Touched by Venom: The Eleventh and Final Part

[pangolin20]

theepistler wrote in antishurtugal, 2017-06-04 19:32:00

MOOD: tired

Touched By Venom: The Eleventh and Final Part

Part Eleven: Something Kinda Sorta Happens

Well, looks like I get my wish – this chapter opens with Zarq suffering the pain of her not-really-fatal injury and being ministered to by an important new character! I swear, if I had ten bucks for every time this happens in a cheap fantasy novel I’d be able to quit my job and write full-time like one of the popular authors.

She eventually comes out of it, freaks out over KZ’s apparent death, and angsts about how she deserves the pain of her injury, which heals ridiculously fast. Hilariously, this leaves her with a special back scar almost exactly like Eragon’s (same size, exact same placement), except it shimmers blue when the light touches it. I have no idea why; maybe it’s magic or some shit. It usually is.

Zarq now starts another new life – I’ve lost count of how many times this has happened – under the auspices of the daronpu, who now gets a name. It’s Gen. Short and to the point. Despite being allegedly grief-stricken over what happened to KZ (who was she again?), Zarq spends a lot of her recovery reading Gen’s collection of scrolls. She’s still obsessed with killing Kratt, because that worked out so well the last time she tried it, and enjoys reading about dragons. Now she finally has a problem with the way the Temple treats its dragons. Why now and not before I have no clue. I guess she’s just totally woke now.

…I don’t understand all the new words the kids are using these days, okay? Leave me alone.

Eventually she comes across a very old scroll, which lays out the original rules for who can work with a Clutch’s bull dragon. And – gasp! – it says anyone who has been “rendered clean by a holy knife” is qualified! Even if they’re a woman! Double gasp!

And now you know why the author had Zarq undergo FGM even though it has no negative repercussions for her at all. Because now it’s an advantage! She can totally work with Re the bull dragon himself! I’m sure it’ll be so much more pleasant than her previous experience working with dragons.

(It won’t be).

Finally some good news comes, when Zarq learns that KZ and the makimaki brothers didn’t die after all! Apparently they weren’t there on the day the funeral home was burned down because they came to see Gen so he could treat one of the brothers, who was sick. They’ve since left to begin new lives elsewhere.

Not that it matters, since these characters will never be seen again. Too bad, so sad. Truth be told, I don’t know why KZ was even in the book to begin with.

Zarq gets to work helping to care for the homeless and the wounded who have been left behind after the burning of the funeral parlour, which I guess was part of a larger complex/settlement… I don’t know, it’s not made clear. And we now learn that the “bayen” (this book’s term for the nobility) actually DID interrogate people before burning everything, which just makes it even more insane that they managed to accomplish all that before Zarq got back. And if they did bother to ask questions, why did they burn everything anyway? Zarq didn’t tell anyone where she was going or why, and she snuck out without anybody seeing her. For all they know the killer just stole that makimaki robe, or had come from somewhere else entirely. So my earlier complaint about the destruction of the so-called “Zone of the Dead” being stupid and unnecessary still stands.

A year passes without notice. Zarq remains disguised as a man (she does that a lot in this book), and incredibly, we learn that the Temple is still sending people to make inquiries about the murder attempt a year after the fact.

Uh, why? What is that supposed to accomplish? You’d think by now they’d have grasped that the would-be murderer is long gone. A country-wide manhunt, sure, but why are they questioning the same people over and over again? Even if this was a modern day police enquiry they would probably have moved on to new cases a long time ago. For example, a year or two a ago a man who lived not far away from me disappeared under suspicious circumstances. The police organised a search for him.

You know how long that lasted? Maybe two weeks before they gave up. When he eventually was found, it was accidentally and by a member of the public. (I’m sad to say that it turned out he had been murdered).

The Temple has – what? An incredibly vague description from a hysterical noblewoman who was shitfaced at the time. The evidence is so threadbare it’s transparent.

Maybe they’re just bored and don’t have anything better to do.

Eventually they conclude that the attack was completely random; the act of a solitary loon wearing a stolen robe. The surviving makimakis are officially off the hook. Pity about all the ones who burned to death but hey – if you wanna make an omlette, crack all the eggs you like willy-nilly, even if they miss the bowl! It couldn’t possibly cause you any problems down the road.

