEED TO PICK THE NEXT BOOK.
Options:
-More Laurel K. Hamilton.
-More Mission Earth
-The sequel to that book about the woman who has sex with a lake.
-Something by Frank Peretti (IE The Oath, This Present Darkness, basically he was the John the Baptist for the Left Behind series)
-YOUR SUGGESTIONS.
ARTWORK!
Color sketch for Dragon Breath Part Two: Knights is ready for showing off!
This one is going to be a challenge. I've never done this before. It ought to be fun.
ALSO: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT WAS TO FIND AN ILLUSTRATION THAT WOULDN'T DO SPOILERS? IT WAS HARD.
Ah, well. Manuscript is sent off for editing, this shouldn't take too long...ETA is now Saturday, September 7th.
Mark your calendars accordingly.
(Donators: I will need e-mail addresses and preferred file type for your rewards. I should get that from Indiegogo but I'd like to double up just to be safe.)
This one is going to be a challenge. I've never done this before. It ought to be fun.ALSO: DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW HARD IT WAS TO FIND AN ILLUSTRATION THAT WOULDN'T DO SPOILERS? IT WAS HARD.
Ah, well. Manuscript is sent off for editing, this shouldn't take too long...ETA is now Saturday, September 7th.
Mark your calendars accordingly.
(Donators: I will need e-mail addresses and preferred file type for your rewards. I should get that from Indiegogo but I'd like to double up just to be safe.)
August 28, 2013
Eternal Prey--chapter 14
BOOK UPDATE! YAY! I HAVE A BOOK UPDATE!
First of all, the Indiegogo campain fell a little short of the stated goal, but it's exactly what I needed to get this finished. You guys rock so hard it is incredible. I have no idea how I'm going to make the next segment, but that's on my own lookout, not yours. I may run another campaign someday (IE several months from now) but not immediately. You guys got me through an INCREDIBLY hard time in my life. Someday real soon I'll explain exactly what it meant that ya'll came together like this.
Speaking of which: DONATORS: I will require your addresses please.
OTHER GOOD NEWS: Edits on my end are done. It flows as well as I can make it, and it will be sent off to the editor very soon. (YOU GUYS ROCK. Have I said how much you guys rock? YOU GUYS ROCK) ETA is now the weekend of the seventh. I'll know more when I get some dates back from the editor. BUT WE ARE NEARLY THERE. And that means next week THERE WILL BE ARTWORK.
Now, for the not so great news: I am going to publish the next Gray Prince book without an editor. Yes, Editor-Nonnie, I know that's not kosher. But my finances are strapped tight for the foreseeable future. When I started the editing, my circumstances were real different, and I had to make a few judgement calls that put my personal welfare over being able to afford making the books read pretty. Getting the editing was a good call for the books, but it was the wrong call for other reasons. I am still really, really glad I got it, and I'm going to try to keep the habits it gave me so that the next time I have the cash--and I'm gonna try really hard to have it set up solid for the next Starbleached run--the writing itself will be better, and it won't be quite so expensive.
Now, if things change between now and then, you bet your freaking buttons I'm gonna let you know.
Second item on the not-so-good news list: I need to take time off from publishing to write more books, so I make no promises about the next Gray Prince book. I really, really, really want it to drop in November, but I also want to have a little bit of a backlog to plow through. We might be looking at December. IDK, I'll let you know. Just, you know, be aware.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring up concerns in the comments if you have them. This is now officially a cooperative thing between me and you guys, and your feedback, even if it's completely negative, is very valuable to me. Like I said: I would not have made it through the last six months without you guys.
Oh, and I haven't posted an excerpt yet because EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER contains massive spoilers for the end of Part One. I've spent the entire editing period going "Well, we could post this part...no. How about this...no. This one? Nope. Well, here's a sentence that maybe...nope. Well, damn."
Right. On to crazy book.
I have a massive issue with this first paragraph. Lia sees Kione show up and thinks about how seeing the fact that he'd suffered and loved had given him a touch of humanity:
I love David Weber. I love Honor Harrington. Mostly because the cast is freaking awesome, on BOTH sides of the line. Honor is cool because Honor. And then you've got Scotty and Harkness and Alice Truman and Queen Elizabeth and Nimitz and Benjamin and Berry and Ruth and Alistar McKeon (sob) and Andrew LaFollet (SOB!)...and then on the Honorverse version of Team Evil AKA The Republic of Haven you've got Pritchard and Thiesman and Tourville and Shannon Foeraker and Giscard and Cachet AND I CAN GO ON LIKE THIS ALL NIGHT. Many many MANY of the battles in those books were exciting because you genuinely liked both sides, and much as you wanted Honor to kick Thomas Theisman's butt AGAIN, you also didn't want Thomas and Shannon and their awesome awesome underlings to die.
Which is why one sided villians are a bad idea. Even when Weber HAD one-sided villians (Rob Pierre, Oscar St. Just, Esthar McQueen, oh holy fuck Cordelia Ransom) (Yeah, let's see if you can guess what period in history Weber's working off of) they had plots and ambitions and concerns that had nothing to do with Honor or Manticore. It's not the most subtle of books (Yes. Seriously. One of the villains is a revolutionary government leader named Rob Pierre who almost immediately starts killing anybody who calls him a blood thirsty idiot.) but you liked the good guys and the good bad guys, and the only thing better than watching the real bad guys plot was watching them die.
That's not happening here. We don't know who the five vampires are, save for being rapist scumbags. Whoo hoo, Christine/Seven was once Fin's girlfriend....aaaaaannnnnnnd that's all she gets. (At least Weber gave the fucking Committee of Public Safety--yes, Rob Pierre's government really is called that--hobbies, romances and guilt trips) Adam is an asshole, but so are Utah and Fin and they've got...uh...relatively more depth? The other side is about as faceless as the storm troopers for the Empire, and they were clones in fucking face masks. You quite literally do not give a flying fuck about these bad guys winning OR losing, and the only reason you root for the good guys is they've got the Designated Good Guy Flag flying outside of Fin's condo.
It'd be boring if it weren't about dinosaurs and vampires being driven around by Otherkin.
It doesn't really backfire until the characters start trying to play this sympathy for the vampires card that never gets extended past the immediate cast. Kione is good because Designated Good Guy Flag. Christine is bad because they say so. And they SAY they want to kill humans, but they haven't so much as kicked a puppy onscreen yet, let alone made a pencil disappear.
