StarMan Sporking: Part Eight

[pangolin20]

The next chapter is with Faraday, and apparently Hazel – who is still being referred to as “The Goodwife” when she’s anything but a good wife – has been great company. She put some ointment on Faraday’s hands (how about giving her a goddamn shovel?), makes breakfast for her, and sings over every seedling. It actually is rather nice to see a couple of female characters having a subplot that doesn’t revolve around romance or babies, and I’ll quite sincerely applaud Ms Douglass for it. Heavens know it’s depressingly uncommon even today.

They reach the city of Arcen, where Axis had Early Birdel crucified without a trial. Now the place is full of Icarii and everyone’s happy to see her because she’s the (ugh) Tree Friend, and also used to be Queen “wife to the late and generally unlamented Borneheld”. Yes, please keep shitting on the guy even after he’s dead. It’s not incredibly petty or anything.

And, of course, she’s “so beautiful”, because every female character is “so beautiful”. Give it a rest already, will you?

Cut back to Gilbert, still being pestered by Artor to kill Faraday. He apparently has a Grand Plan (as usual, capitalised for no reason). The new forest is getting bigger all the time, and he’s not happy about it. After several pages of dull description and “telling” used in place of actual emotional reactions from anyone, they get to Arcen. Gilbert is “appalled” to see how cheerful everyone is. Cue descriptions of the big market, and Gilbert picks out a tavern to stay in, where we learn that he’s wearing a “jacket” made of “rose-pink velvet”. Where the hell did he get that, and since when were jackets a thing in this setting?

After a useless scene in which he argues with the landlord, he goes to the market hoping to find Faraday. He asks someone how far the trees go and finds that they only reach as far as the city, which means Faraday must still be here.

Sure enough he finds her hanging out with Hazel and Culpepperidge Farm (remember him?).

Cut to Faraday’s POV, and in an attempt at suspense we’re told she has to get on and finish her planting by the time Axis goes to fight Gorgrael, or he’ll fail. Which is of course why Axis didn’t bother to provide her with any sort of protection. Because it’s not like the fate of the world is at stake or anything like that. She also hesitates over whether to tell Pepper Potts about something the author doesn’t specify, most likely her pregnancy, and then walks off. Gilbert, watching, thinks about how Faraday is completely unprotected.

Wait, so you’re telling me the mayor of this city goes around in public without any guards? At all? I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: the people in this book are too stupid to live.

Gilbert keeps trying to get to Faraday while she heals people and such – it reminds me of a scene with Dany out of Game of Thrones, actually. You know, the one where a guy tried to assassinate her with a manticore while she was mingling with the common folk at the markets. Except that Dany had the common sense to have some guards with her, which is why the attempt failed.

He finally manages to grab Faraday by the shoulder, and his eyes actually start glowing red, just so we’re all clear that he’s eeevil. *eyeroll*

Someone tells him to let go and then stomps on his foot, which does the trick. It’s Hazel, who tells him to get lost, which he does. He goes back to his room where Artor yells at him. Gilbert protests that Faraday has a helper who he describes as “a nasty woman”.

Wow. That’s just pure gold right there. This line is honestly just plain funny from a modern perspective, when a lot of my gender consider being called a nasty woman to be something of a badge of pride. Hell, I own a t-shirt that says NASTY WOMAN, and every time I wear it in public I get approving comments from people.

Artor gives Gilbert another powerup and tells him to try again, end chapter.

The next chapter is called “Chitter, Chatter”. Again with the stupid childish chapter titles! We’re with Axis, who is marching for the Murkle Mountains, and in a ridiculous moment we find out he hasn’t bothered to tell the Icarii leader FarSight why they’re doing this or what the plan is. Because not confiding in your fellow commander and supposed friend is fantastic leadership.

Of course the only reason he hasn’t told FarSight is so we can have some contrived suspense, because we cut to the next scene where Axis brings everyone together to explain The Plan. He tells them he thinks Evil Timmy is hiding out in the Murkle Mountains, which he explains used to be inhabited and was mined for opals, but now the mines are abandoned.

Archdemon Belial asks him why he thought of the mountains and Axis just shrugs and says it was “a trifling thought” he had in bed. Great leader, you guys.

Naturally everyone agrees that the enemy are probably hiding out in the mines, but they don’t know how to get them out of there. So Axis contacts Demi Moore, who goes in with some scouts to check out the mines. We get a flashback scene like something out of a horror movie, as his guys are dragged away by unseen monsters until he’s the only one left.