Zarq hopes KZ will get in touch and let her know how she’s getting along, but nothing happens. This makes Zarq a sad panda – apparently KZ doesn’t care to find out if her bestie is okay. Because Zarq totally took an active role in finding out if KZ was alive and didn’t just learn about it by chance. Not.

Meanwhile Zarq plots to off Kratt, again. Apparently he’s the heir to Clutch Re and is a “capricious sadist”. If Zarq can kill him, his much nicer half brother Ghepp will take over instead. She hopes this will improve the lives of the commoners if she can pull it off, and is apparently okay with dying in the process because she’s so very, very tired and worn out. Yeah, you and me both, sister.

She also feels abandoned because of the whole KZ not sending her a postcard thing, and this is still meaningless to me because, again, KZ is a total nonentity whose friendship with Zarq was never established.

The choosing of the dragonmaster’s apprentices ceremony thingy is close (remember that? It’s got about six different names. I picked “Dragonmaster’s Snatch” because it was the most hilarious). Zarq knows Kratt will be there, and plans to do him in at the event in front of everybody. This will result in her execution, but oh well. If only sniper rifles existed in this universe. Poison might be a better option. It’s a great way to off someone while also giving yourself plenty of time to make a clean getaway.

…not that I would know anything about that. *cough*

Dragonmaster’s Pussy Snatch Day arrives, and Zarq joins the crowd. She watches the offered little boys (we’re talking seven year olds) walk up the Lane O’ Pain, and reflects how pitiful they are and how terrible their fates will be. We now finally find out what these kids are actually for by means of another infodump, and my gods I do not even have words for this.

Okay… I’ll see if I can get through this without screaming. Apparently in the wild, bull dragons fight each other for the right to mate. But in captivity that’s untenable because no-one wants to risk their bull getting hurt. So they get a bunch of kids – yes, kids – to simulate combat for them, using sticks and whatnot. Otherwise, the bull dragon can’t get an erection.

Yes, really. They’re using kids as fluffers. For a dragon. And a lot of them will die in the process.

I’m just going to sit in the corner and rock gently back and forth for a while, if you’ll please excuse me.

The older apprentices follow the kids – these are the ones who didn’t get eaten or stomped on, and as before they’ve all got huge erections. Ah, the venom cock. I so didn’t miss it. But now Zarq totally gets it, of course, because dragons and human sexual arousal go together like peaches and cream.

*rocks faster and starts moaning incoherently*

And guess who’s baaaack? It’s Dono, there with the other apprentices! He’s a Man now – and what a man! He’s got scars and big muscles, plus some sexy stubble. And a huge stiffy, of course.

…what? That’s what we called them when I was in primary school. Some things you just don’t forget.

Might I add, he still doesn’t have any teeth. Apparently this has no effect on his facial structure at all.

Zarq is briefly angry with him, reflecting on how this is All His Fault, which it kind of is, but she reminds herself that no, she needs to stay pissed at Kratt. This reminds me of Eragon and Co. blaming absolutely everything bad that happens on Galbatorix even if he wasn’t there and had zero involvement, and they themselves are the real guilty party. But to be fair, this is told from Zarq’s POV and she’s not supposed to be always right about everything, so I’ll let it pass. In fact I like that the author dodged the “protagonist always has perfect judgement” trope and let Zarq be wrong/flawed.

The dragonmaster shows up, toting one of his venom soaked whips, and Zarq immediately gets cravings from the smell and decides she’d really much rather be given a good venom whipping. Focus, Zarq! Don’t let the addiction win! Or do let it win, I really don’t care either way.

The dragonmaster notices her for some reason, and just then the Skykeeper flies overhead. He spots this as well. We also get another neologism here which had me laughing for entirely the wrong reason – “cenai komikon”. I think that’s another name for the dragonmaster, but I can’t look at that word without seeing “ComicCon”. Now there’s something I’d much rather be doing. Good old ComicCon.The dealer’s room at the San Diego ComicCon is the size of an aircraft hangar, you know! Over seven hundred dealer’s tables, rare comics, animation stills, collectables, video game demonstrations…

Oh, right. Sorry, got side-tracked for a moment there.