For all the attempts at shades of gray moralizing, it looks pretty black and white to me.
Oh, and Adam called Utah and Lia in because he's made a deal with Christine. Like we couldn't see that coming from six blocks away.
...still smarter than Bella Swan, though.
Adam tries to make Kione disappear with incantations and whatnot. It works about as well as you'd expect:
Meanwhile, Lia goes utterly batshit insane and starts pulling vampire heads off, and this is actually REALLY good. Finally a Random Dude pulls her out of the bloodlust and back to reality. Utah is a little freaked and Kione is still doing his emotionless Spock thing.
...we're seriously going to keep playing that "I don't think I can love you" game? Seriously? We're still wasting words on that?
Oh, and there's a random murder snake. No big deal.
DO YOU THINK I AM KIDDING?
This is Shen, who I think brought everybody coffee once and then disappeared. So yeah, random murder snake.
...why would vampires die from snakebite venom? How would that even work?
And Adam escaped. Nice that Lia was too lost in bloodlust to notice.
Lia's freak out over her bloodlust continues through the tunnel, outside where they trade cracks with the dino-guys who apparently just came for the show, and into the car, where she scrubs down with wet-naps until she's rubbed places raw. Because, you know, it's bad for somebody to enjoy their own bloodlust. And the best way to show that badness is hysterical cleaning breakdowns.
Lia and Utah discuss her compulsion rationally...ish...and decide to go to Seir for help.
The last time you listened to him you walked into a trap. I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. However, Lia begs and Seir agrees to help Fin fix her head, as long as they do it outside. Fin zips right down, though he takes the time to curse at them for moving without his permission.
This is a lovely cast. Isn't it just a lovely cast?
Seir takes just enough time to let everybody know that he hasn't touched either of his brothers in a long time because weird things happen, clarifies that "half the world vanishing" counts as weird, and then grabs Fin's hand.
End of chapter.
First of all, the Indiegogo campain fell a little short of the stated goal, but it's exactly what I needed to get this finished. You guys rock so hard it is incredible. I have no idea how I'm going to make the next segment, but that's on my own lookout, not yours. I may run another campaign someday (IE several months from now) but not immediately. You guys got me through an INCREDIBLY hard time in my life. Someday real soon I'll explain exactly what it meant that ya'll came together like this.
Speaking of which: DONATORS: I will require your addresses please.
OTHER GOOD NEWS: Edits on my end are done. It flows as well as I can make it, and it will be sent off to the editor very soon. (YOU GUYS ROCK. Have I said how much you guys rock? YOU GUYS ROCK) ETA is now the weekend of the seventh. I'll know more when I get some dates back from the editor. BUT WE ARE NEARLY THERE. And that means next week THERE WILL BE ARTWORK.
Now, for the not so great news: I am going to publish the next Gray Prince book without an editor. Yes, Editor-Nonnie, I know that's not kosher. But my finances are strapped tight for the foreseeable future. When I started the editing, my circumstances were real different, and I had to make a few judgement calls that put my personal welfare over being able to afford making the books read pretty. Getting the editing was a good call for the books, but it was the wrong call for other reasons. I am still really, really glad I got it, and I'm going to try to keep the habits it gave me so that the next time I have the cash--and I'm gonna try really hard to have it set up solid for the next Starbleached run--the writing itself will be better, and it won't be quite so expensive.
Now, if things change between now and then, you bet your freaking buttons I'm gonna let you know.
Second item on the not-so-good news list: I need to take time off from publishing to write more books, so I make no promises about the next Gray Prince book. I really, really, really want it to drop in November, but I also want to have a little bit of a backlog to plow through. We might be looking at December. IDK, I'll let you know. Just, you know, be aware.
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE bring up concerns in the comments if you have them. This is now officially a cooperative thing between me and you guys, and your feedback, even if it's completely negative, is very valuable to me. Like I said: I would not have made it through the last six months without you guys.
Oh, and I haven't posted an excerpt yet because EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER contains massive spoilers for the end of Part One. I've spent the entire editing period going "Well, we could post this part...no. How about this...no. This one? Nope. Well, here's a sentence that maybe...nope. Well, damn."
Right. On to crazy book.
I have a massive issue with this first paragraph. Lia sees Kione show up and thinks about how seeing the fact that he'd suffered and loved had given him a touch of humanity:
You couldn’t judge someone’s humanity on a sliding scale. And being human didn’t guarantee goodness and light.The problem I have with this is something I've already touched on: the non-human characters are only good (AND WELL DEVELOPED) when on the good guy side of the book.
I love David Weber. I love Honor Harrington. Mostly because the cast is freaking awesome, on BOTH sides of the line. Honor is cool because Honor. And then you've got Scotty and Harkness and Alice Truman and Queen Elizabeth and Nimitz and Benjamin and Berry and Ruth and Alistar McKeon (sob) and Andrew LaFollet (SOB!)...and then on the Honorverse version of Team Evil AKA The Republic of Haven you've got Pritchard and Thiesman and Tourville and Shannon Foeraker and Giscard and Cachet AND I CAN GO ON LIKE THIS ALL NIGHT. Many many MANY of the battles in those books were exciting because you genuinely liked both sides, and much as you wanted Honor to kick Thomas Theisman's butt AGAIN, you also didn't want Thomas and Shannon and their awesome awesome underlings to die.
Which is why one sided villians are a bad idea. Even when Weber HAD one-sided villians (Rob Pierre, Oscar St. Just, Esthar McQueen, oh holy fuck Cordelia Ransom) (Yeah, let's see if you can guess what period in history Weber's working off of) they had plots and ambitions and concerns that had nothing to do with Honor or Manticore. It's not the most subtle of books (Yes. Seriously. One of the villains is a revolutionary government leader named Rob Pierre who almost immediately starts killing anybody who calls him a blood thirsty idiot.) but you liked the good guys and the good bad guys, and the only thing better than watching the real bad guys plot was watching them die.