Now he’s crawling around trying to find a way out, and lest we become the least bit worried for his safety we get a bit explaining that he’s not ready to die because of the stupid prophecy and also his wife. (Because the other five guys who were likely married too don’t count, apparently).

Then Demi hears something going “chitter, chatter” over and over again. It’s not scary. It’s clearly supposed to be scary… but it’s just not.

Then the chitter chattering thingy starts telepathically talking to him, asking him who he is, and the whole thing reads like a ripoff of the bit with Shelob in LoTR. But clearly this isn’t a skraeling. It’s a bunch of other creatures. And then it turns out this is actually a ripoff of the bit in LoTR where Aragorn meets up with those dead guys underground.

Except these things are actually the souls of the opals that were mined here.

Yes, really.

Did I mention this trilogy was completely batshit insane?

The opal ghosts (seriously) ask Demi Moore to show them a vision of the world he came from, which he does using telepathy. They like it and ask if they can go and live there, and Demi Moore says sure – their new home is “Iceberg”. Because apparently there’s only one iceberg in the entire world.

The opal ghosts, chitter chatter, (seriously; the phrase keeps being spliced in through the text and it’s really annoying) lead him to the skraelings and say they can drive them out into the open.

Then Demi Moore contacts Axis and tells him “you have a horrendous enemy” who are “so armoured now that a man will have to aim straight and true”, which we already know, thanks. Not that it’ll make the slightest bit of difference in the long run.

He tells Axis he’s driven them and the gryphons out of the mines, and Axis can attack them at the mouth of a river we’ve never heard of. He also keeps saying “chitter, chatter” at him, which both Axis and myself find incredibly annoying. End chapter.

It’s amazing how ludicrous this book gets while also managing to be completely boring.

The next chapter is called “Of Ice and Laughter”. We’re with Timozel, who’s busy enjoying his old fantasy about how he’s going to be the best commander ever, and who thanks to his magical upgrade likes the cold now. He spends a few pages patting himself on the back about how easily he’s going to win, even though he’s now been driven out into the open by the “Chatterlings”. Or as I prefer to call them, Deus Ex Machinae.

Cut back to Axis, busy thinking about how great Demi Moore is while spoonfeeding the reader a bunch of painfully obvious stuff about what would have happened if the skraelings hadn’t been driven out of the mines by the aforementioned Deus Ex Machinae.

Blah blah blah, descriptions of how Axis’ army travels to meet the enemy on the field. Then Axis has a conversation with FarSight, whose “hand [is] blue with cold”.

Um, moron? Why are you not wearing gloves?

If you end up losing all your fingernails I will have absolutely no sympathy for you, FarSight.

They have a brief conversation about where the skraelings are, and it’s noted that Belial and Margarita are “wrapped in felt and blankets” because “a frozen limb would be disastrous in battle”. Which just highlights the stupidity of the Icarii commander flying around without any gloves on. You know, up in the sky where it’s even colder.

Some more blah-blah ensues, and then Axis starts fiddling with his magical ring and says he Has A Plan. Naturally we don’t know what The Plan is. Henceforth The Plan will succeed, because of course it will.

Cut to the two armies meeting over the banks of a frozen river. Then they start fighting, and as with all Douglass’ big battle scenes it’s just emotionlessly summarised from no particular POV. Seriously, just get a load of this line:

“Still they fought, bravely and well. Yet many died, overwhelmed, and in some places along the front line more men than Skraelings died.”

Try reading that in anything other than a dull monotone.

Axis kills a few skraelings, and for absolutely no reason one of them says Timmy’s name as it dies. Axis is shocked, shocked, that the traitor he’s been angsting about is literally the only guy who has openly defied him, has military experience, and went into exile shortly before all this shit started going down. Because like every character in this thing Axis’ IQ is always dictated by whether the author wanted to try and build up some “suspense” or not.

In fact he’s so shocked that Rimmer has to bitchslap some sense back into him. Axis exclaims in horror that the traitor was Timmy all along. Since when did you care a damn about that guy, Mr SueSoar McDouchebag?