Anyway, so Zarq realises she can totally become an apprentice since she’s got no ladybits, and maybe then she can get more dragon loving (no, really), and eventually have a chance at owning her own dragons. And hey, once she’s the boss of her own bull dragon she can have all the gross cross-species tongue sex she likes and nobody will be able to tell her no. No, that’s not me saying that – that’s what’s actually in the text.

I’m kind of dreading this actually happening. (Don’t worry – it won’t. That would imply Zarq actually getting what she wants for a change, and the author would never stand for that).

And then the impossible happens – the dragonmaster, who totally knows she’s a woman somehow, beckons her over! Zarq realises she can choose to become an apprentice rather than killing Kratt and dying, and that means more opportunities for transcendental dragon sex and is therefore preferable.

I still find it hilarious that this is being sold to us as a spiritual experience rather than thinly disguised porn.

So Zarq enters the Lane O’ Pain, where she’s ordered to strip. The moment everyone sees she’s a woman they start yelling and throwing things at her. Kratt rides up on a dragon and grabs her, and we’re spared no description of naked thighs rubbing against the saddle, Zarq’s arse bumping up against him, etcetera. And no we don’t find out why Kratt pulled her up onto his dragon rather than sit back and watch her get stoned to death. Maybe the author just wanted to throw some naked dragon riding in there.

Kratt is outraged, of course, and he and the dragonmaster bicker. The dragonmaster insists that it’s “the will of Re” that Zarq be apprenticed. Then the Skykeeper shows up and everyone freaks out. The dragonmaster orders Zarq to go over to the whipping bar, which she does, and Kratt prepares to administer the whipping. Why Kratt? I don’t know. I thought that was the dragonmaster’s job. Zarq is excited because this will mean getting some venom in her system, even if Kratt is going to whip her to shreds.

Apparently he won’t dare to actually whip her to death, and I’m not sure why. Because of the Skykeeper? We don’t know what relevance it has to the culture of this setting; it was never mentioned at all until it first appeared.

Either way, Zarq is peachy keen to get whipped and become an apprentice, because this will give her the opportunity to venom, dragon sex and maybe possibly getting to kill Kratt, in that order.

Yup, dragon sex is more important than getting revenge on the villain. You heard it first, folks.

And then the book ends, just like that. There’s no climax or anything; it just stops right before the whip hits Zarq for the first time. And now I’m picturing a cheesy 80’s freeze frame followed by a humourous voiceover along the lines of “So you’re probably wondering how I got into this situation…”

Who wants to bet the next book will open with the actual whipping? My money is on “yes”, because nothing bad can ever happen off-screen in this trilogy. We have to savour every horrible moment of it in graphic detail. Even if it adds nothing to the story and doesn’t provide any character development.

So that’s Touched By Venom. A book with a paper-thin plot cunningly hidden by reams of just about every disasteful, depressing or downright repulsive thing you could possibly come up with. And honestly, when you look past all the bad sex and the general nastiness, it really isn’t all that original. Tragic Orphan vs Oppressive Ruling Class? Bad guys who kill the protagonist’s loved ones by way of providing quick and easy motivation? Yeah, never seen that before. The difference here is that a) The protagonist is ridiculously passive and has zero interest in doing anything to advance the plot unless she’s outright forced into it (and sometimes not even then), and b) The “bad guys kill everyone the hero cares about” plot development is used not once, not twice, but three times. And every single time it’s done in the exact same way. In the end it just gets repetitive, not to mention predictable as hell.

Every potentially interesting character is either killed off or disappears never to be seen again. Relationships between the characters are constantly dictated rather than shown, which has the effect of making it look like nobody actually cares about anybody else or has any friends. The plot, such as it is, revolves around Waivia, an irrelevant side character we don’t care about. The rest of the time it revolves around Zarq, who never does anything and has the personality of a paper towel.