That's not happening here. We don't know who the five vampires are, save for being rapist scumbags. Whoo hoo, Christine/Seven was once Fin's girlfriend....aaaaaannnnnnnd that's all she gets. (At least Weber gave the fucking Committee of Public Safety--yes, Rob Pierre's government really is called that--hobbies, romances and guilt trips) Adam is an asshole, but so are Utah and Fin and they've got...uh...relatively more depth? The other side is about as faceless as the storm troopers for the Empire, and they were clones in fucking face masks. You quite literally do not give a flying fuck about these bad guys winning OR losing, and the only reason you root for the good guys is they've got the Designated Good Guy Flag flying outside of Fin's condo.
It'd be boring if it weren't about dinosaurs and vampires being driven around by Otherkin.
It doesn't really backfire until the characters start trying to play this sympathy for the vampires card that never gets extended past the immediate cast. Kione is good because Designated Good Guy Flag. Christine is bad because they say so. And they SAY they want to kill humans, but they haven't so much as kicked a puppy onscreen yet, let alone made a pencil disappear.
For all the attempts at shades of gray moralizing, it looks pretty black and white to me.
Oh, and Adam called Utah and Lia in because he's made a deal with Christine. Like we couldn't see that coming from six blocks away.
Adam’s eyes glowed with excitement. “She’s leading more than just vampires. Once she’s gone, I’ll control all the shifters, demons, and other nonhumans she’s gathered together.” He licked his lips. “I’ll control the world.”Yeah. Lia, if you couldn't smell the meglomania coming off this dude before, you're dumber than a bag of rocks.
...still smarter than Bella Swan, though.
Adam tries to make Kione disappear with incantations and whatnot. It works about as well as you'd expect:
Utah waited until the moment Adam’s attention switched to Kione. That moment was all he needed.Utah switches to Raptor and...yeah, I have yet to get ONE paragraph of description on the raptors. Or ANY of the dinosaurs. I mean, I've stablished my headcannon is feathery death cannons all around, but for fuck's sake, could we get a color?
Meanwhile, Lia goes utterly batshit insane and starts pulling vampire heads off, and this is actually REALLY good. Finally a Random Dude pulls her out of the bloodlust and back to reality. Utah is a little freaked and Kione is still doing his emotionless Spock thing.
...we're seriously going to keep playing that "I don't think I can love you" game? Seriously? We're still wasting words on that?
Oh, and there's a random murder snake. No big deal.
DO YOU THINK I AM KIDDING?
“That’s an inland taipan, also known as the fierce snake. One bite has enough venom to kill one hundred adult humans.”...did the wiki article tell you all that?
This is Shen, who I think brought everybody coffee once and then disappeared. So yeah, random murder snake.
...why would vampires die from snakebite venom? How would that even work?
And Adam escaped. Nice that Lia was too lost in bloodlust to notice.
Talking about bloodlust. “Don’t get any closer.” Even now, she could feel the compulsion to turn and kill him tugging at her. “Oh, and so we keep my killing urges straight, what I’m feeling now is Zero’s compulsion. What I felt back there was just a new vampire’s killing high.” She made an impatient noise. “I always thought I could control the bloodlust when I became vampire. Shows what I know.”Also, nice that becoming a vampire didn't teach Lia how to talk like a human.
Lia's freak out over her bloodlust continues through the tunnel, outside where they trade cracks with the dino-guys who apparently just came for the show, and into the car, where she scrubs down with wet-naps until she's rubbed places raw. Because, you know, it's bad for somebody to enjoy their own bloodlust. And the best way to show that badness is hysterical cleaning breakdowns.
Lia and Utah discuss her compulsion rationally...ish...and decide to go to Seir for help.
The last time you listened to him you walked into a trap. I DO NOT THINK THIS IS A GOOD IDEA. However, Lia begs and Seir agrees to help Fin fix her head, as long as they do it outside. Fin zips right down, though he takes the time to curse at them for moving without his permission.
This is a lovely cast. Isn't it just a lovely cast?
Seir takes just enough time to let everybody know that he hasn't touched either of his brothers in a long time because weird things happen, clarifies that "half the world vanishing" counts as weird, and then grabs Fin's hand.
End of chapter.
Eternal Prey--chapter 13
The biggest issue I have with this book is the filler factor. Everything that happens between Lia's change and when the bad guys finally get taken down is filler that does not effect the plot in any way whatsoever.
It drives me nuts. I have the same issue with a couple other series I'm reading. Long-running series tend to have this issue if the writer isn't careful. In CW's Theories On Writing (consume with grain of salt) you have two plots in every book: A macrocosmic plot--this is the universe as a whole--and a microcosmic plot--this is what is happening with the main character. Sub-plots are microcosmic plots that happen to characters who are not the main character. They ought to be plotted the same as the main character and ought to take the same amount of time and effort to resolve; you just don't see the in-between bits. In a single book, the macrocosmic plot and the microcosmic plot should be given equal importance. In a series, your micro-plot IS the plot for that book, and your macro plot is the one running through the whole series on slow boil. If you get the balance right--and this is very hard to do--then your macro plot's build up will be seamless with your microcosmic plot--ie in Harry Potter, Riddle's diary is introduced as the climax of the second book AND as build up to the seventh book's quest for the Horcruxes--and the reader won't pick up on the macro-plots twists until you're ready to reveal them...and they also won't be overly surprised.
This book's biggest problem is that Nina is alternating between macro plot-points and micro-plot points, and it is OBVIOUS. She might as well have a sign posted next to certain scenes saying "THIS WILL NOT BE RESOLVED IN THIS BOOK, READ THE NEXT ONE".
The first scene in this chapter is one of those scenes.
Apparently Fin decides to stick around in the rose garden after the Dino boys and Kione kicked the crap out of it, because he's got to clean it up so humans won't notice. Hey, his character isn't very well developed past "immature". How about we get another character trait in there?
Seven is still in the garden when he gets there, and it turns out the two of them have a history. A romantic history. And Seven/Christine apparently walked away from Fin when Fin walked away from the "Destroying things on earth to make way for other things" movement. And Fin is not happy about it. And none of this has one shit to do with this book's plot.
Now, it should be time to have one of those "Asshole with a heart of gold/I'm only this way because I was hurt/I need a co-dependant woman to make me all better" scenes.
Yeah, I wouldn't want to have a relationship with Fin. Or Utah, for that matter. They're bad boys, but they're immature bad boys. You get the idea that they'll break their toys as soon as they get a little irritated. Who do I like?
