BattleAxe Sporking: Part One
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theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2018-01-05 11:34:00
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BattleAxe Sporking: Part One
And it's me with another sporking! I'm already halfway through the book, so updates should be pretty regular.
[Caption: Cover of BattleAxe]
NOTE: In the US, the title was The Wayfarer Redemption for some damn reason. Just to clear up any confusion.
I must make a confession: I do not in fact read a lot of fantasy despite liking the genre. There’s no particular reason for it – I didn’t decide to boycott fantasy novels at some point in my life. Rather, the simple fact is that about 99% of fantasy novels simply don’t appeal to me. I can go into a bookshop and browse through what’s on the shelf, but none of them grab my attention. I read the blurb, maybe glance at the first page, and then put it down again, muttering, “Unlikely Hero Saves World? Pass”, or “Stupid Kid Gets Powers? Pass” or “High-stakes politics in Fantasy Land? Pass”. I know I’m being overly picky and critical when I do this, but I just can’t help it. After a while they all just start to look the same to me. I guess it really is true that there are only X number of plots, but fantasy as a genre seems particularly bad at hiding this fact.
This makes it even more odd that I read so many of the works of fellow Australian Sara Douglass – seven of them, to be precise. Why? Well it wasn’t because I enjoyed them as such; I read them firstly to write funny reviews on the snarky criticism blog I used to have (sadly this blog and all its contents are now lost to history), but I also read them because on some level I just had to see what ridiculous shit the author was going to pull next.
On the surface these books look like another dime-a-dozen fantasy series with generic Evil Villains Who Are Evil Just Because, a rugged hero with mysterious parentage (of course) and a swooning love interest. And in a lot of ways that’s exactly what it is. What makes Ms Douglass’ writings stand out is the sheer What the Christ factor. I am not in the slightest bit kidding when I tell you that you are not going to believe some of the crazy shit in this series. In the Axis Trilogy alone a guy gets killed by a fucking wall painting, there’s a talking polar bear who’s also some kind of god thing, randomly appearing donkeys with a cart full of regenerating food that comes out of nowhere, horny angel people, monsters with the most racially insensitive name ever who can only be killed if you pop their eyeballs… and that’s just the tip of the WTF Iceberg.
It’s been a few years since I read this trilogy, so there’s a fair bit I’ve forgotten. Which should just add to the fun, because that means you can watch me slowly go nuts for the second time!
Anyway, so that’s enough preamble. Let’s get into the first book, BattleAxe. Note: axes, battle or otherwise, will in no way be important in this story. Also, prepare to heartily dislike all the protagonists, which should at least make you feel at home if you’re an Inheritance reader.
Predictably, the book opens with maps. Three of them to be precise. None of them will really be necessary, but whatever. Publishers of fantasy novels insist on having maps because, according to them, that’s what readers want. Readers also apparently want trilogies, and yes I have that on very good authority. By which I mean a publisher told me.
After that we get a useless quote from Tennyson, usually a sign of the author thinking their writings are a lot more profound than they actually are. Seriously, what does this add to the story? Oh right – nothing.
Then after that comes something that will make any seasoned fantasy reader’s heart sink: a long – and I mean very long prophecy. And I mean long. It’s four fucking pages. Not only that but it’s written in verse.
This thing has 3.9 out of 5 on Goodreads, by the way.
[Caption: Picture of cartoon person facepalming.]
This makes it even more odd that I read so many of the works of fellow Australian Sara Douglass – seven of them, to be precise. Why? Well it wasn’t because I enjoyed them as such; I read them firstly to write funny reviews on the snarky criticism blog I used to have (sadly this blog and all its contents are now lost to history), but I also read them because on some level I just had to see what ridiculous shit the author was going to pull next.
On the surface these books look like another dime-a-dozen fantasy series with generic Evil Villains Who Are Evil Just Because, a rugged hero with mysterious parentage (of course) and a swooning love interest. And in a lot of ways that’s exactly what it is. What makes Ms Douglass’ writings stand out is the sheer What the Christ factor. I am not in the slightest bit kidding when I tell you that you are not going to believe some of the crazy shit in this series. In the Axis Trilogy alone a guy gets killed by a fucking wall painting, there’s a talking polar bear who’s also some kind of god thing, randomly appearing donkeys with a cart full of regenerating food that comes out of nowhere, horny angel people, monsters with the most racially insensitive name ever who can only be killed if you pop their eyeballs… and that’s just the tip of the WTF Iceberg.
It’s been a few years since I read this trilogy, so there’s a fair bit I’ve forgotten. Which should just add to the fun, because that means you can watch me slowly go nuts for the second time!
Anyway, so that’s enough preamble. Let’s get into the first book, BattleAxe. Note: axes, battle or otherwise, will in no way be important in this story. Also, prepare to heartily dislike all the protagonists, which should at least make you feel at home if you’re an Inheritance reader.
Predictably, the book opens with maps. Three of them to be precise. None of them will really be necessary, but whatever. Publishers of fantasy novels insist on having maps because, according to them, that’s what readers want. Readers also apparently want trilogies, and yes I have that on very good authority. By which I mean a publisher told me.
After that we get a useless quote from Tennyson, usually a sign of the author thinking their writings are a lot more profound than they actually are. Seriously, what does this add to the story? Oh right – nothing.
Then after that comes something that will make any seasoned fantasy reader’s heart sink: a long – and I mean very long prophecy. And I mean long. It’s four fucking pages. Not only that but it’s written in verse.
This thing has 3.9 out of 5 on Goodreads, by the way.
[Caption: Picture of cartoon person facepalming.]
The prophecy itself is basically How Not To Write a Prophecy 101. Not only is it ridiculously long, but it spoils half the damn plot. Let’s see… so some guy called the StarMan (seriously) is going to fight Evil, and then someone (unspecified but of course it’s also the StarMan) is going to kill a guy and then bang his wife. Then he’s going to use a special weapon called the Rainbow Scepter (again, seriously) to kill the Big Bad, and he’ll also be threatened by someone who will betray him.
Have we ticked off all the clichés yet? Destined Hero, check. Forbidden love affair, check. Special Magic Weapon (with the most fabulous name ever), check, big evil villain/army to defeat, check, a traitor in the ranks, check and check. I swear to gods, the only things missing are the Evil Twin and the Wise Old Mentor (but don’t be surprised if they or the nearest equivalent eventually show up).
We then mercifully cut to the prologue, which is actually somewhat interesting to begin with. A woman is struggling through the snow with some firewood, heavily pregnant. She’s apparently been booted out of her home and has to deal with the birth on her own, and she’s worried because the baby feels “too large, too… angry”.
How an unborn baby can feel angry is left to the reader’s imagination, but I think we can all rest assured that Bubs will be Evil.
This author, by the way, really hates babies. The sheer number of horror pregnancies and violence against babies in her books is unbelievable. Hell, even the author commented on it.
We then get a lot of blah-blah about what she’s been eating and how she left home to live in a solitary camp to subsist on berries and roots and the like. She then reflects on how the kid was conceived – during a yearly drunken celebration called Beltide, when her people mingle with some other people and everyone gets drunk and has lots of indiscriminate sex with each other. This year she finally managed to get with a guy she’d had her eye on for a while. The guy is of course suitably pasty and blond, and is a powerful “Enchanter”, and they had hot sex.
Mr Hotlips gets a name here. It’s “StarDrifter”. No, I’m not kidding. StarDrifter, capitals and all. I’m wondering if the author had ever heard of My Little Pony, because damn. Unfortunately, coming up with sensible names for her characters was not her strong suit – I say “was” because she’s since sadly moved on to the Great Bookshop in the Hereafter and so will never have the dubious privilege of reading my nasty remarks about her stupid character names.
Anyway, so the still nameless woman thinks about how normally the mixed race babies conceived at Beltide are aborted because it’s commonly thought that if one is brought to term it will be an “abomination”. But she couldn’t bring herself to do the deed because she was convinced that the kid will be “beautiful” and powerful just like its daddy, and finally left so she wouldn’t be forced into getting rid of it.
