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antishurtugal_rebornI've edited and completely re-posted this, because large chunks of it kept going mysteriously missing.
We are now up to Part 3 of 6! Huzzah!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DfEVsvDLNw
(I'm posting a link instead of embedding the video because maybe that was the problem causing my missing text.)
Part 3: Apocalipsis
It’s interesting thast Paolini has chosen this chapter title. In narrative tradition, the Greek word apokalypsis means an uncovering or revelation of important truth or knowledge, rather than the more modern meaning of ‘great destruction’. It obviously has heavy religious connotation as well, being used for the revelation of the end of the world (and later conflated with the actual world-ending event).
We’ll see which definition Paolini is striving for in this part.
The part starts with a quote of David Bowie song lyrics.
Including all the “ahs”.
“In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen
Stands a solitary candle, ah ah, ah ah”
Which honestly just looks silly.
It’s also very interesting that Paolini chose this particular piece to quote, because it includes the lines
“On the day of execution […] only women kneel and smile, ah ah ah ah”
Which is sexist as fuck. What, women can’t fight and resist? Is Paolini trying to imply that Kira is “not like other girls” because she chooses to fight instead of being a demure submissive Katrina clone?
I find this quote highly problematic, as well as having nothing to do with the actual story or tone in any way.
Anyway, let’s dive straight into Part 3, Chapter 1: Past Sins.
In which Kira’s bullshit finally catches up to her and she is arrested and court-marshalled for breach of biosecurity laws, identity theft, aiding and abetting a potentially hostile and otherwise dangerous threat to humanity, murder, destruction of Federation property, and probably a few other crimes I can’t remember right now.
I joke, of course, that would be exciting and different.
Kira wakes up, this time not because of an alarm but by “a slow dawning of light”. Does she have a window in her room, or is it an artificial light on a dimmer switch? It is never explained.
There is a cat sitting on top of Kira. Where did it come from? Was it mentioned before? I thought the ship pet was a miniature pig. How many ship pets does this transport vehicle have? How are they supported? Did the pets go into cryosleep with all the humans as well?
While I’m asking questions, who or what was in control of the ship while Gregorovich the ship-mind was in cryo sleep? Does Greg work alongside an AI that operates in the background and takes over when Greg is sleeping? HOW DOES ANY OF THIS WORK?!
Falconi, captain of an entire ship that has just exited FTL travel, is, of course, waiting for Kira to wake up, because ship captains never have many responsibilities or duties. She has a moment of claustrophobic panic, which I appreciate, and then the xeno releases her from the immovable bondage sack it put her in, with “a cascade of dust” which makes Falconi sneeze. Eww.
After giving Kira a sip of water, because that’s a detail we couldn’t have continued the story without, Falconi confirms that they arrived at their destination (instead of an exciting plot twist, like arriving at some other destination), and Marines have named the newly discovered planet “Bughunt”.
Bughunt. This is a stupid name for a planet. There are no aliens in this story that are referred to as “bugs”, which might justify such a name, nor is there anything else in this story that “Bughunt” might be a justified reference to.
Instead, I can only think that this is meant to be a veiled reference to Starship Troopers, in which the alien enemies are called “bugs”. A more subtle homage might have been to call the planet Klendathu, or OM-1, or even Rokusan. “Bughunt” just sounds misplaced. It’s a noun for an activity, not a noun of location.
Anyway, they’ve arrived at their destination. About 30 minutes before Kira woke up. Falconi is still recovering from the side-effects of cryo, which apparently include thirst and queasiness.
I assume Falconi completed the evacuation phase off-screen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09D8hAcUzms
Anyway, there’s some more unnecessary minutiae that should have been skip-scened.
Oh, and Limp Dick has taken away Kira’s “overlays” again. Because it’s a dick. More specifically, a controlling dick with no concept of consent or bodily autonomy or personal choice. It’s a metaphor for domestic abuse.
Naturally, Kira’s reaction to this is: “Crap.” As compared to the first time, when she went on this whole melodramatic rant about how she’s no more than a mere animal without her neural interface.
There’s more reunions as everyone checks on each other after waking up. Kira spends a moment reflecting on the passage of time.
“The inevitable accumulation of time had dulled the once-sharp pain of her grief. Her memories of the deaths on Adra still hurt, and always would, but they seemed thin and faded, drained of the vividness that had caused her so much anguish.”