You know, his entire motivation changes when you realize that an IRL labyrinth is a twisting path with no alternatives, leading to a single destination. Once you walk in, you're only going one place. Kind of good if you want a spoiled rotten teen to make a solid 180.After showing us that he's Really A Person In There (gag) he goes back to the condo and finds Lia standing outside with a cooler full of bagged blood.
It really says something that this is the first modern day vampire book I've read where the main vampire goes to a blood bank. This solution ought to be freaking obvious.
Also, Lia tells Fin that she had to talk real fast to keep her daddy from hunting Christine down and making her a dead not-a-vampire.
She randomly calls attention to his ring while they're talking. Great. Either that's the Object she needs to kill Seven, OR that's YET ANOTHER FUCKING PLOT POINT that isn't going to get resolved in this book.
Nina: This is not Lost. ANSWER A FEW OF THESE GODDAMNED QUESTIONS.
Lia repeats: She fed off Zero and now she wants to kill Utah and doesn't want to hunt Christine anymore.
It takes Fin two pages to realize Lia has been brainwashed. WE ALREADY KNOW THIS; this just makes him look stupid.
We switch to the next day, when Utah wakes up. He heads to the common room, where everybody and their wives are there, and we get this lovely conversation:
Ty, however, is mortally offended.
Utah and Lia spend a few pages wallowing in sexual tension while Utah eats bacon.
Fin reveals that he and Christine/Seven have a history, and that she's going to have a big celebration in Pittsburgh before the book is over...and that it won't be nice for humans. Because you really can't foresee that a book will have an explosive climax. It's kind of unusual, that whole "climax" thing.
Plot Point That Won't Be Resolved In This Book: Apparently the dino-guys are remembering whatever they were before they were dinos, and it was a "nightmare world" and Fin is fully justified in keeping this from them.
Were they Cthulhu? Cause otherwise, Fin is still an asshole.
Utah and Lia get a personal conference, where everybody spends a few minutes proving who the biggest and baddest thing in the room is (it's a tie, and not because they're all that powerful) and then Fin convinces Lia that she's been brainwashed. Which we already knew.
Wow, that whole brainwashing plot sure was epic. It took three chapters for it to get partially resolved!
Adam has summoned them too, so they all get shipped out to Vampire Central with Greer the Therianthrope/Otherkin at the wheel. Because they need a human at the wheel and I guess souls don't count.
They get there and Kione, who has been missing for ONE WHOLE CHAPTER, shows up outside of Adam's place! And then the chapter ends, so I guess we're supposed to hear dun-dun-dun and flashing lightening.
Not exactly.
It drives me nuts. I have the same issue with a couple other series I'm reading. Long-running series tend to have this issue if the writer isn't careful. In CW's Theories On Writing (consume with grain of salt) you have two plots in every book: A macrocosmic plot--this is the universe as a whole--and a microcosmic plot--this is what is happening with the main character. Sub-plots are microcosmic plots that happen to characters who are not the main character. They ought to be plotted the same as the main character and ought to take the same amount of time and effort to resolve; you just don't see the in-between bits. In a single book, the macrocosmic plot and the microcosmic plot should be given equal importance. In a series, your micro-plot IS the plot for that book, and your macro plot is the one running through the whole series on slow boil. If you get the balance right--and this is very hard to do--then your macro plot's build up will be seamless with your microcosmic plot--ie in Harry Potter, Riddle's diary is introduced as the climax of the second book AND as build up to the seventh book's quest for the Horcruxes--and the reader won't pick up on the macro-plots twists until you're ready to reveal them...and they also won't be overly surprised.
This book's biggest problem is that Nina is alternating between macro plot-points and micro-plot points, and it is OBVIOUS. She might as well have a sign posted next to certain scenes saying "THIS WILL NOT BE RESOLVED IN THIS BOOK, READ THE NEXT ONE".
The first scene in this chapter is one of those scenes.
Apparently Fin decides to stick around in the rose garden after the Dino boys and Kione kicked the crap out of it, because he's got to clean it up so humans won't notice. Hey, his character isn't very well developed past "immature". How about we get another character trait in there?
Now it seemed as though Utah was walking down the same path (Note--of falling in love with a human. CW). Fin recognized the signs. Maybe there was still hope, though. Lia was vampire, and Utah might not be able to get past that. Too bad Fin didn’t have a close relationship with his men. He could tell Utah that love was a bitch who walked away from you when you needed her the most....misogynistic asshole was not what I was going for.
Seven is still in the garden when he gets there, and it turns out the two of them have a history. A romantic history. And Seven/Christine apparently walked away from Fin when Fin walked away from the "Destroying things on earth to make way for other things" movement. And Fin is not happy about it. And none of this has one shit to do with this book's plot.
Now, it should be time to have one of those "Asshole with a heart of gold/I'm only this way because I was hurt/I need a co-dependant woman to make me all better" scenes.
She called his name. The name he hadn’t heard for millions of years. He paused but didn’t turn around.
“Come back to me.” Her voice was soft with all that had been between them. The need to turn around, to go back to her, almost won. Then he drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“That name belonged to someone from a long time ago. He’s gone. Forget it. Forget him.” And every word dug into his heart— the heart his men believed he didn’t have— and he bled.I'm gonna confess that I actually do like that trope--Beauty and the Beast, the dangerous asshole--but I understand that dear fucking GOD is that a dangerous plot to run. It re-enforces a very, VERY dangerous idea--that a sick man can be Healed By Love if you love him enough--and needs to be handled very carefully. (My theory is that you have to treat the romance, not as the mechanism for healing, but as the reward for both people working on their issues. They're more healthy then when the novel started, and they've shown that both parties are willing to walk away the second things get unhealthy, so they get to be in love right now. You can like the bad boys/girls as long as the bad boys are working on being safely bad. But call them on their shit, kids.)
Yeah, I wouldn't want to have a relationship with Fin. Or Utah, for that matter. They're bad boys, but they're immature bad boys. You get the idea that they'll break their toys as soon as they get a little irritated. Who do I like?
You know, his entire motivation changes when you realize that an IRL labyrinth is a twisting path with no alternatives, leading to a single destination. Once you walk in, you're only going one place. Kind of good if you want a spoiled rotten teen to make a solid 180.After showing us that he's Really A Person In There (gag) he goes back to the condo and finds Lia standing outside with a cooler full of bagged blood. It really says something that this is the first modern day vampire book I've read where the main vampire goes to a blood bank. This solution ought to be freaking obvious.