If only she knew that breaking the rules this way would result in her almost giving birth to The Big Evil Villain! I say “almost” because… well, you’ll see.
As she slogs along wondering whether the old coathanger might have been a better option after all, she starts to be stalked by creepy wraiths known as Skraelings.
[Caption: Cover of Skraelings by Carl Sherrell]
(Holy shit, this book even has a character named "Raum" - coincidence?)
Have we ticked off all the clichés yet? Destined Hero, check. Forbidden love affair, check. Special Magic Weapon (with the most fabulous name ever), check, big evil villain/army to defeat, check, a traitor in the ranks, check and check. I swear to gods, the only things missing are the Evil Twin and the Wise Old Mentor (but don’t be surprised if they or the nearest equivalent eventually show up).
We then mercifully cut to the prologue, which is actually somewhat interesting to begin with. A woman is struggling through the snow with some firewood, heavily pregnant. She’s apparently been booted out of her home and has to deal with the birth on her own, and she’s worried because the baby feels “too large, too… angry”.
How an unborn baby can feel angry is left to the reader’s imagination, but I think we can all rest assured that Bubs will be Evil.
This author, by the way, really hates babies. The sheer number of horror pregnancies and violence against babies in her books is unbelievable. Hell, even the author commented on it.
We then get a lot of blah-blah about what she’s been eating and how she left home to live in a solitary camp to subsist on berries and roots and the like. She then reflects on how the kid was conceived – during a yearly drunken celebration called Beltide, when her people mingle with some other people and everyone gets drunk and has lots of indiscriminate sex with each other. This year she finally managed to get with a guy she’d had her eye on for a while. The guy is of course suitably pasty and blond, and is a powerful “Enchanter”, and they had hot sex.
Mr Hotlips gets a name here. It’s “StarDrifter”. No, I’m not kidding. StarDrifter, capitals and all. I’m wondering if the author had ever heard of My Little Pony, because damn. Unfortunately, coming up with sensible names for her characters was not her strong suit – I say “was” because she’s since sadly moved on to the Great Bookshop in the Hereafter and so will never have the dubious privilege of reading my nasty remarks about her stupid character names.
Anyway, so the still nameless woman thinks about how normally the mixed race babies conceived at Beltide are aborted because it’s commonly thought that if one is brought to term it will be an “abomination”. But she couldn’t bring herself to do the deed because she was convinced that the kid will be “beautiful” and powerful just like its daddy, and finally left so she wouldn’t be forced into getting rid of it.
If only she knew that breaking the rules this way would result in her almost giving birth to The Big Evil Villain! I say “almost” because… well, you’ll see.
As she slogs along wondering whether the old coathanger might have been a better option after all, she starts to be stalked by creepy wraiths known as Skraelings.
[Caption: Cover of Skraelings by Carl Sherrell]
(Holy shit, this book even has a character named "Raum" - coincidence?)
Yeah, the Norse name for Native Americans. Charming.
(Yes, I know there’s some debate as to whether the Skraelings the Vikings referred to were actually Native Americans, but the point still stands. It’s still a name used to refer to Native Americans, to the point that Native Americans in Phillip Pullman’s famous trilogy are called that).
I’m sorry, guys – we Australians are… kind of racist sometimes (...yeah… “kind of”).
Racial insensitivity aside, what is a Norse name doing here anyway? Because this isn’t a Nordic setting, as you’ll see. It’s Medieval English. Sort of.
Either way the evil Navajos – uh, Skraelings – quickly corner Ms Dead Meat, feeding off her fear and ready to eat her corpse as well. The baby starts kicking worse than Bella’s Demon Spawn, to the point of actually winding her. Finally she spits up blood, collapses and dies in agony. The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb. Why this would cause instant death I’m not entirely sure, since last time I checked a Cesaerian section or even getting shot in the stomach wasn’t doesn’t immediately kill you, but whatever.
Either way the kid is “seeping” hate from “bloodied pores”. Say, you don’t think this baby could be… EVIL?!
Being as one-dimensionally Evil as the Demon Spawn is the wraiths instantly start cooing over the thing and decide to raise it themselves because “it hates”. Aww, who knew evil flesh-eating Pawnee- uh, Skraelings had a maternal side?
In the meantime the wraiths start nomming on the dead nameless woman, and I’m left wondering why the fuck these people would have interracial orgies when this is the eventual result for anyone who doesn’t take a Morning After pill. Surely this has happened before at least once. And no, the woman never will get a name that I can recall, because she’s basically just a womb on legs. You know, like Selena. Actually, most of the women in this series are wombs on legs, who when they're not having babies are pathetic lovelorn slaves to those nasty old hormones. That or they’re obnoxious Sues (usually both). Believe it or not this won the author praise for having Strong Female Characters, or “femme fatales” as she liked to call them.
Trust me, they do absolutely nothing to earn that title.
The prologue then cuts to a different woman, also currently struggling along in the ice and snow. She’s near some mountains called the Alps, another clue that creativity will not be the order of the day. Apparently she was deliberately dumped here right after giving birth to a son who was apparently stillborn. Not only was the kid stillborn, but it was apparently illegitimate, hence the dumping in the wilderness. Wow, that’s pretty harsh. As we’ll later discover she’s an important noblewoman, so you’d think they’d just hush the whole thing up or, at worst, pack her off to a nunnery somewhere.
Oh, and this woman is “barely out of girlhood”, which implies that she’s probably about seventeen or younger given that this is a Ye Olde Medieval Setting. Keep this in mind for later.
She’s in a bad way – her fingernails have all dropped off, her fingertips are turning black, and her lips are frozen to her teeth, which sounds pretty painful. Either way she struggles on until an unidentified winged creature spots her and flies down to investigate. She reaches up toward it saying “StarDrifter, is that you?”
So we now know that this StarDrifter guy a) Looks like Fabio if he were struck with vampirism, and b) Impregnated not one but two different women and then fucked off to leave them to deal with the consequences, which for the first of them meant a horrible death and for the second, being dumped in the wilderness to also suffer a slow and horrible death. Oh, and the second woman is almost certainly a teenager.
Wow, he sounds like such a nice, admirable guy, doesn’t he?
I regret to announce that we will be forced to spend quite a bit of time with StarDrifter, and yes, he really is just that much of an asshole. Which is unfortunate because I think we’re supposed to like him. While most of the women in this series are ruled by their hormones, the male "heroes" all think with their dicks and StarDrifter is a prime example. It's pretty pathetic.
End prologue. Well, I’m sure fired up for an epic story now.
The first chapter of the book proper opens with a random eagle flying around. It’s blue. The eagle checks out some human habitations and thinks about how odd it is that the humans have cut down all the ancient forests. Apparently they did this because it’s part of their religion, which is known as the way of the Axe and of the Plough. It’s also one of the goofiest Fantasy Religions I’ve ever come across. More on this later.
Accordingly we then cut away from the pointless random eagle to a guy called Jayme, who is “Brother-Leader of the Religious Brotherhood of the Seneschal”.
Redundant much? Why not just call him an Abbott or a High Priest and be done with it? Anyway, so Jayme worships a god called Artor the Ploughman, who is some sort of patron deity of… uh, ploughing stuff.
[Caption: Jaime from Game of Thrones]
(No, not that Jaime. Unfortunately.)
(Yes, I know there’s some debate as to whether the Skraelings the Vikings referred to were actually Native Americans, but the point still stands. It’s still a name used to refer to Native Americans, to the point that Native Americans in Phillip Pullman’s famous trilogy are called that).
I’m sorry, guys – we Australians are… kind of racist sometimes (...yeah… “kind of”).
Racial insensitivity aside, what is a Norse name doing here anyway? Because this isn’t a Nordic setting, as you’ll see. It’s Medieval English. Sort of.
Either way the evil Navajos – uh, Skraelings – quickly corner Ms Dead Meat, feeding off her fear and ready to eat her corpse as well. The baby starts kicking worse than Bella’s Demon Spawn, to the point of actually winding her. Finally she spits up blood, collapses and dies in agony. The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb. Why this would cause instant death I’m not entirely sure, since last time I checked a Cesaerian section or even getting shot in the stomach wasn’t doesn’t immediately kill you, but whatever.