What really pisses me off is that this book was sold under the guise of being “feminist”. It’s not feminist, and nor is it empowering. All the “strong female characters” are awful people, and the author attempts to make them look good by making most of the men either pathetically ineffectual, heartlessly brutal, or straight-up evil. This is about as effective as making Doctor Watson a bumbling moron so Sherlock Holmes will look super smart by comparison. Look, imma lay this out right now, plain and simple: putting other people down to make yourself look good doesn’t make you better than them. It makes you a bullying jerk. That’s not how feminism works, and it’s not how civil rights works either. It’s just another attempt at oppressing those different from yourself. Answering an offensive stereotype with another, equally offensive stereotype makes you no better than those currently wielding power over you, and I really wish more people realised that. The only difference lies in who has more money and power; having a shitty attitude toward your fellow human beings makes you an asshole either way.

I’m not even a man and I’m still incredibly offended by the way men are portrayed in this novel. I don’t have to be.

A lot of people probably read the book because it’s “gritty”. It’s not gritty, either, or remotely realistic – it’s just plain unpleasant to read. The difference between gritty and gratuitous is whether the nasty material is actually relevant to the plot, and how it’s handled. If it’s stuffed in there for no reason other than “because I can”, and is jettisoned the moment it becomes inconvenient (a prime example being Zarq’s FGM having zero negative repercussions), then it’s gratuitous. And this book is full of that sort of thing. Incestuous gay twins? Added nothing, didn’t need to be there. FGM? Likewise. Child Zarq playing with a sex toy and later experiencing adult sex by proxy? Ditto. Dragon sex? Hell yes with a side of hell no.

I would be tempted to say that maybe people secretly bought and read it because it’s chock full of sex, but I’m divided on that. As I said before, and as I think I’ve amply demonstrated in this recap, the sex in this book is never actually erotic. It’s always either made to look disgusting, or it’s dragon on human, or at best it’s weepy and melodramatic (see: Waivia’s conception). Funny, I used to think sex was something most people did for pleasure. Maybe I was wrong.

And now I’m going to go have a few drinks. I think a nice Draino cocktail with a bleach chaser should do the trick.

BONUS:

I looked in the front of the sequel, Shadowed By Wings (which I will also be sporking), and found some reviews of the first book. To my distaste they weren’t just super positive (expected), but at least two of them made claims about what happens in the book which just plain aren’t true. Really! I’ll show you.

Headstrong and independent [snip] Zarq Darquel angers the authorities and brings disaster upon her clan and her family. With her now insane mother, she embarks on a dangerous journey to find and rescue her sister, sold into slavery, and in doing so plants her feet on the road to revolution. ~Library Journal

Let’s just break this down, shall we? For one thing, Zarq is neither headstrong nor independent. That’s been thoroughly demonstrated in the recap so far. She spends 99.9% of the book being led around by other characters and having her choices made for her. She makes exactly one (1) important decision in the entire thing, and that’s not until right at the end. The review also implies that it was Zarq who pissed off the authorities and got her clan destroyed. This is also untrue – it was her mother who did that, not Zarq. All Zarq did was show her mother the Piss Plants to try and cheer her up. It was Mummy Dearest who chose to make it into jewellery and sell it, knowing full-well it was illegal. Zarq only participated in this because she was pushed into it, and clearly didn’t really want to be doing it.

The reviewer then claims that Zarq and her mum set out to rescue Waivia. This isn’t true either. They left because they were booted out of the clan, and neither of them tried to find Waivia. Mummy Darling’s goal at that point was to find a home for Zarq at the convent, not look for Waivia. Nor was their journey “dangerous”. They just hitched a ride with some travelling merchants and the trip was 100% uneventful.

This is one of those moments where you just have to trot out the familiar line “did this critic even read the same book I did?” Either way it irritates me because it tries to make it sound that a) Zarq is an active character in the story, and b) That this book has a much more focused and exciting plot than it actually does. Both are patently false. Nor do any of the reviews mention the dragon sex, instead making vague references to “sensually evocative details”. I can’t imagine why.

Finally, two of them refer to the book as a “coming of age tale”. I’m really not seeing it. Sure, Zarq comes of age in that she goes from kid to teenager/adult, but that doesn’t make it a coming of age story. She doesn’t rise to become the leader of anything, or get some sort of qualification, or find her place in the world. All she really does is wander from place to place being abused and tripping on dragon venom. And the real kicker is that by the end of the book, our heroine has accomplished absolutely nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. Nothing. Sweet FA. Methinks the critics decided to call it a coming of age story because it was the easiest cliché to hand. I don’t really know what this story is, but it ain’t coming of age. Grimdark torture porn mixed with actual porn, maybe. Either way you can’t really call a book a coming of age story when the protagonist doesn’t achieve a damn thing and is just as much of an ineffectual loser at the end as she was at the beginning. When she was nine. Honestly, Zarq has to be one of the most pathetically useless protagonists I’ve ever come across.