Also, Lia tells Fin that she had to talk real fast to keep her daddy from hunting Christine down and making her a dead not-a-vampire.
She randomly calls attention to his ring while they're talking. Great. Either that's the Object she needs to kill Seven, OR that's YET ANOTHER FUCKING PLOT POINT that isn't going to get resolved in this book.
Nina: This is not Lost. ANSWER A FEW OF THESE GODDAMNED QUESTIONS.
Lia repeats: She fed off Zero and now she wants to kill Utah and doesn't want to hunt Christine anymore.
It takes Fin two pages to realize Lia has been brainwashed. WE ALREADY KNOW THIS; this just makes him look stupid.
We switch to the next day, when Utah wakes up. He heads to the common room, where everybody and their wives are there, and we get this lovely conversation:
Kelly poked him with her elbow. “In her own subtle way, my sister is hinting that your backbone is a little rubbery.” She turned to her husband. “Speaking of poultry, did you know that scientists believe chickens are the descendants of the mighty T. rex?”Given that Ty, like Utah and Tor, ought to be covered in feathers to be scientifically accurate? This should not be a big surprise.
Ty, however, is mortally offended.
Utah and Lia spend a few pages wallowing in sexual tension while Utah eats bacon.
Fin reveals that he and Christine/Seven have a history, and that she's going to have a big celebration in Pittsburgh before the book is over...and that it won't be nice for humans. Because you really can't foresee that a book will have an explosive climax. It's kind of unusual, that whole "climax" thing.
Plot Point That Won't Be Resolved In This Book: Apparently the dino-guys are remembering whatever they were before they were dinos, and it was a "nightmare world" and Fin is fully justified in keeping this from them.
Were they Cthulhu? Cause otherwise, Fin is still an asshole.
Utah and Lia get a personal conference, where everybody spends a few minutes proving who the biggest and baddest thing in the room is (it's a tie, and not because they're all that powerful) and then Fin convinces Lia that she's been brainwashed. Which we already knew.
Wow, that whole brainwashing plot sure was epic. It took three chapters for it to get partially resolved!
Adam has summoned them too, so they all get shipped out to Vampire Central with Greer the Therianthrope/Otherkin at the wheel. Because they need a human at the wheel and I guess souls don't count.
They get there and Kione, who has been missing for ONE WHOLE CHAPTER, shows up outside of Adam's place! And then the chapter ends, so I guess we're supposed to hear dun-dun-dun and flashing lightening.
Not exactly.
August 26, 2013
Eternal Prey--Chapter 12
So there is a kickass fight between the Dino Dudes, Kione and the vampires, and it doesn't matter for anything because Utah is sitting it out. He's more worried about Lia, who is freaking out a little bit because her reaction to Utah--thanks to Zero's brainwashing--isn't normal for a vampire. Only she doesn't remember being brainwashed, so...
Kione calls down random lightening bolts and ends the fight with his five. WOW that was easy. But Lia points out that they're under Jude's protection. Jude has to come to their rescue if he wants to keep his street cred. So now the conflict is that if he kills them, Jude will attack him, he'll kill Jude and then Lia will be sad.
Seriously. This book has no idea how it feels about vampires. When they're attached to a human, they're good. When they're not, they're effectively tissue paper.
Fin and Lia both tell Utah that they have to keep Jude alive, and that means keeping the five vampires alive before Kione kills them and eats their liver. But why oh why is Kione justified in killing their undead asses? Is it just the curse? Is it a long feude a'la Hatfields and McCoys?
Nope. It's rape.
Remember how Kione can make people feel lust? Well apparently the Five Vampire's old (and now dead) clan couldn't "stand to attention" anymore until they found out about Kione. So they did the natural and reasonable thing, which was to kidnap his girlfriend, chain him to a post, point knives at the girlfriend, and rape him for several months because WHAT THE FUCK AM I READING.
Okay. It's one thing in the Anitaverse because EVERYTHING IS RAPE. Is there chastizement of a supernatural in the Anitaverse? It's rape. Is there a crime? It involved rape. Is Anita hungry? Here's rape with a side of rape, would you like fried rape with that? But weird and crazy as this book has been, we've been pretty careful on the consent thing.
So hey. Let's have a random rape and torture scene with a garnish of female suicide. Yeah. Kione's girlfriend--who doesn't get a discription beyond "Pretty woman", let alone a freaking name--throws herself on the vampire knives to free Kione from being raped until the girlfriend died of old age.
And just to add extra spice to this WTFery, when Kione plays the memory for everybody, Utah takes on the POV of the rapists.
So what does this add to the book? Kione is so very much a side character you could replace him with a lamp that shoots lightening at random intervals and nobody would notice. WHY DO WE NEED TO HAVE THIS IN HERE.
...because he makes Lia cry and prove that she's still human inside. NO. REALLY. THAT'S THE ENTIRE PURPOSE:
Lia brings up that Jude will die if Kione kills them. Jude shows up and is all "Let's get ready to Rumble, Elf-dude", and the vampire five offer to take the curse off IF Kione can prove that what he showed them is true. Rather than turning them into undead smears, he randomly teleports another surviving member of the clan--yes. The clan where ONLY FIVE MEMBERS SURVIVED, and these because they were not at the hell-orgy, has one extra member there to testify to the truth of Kione's words, which probably means he WAS there when Kione was raped and his girlfriend murdered, and that means that he probably PARTICIPATED, and Kione let him live because he might need a wittness.
When everybody agrees that these vampires are bad mojo and that Jude was nuts for taking them in in the first place.
Hey, let's take a second out from this rape plot line to establish that Lia has issues with her bloodlust due to being brainwashed. Established now? Yes? Good. Back to "Kione lets his rapists get away because FORGIVENESS!"
Lia argues for saving the Five so that Jude doesn't have to fight Kione and won't have to die. The most obvious solution--Jude says "FUCK this shit, you did NOT put this on the program guys" and lets the rapists die--not being employed, Lia argues that Jude is valuable to the fight to save humanity. Kione reacts reasonably:
Yes. The rapist asshole vampires have agreed to stop torturing the rape victim, and this should make everything okay.
I don't like this book anymore.