Either way the kid is “seeping” hate from “bloodied pores”. Say, you don’t think this baby could be… EVIL?!
Being as one-dimensionally Evil as the Demon Spawn is the wraiths instantly start cooing over the thing and decide to raise it themselves because “it hates”. Aww, who knew evil flesh-eating Pawnee- uh, Skraelings had a maternal side?
In the meantime the wraiths start nomming on the dead nameless woman, and I’m left wondering why the fuck these people would have interracial orgies when this is the eventual result for anyone who doesn’t take a Morning After pill. Surely this has happened before at least once. And no, the woman never will get a name that I can recall, because she’s basically just a womb on legs. You know, like Selena. Actually, most of the women in this series are wombs on legs, who when they're not having babies are pathetic lovelorn slaves to those nasty old hormones. That or they’re obnoxious Sues (usually both). Believe it or not this won the author praise for having Strong Female Characters, or “femme fatales” as she liked to call them.
Trust me, they do absolutely nothing to earn that title.
The prologue then cuts to a different woman, also currently struggling along in the ice and snow. She’s near some mountains called the Alps, another clue that creativity will not be the order of the day. Apparently she was deliberately dumped here right after giving birth to a son who was apparently stillborn. Not only was the kid stillborn, but it was apparently illegitimate, hence the dumping in the wilderness. Wow, that’s pretty harsh. As we’ll later discover she’s an important noblewoman, so you’d think they’d just hush the whole thing up or, at worst, pack her off to a nunnery somewhere.
Oh, and this woman is “barely out of girlhood”, which implies that she’s probably about seventeen or younger given that this is a Ye Olde Medieval Setting. Keep this in mind for later.
She’s in a bad way – her fingernails have all dropped off, her fingertips are turning black, and her lips are frozen to her teeth, which sounds pretty painful. Either way she struggles on until an unidentified winged creature spots her and flies down to investigate. She reaches up toward it saying “StarDrifter, is that you?”
So we now know that this StarDrifter guy a) Looks like Fabio if he were struck with vampirism, and b) Impregnated not one but two different women and then fucked off to leave them to deal with the consequences, which for the first of them meant a horrible death and for the second, being dumped in the wilderness to also suffer a slow and horrible death. Oh, and the second woman is almost certainly a teenager.
Wow, he sounds like such a nice, admirable guy, doesn’t he?
I regret to announce that we will be forced to spend quite a bit of time with StarDrifter, and yes, he really is just that much of an asshole. Which is unfortunate because I think we’re supposed to like him. While most of the women in this series are ruled by their hormones, the male "heroes" all think with their dicks and StarDrifter is a prime example. It's pretty pathetic.
End prologue. Well, I’m sure fired up for an epic story now.
The first chapter of the book proper opens with a random eagle flying around. It’s blue. The eagle checks out some human habitations and thinks about how odd it is that the humans have cut down all the ancient forests. Apparently they did this because it’s part of their religion, which is known as the way of the Axe and of the Plough. It’s also one of the goofiest Fantasy Religions I’ve ever come across. More on this later.
Accordingly we then cut away from the pointless random eagle to a guy called Jayme, who is “Brother-Leader of the Religious Brotherhood of the Seneschal”.
Redundant much? Why not just call him an Abbott or a High Priest and be done with it? Anyway, so Jayme worships a god called Artor the Ploughman, who is some sort of patron deity of… uh, ploughing stuff.
[Caption: Jaime from Game of Thrones]
(No, not that Jaime. Unfortunately.)
He’s brooding about some promotion or other which will not be important. His personal quarters are very luxurious, with marble, gold “tracery”, and unspecified “crystal and gold” on the mantelpiece. Gosh, a religious leader who lives in luxury rather than humble austerity? You don’t think this religion might be… EVIL, do you?
Jayme gets a report from one of his underlings about possible sightings of “Forbidden Ones” over near a place called Gorkentown (snicker). You can tell this is important because The Name Is Capitalised.
Some boring infodumping ensues about what the three guys in the room look like and how Jayme is important and has a pretty cushy job – infodumping, might I add, which happens in the middle of a conversation which has apparently been put on Pause so Jayme can infodump without being interrupted.
He finally gets around to thinking about how he wanted his protégé, Axis, to be made “BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders”, who are apparently some sort of religious military force under his command. And yes, that was apparently the most imaginative and least redundant title the author could come up with. We also learn that the King isn’t happy about this, and that the King’s name is Priam. And no, we’re not in some sort of Ancient Greece equivalent; he just randomly has the same name as the last ruler of Troy, and this will never be explained.
[Caption: Picture of King Priam saying "Kids will be kids..." from Shmoop. A column labeled "Who:" says "King of Troy", and a column labeled "What:" says "Babies Paris, but bravely faces Achilleus"]
Jayme gets a report from one of his underlings about possible sightings of “Forbidden Ones” over near a place called Gorkentown (snicker). You can tell this is important because The Name Is Capitalised.
Some boring infodumping ensues about what the three guys in the room look like and how Jayme is important and has a pretty cushy job – infodumping, might I add, which happens in the middle of a conversation which has apparently been put on Pause so Jayme can infodump without being interrupted.
He finally gets around to thinking about how he wanted his protégé, Axis, to be made “BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders”, who are apparently some sort of religious military force under his command. And yes, that was apparently the most imaginative and least redundant title the author could come up with. We also learn that the King isn’t happy about this, and that the King’s name is Priam. And no, we’re not in some sort of Ancient Greece equivalent; he just randomly has the same name as the last ruler of Troy, and this will never be explained.
[Caption: Picture of King Priam saying "Kids will be kids..." from Shmoop. A column labeled "Who:" says "King of Troy", and a column labeled "What:" says "Babies Paris, but bravely faces Achilleus"]
By the way, did I mention the author had a PhD in Medieval history? Because you really wouldn’t know it.
Here we learn that the country is called Achar, home of the fighting Acharites, and also that the months have names like Dealeaf-month and Rose-month, and yes that’s the spelling/grammar the author uses. We also get some classic Telling – and extremely misplaced Telling at that – when Jayme infodumps some more about how one of the guys he’s talking to, Gilbert, is like super smart and stuff and also really ambitious. Who wants to take bets on whether he will ever actually be shown acting either cleverly or ambitiously?
Even more blah-blah ensues as they go on and on about how people are disappearing on patrols and how they’ve had reports from a guy called Duke Borneheld.
Gilbert talks about how bodies have been found “…eaten. Chewed. Nibbled. Tasted.”
Okay, Gilbert, we get the point. They’ve been nommed on by something. I don’t know why the author thinks pointless repetition makes things more dramatic, but she apparently does. Even more boring infodumping follows – seriously, we’re about five pages into the chapter and so far it’s been about 95% infodump – and we learn that some tribes of people called the Ravensbundmen have started fleeing South, bringing stories about monsters which by the description are obviously the Blackfeet- uh, “Skraelings”. Apparently they can’t be killed with ordinary weapons; swords and the like just pass straight through them. Armour doesn’t work either, because they just evaporate through it and start munching away.
They sound pretty scary so far, don’t they? Well just wait until you actually see them in action and find out how utterly ineffectual they actually are the moment they go up against anyone who’s not a redshirt.
Finally the monks do what I started doing ages ago and pour out some booze. Before they start drinking they speak what is apparently the standard blessing of The Way of Axe and of the Plough: “Furrow Deep, Furrow Wide”. Wow that is really not an inspiring prayer in the slightest. Plus it kinda sounds vaguely perverted. But maybe that’s just me.
After that they blah-blah even more about the weather and the wraith attacks, and on and on and how Jayme wishes somebody could give him some sort of concrete report about “The Forbidden”, who are apparently not the Skraelings but something else. Finally one of the two underlings reports that they’ve had word from one of their guys in the sticks who saw “The Forbidden” on the move, carrying children. Apparently they are “short and dark”. Jayme infodumps about how long ago their ancestors drove The Forbidden out of their lands and then chopped down all the forests and ploughed up the land. Apparently this is enough to hang an entire religion on: Forests Are Evil, Ploughing Is Good. Give me a break.