Will this change in the sequels? Don’t count on it.

19 comments

torylltales
June 4 2017, 20:20:32



torylltales
June 4 2017, 20:21:37


theepistler
June 4 2017, 20:36:28
At last I can rest. At last.



NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

R E P L Y

torylltales
June 4 2017, 20:45:49


theepistler
June 4 2017, 20:50:16
I looked it up on Goodreads and was depressed by the number of good reviews. At least there were plenty of nasty reviews for the first book. I suspect not that many people bothered to read the sequel.


vaskrslacigla
June 5 2017, 01:46:31
Goodreads can sometimes be a real shitfest. I usually go there to read bad reviews by funny critics in order to make myself feel better about my own stuff. But these are really hard to find. It is gif-fangirling most of the time by people who rate books before they even come out.


theepistler
June 5 2017, 07:20:04 Edited: June 5 2017, 07:20:16
Honestly, I fucking hate Goodreads. There's this constant anti-author culture over there, not to mention a lot of bitchiness. Yes, I'm aware of the irony, but Goodreads is supposed to be an "official" review site which some authors rely on for exposure. Some of the reviewers over there will just plain make negative shit up for attention.


vaskrslacigla
June 5 2017, 19:41:40 Edited: June 5 2017, 19:45:40
I remember the situation where someone wrote some crappy ya fantasy book. First person to review it actually read the book and rated it 1 star because of racism, plus it was cliche. But then everyone started rating book they never read because one person said it was racist. Okay, go ahead and warn people because of racist content, but you need to read it on your own to judge it, not base your thoughts on someone else's opinion.


theepistler
June 5 2017, 19:58:06
Yeesh.
A friend of mine had someone write a really nasty review which made spurious accusations about the content of the book. Said review ended up being the top-rated one because the jerk who wrote it just happens to be popular over there. So any time someone looked up the book that was the first thing they saw. Which is ridiculously unfair.

Yes, I know we here at AS say nasty things about books, but this isn't where people come to look for book recommendations.


minionnumber2
June 5 2017, 01:37:50
I... don't even know. I try not to judge people for liking what they like, but i'm gonna have to judge people who like this book. I mean, it is pretty disgusting but not even the fun kind of disgusting.


Anonymous
June 5 2017, 03:11:20
Wait...if the twins aren't given names then how does the book work using passages where one of them is sick or only one of them is with the protagonist? Does it literally say "one of the brothers"?


vaskrslacigla
June 5 2017, 04:42:20
Maybe they have some kind of titles?


theepistler
June 5 2017, 07:21:43
Nope. They're literally just referred to as "one of the brothers" or "the injured brother". It's so effing lazy. And it just makes them even harder to relate to. I mean how are you supposed to relate to a character when they don't even have a name and are completely interchangeable? The author didn't even bother to describe what they look like. Same goes for KZ.


Anonymous
June 5 2017, 12:49:17
I would find not naming someone would take significantly ore effort to write around. Considering how easy it would be just to throw a random name on them that's not lazy it's just...bloody bizarre.


theepistler
June 5 2017, 16:58:34
And it gives you the impression that Zarq really doesn't care about other people. She's so indifferent that she never even bothers to find out anyone's name (or just plain doesn't use it).


vaskrslacigla
June 5 2017, 19:42:43
That is so stupid.


theepistler
June 5 2017, 20:01:44
I really got the feeling the author doesn't actually care about her characters at all. Most of them are total nonentities with zero character development, and barely a handful of them are ever actually described.


Anonymous
June 5 2017, 21:19:08
What did she care about, then? She sure didn't care about the story.

-TTT



(Answer: dragon sex)


theepistler
June 5 2017, 21:22:51
Well she obviously cares a lot about the setting and I think she was trying to get an important message across (or a bunch of them). The problem is that she skipped over the stuff that might have made me care, such as making the characters likeable and the protagonist easy to root for.