(Seriously. I don't remember reading this the first time.)
Utah and Jude both confirm that they won't let Kione kill the vampires, so Kione agrees to let them go if they take the curse off. KIONE'S ARC IS NOW OVER. CONGRADULATIONS I AM SURE THIS ENLIGHTENED EVERYONE.
(WHY WAS THIS IN THE BOOK, NINA? YOU WERE DOING SO GOOD UNTIL NOW.)
And now we go back to Lia's bloodlust, because that's more important than the sufferings of a thousand year old rape victim.
Lia wants to kill Utah. Fin senses this. She tells him she fed on Zero, which should ring warning bells, but Zero is his usual, charming self:
Fin elects to send Lia home with Jude until she can get her bloodlust under control. The chapter ends with her telling Jude how weird it is that the only person she wants to feed on is Utah, and that she wants to kill him in the process.
WE ALREADY KNOW SHE IS BRAINWASHED. STOP DRAWING IT OUT.
Kione calls down random lightening bolts and ends the fight with his five. WOW that was easy. But Lia points out that they're under Jude's protection. Jude has to come to their rescue if he wants to keep his street cred. So now the conflict is that if he kills them, Jude will attack him, he'll kill Jude and then Lia will be sad.
Seriously. This book has no idea how it feels about vampires. When they're attached to a human, they're good. When they're not, they're effectively tissue paper.
Fin and Lia both tell Utah that they have to keep Jude alive, and that means keeping the five vampires alive before Kione kills them and eats their liver. But why oh why is Kione justified in killing their undead asses? Is it just the curse? Is it a long feude a'la Hatfields and McCoys?
Nope. It's rape.
Remember how Kione can make people feel lust? Well apparently the Five Vampire's old (and now dead) clan couldn't "stand to attention" anymore until they found out about Kione. So they did the natural and reasonable thing, which was to kidnap his girlfriend, chain him to a post, point knives at the girlfriend, and rape him for several months because WHAT THE FUCK AM I READING.
Okay. It's one thing in the Anitaverse because EVERYTHING IS RAPE. Is there chastizement of a supernatural in the Anitaverse? It's rape. Is there a crime? It involved rape. Is Anita hungry? Here's rape with a side of rape, would you like fried rape with that? But weird and crazy as this book has been, we've been pretty careful on the consent thing.
So hey. Let's have a random rape and torture scene with a garnish of female suicide. Yeah. Kione's girlfriend--who doesn't get a discription beyond "Pretty woman", let alone a freaking name--throws herself on the vampire knives to free Kione from being raped until the girlfriend died of old age.
And just to add extra spice to this WTFery, when Kione plays the memory for everybody, Utah takes on the POV of the rapists.
So what does this add to the book? Kione is so very much a side character you could replace him with a lamp that shoots lightening at random intervals and nobody would notice. WHY DO WE NEED TO HAVE THIS IN HERE.
...because he makes Lia cry and prove that she's still human inside. NO. REALLY. THAT'S THE ENTIRE PURPOSE:
Maybe tonight, with this man, she’d allow herself to be human once more, with a human’s unapologetic expression of horror and grief for what Kione had endured. Sort of ironic that she should turn to her human side when she was no longer human. Dad would applaud.This would all be great if the five remaining members of the Vampire Clan From Hell didn't get away with it.
Lia brings up that Jude will die if Kione kills them. Jude shows up and is all "Let's get ready to Rumble, Elf-dude", and the vampire five offer to take the curse off IF Kione can prove that what he showed them is true. Rather than turning them into undead smears, he randomly teleports another surviving member of the clan--yes. The clan where ONLY FIVE MEMBERS SURVIVED, and these because they were not at the hell-orgy, has one extra member there to testify to the truth of Kione's words, which probably means he WAS there when Kione was raped and his girlfriend murdered, and that means that he probably PARTICIPATED, and Kione let him live because he might need a wittness.
When everybody agrees that these vampires are bad mojo and that Jude was nuts for taking them in in the first place.
Hey, let's take a second out from this rape plot line to establish that Lia has issues with her bloodlust due to being brainwashed. Established now? Yes? Good. Back to "Kione lets his rapists get away because FORGIVENESS!"
Lia argues for saving the Five so that Jude doesn't have to fight Kione and won't have to die. The most obvious solution--Jude says "FUCK this shit, you did NOT put this on the program guys" and lets the rapists die--not being employed, Lia argues that Jude is valuable to the fight to save humanity. Kione reacts reasonably:
“So you’re saying that the survival of the human race is more important than my puny complaint.”There should be a question mark on the end of that sentence. Other than that, though, it's a really good point. Kione was hurt badly, Kione's girlfriend was hurt badly, and these five assholes might not have participated in THAT, but they participated in making Kione's life a living hell ever since and NOTHING says these idiots have actually learned a damn thing about being good people. How does Lia respond?
She glared at him. “Stop putting words in my mouth. No one thinks your complaint is puny. But they’ve agreed to remove the curse. They weren’t even there when everything happened.
Yes. The rapist asshole vampires have agreed to stop torturing the rape victim, and this should make everything okay.
I don't like this book anymore.
(Seriously. I don't remember reading this the first time.)
Utah and Jude both confirm that they won't let Kione kill the vampires, so Kione agrees to let them go if they take the curse off. KIONE'S ARC IS NOW OVER. CONGRADULATIONS I AM SURE THIS ENLIGHTENED EVERYONE.
(WHY WAS THIS IN THE BOOK, NINA? YOU WERE DOING SO GOOD UNTIL NOW.)
And now we go back to Lia's bloodlust, because that's more important than the sufferings of a thousand year old rape victim.
Lia wants to kill Utah. Fin senses this. She tells him she fed on Zero, which should ring warning bells, but Zero is his usual, charming self:
“Congratulations. I’m sure you’re the first. Tell me if you feel yourself changing into a megalomaniac.” Fin turned and walked away.The defender of humanity, folks. DUDE. GET OFF MY SIDE.
Fin elects to send Lia home with Jude until she can get her bloodlust under control. The chapter ends with her telling Jude how weird it is that the only person she wants to feed on is Utah, and that she wants to kill him in the process.
WE ALREADY KNOW SHE IS BRAINWASHED. STOP DRAWING IT OUT.