I’m really not kidding, by the way. These people are seriously afraid of trees.
After what feels like a year of slogging through tedious exposition and equally tedious personality-deprived blathering between three boring characters, the chapter ends with Jayme declaring that soon it’ll be the King’s birthday and they’ll go to the celebrations and take the opportunity to unite everyone against The Forbidden, who they think are trying to reclaim their ancestral lands.
And the chapter ends. We’re in for an action-packed thrillride, boy howdy! Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to open the first book of the trilogy with a boring infodump chapter? A paragraph or two of infodumping is annoying, but an entire chapter? Ye gods.
[1]
torylltales
January 5 2018, 11:55:12 Edited: January 5 2018, 11:56:38
Have I mentioned before how very much I despise prophecies?
[Caption: "Great wall of prophecy" from Futurama episode "A Pharaoh to Remember"]
And seriously. Star Man?
[1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 12:30:40 Edited: May 25 2018, 21:23:55
Have I mentioned before how very much I despise prophecies?
I believe you have. And this is easily one of the WORST prophecies I've ever seen. Not only does it spoil pretty much the entire plot, but the heroes spend the entire trilogy brainlessly doing whatever it says, free will be damned. It reduces everyone to a puppet, and it's infuriating.
And seriously. Star Man?
No, no - StarMan! It has to be one word! Because reasons! You never do find out why the hell he's called that, by the way. The name has zero significance other than some vague connection to stars being magical and... stuff. He might as well be called the ZucchiniMan.
I fucking wish David Bowie was in this book. The cast would instantly become 10,000x more likeable.
[2]
cmdrnemo
January 5 2018, 15:02:04
The way of the Axe and Plough has all the dignity and gravitas of Yoloism. I could see it if trees screamed all the time for no reason. Then maybe spawned face eating dryads? Like I'm pretty sure that baby in the first bit was a xenomorph. Stupid sexy facehugger Flanders. Anyway, yes, if angry screaming trees spat out stupid sexy facehugger Flanders at random. Then being afraid of trees is legit. I could totes understand that and would fully support cutting them all down all the time. I don't see the plough connection. Unless grass somehow negates trees? Is SSFF afraid of grains? Oh, in Ringworld there was a kind of grass with a natural mirror on top. They would focus sunlight on their own leaves or focus it on nearby plants. The concentrated light would burn through other plants at the base. Which would let the mirror grass expand. If the ploughmen were planting a crop of anti SSFF death mirror hops... I would not base a story on that. It would be silly.
On seeing the title I was happy. The author did label her axes. Sadly she didn't label her axis. Hopefully that happens later.
[2A]
thegharialguy
January 6 2018, 00:24:13
What stops the mirror grass from burning itself and halting it's own expansion?
[2A1]
cmdrnemo
January 6 2018, 03:41:00
For the most part the targeting system recognizes and doesn't attack other mirror grass. If there's nothing else to target they have a temperature resistant leaf that absorbs the focused energy. So even if they do shoot each other it simply feeds the nearby plants.
[3]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018, 15:36:01
Mr Hotlips gets a name here. It’s “StarDrifter”. No, I’m not kidding. StarDrifter, capitals and all.
*headdesk* That alone should have kept these books from publication.
Finally she spits up blood, collapses and dies in agony. The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb.
GAAAARRRGHHHH. My tokophobia just spiked something fierce.
Which is unfortunate because I think we’re supposed to like him.
Douglass really fucked up his setup, then, because he kind of sounds like he was trying to sire the BBEG. If she wanted us to actually like the guy, she should have cut that second section with the frostbitten noble girl. One evil baby is an oops, one evil baby and one stillborn with a teen mom is a sign of a sexual predator and/or minion of darkness.
“BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders”
At this point, I'm beginning to wonder if this is the person who had their naming creativity sucked away so that I could name a garter snake "Bennaroll" as a child. (No, I don't know where that name came from either.)
These people are seriously afraid of trees.
[Caption: Durkon Thundershield from The Order of the Stick running away from a tree and shouting "Aaaah! Tree attack! Run fer yer lives!"]
[3A]
torylltalesJanuary 5 2018, 17:47:55
From the sounds of it, you'd best start making notes for a new deck for Cards Against Antishurtugal.
[3A1]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018 22:01:42
Oh, indeed. This is some real CAH-worthy stuff right here.
[3A1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 22:14:26
Got any specific new cards in mind yet? :-D
[3A1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018, 22:25:48
White Cards
- StarDrifter.
- StarDeadbeat.
- Furrowing deep and wide.
- Being afraid of trees.
- BattleAxe of the Axe Wielders.
- The worst awful prophecy in the history of awful prophecies.
- Using random, somewhat racially-charged words for your evil fantasy mooks.
Black Cards
- How uncreative does one have to be to name a character ____?
- BattleAxe was titled The Wayfarer Redemption in America, ____ in the UK, and ____ in Canada.
[3A1A1A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 00:00:31
Nice. But trust me, you have WAY better material coming down the pipeline. ;-)
[3A1A1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 07:18:29 Edited: January 6 2018, 07:24:35
Oh, I'm counting on it. :D
Really, though, I'm just waiting for the inevitable moment when someone plays "Saphira tried to rape StarDrifter."
[3B]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 19:50:17
One evil baby is an oops, one evil baby and one stillborn with a teen mom is a sign of a sexual predator and/or minion of darkness.
Yeah. StarDrifter is utterly insufferable. Unfortunately the author seems to like him because he sticks around for a looooong time, and spends most of it chasing women, who he treats like disposable tissues. I'm about 90% sure he never suffers any consequences for fathering the Big Evil Guy of Evilness either.
See, thing is you can sleep around without being a misogynistic jackass. One of my own characters is a horndog who sleeps with a lot of girls. The difference is that it's always with a girl who knows it's just a one night stand and is okay with that. And when one of them does get pregnant, even though they're a terrible match for each other, guess what he does when she wants to keep the baby? He sticks around. He takes care of her and the kid and makes sacrifices to try and give his kid a good life even though his home life is completely miserable for him as a result. StarDrifter, by contrast, knocks his conquests up and then fucks off. This guy is supposed to be a hero, but he's got the morals of a tomcat (uh, no offense to your cat's dad).
[3B1]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018, 22:18:30
I'm about 90% sure he never suffers any consequences for fathering the Big Evil Guy of Evilness either.
Does anyone even find out he was the BBEG's father? He doesn't strike me as the type to check in and see if any of his exes popped out a kid...
Honestly, that's kind of a missed opportunity. "Carefree womanizer finds out his antics resulted in a horribly messed-up child and is forced to reevaluate his life choices" isn't exactly the freshest plot, but it's a hell of a lot better than "lol I'm fantasy Casanova" over there. Heck, it could even be an interesting reversal of the "I am your father" cliche.
One of my own characters is a horndog who sleeps with a lot of girls. The difference is that it's always with a girl who knows it's just a one night stand and is okay with that. And when one of them does get pregnant, even though they're a terrible match for each other, guess what he does when she wants to keep the baby? He sticks around.
You don't even have to stick around if you're that averse to settling down and starting a family; just pay the freaking child support and maybe try to be a part of the kid's life. Heck, I'd even sympathize with a character who ditched the kid if it was made clear that they did it because they think they would be a shitty parent and/or not as good as another parental figure the kid's got lined up. There's something kind of like that in my novel, where
the main character's mother left because she really, really didn't want kids and didn't want her daughter to grow up with a mother who resented her. I don't expect every reader to agree with this decision, but I hope they at least understand it.
What StarDeadbeat here is doing, though... that's some Don Lothario bullshit. And, well, let's just say that while some Simmers enjoy playing Don, pretty much nobody considers him a good person... in fact, lots of us just play him to unleash our full Video Game Cruelty Potential. *loads up his household and forces him to stand on the roof in a thunderstorm* Come on, lightning, zap his sorry philandering ass... he deserves it... Cassandra is a billion times too good for him...