Um… what grief? What anguish? I think this is the first time Kira has thought about it since it happened. She certainly hasn’t acted like someone grieving a traumatic death of her friends and the love of her life.
She also refers to the parasite as “her other flesh”, which is extremely creepy and co-dependency-y.
Moving on, they discover a number of unknown objects orbiting the star, which everyone instinctively knows without any further investigation are (a) artificial, (b) ancient, and (c) part of a Dyson ring to harness the star’s energy.
How they know this is not explained, they just say them.
Kira also knows without any thought that the Staff can be found on the fourth planet. I can at least excuse this foreknowledge because she is being mentally manipulated by the parasite.
Captain Falcon decides to send Kira visual of the planet’s surface to see if Soft Blade will give them a clue where to land on the planet, and then Kira confesses that the parasite destroyed her computer contact-lenses, and needs new ones fitted. Vishal acts like he was expecting that to happen, so they leave to get her fitted with new contacts.
Of course, these unfathomably complex marvels of transparent nanocomputing can be just 3D printed at a whim, because that’s Paolini’s answer to everything.
Thought: wouldn’t the story be much more interesting and exciting if they couldn’t just magic up everything and anything they need with the handwave of 3D printing? How much more interesting could the story be if Kira just had to go without her computer-contacts because they don’t have the specialised equipment, environment, or expertise to manufacture them on the ship. Being separated from the rest of the crew’s communications and information as they explore this alien world in search of an ancient weapon, having to survive just with her wits and grit and xenobiology field experience.
But, and I am truly sick of saying this about Paolini’s work, that would be interesting. And we can’t be having anything interesting in the plot, that might inconvenience Girl Eragon in her quest to be totes awesome in all the specific ways Paolini wished he could be.
CUT TO –
Part 2. Kira is dicking around (not literally, thankfully: We have yet to see Paolini’s attempt at a sex scene, I leave that to the poor unfortunate fool who puts their hand up to spork that particular chapter) in Paolini’s signature style of destroying all possibility for tension.
I almost feel like we should have a counter for all the time Paolini’s characters waste just standing around, talking, eating or preparing food, puttering, pottering, loitering, and otherwise just “killing time” with meaningless trivialities and minutiae that adds nothing to the story except to destroy the tension and pacing. Except that would be easily 90% of this thrillforsaken book. Take away the dickering and it’ll be a 30-page novella.
VERY conveniently, the data from Kira’s previous contact lenses was all stored in the ship’s cloud, so once she reconnects she gets all her information back. I mean, that’s not exactly futuristic tech, we have cloud storage already. It’s just, for the sake of the story, sometimes things need to be less convenient for the characters. I’d rather read about someone losing everything and having to start again, or go without, than read about someone who has everything she needs handed to her, or readily available when she needs it. And I think that’s one of the main problems with this story so far.
In fact, let’s put the book aside for a moment – because I assume you’re all reading along while you read this spork, right? Right? – and discuss what I think are the three biggest flaws of the story.
First, and most glaringly, Kira hasn’t actually had to struggle in any way. Everything she needs is 3D printed, and when a 3D printed option isn’t available, the parasite is miraculously able to give her whatever power-up she needs when she need it, like super strength or invulnerability. People turn up to give her assistance or advice, just... because. Why is Falconi dropping all of his plans and schedules and motivations to fly Kira around chasing some ancient artefact that she insists with no evidence definitely really exists, near a star 3 months of faster-then-light travel away from any human outposts? Because Kira wants him to. Everything that has happened in the story has happened for Kira’s benefit and convenience. No matter how much it may inconvenience other characters, they drop everything to serve Kira’s needs before their own.
Second, the frittering. The story is so bogged down in unnecessary minutiae of the characters’ daily lives and activities that the actual story is lost in the clutter. Paolini shows that he still does not have any discipline as a writer, and still doesn’t know what to write and what not to write. What is, to quote Paolini himself, “essential story elements”, and what is useless filler that bogs the story down.
And third, and arguably the more fundamental flaw: even if you cut down on the trivialities and stop making the universe so convenience for and centred around Kira, the story simply lacks substance. The plot so far is a jumbled mess of flying from place to place, fighting some jellies and/or having some conversations, and then flying to the next place. This chapter marks the halfway point of the book, and basically nothing has happened yet.