Axis finally pulls himself together and starts using one of his magical Pointlessly Capitalised Songs, and then Evil Timmy does what all cardboard cutout villains do and starts taunting him – telepathically in this case. He really goes all-out with the lame taunting, calling the song Axis’ dirge and then seriously calling him “pitiful compared to Gorgrael”. Gorgrael is about as threatening as a kitten, Timmy.

Axis has a mini-conniption over this, rhetorically asking himself why Timmy would ever join that guy. Maybe it’s because he hates your stupid smug spoiled Sue face – have you thought of that?

He keeps singing anyway, and apparently it’s, like, really hard. It’s also really predictable, as the song does exactly what I it expected to do and starts breaking the ice. Timmy sees what Axis is doing and sends in the gryphons - “over nine hundred of them”, apparently. The gryphons slaughter a bunch of Icarii and then start dive-bombing the ground troops, and supposedly their fur is arrow-proof, which immediately had me narrowing my eyes. No, it’s not magical fur. It’s just “thick”. Right.

The ice breaks anyway, and “tens of thousands of Skraelings and a few score men” instantly go into the drink. Axis snaps out of it thinking he’s just saved the day, but then Rimmer very calmly and politely screams about the gryphons. Axis starts to tell everyone to get to shelter but then realises there isn’t any. Haha, fail.

The skraelings start laughing at him, and so does Evil Timmy. Axis starts actually freaking out for pretty much the first time ever, and has no idea what to do. He asks the magic ring to give him a song for killing the gryphons. The ring obliges, and Axis decides that the song is so powerful it will kill him, but what the hell; he’s got no other options open to him. So he just starts singing it anyway, and the author informs us that “It was the bravest thing he would ever do.”

I agree. This is the first actually courageous thing Axis has ever done, and also the first genuine personal risk he’s taken. And wow, it actually does cost his ass, and how.

He sings and the gryphons start bursting into flames and dying, and Axis suffers horribly and then falls over with his eyeballs on fire. Ew. Evil Timmy watches, and laughs his butt off because even though he’s lost all his gryphons there’s more where that came from, and Axis has just burned himself alive from the inside out.

Seriously: “…his eyes burning in his head, his skin rippling and crisping, fingers smouldering into black claws.”

Wow. Something horrible finally happened to Axis. I honestly don’t know how to feel about this.

Rimmer crouches over Axis the Crispy Critter, and Axis speaks what we’re supposed to assume are his last words, apologising to Azhure. Not for raping and almost killing her, mind you, but it’s a nice sentiment.

And then the chapter ends and Axis is dead, though of course he’s not actually dead, and no doubt there will be some kind of magical fix-it thrown in to save his Sue ass. Oh well, at least he got hurt. Though of course we all know the author is going to milk it for all its worth with everyone wailing over how such an awesome guy is dying and how brave he was, so on and so forth.

Sure enough my prediction is proven tiresomely correct in the very next chapter, which opens with Azhure sitting under a “marmalade tree”. A WHAT?

She feels the link with Axis break and then hears him saying he’s sorry, whereupon she lets out a melodramatic “nooooooo!!!!1” and then starts running around in a panic.

She finds StarDrifter and starts sobbing “hysterically”, because women only know how to react to grief with hysteria and screaming, as opposed to the manly stoicism StarDrifter displays in this scene. Somewhere in all the melodrama Azhure spontaneously goes into labour, it being the most dramatic time for it.

Cut to the birth. Apparently it’s “terrible”, as the twins just want to get out ASAP, led of course by the boy. They apparently force their way out while not caring a damn if they hurt their mother. I don’t care if they hurt her either. Azhure goes all limp and Firsty declares that the babies have to “birth themselves soon” because she’s almost dead.

That’s not how childbirth works. Babies can’t just push themselves out of the womb, no matter how magical they are. That’s why if a mother dies in childbirth or doesn’t have the strength, it’s an emergency caesarean or nothing. But I think we’ve established well enough that this author knows dick-all about how pregnancy and babies work.

The twins eventually emerge and “Azhure hemorrhaged and they almost lost her”. I really don’t think that word belongs in a fantasy novel. Like, at all. The twins are completely fine and still don’t give a fuck about their dying mother. Yeah, I’m on their side. If Azhure and Axis actually died here, we might actually get to have protagonists I don’t hate.

The chapter ends with Firsty declaring that Azhure might have a chance at survival, and StarDrifter shrieking about how he won’t let her die. Smeg off, StarDrifter. We all know you’re only saying that because you want to bone her.