[3B1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 23:02:43 Edited: January 5 2018, 23:03:26
Does anyone even find out he was the BBEG's father?
Yes he does. I can't remember the full details, but I think he makes a remark about it which more or less boils down to "whoops, my bad"
You don't even have to stick around if you're that averse to settling down and starting a family; just pay the freaking child support and maybe try to be a part of the kid's life.
Oh yeah. Even after his wife kicks him out, my character pays the bills for the next decade or so and any time there's an emergency he pays for that too. All because he wants to ensure that his child will never want for anything. He's not even allowed to visit or speak to his own kid, who he loves more than anything else in the world, but he eventually convinces himself that the kid is better off without him there, and that he'd be a bad influence. I think a lot of absentee parents probably do that.
Simmers
?
[3B1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 07:17:56
I think he makes a remark about it which more or less boils down to "whoops, my bad"
Wow.
?
Simmers = people who play the Sims. Don Lothario is a particular Sim who first appeared in the second game and is well-known for being a two timing bastard. He starts the game engaged to Cassandra Goth (a shy woman who works in a science lab and wants to start a family, and one of my favorite characters in the game) and cheating on her with three other women. I, and many others, enjoy making his life miserable.
[3B1B]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 08:31:51
Honestly, that's kind of a missed opportunity. "Carefree womanizer finds out his antics resulted in a horribly messed-up child and is forced to reevaluate his life choices" isn't exactly the freshest plot, but it's a hell of a lot better than "lol I'm fantasy Casanova" over there. Heck, it could even be an interesting reversal of the "I am your father" cliche.
IIRC, Casanova went and arranged good (by the definition of the period) marriages for his lovers once he grew bored of them, and he used the best protection of the period to try and prevent pregnancy. So even he was a better man than StarDrifter.
[3B1B1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 08:35:36
Casanova also had several relationships with teenage and even prepubescent girls... sooooo... I wouldn't necessarily say he was better than StarDrifter. I also recall something about a probably-incestuous threesome with a former lover and her (probably their) daughter.
[3B1B1A]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 08:39:29
Yeah, Casanova wasn't exactly squeaky clean, I grant you. Even bought himself a prepubescent sex slave once. I didn't realise the threesome was probably doubly incestuous, though.
That said, from my memory of StarDrifter, the same would not be out of character for him.
[3B1B1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 08:43:49
So basically, "fantasy Casanova" isn't too far off. And honestly, if StarDrifter actually is worse than Giacomo Casanova, that speaks very poorly for him.
[3B1B1A1A]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 10:29:34
Yeah, sorry, that's where I meant to go. Failing to clear a low bar and all that.
[4]
vorpal_tongue
January 6 2018, 16:53:17
This author, by the way, really hates babies. The sheer number of horror pregnancies and violence against babies in her books is unbelievable.
I'm going to enjoy this, aren't I?
The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb.
I'll take that as a yes, then :)
[4A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 19:55:52
I'm going to enjoy this, aren't I?
I'd say you are. The author does hideous things to adult characters as well. She has this weird fixation with people's heads exploding in gory detail. Or, in one case, a full-body explosion with chunks of meat and bone flying everywhere.
[4A1]
vorpal_tongue
January 5 2018, 21:27:51
... No. I'm going to LOVE this...
Hehehehahaha... Ah-HAHAHAHAHA!!!! HAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
[4A1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 21:30:40
>:D
I just wish the head explodey thing would happen to Axis, who as you'll learn in the next installment is a huge asshole. But no such luck.
[4B]
lady_licht
January 6 2018, 04:25:25
The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb.
Renesme? That you?
[4B1]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 10:31:35
Actually not quite as bad as Renesmee, if only because we're not expected to like him.
[5]
thegharialguy
January 6 2018, 00:27:05
Axis trilogy eh? Seems to be named after a character called Axis, but I'm still holding out hope for an over the top fantasy version of Mussolini.
[5A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 00:39:51
LOL! If only - sadly all this trilogy has in place of an Axis of Evil is a Big Evil Guy of Evilness who wants to destroy the world for no reason and has the brains of a prawn. Axis himself is basically just a stupid misogynistic jackass who acts like the sun shines out of his nethers.
[5B]
Anonymous
January 24 2018, 16:39:32
Is it humanly possible to make someone more over the top then the real Mussolini?
[5B1]
theepistler
January 24 2018, 16:48:58
Having seen footage of the guy... probably not.
[6]
engelkate
January 6 2018, 03:05:23
Ah, good old Axis! I love those books, for their sheer ridiculousness alone. X'D Sues everywhere and when you think it can't get worse there's always the next page where it /does/ get worse. And even more over the top.
(I always disliked StarDrifter as well... He's just that much of an asshole, yep.)
[6A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 10:34:15
Oh yeah, that's the same reason why I kept going out and buying the next book in the series! I just couldn't help myself; it just kept getting more and more hilariously absurd. I couldn't look way. GODS I wish I still had my old reviews. I'd give anything to share them here.
[6A1]
ghostwyvern
January 6 2018, 10:49:46
Maybe that was the entire point...
Can you find the old reviews on the Wayback Machine, maybe?
[6A1A]
theepistler
January 24 2018, 16:50:03
I've tried the Wayback. Unfortunately they were on a now-deleted LiveJournal, and recovering deleted LJ content is virtually impossible.
[6A2]
engelkate
January 6 2018, 11:10:27
And it was even worse here because in Germany they split every book up again and released the first trilogy in six books in the end. :'D Got quite a few friends into reading them anyway, we fortunately like the same train wrecks. (We even cosplayed from the books. It was a hilarious day.)
Keeping my fingers crossed for you to find traces of your old reviews somewhere!
[6A2A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 11:40:26 Edited: January 6 2018, 11:41:04
(We even cosplayed from the books. It was a hilarious day.)
Hah! Now that I would love to see!
Keeping my fingers crossed for you to find traces of your old reviews somewhere!
Unfortunately they were on LiveJournal, and once an LJ is deleted that's it. Gone forever. The Wayback Machine doesn't archive it for some damn reason.
There is one other bottom-of-the-barrel pray to gods and hope for the best chance of getting them back. I hope you appreciate the trouble I go to for you guys - I just contacted my ex. I was dating him at the time I wrote those reviews, and there's a teensy chance he has them saved somewhere or knows someone who does. I'll let you know if he has anything helpful to say (fortunately we last spoke on good terms).
[7]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 08:35:37
I remember reading and liking these books when I was...fourteen, I think? The school librarian gave me the trilogy and the sequel trilogy once I ran out of fantasy books to read in the school library (it was a small library). I kept them until a couple of years ago, but traded them into a used book store when I realised I hadn't reread them since.
This should be a fun trip down memory lane!
[8]
ghostwyvern
January 6 2018, 10:58:50
Is it bad that I think the cover art for this book looks really great? I know you can't judge a book by its cover, so they say, but I've noticed that better books often do get better covers. Not always, though.
Shame such a bad book got such a pretty cover. And yeah, I agree it must be bad, even not having read it. If I see a book involves a prophecy or chosen one, I generally skip right over it. You'd think people would be a bit more original when writing fantasy... especially when fantasy is all about originality. Instead, the market is flooded with books about vampires and werewolves and Chosen Ones.
[8A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 11:13:02
Oh, I agree - it's a great cover. I think it was done by the legendary Australian artist Shaun Tan, actually (what a waste).
Yeah, it's a bad book . It's not just the Prophecy and the Chosen One. I could maybe let that slide if the writing was good and the characters were likable, but unfortunately the writing is tedious and clunky and the characters are either boring or hateful.
[9]
baaar
January 10 2018, 18:34:34
An entire religion devoted to tree hate? Really? In my book, there is a large group of people who fear the trees of certain woods, but those trees are also sentient and will eat people who displease them. They still don’t make a religion around that, they just cut/burn the trees down.