I went back through and made dot points of the major plot points:
- Kira is infected by a parasite on the last day of a planetary survey
- the parasite kills her crew and fiancee
- Kira is put into isolation by a military ship, who conducts experiments
- the ship is attacked by aliens, and Kira is able to escape
- Kira’s escape shuttle loses power and Kira is rescued by a civilian transport vessel
- They go to somewhere, where they witness another alien attack
- They go somewhere else, and this time engage with one of the disabled alien craft. A crew member is kidnapped, so Kira mounts a rescue mission and successfully retrieves the crew member.
- Back on their own ship, an alien has boarded. Kira kills it.
- Back in the alien ship, Kira makes contact with the boss-alien, and learns about the McGuffin they need to find to win the war
- Kira accidentally sends a call to nearby alien ships, who converge on their location.
- As they arrive, the aliens are attacked by a second alien species
- Kira intervenes in a religious argument, which leads to the parasite attempting to kill one of them. He survives, again because of applied phlebotinum.
- Accompanied by a military vessel, Kira and co. travel to the planet where the McGuffin can be found
- During the journey, Kira works to understand and control the parasite.
- They arrive at the star system, and this brings us to the current chapter.
150,000 words more or less, and that’s all we have for it. This is maybe four chapters worth of story, five if you stretch it out. Paolini’s ability to write tens of thousands of words about nothing is unsurpassed. This COULD be an exciting, fast-paced space fantasy, if it was condensed to 70,000 words. Because it is stretched out so much, and there’s so much needless filler and pottering and characters waiting around for the next plot point to show up, it is incredibly slow and boring.
Anyway. Let’s get back to the chapter spork.
Where were we? Oh yes, Kira’s new contact lenses. So, the ship-mind Greg has found evidence of a third alien species, one probably long gone, in the way of space station debris.
There’s lots of talking, and looking at displays, and discussing what the displays show. Kira has a brief conversation with the Entropists, puzzling over some Jelly equipment they salvaged from the ship several chapters ago.
Kira then makes some ginger tea (because that’s still a thing on the other side of the galaxy 250 years from now) for the first officer who is unwell from the cryostasis. They have a long, meaningless conversation with yet another instance of a character blurting out their backstory to Kira for no reason. Including TMI details about her healthcare needs, children and grandchildren, and other details that don’t normally come up in conversations between barely-acquainted colleagues. The entire conversation is basically a cynical attempt to elicit sympathy for the character. You know the kind, “:I have children and grandchildren living on planets that were attacked by the jellies”, and “I have an autoimmune disease because my parents meddled with my DNA, woe is me”, that sort of thing.
And then we’re treated to yet another overwritten dream sequence, because that’s important. It basically shows some of the powers of the Blue Staff, which coincidentally happen to be eerily similar to the powers of the power stone from Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, especially when embedded in Ronan the Accuser’s hammer-staff.
Greg sends Kira a message about cleaning her room, and then Kira goes to meet Sparrow to check her progress with controlling the xeno. Sparrow’s idea of a test is to physically assault Kira to test if she can prevent the xeno from spike-murdering her.
The rest of their training is mercifully cut-scened, but then we get back to yet more backstory dialogue. Sparrow tells Kira about this one guy in her training squad who lost his temper over a gun jam, and his punishment was the be stung almost to death by a nest of hornets and then strip and rebuild his gun. To teach him anger management. Seems to me that discipline via attempted manslaughter by exposure to lethal insect venom would not be sanctioned by any sensible military. What’s the point of hiring, training, feeding etc. somebody if you’re going to potentially kill them for the smallest lapse of judgement? This is extremely irresponsible, and the sergeants responsible should have been court-martialed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7VMcMJBjD4
Anyway, Tatupoa the tattooed token-Polynesian marine (also really, a tattoed guy named Tatu? What’s next, a drunk man named Bïrdrinkr?) pokes his head in to check what all the noise was about. I don’t remember anyone mentioning the token Polynesian among the list of token characters, so we’d best update that. Let’s see, we have the token Indian, the token Asian, the token Samoan, the token lesbian couple… who else?