August 25, 2013
Eternal Prey--Chapter Eleven
So Kione and Utah are crawling around Pittsburgh trying to find Lia. And they can't, because Lia is now a vampire and Kione can't track her somehow. It's not real clear. Utah spends his time being generally worthless while he burns what limited character development he actually has. His one character trait other than "Flaming prehistoric ass" is "I hate vampires". He HATES vampires. Vampires are not human. WE HAVE THOROUGHLY COVERED THAT UTAH HATES VAMPIRES. Kione explains that he can't find Lia because Lia is not the Lia they knew, and Utah returns with this:
And then we get a random psychic jaguar. NO. REALLY. THAT HAPPENS.
They listen to the cat. OF COURSE THEY LISTEN TO THE FUCKING CAT. The cat tells Utah that Zero has Lia and is willing to trade her for Seir. Who was already working with him, but who walked right into Fin's hands without any pressure. GEE. DO YOU THINK THIS COULD BE A TRAP?
...also, Nina? Jaguars like getting wet. So when Balan AKA RANDOM KITTY gets rained on? He wouldn't squeal and rush off like that.
Kione confronts Utah with his feelings for Lia. You fucked her in a vampire storage room. It's a little late to be playing the virginal choirboy, Dino-dude.
So they rush off to tell Fin about the exchange and fail to mention that it is AN OBVIOUS FUCKING TRAP (seriously guys can you be any dumber?) and Fin greets them like any mature omnipotant being would:
Also, he only points out that Seir is the more dangerous brother before he agrees to the trade. DUDE, I could cut Utah some slack because his sentience is younger than my tennis shoes, but FUCK, YOU ARE A GOD-LIKE-BEING. THIS IS SCREAMING OBVIOUS TRAP. WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING.
Well, it's time to go tell Balan that they're walking into the mouse trap with their arms open wide:
Also: At this point Google Earth has contributed more to this quest than Utah. Just saying.
They go back to Seir's room, and the conversation makes about as much sense as it would if you gave Q a bottle of whiskey and made him play "Never have I Ever" with Zeus. It ends with Seir warning Utah that he should run if the three brothers ever get, like, touching close.
Utah heads to bed. He angsts for a while. And then we get a hard scene cut to the Rose Garden.
...I am not complaining about an abrubt scene jump because Anita Blake showed me bad jumps are better than writing every single red light (and sex scene) is a bigger error...but this part is SCREAMING to be its own chapter.
Moving on.
...Yeah, Utah? It's a rose garden. Christine likes green things. Get over it.
...and it's apparently February, which makes the blooming roses weird. Yeah, they probably are. You know what's even weirder? THE RAIN HAPPENING THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK. This is the first date we've gotten so far, and I'm not 100% sure but I think it'd be SNOWING right now.
...every word of that last bit is probably true. I'd really like to avoid such a draconian solution, though.
The two sides spend some time growling. What's not so good is that Jude brought the vampires that scarred up Kione, and Kione is more interested in killing them than he is in saving Lia.
One good person in this cast. That's all I ask.
Adam is there with Seir and Seven, and he apparently rigged it so the five vampires will kill Kione. Popcorn should be distributed all around, but instead everybody clears the floor and looks antsy. Utah figures Adam set this up. No shit, Sherlock.
Utah also gets disgusted when Lia's hypnotic suggestion to kill him kicks in. Great.
You know, that "confused rejection" trope is my least favorite romantic things. There are so many realistic ways to fuck up a relationship, muddled confusions because NOBODY CAN FUCKING COMMUNICATE THINGS should be down there with "canned spinach" as breakup reasons.
The Five Vampires and Kione exchange threats. They're both cheesy, but only Kione's is grade A Stilton with a side of red whine:
Darkness swirls. Dinos prepair to let loose with their bad prehistoric selves...and the chapter ends with Utah excercising self control and doing, you guessed it, absolutely nothing.
“She’ll still be the same person inside the same body.”Going from "Vampires suck" to "WE MUST SAVE LIA" is not good consistent character development.
And then we get a random psychic jaguar. NO. REALLY. THAT HAPPENS.
“I am Balan, the messenger for those you call by numbers. I am honored to meet another God of the Night and a mighty fae prince.”Oh, and he goes out of his way to say that he works for the bad guys. UTAH. BABY-DINO. THIS IS WHAT SHOTGUNS ARE FOR.
They listen to the cat. OF COURSE THEY LISTEN TO THE FUCKING CAT. The cat tells Utah that Zero has Lia and is willing to trade her for Seir. Who was already working with him, but who walked right into Fin's hands without any pressure. GEE. DO YOU THINK THIS COULD BE A TRAP?
...also, Nina? Jaguars like getting wet. So when Balan AKA RANDOM KITTY gets rained on? He wouldn't squeal and rush off like that.
Kione confronts Utah with his feelings for Lia. You fucked her in a vampire storage room. It's a little late to be playing the virginal choirboy, Dino-dude.
So they rush off to tell Fin about the exchange and fail to mention that it is AN OBVIOUS FUCKING TRAP (seriously guys can you be any dumber?) and Fin greets them like any mature omnipotant being would:
“I hope this is important, Utah, because Zero just finished frying my brain, and I’d really like to kill someone.”I really hope these guys don't actually turn out to be gods later on in the series (...yes. there are many more books) because DAMN.
Also, he only points out that Seir is the more dangerous brother before he agrees to the trade. DUDE, I could cut Utah some slack because his sentience is younger than my tennis shoes, but FUCK, YOU ARE A GOD-LIKE-BEING. THIS IS SCREAMING OBVIOUS TRAP. WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING.
Well, it's time to go tell Balan that they're walking into the mouse trap with their arms open wide:
“I could make an exception for you.” He shifted his attention back to Utah. “Each side will be allowed ten representatives plus their leader. We will meet with you at two A.M. tomorrow at the International Rose Test Garden in Washington Park.”
“A rose garden?” Utah glanced at Kione, who shrugged. “How do we get there?”
“I would suggest Google Maps.”Okay, on the one hand, that's a pretty good response to Utah's sense of entitlement (Dude. This is the bad side's messenger. What do you expect?) But dear holy God, Google Maps/Google Earth have no bleeding business being in paranormal fantasy things. It's like "Elves elves elves vampires elves shapeshifters elves ghosts elves mermaids elves GOOGLE EARTH MOTHERFUCKERS and now we're back to elves." ONE OF THESE THINGS JUST DOESN'T BELONG HERE.