This book sounds ridiculous. How did it become as successful as it did?
[9A]
theepistler
January 10 2018, 18:45:45
How did it become as successful as it did?
My best guess is that it came out in the relatively early days of Australian fantasy, and cornered the market thanks to lack of competition. The Australian fantasy market is already freaking tiny (we only have maybe two publishers here who handle the stuff - everyone else is a foreign imprint). So if you wanted to read a fantasy series by an Australian author, there really wasn't a lot of choice.
That or people just don't have any taste.
[9A1]
baaar
January 10 2018, 18:49:02
That makes sense. I hadn’t even really considered the nature of the Australian publishing industry at the time.
[10]
syntinen_laulu
January 13 2018, 04:57:06
I know I'm a long way after the fair here, but, for the record:
the kid was conceived – during a yearly drunken celebration called Beltide, when her people mingle with some other people and everyone gets drunk and has lots of indiscriminate sex with each other. This year she finally managed to get with a guy she’d had her eye on for a while. ..... normally the mixed race babies conceived at Beltide are aborted because it’s commonly thought that if one is brought to term it will be an “abomination”.
Does Not Compute. Sorry, no. Plenty of cultures worldwide have or used to have celebrations involving indiscriminate sex, or sex with strangers, and all of these are ultimately fertility rites. People just don't hold a fertility rite and routinely abort the results - it's a contradiction in terms.
[10A]
theepistler
January 13 2018, 08:25:34
Good point. Plus if the resulting Orgy Babies are, like, Evil and stuff, why are they even taking the risk in the first place?
Here we learn that the country is called Achar, home of the fighting Acharites, and also that the months have names like Dealeaf-month and Rose-month, and yes that’s the spelling/grammar the author uses. We also get some classic Telling – and extremely misplaced Telling at that – when Jayme infodumps some more about how one of the guys he’s talking to, Gilbert, is like super smart and stuff and also really ambitious. Who wants to take bets on whether he will ever actually be shown acting either cleverly or ambitiously?
Even more blah-blah ensues as they go on and on about how people are disappearing on patrols and how they’ve had reports from a guy called Duke Borneheld.
Gilbert talks about how bodies have been found “…eaten. Chewed. Nibbled. Tasted.”
Okay, Gilbert, we get the point. They’ve been nommed on by something. I don’t know why the author thinks pointless repetition makes things more dramatic, but she apparently does. Even more boring infodumping follows – seriously, we’re about five pages into the chapter and so far it’s been about 95% infodump – and we learn that some tribes of people called the Ravensbundmen have started fleeing South, bringing stories about monsters which by the description are obviously the Blackfeet- uh, “Skraelings”. Apparently they can’t be killed with ordinary weapons; swords and the like just pass straight through them. Armour doesn’t work either, because they just evaporate through it and start munching away.
They sound pretty scary so far, don’t they? Well just wait until you actually see them in action and find out how utterly ineffectual they actually are the moment they go up against anyone who’s not a redshirt.
Finally the monks do what I started doing ages ago and pour out some booze. Before they start drinking they speak what is apparently the standard blessing of The Way of Axe and of the Plough: “Furrow Deep, Furrow Wide”. Wow that is really not an inspiring prayer in the slightest. Plus it kinda sounds vaguely perverted. But maybe that’s just me.
After that they blah-blah even more about the weather and the wraith attacks, and on and on and how Jayme wishes somebody could give him some sort of concrete report about “The Forbidden”, who are apparently not the Skraelings but something else. Finally one of the two underlings reports that they’ve had word from one of their guys in the sticks who saw “The Forbidden” on the move, carrying children. Apparently they are “short and dark”. Jayme infodumps about how long ago their ancestors drove The Forbidden out of their lands and then chopped down all the forests and ploughed up the land. Apparently this is enough to hang an entire religion on: Forests Are Evil, Ploughing Is Good. Give me a break.
I’m really not kidding, by the way. These people are seriously afraid of trees.
After what feels like a year of slogging through tedious exposition and equally tedious personality-deprived blathering between three boring characters, the chapter ends with Jayme declaring that soon it’ll be the King’s birthday and they’ll go to the celebrations and take the opportunity to unite everyone against The Forbidden, who they think are trying to reclaim their ancestral lands.
And the chapter ends. We’re in for an action-packed thrillride, boy howdy! Honestly, who thought it was a good idea to open the first book of the trilogy with a boring infodump chapter? A paragraph or two of infodumping is annoying, but an entire chapter? Ye gods.
45 comments
[1]
torylltales
January 5 2018, 11:55:12 Edited: January 5 2018, 11:56:38
Have I mentioned before how very much I despise prophecies?
[Caption: "Great wall of prophecy" from Futurama episode "A Pharaoh to Remember"]
And seriously. Star Man?
[1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 12:30:40 Edited: May 25 2018, 21:23:55
Have I mentioned before how very much I despise prophecies?
I believe you have. And this is easily one of the WORST prophecies I've ever seen. Not only does it spoil pretty much the entire plot, but the heroes spend the entire trilogy brainlessly doing whatever it says, free will be damned. It reduces everyone to a puppet, and it's infuriating.
And seriously. Star Man?
No, no - StarMan! It has to be one word! Because reasons! You never do find out why the hell he's called that, by the way. The name has zero significance other than some vague connection to stars being magical and... stuff. He might as well be called the ZucchiniMan.
I fucking wish David Bowie was in this book. The cast would instantly become 10,000x more likeable.
[2]
cmdrnemo
January 5 2018, 15:02:04
The way of the Axe and Plough has all the dignity and gravitas of Yoloism. I could see it if trees screamed all the time for no reason. Then maybe spawned face eating dryads? Like I'm pretty sure that baby in the first bit was a xenomorph. Stupid sexy facehugger Flanders. Anyway, yes, if angry screaming trees spat out stupid sexy facehugger Flanders at random. Then being afraid of trees is legit. I could totes understand that and would fully support cutting them all down all the time. I don't see the plough connection. Unless grass somehow negates trees? Is SSFF afraid of grains? Oh, in Ringworld there was a kind of grass with a natural mirror on top. They would focus sunlight on their own leaves or focus it on nearby plants. The concentrated light would burn through other plants at the base. Which would let the mirror grass expand. If the ploughmen were planting a crop of anti SSFF death mirror hops... I would not base a story on that. It would be silly.
On seeing the title I was happy. The author did label her axes. Sadly she didn't label her axis. Hopefully that happens later.
[2A]
thegharialguy
January 6 2018, 00:24:13
What stops the mirror grass from burning itself and halting it's own expansion?
[2A1]
cmdrnemo
January 6 2018, 03:41:00
For the most part the targeting system recognizes and doesn't attack other mirror grass. If there's nothing else to target they have a temperature resistant leaf that absorbs the focused energy. So even if they do shoot each other it simply feeds the nearby plants.
[3]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018, 15:36:01
Mr Hotlips gets a name here. It’s “StarDrifter”. No, I’m not kidding. StarDrifter, capitals and all.
*headdesk* That alone should have kept these books from publication.
Finally she spits up blood, collapses and dies in agony. The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb.
GAAAARRRGHHHH. My tokophobia just spiked something fierce.
Which is unfortunate because I think we’re supposed to like him.
Douglass really fucked up his setup, then, because he kind of sounds like he was trying to sire the BBEG. If she wanted us to actually like the guy, she should have cut that second section with the frostbitten noble girl. One evil baby is an oops, one evil baby and one stillborn with a teen mom is a sign of a sexual predator and/or minion of darkness.
“BattleAxe of the Axe-Wielders”
At this point, I'm beginning to wonder if this is the person who had their naming creativity sucked away so that I could name a garter snake "Bennaroll" as a child. (No, I don't know where that name came from either.)
These people are seriously afraid of trees.
[Caption: Durkon Thundershield from The Order of the Stick running away from a tree and shouting "Aaaah! Tree attack! Run fer yer lives!"]
[3A]
torylltalesJanuary 5 2018, 17:47:55
From the sounds of it, you'd best start making notes for a new deck for Cards Against Antishurtugal.