Another jump cut to Part 5: Kira and Sparrow are walking through the corridors when a group of marines decide to start insulting Sparrow. Kira and Sparrow have a conversation about Marine slang and insults. Of course, it naturally comes up that Sparrow was booted from the marines for ‘cowardice’, but the true story is that she chewed out a superior officer who got her written up for leaving her guard post (for the purpose of chewing him out).
This is Roran all over again, getting whipped for insubordination because his commanding officer was a stupid stubborn idiot and only brilliant perfect Roran’s strategy could have saved the day.
I don’t know why Paolini has a thing for subordinates being unfairly punished for standing up to their superiors. I strongly suspect if he ever wrote a war story or a historical fiction he would include that element again. Because it’s dramatic and paints the subordinate character as the cheated underdog.
There’s yet more conversation about the totally exciting and fascinating scenes we’re about to read about any chapter now.
“The rest of the day passed in a mood of quiet intensity”
Perfectly sums up the entire chapter so far, and that’s really all that needed to be written. A few lines describing their plan to visit the planet to search for the Staff, and maybe some of the training montage because it shows Kira’s progress at controlling the xeno with her mind. A paragraph or two at most.
There’s MORE descriptions of sitting around, talking, not doing anything of consequence. More backstory of the side-characters, such as Trig’s dancing career before he was picked up by the Wallfish, and his love of chili peppers, and so on. Details that haven’t mattered before now, and won’t matter after. And, in fact, don’t matter now.
Part 9, and they are finally gearing up for the expedition. They gather their gear, assemble b y the shuttle, and… that’s the end of the chapter.
I know I shouldn’t be, but I am constantly astonished by Paolini’s ability to say nothing in so very many words. Just like the last chapter, this one could easily have been reduced to a handful of paragraphs.
pictured: me, reading this book, waiting for all the “fast paced action” the early reviews promised.
Up next is Part 3 Chapter 2, with somebody who isn’t me, thank goodness.
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Date: 2021-01-31 09:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 10:06 am (UTC)That sounds about right. Just look at the Eragon video game.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7XzUEUZA9M
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Date: 2021-01-31 10:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 10:48 am (UTC)For your own sake, don't.
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Date: 2021-01-31 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 11:08 am (UTC)Boring and annoying: see also: To Sleep Through a Stupid Offensive Snoozefest.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 11:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 11:50 am (UTC)Sorry the post had to be edited to replace the embedded videos with plaintext links, but Dreamwidth kept going wrong and making large chunks of the text disappear into the embedded frames so you couldn't read it.
I hope you take the time to copy-paste the links into a new tab, I felt the videos added greatly to the spork.
For reference, the first video is Monty Python's "Middle of the Film" skit from The Meaning Of Life, a far more entertaining piece than anything we've seen so far in this book; the second is a visual gag about Austin Powers being revived from cryostasis and needing to 'evacuate' his bladder; and the third was someone getting stung by a Japanese hornet, which I included as evidence for why deliberately setting a nest of hornets on someone under your command is, at the very least, cruel and unusual punishment, and frankly inhumane.
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 12:05 pm (UTC)Something which has repeatedly happened to me. It's beyond obnoxious and is one reason why I rarely embed videos in my posts any more. It's just not worth the hassle. That and centering images, which invariably fucks up the formatting for all the text which comes after it.
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Date: 2021-01-31 08:37 pm (UTC)The hornets thing is what I'd expect to see in a Verhoeven-style satirization of military scifi. Seeing it played straight is really weird, like I'm not supposed to laugh at that and then reconsider a common genre trope?
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Date: 2021-01-31 08:59 pm (UTC)I know, right? It's just so surreal and over the top. Has Paolini never seen hornets, talked to someone who was attacked by hornets, or been attacked by hornets himself? He is WAY underestimating them. I've never been attacked by hornets, but a solitary bee sting is bad enough. Imagine dozens of them, and twice as big and painful.
The whole situation is just laughably overblown, like melodrama comedy, but Paolini expects us to read it straight.
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Date: 2021-02-01 12:15 am (UTC)Yeah, exactly. Why hornets? No one knows. There's no worldbuilding reason for it. It's a "the bad guys are doing melodramatically bad things because they are eeeeeeevuuuul" choice.