Also: At this point Google Earth has contributed more to this quest than Utah. Just saying.
They go back to Seir's room, and the conversation makes about as much sense as it would if you gave Q a bottle of whiskey and made him play "Never have I Ever" with Zeus. It ends with Seir warning Utah that he should run if the three brothers ever get, like, touching close.
Utah heads to bed. He angsts for a while. And then we get a hard scene cut to the Rose Garden.
...I am not complaining about an abrubt scene jump because Anita Blake showed me bad jumps are better than writing every single red light (and sex scene) is a bigger error...but this part is SCREAMING to be its own chapter.
Moving on.
...Yeah, Utah? It's a rose garden. Christine likes green things. Get over it.
...and it's apparently February, which makes the blooming roses weird. Yeah, they probably are. You know what's even weirder? THE RAIN HAPPENING THROUGHOUT THIS BOOK. This is the first date we've gotten so far, and I'm not 100% sure but I think it'd be SNOWING right now.
“Christine is doing this. She always brings the heat. She’s a life freak. She’d try to grow stuff in the middle of Times Square and water it with tourists’ blood.” Seir’s mockery was back. “She’s bought completely into Zero’s out-of-death-comes-life crap. Kill the human polluters, and Earth will bloom again.”
...every word of that last bit is probably true. I'd really like to avoid such a draconian solution, though.
The two sides spend some time growling. What's not so good is that Jude brought the vampires that scarred up Kione, and Kione is more interested in killing them than he is in saving Lia.
One good person in this cast. That's all I ask.
Adam is there with Seir and Seven, and he apparently rigged it so the five vampires will kill Kione. Popcorn should be distributed all around, but instead everybody clears the floor and looks antsy. Utah figures Adam set this up. No shit, Sherlock.
Utah also gets disgusted when Lia's hypnotic suggestion to kill him kicks in. Great.
You know, that "confused rejection" trope is my least favorite romantic things. There are so many realistic ways to fuck up a relationship, muddled confusions because NOBODY CAN FUCKING COMMUNICATE THINGS should be down there with "canned spinach" as breakup reasons.
The Five Vampires and Kione exchange threats. They're both cheesy, but only Kione's is grade A Stilton with a side of red whine:
“I’ve waited centuries for this moment.” Kione began to glow. “I’ve suffered with your fucking curse, and I added every moment of agony to what you owe me. Tonight your bill comes due. I hope you die hard.” His smile would send grown men screaming into the night.Bruce Willis called. He said "Russia was enough, Leave me the fuck out of this one."
Darkness swirls. Dinos prepair to let loose with their bad prehistoric selves...and the chapter ends with Utah excercising self control and doing, you guessed it, absolutely nothing.
Book update+General gratitude.
I've decided I really need to overhaul my book-publishing schedule. I've got no backlog ATM and that's kind of bad for both me and you guys. Trying to make plans lately hasn't exactly worked out. I also haven't heard back from my chosen editor yet, so I can't give you an ETA on DB PT2 until I have things all set up with her.
I've decided my favorite part of having a real editor is having to chop things out so I can afford it. It's not fun writing wise, and I don't necessarily say it's making things better, but it makes me double-think a lot of things. If there's any doubt, throw it out. I've tossed a lot of things that I liked, but that made me feel more than a little uneasy.
So yeah: Nonnie who pressured me into getting an editor: THANK YOU.
In fact, I really just need to say thanks in general. The last few months of my life have been this morass of ick, and I do not think I would have pulled through without you. There have been times this past year where you lot are the only positive influence in my life. I've tried to keep my emotional issues and negativity off the blog, and I think I've managed to keep like 75% of it under wraps, but I do not think I could have made it through this year without you. ALL of you. You guys are AWESOME. I'm blown away by your support--even when it's prickly advice I don't like, it's awesome that you do it. You're here, you're talking, you read my books. Stories don't really exist if only one person knows them. When ya'll read my stuff, it's like you take the part of me that I value the most and you let it be real. It's validation, and the fact that you do that over and over and over again is completely awesome. Every time I think I get you guys, you do something that blows me completely away. Yeah, writing is awesome and it's fun to write, art is awesome and it's fun to do that too. But you guys are the real deal. Without you, none of this would count for a thing. I mean, even if you're here because I'm a trainwreck...dude. You're here. You're a part of this thing, and I'd say you're a bigger part than I am. And I'm grateful for you no matter what.
Pat yourselves on the back, have an e-cookie (or a beer). And stick around because I think this next year is going to be fun to watch.
Yeah. Sorry for the sappy. I just felt like it was time to tell all of you how very, very cool you are.
I've decided my favorite part of having a real editor is having to chop things out so I can afford it. It's not fun writing wise, and I don't necessarily say it's making things better, but it makes me double-think a lot of things. If there's any doubt, throw it out. I've tossed a lot of things that I liked, but that made me feel more than a little uneasy.
So yeah: Nonnie who pressured me into getting an editor: THANK YOU.
In fact, I really just need to say thanks in general. The last few months of my life have been this morass of ick, and I do not think I would have pulled through without you. There have been times this past year where you lot are the only positive influence in my life. I've tried to keep my emotional issues and negativity off the blog, and I think I've managed to keep like 75% of it under wraps, but I do not think I could have made it through this year without you. ALL of you. You guys are AWESOME. I'm blown away by your support--even when it's prickly advice I don't like, it's awesome that you do it. You're here, you're talking, you read my books. Stories don't really exist if only one person knows them. When ya'll read my stuff, it's like you take the part of me that I value the most and you let it be real. It's validation, and the fact that you do that over and over and over again is completely awesome. Every time I think I get you guys, you do something that blows me completely away. Yeah, writing is awesome and it's fun to write, art is awesome and it's fun to do that too. But you guys are the real deal. Without you, none of this would count for a thing. I mean, even if you're here because I'm a trainwreck...dude. You're here. You're a part of this thing, and I'd say you're a bigger part than I am. And I'm grateful for you no matter what.
Pat yourselves on the back, have an e-cookie (or a beer). And stick around because I think this next year is going to be fun to watch.
Yeah. Sorry for the sappy. I just felt like it was time to tell all of you how very, very cool you are.