[3A1]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018 22:01:42
Oh, indeed. This is some real CAH-worthy stuff right here.
[3A1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 22:14:26
Got any specific new cards in mind yet? :-D
[3A1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018, 22:25:48
White Cards
- StarDrifter.
- StarDeadbeat.
- Furrowing deep and wide.
- Being afraid of trees.
- BattleAxe of the Axe Wielders.
- The worst awful prophecy in the history of awful prophecies.
- Using random, somewhat racially-charged words for your evil fantasy mooks.
Black Cards
- How uncreative does one have to be to name a character ____?
- BattleAxe was titled The Wayfarer Redemption in America, ____ in the UK, and ____ in Canada.
[3A1A1A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 00:00:31
Nice. But trust me, you have WAY better material coming down the pipeline. ;-)
[3A1A1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 07:18:29 Edited: January 6 2018, 07:24:35
Oh, I'm counting on it. :D
Really, though, I'm just waiting for the inevitable moment when someone plays "Saphira tried to rape StarDrifter."
[3B]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 19:50:17
One evil baby is an oops, one evil baby and one stillborn with a teen mom is a sign of a sexual predator and/or minion of darkness.
Yeah. StarDrifter is utterly insufferable. Unfortunately the author seems to like him because he sticks around for a looooong time, and spends most of it chasing women, who he treats like disposable tissues. I'm about 90% sure he never suffers any consequences for fathering the Big Evil Guy of Evilness either.
See, thing is you can sleep around without being a misogynistic jackass. One of my own characters is a horndog who sleeps with a lot of girls. The difference is that it's always with a girl who knows it's just a one night stand and is okay with that. And when one of them does get pregnant, even though they're a terrible match for each other, guess what he does when she wants to keep the baby? He sticks around. He takes care of her and the kid and makes sacrifices to try and give his kid a good life even though his home life is completely miserable for him as a result. StarDrifter, by contrast, knocks his conquests up and then fucks off. This guy is supposed to be a hero, but he's got the morals of a tomcat (uh, no offense to your cat's dad).
[3B1]
snarkbotanya
January 5 2018, 22:18:30
I'm about 90% sure he never suffers any consequences for fathering the Big Evil Guy of Evilness either.
Does anyone even find out he was the BBEG's father? He doesn't strike me as the type to check in and see if any of his exes popped out a kid...
Honestly, that's kind of a missed opportunity. "Carefree womanizer finds out his antics resulted in a horribly messed-up child and is forced to reevaluate his life choices" isn't exactly the freshest plot, but it's a hell of a lot better than "lol I'm fantasy Casanova" over there. Heck, it could even be an interesting reversal of the "I am your father" cliche.
One of my own characters is a horndog who sleeps with a lot of girls. The difference is that it's always with a girl who knows it's just a one night stand and is okay with that. And when one of them does get pregnant, even though they're a terrible match for each other, guess what he does when she wants to keep the baby? He sticks around.
You don't even have to stick around if you're that averse to settling down and starting a family; just pay the freaking child support and maybe try to be a part of the kid's life. Heck, I'd even sympathize with a character who ditched the kid if it was made clear that they did it because they think they would be a shitty parent and/or not as good as another parental figure the kid's got lined up. There's something kind of like that in my novel, where
the main character's mother left because she really, really didn't want kids and didn't want her daughter to grow up with a mother who resented her. I don't expect every reader to agree with this decision, but I hope they at least understand it.
What StarDeadbeat here is doing, though... that's some Don Lothario bullshit. And, well, let's just say that while some Simmers enjoy playing Don, pretty much nobody considers him a good person... in fact, lots of us just play him to unleash our full Video Game Cruelty Potential. *loads up his household and forces him to stand on the roof in a thunderstorm* Come on, lightning, zap his sorry philandering ass... he deserves it... Cassandra is a billion times too good for him...
[3B1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 23:02:43 Edited: January 5 2018, 23:03:26
Does anyone even find out he was the BBEG's father?
Yes he does. I can't remember the full details, but I think he makes a remark about it which more or less boils down to "whoops, my bad"
You don't even have to stick around if you're that averse to settling down and starting a family; just pay the freaking child support and maybe try to be a part of the kid's life.
Oh yeah. Even after his wife kicks him out, my character pays the bills for the next decade or so and any time there's an emergency he pays for that too. All because he wants to ensure that his child will never want for anything. He's not even allowed to visit or speak to his own kid, who he loves more than anything else in the world, but he eventually convinces himself that the kid is better off without him there, and that he'd be a bad influence. I think a lot of absentee parents probably do that.
Simmers
?
[3B1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 07:17:56
I think he makes a remark about it which more or less boils down to "whoops, my bad"
Wow.
?
Simmers = people who play the Sims. Don Lothario is a particular Sim who first appeared in the second game and is well-known for being a two timing bastard. He starts the game engaged to Cassandra Goth (a shy woman who works in a science lab and wants to start a family, and one of my favorite characters in the game) and cheating on her with three other women. I, and many others, enjoy making his life miserable.
[3B1B]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 08:31:51
Honestly, that's kind of a missed opportunity. "Carefree womanizer finds out his antics resulted in a horribly messed-up child and is forced to reevaluate his life choices" isn't exactly the freshest plot, but it's a hell of a lot better than "lol I'm fantasy Casanova" over there. Heck, it could even be an interesting reversal of the "I am your father" cliche.
IIRC, Casanova went and arranged good (by the definition of the period) marriages for his lovers once he grew bored of them, and he used the best protection of the period to try and prevent pregnancy. So even he was a better man than StarDrifter.
[3B1B1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 08:35:36
Casanova also had several relationships with teenage and even prepubescent girls... sooooo... I wouldn't necessarily say he was better than StarDrifter. I also recall something about a probably-incestuous threesome with a former lover and her (probably their) daughter.
[3B1B1A]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 08:39:29
Yeah, Casanova wasn't exactly squeaky clean, I grant you. Even bought himself a prepubescent sex slave once. I didn't realise the threesome was probably doubly incestuous, though.
That said, from my memory of StarDrifter, the same would not be out of character for him.
[3B1B1A1]
snarkbotanya
January 6 2018, 08:43:49
So basically, "fantasy Casanova" isn't too far off. And honestly, if StarDrifter actually is worse than Giacomo Casanova, that speaks very poorly for him.
[3B1B1A1A]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 10:29:34
Yeah, sorry, that's where I meant to go. Failing to clear a low bar and all that.
[4]
vorpal_tongue
January 6 2018, 16:53:17
This author, by the way, really hates babies. The sheer number of horror pregnancies and violence against babies in her books is unbelievable.
I'm going to enjoy this, aren't I?
The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb.
I'll take that as a yes, then :)
[4A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 19:55:52
I'm going to enjoy this, aren't I?
I'd say you are. The author does hideous things to adult characters as well. She has this weird fixation with people's heads exploding in gory detail. Or, in one case, a full-body explosion with chunks of meat and bone flying everywhere.
[4A1]
vorpal_tongue
January 5 2018, 21:27:51
... No. I'm going to LOVE this...
Hehehehahaha... Ah-HAHAHAHAHA!!!! HAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
[4A1A]
theepistler
January 5 2018, 21:30:40
>:D
I just wish the head explodey thing would happen to Axis, who as you'll learn in the next installment is a huge asshole. But no such luck.
[4B]
lady_licht
January 6 2018, 04:25:25
The wraiths close in, but as they’re about to eat her they spot the baby, which has eaten its way out of her womb.
Renesme? That you?
[4B1]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 10:31:35
Actually not quite as bad as Renesmee, if only because we're not expected to like him.
[5]
thegharialguy
January 6 2018, 00:27:05
Axis trilogy eh? Seems to be named after a character called Axis, but I'm still holding out hope for an over the top fantasy version of Mussolini.
[5A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 00:39:51
LOL! If only - sadly all this trilogy has in place of an Axis of Evil is a Big Evil Guy of Evilness who wants to destroy the world for no reason and has the brains of a prawn. Axis himself is basically just a stupid misogynistic jackass who acts like the sun shines out of his nethers.