The funny thing is that sort of punishment would've completely fit in with Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. Not only is it a ridiculously overblown reaction to something fairly minor, which satirizes the tendency towards sadistic military training in pulp mil scifi, it would've worked from a "see, if you don't keep your cool in combat then the Bugs will get you" standpoint as well.
Context, context, context. Which an editor could've told him.
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Date: 2021-02-01 09:43 am (UTC)could have, should have, probably did. We've heard directly from the horse's (in Paolini's case, ass's) mouth that Paolini doesn't listen to editors much, and actively fights against their attempts to (persuade him to) cut scenes he likes.
Either way, it's literally tone deaf, because it has a completely different tone to the rest of the story.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-02 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-01 06:33 pm (UTC)He is WAY underestimating them.
EXACTLY. I said as much in my spork. If it was fire ants, that guy would be in pain, but okay. But HORNETS?! That guy would be DEAD. If he was even the slightest bit allergic, he would be DEAD. If his face swelled, his heart went into arrest from the shock, and he did not get to a hospital IMMEDIATELY, he would be DEAD. Hornets have a high potency, and most importantly, high yield. That means that they inject a good amount of venom when they sting.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-01 07:25 pm (UTC)Also, they can sting repeatedly. It's not a once and done thing; they'll keep coming after you until they decide you're no longer a threat.
Oh, and sometimes they chase you.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-06 02:29 am (UTC)Yeah. There's a reason I was told to stay away from yellow jacket nests when I was little. (And I live in the north. If I lived in the south, there would be killer bees as well.)
no subject
Date: 2021-01-31 12:03 pm (UTC)Oh my god that song is fucking TERRIBLE. Bowie, what where you thinking??
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Date: 2021-02-01 09:45 am (UTC)To be fair to Bowie, he was probably on a boatload of drugs when he wrote it. What's less clear is why Paolini would choose to quote it, aside from hipster "you probably haven't heard of it" posturing.
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Date: 2021-01-31 12:10 pm (UTC)"Another bughunt" is also a very well-known line from the Alien series. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/the-throwaway-line-in-aliens-that-spawned-decades-of-confusion/
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Date: 2021-02-01 01:06 am (UTC)I cannot wait to see his online class coming up soon.
That or a Aliens reference. Could be both at the same time.
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Date: 2021-02-01 09:47 am (UTC)Did you get a spot? I doubt they're going to put a recording of it online, given people are paying, what was it, 80 dollars? For the privilege of viewing it.
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Date: 2021-02-01 10:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-01 10:11 am (UTC)EDIT, at quarter to one on a work night, why not:
https://antishurtugal-reborn.dreamwidth.org/221887.html
85 Australian dollars for a 1-hour webinar that will barely scratch the surface of the too-many topics he plans to cover.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-02 02:03 am (UTC)No! Are you crazy ?
The way he wrote TSiaSoS is such a mess, I'm seriously worried for anyone who bought a spot, and what they'll witness his lessons. And for 70$ (in canadian monopoly dollars)? If it was Stephen King or Cormac McCarthy, sure, why not. But for Chris Paolini!? Him?!? o_O
If I was a piece of shit, I'd buy a spot, record the whole thing, and then released it for free on YouTube. I understand the purpose of this web seminar is to make profit, but we're living right now through a global pandemic, and alot of people and temporary jobless because of it. It's kinda dumb idea to profit when most people struggle financilly to meet each month.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-02 09:28 am (UTC)That's another good point, in these times a decent millionaire author might do a series of free events to give people some inspiration without further financial stress. For example, Neil Gaiman gave a blanket permission for schools and libraries to use his work in online/broadcast storytimes and classes for the whole of 2020. The fact that Paolini is trying to turn a profit from an over-expensive webinar when so many people are struggling is kind of a dick move.
I mean, hell, I'm no millionaire author, but I hosted a free 2-hour online trivia event every month from April through to December last year, as a way to help my local network of library workers stay connected and engaged with each other during our long and painful lockdown.
no subject
Date: 2025-05-25 03:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-05-25 03:58 am (UTC)Yeesh. Aged like milk.
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Date: 2025-05-25 05:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-02 02:40 am (UTC)It was back in January. I was on the waitlist, but a spot never came up. Poking around the Guardian Masterclass page, though, I found the pitch form, so it looks like people go to them rather than their staff seeking people out.