[5B]
Anonymous
January 24 2018, 16:39:32
Is it humanly possible to make someone more over the top then the real Mussolini?
[5B1]
theepistler
January 24 2018, 16:48:58
Having seen footage of the guy... probably not.
[6]
engelkate
January 6 2018, 03:05:23
Ah, good old Axis! I love those books, for their sheer ridiculousness alone. X'D Sues everywhere and when you think it can't get worse there's always the next page where it /does/ get worse. And even more over the top.
(I always disliked StarDrifter as well... He's just that much of an asshole, yep.)
[6A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 10:34:15
Oh yeah, that's the same reason why I kept going out and buying the next book in the series! I just couldn't help myself; it just kept getting more and more hilariously absurd. I couldn't look way. GODS I wish I still had my old reviews. I'd give anything to share them here.
[6A1]
ghostwyvern
January 6 2018, 10:49:46
Maybe that was the entire point...
Can you find the old reviews on the Wayback Machine, maybe?
[6A1A]
theepistler
January 24 2018, 16:50:03
I've tried the Wayback. Unfortunately they were on a now-deleted LiveJournal, and recovering deleted LJ content is virtually impossible.
[6A2]
engelkate
January 6 2018, 11:10:27
And it was even worse here because in Germany they split every book up again and released the first trilogy in six books in the end. :'D Got quite a few friends into reading them anyway, we fortunately like the same train wrecks. (We even cosplayed from the books. It was a hilarious day.)
Keeping my fingers crossed for you to find traces of your old reviews somewhere!
[6A2A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 11:40:26 Edited: January 6 2018, 11:41:04
(We even cosplayed from the books. It was a hilarious day.)
Hah! Now that I would love to see!
Keeping my fingers crossed for you to find traces of your old reviews somewhere!
Unfortunately they were on LiveJournal, and once an LJ is deleted that's it. Gone forever. The Wayback Machine doesn't archive it for some damn reason.
There is one other bottom-of-the-barrel pray to gods and hope for the best chance of getting them back. I hope you appreciate the trouble I go to for you guys - I just contacted my ex. I was dating him at the time I wrote those reviews, and there's a teensy chance he has them saved somewhere or knows someone who does. I'll let you know if he has anything helpful to say (fortunately we last spoke on good terms).
[7]
hergrim
January 6 2018, 08:35:37
I remember reading and liking these books when I was...fourteen, I think? The school librarian gave me the trilogy and the sequel trilogy once I ran out of fantasy books to read in the school library (it was a small library). I kept them until a couple of years ago, but traded them into a used book store when I realised I hadn't reread them since.
This should be a fun trip down memory lane!
[8]
ghostwyvern
January 6 2018, 10:58:50
Is it bad that I think the cover art for this book looks really great? I know you can't judge a book by its cover, so they say, but I've noticed that better books often do get better covers. Not always, though.
Shame such a bad book got such a pretty cover. And yeah, I agree it must be bad, even not having read it. If I see a book involves a prophecy or chosen one, I generally skip right over it. You'd think people would be a bit more original when writing fantasy... especially when fantasy is all about originality. Instead, the market is flooded with books about vampires and werewolves and Chosen Ones.
[8A]
theepistler
January 6 2018, 11:13:02
Oh, I agree - it's a great cover. I think it was done by the legendary Australian artist Shaun Tan, actually (what a waste).
Yeah, it's a bad book . It's not just the Prophecy and the Chosen One. I could maybe let that slide if the writing was good and the characters were likable, but unfortunately the writing is tedious and clunky and the characters are either boring or hateful.
[9]
baaar
January 10 2018, 18:34:34
An entire religion devoted to tree hate? Really? In my book, there is a large group of people who fear the trees of certain woods, but those trees are also sentient and will eat people who displease them. They still don’t make a religion around that, they just cut/burn the trees down.
This book sounds ridiculous. How did it become as successful as it did?
[9A]
theepistler
January 10 2018, 18:45:45
How did it become as successful as it did?
My best guess is that it came out in the relatively early days of Australian fantasy, and cornered the market thanks to lack of competition. The Australian fantasy market is already freaking tiny (we only have maybe two publishers here who handle the stuff - everyone else is a foreign imprint). So if you wanted to read a fantasy series by an Australian author, there really wasn't a lot of choice.
That or people just don't have any taste.
[9A1]
baaar
January 10 2018, 18:49:02
That makes sense. I hadn’t even really considered the nature of the Australian publishing industry at the time.
[10]
syntinen_laulu
January 13 2018, 04:57:06
I know I'm a long way after the fair here, but, for the record:
the kid was conceived – during a yearly drunken celebration called Beltide, when her people mingle with some other people and everyone gets drunk and has lots of indiscriminate sex with each other. This year she finally managed to get with a guy she’d had her eye on for a while. ..... normally the mixed race babies conceived at Beltide are aborted because it’s commonly thought that if one is brought to term it will be an “abomination”.
Does Not Compute. Sorry, no. Plenty of cultures worldwide have or used to have celebrations involving indiscriminate sex, or sex with strangers, and all of these are ultimately fertility rites. People just don't hold a fertility rite and routinely abort the results - it's a contradiction in terms.
[10A]
theepistler
January 13 2018, 08:25:34
Good point. Plus if the resulting Orgy Babies are, like, Evil and stuff, why are they even taking the risk in the first place?
Original comments:
[1]
pangolin20
Saturday, 9 April 2022 15:57 (local)
Hello! I've joined here to say I'm very glad you've reposted all these chapters. I've heard it's really tedious work, and so I really appreciate you've taken the time and trouble to repost all of these.
And further, I've quite enjoyed the Axis Trilogy sporks. I haven't read everything, but they're quite thorough, as they need to be with such a series.
On that note, because of Trainwreck Syndrome and because I don't value my mental health highly, I will be buying these books soon. I promise you won't hear much of me. Going through such books once is bad enough.
By the way, the new chapter of Restitution will be up soon!
[1A]
epistler
Saturday, 9 April 2022 17:12 (local)
So glad you enjoyed 'em! :D A truly repulsive trilogy. And it only gets worse and more ridiculous in the sequels.
[1A1]
pangolin20
Saturday, 9 April 2022 17:19 (local)
Ugh. I've already seen a foretaste from Sinner, but I plan to read the sequels too, because I hate myself. No, just joking. But I do want to see how high my endurance is, and because of the high percentage of WTF, I think I might make it. In fact, that's the reason I want to in the first place.
I do know there's some nasty scenes to prepare for, like Borneheld's slaughter, but if there's a judgmental talking bridge in it and someone called PreenDeep, I've got to see it.
By the way, the capitalisation scheme is very bad. Just a capital in the middle of a word. A hyphen, or even an apostrophe would make things much better.
Edit: I've just bought BattleAxe, Sinner, Pilgrim and Crusader.
Edit: I've also loaded them into my e-book reader.
Could you give me some advice on where to buy Enchanter and StarMan? I couldn't find them on the website I normally use, and I'm not really familiar with Amazon. I would like to get them as e-books. Thanks in advance!
Edited Saturday, 9 April 2022 17:48 (local)
[1A1A]
epistler
Sunday, 10 April 2022 11:27 (local)
The publisher's website will probably have links.
[1A1A1]
pangolin20
Sunday, 10 April 2022 21:12 (local)
I've just bought the Enchanter and StarMan, so there you go. It will probably take quite some time to begin, as I don't really want to, but I'm still interested. And I'll probably make it to the end, because I really don't like to give up.
Poor me...
[1A1A]
epistler
Sunday, 10 April 2022 11:27 (local)
Could you give me some advice on where to buy Enchanter and StarMan?
The publisher's website will probably have links.
[1A1A1]
pangolin20
Sunday, 10 April 2022 21:12 (local)
I've just bought the Enchanter and StarMan, so there you go. It will probably take quite some time to begin, as I don't really want to, but I'm still interested. And I'll probably make it to the end, because I really don't like to give up.
Poor me...