Sinner Sporking: Part Nine
Jul. 16th, 2021 11:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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antishurtugal_rebornThe next chapter cuts back to Drago. He finds himself lying on a comfortable couch, because why not, surrounded by strangers with “powerful” voices. He gets up and sees there’s five “human-like” entities sitting around him. They’re all very pale with “jewel-like eyes” and are wearing “pastel robes”. There’s a garden behind them.
They introduce themselves as Sheol, Raspu, Mot, Barzula and Rox, and they all seem quite pleasant. They say they’re “Questors” on their way to Tencendor Chicken With Rice. Supposedly someone stole something precious from their world a long time ago and now it’s at the bottom of the sacred lakes there. They just want to come and remove it, so it won’t hurt anyone again. Honest! No evil ulterior motives here at all! Their plans are totally sinister- uh, sincere!
They call in a friend of theirs, who turns out to be none other than StarLaughter (remember her?). She asks him about himself, so Drago recites his backstory. StarLaughter gets a bit upset on finding out his original name was the same as her unborn baby’s, but then asks the Questors if he’s “usable”. Raspu takes a lot at him and says yes, his Enchanter powers really are still there, and they can use it for the last part of the journey. StarLaughter, well, laughs and hugs Drago, and like an utter moron he goes along with it, laughing as well because now everything’s going to be all right.
Dude. Come on. They’re acting every bit as suspiciously as those two older kids on the playground who tried to convince six year old Epistler that “sexing” meant “eating lollipops” and that I should totally go tell my teacher “I like sexing!” (It didn’t work; even aged six I was way too cynical to believe a word they said). I mean come on; they’re all but nudging each other and snickering behind their hands.
The totally not suspicious Questors wander off, and StarLaughter offers to give Drago the tour. He says okay and goes to pick up the sack he had the Rainbow Sceptre in. It turns out to be full of silver coins now for some reason. StarLaughter wants to know what that’s all about, and Drago tells her he always keeps his money with him because he doesn’t trust anybody.
Except for this bunch of obvious evil maniacs he just blundered into and knows nothing about, apparently. They’re totally cool.
StarLaughter says that’s a good idea, and then shows him a nice garden. She explains that she and the other Icarii WolfStar tossed through the gate drifted in space for a long time until the Questors found them. She introduces Drago to them, and they’re all clearly corrupted in some way because they’ve got “flat black eyes” full of hate and seem to have lost their… whatever the Icarii equivalent of humanity is. StarLaughter calls them “my Hawkchilds”. Uh, shouldn’t that be Hawkchildren?
Whatever.
StarLaughter goes on about how they’re going to have their revenge, and Drago is all like “awesome, these people like me and they’re totally going to help me”, and starts laughing like the idiot the Plot has turned him into. He even makes out with StarLaughter a bit, just for the hell of it. Yup, that’s right; he still sees absolutely nothing sinister or suspicious about all this. Zombified undead Icarii children? No big deal – we’re all bros here!
He only gets a bit freaked out when StarLaughter shows him her baby, the original DragonStar. The thing is trapped in an unresponsive undead state, but she doesn’t seem to realise it and even tries to nurse it, which is appropriately creepy. Drago, watching, thinks that she’s “slightly unhinged”. Slightly? The woman’s nuttier than squirrel shit!
She puts the baby down and tells Drago they’re going to use his buried magic to get them all through the gate, and when he starts protesting she starts putting the moves on him and it’s implied that maybe they had sex.
You are SO going to regret this, Drags.
Cut back to Faraday, walking over the plains by herself and still feeling great. The magic power-up has made her young and beautiful again, and she’s not the Tree Friend any more either; the Mother doesn’t need her services any longer.
Eventually she comes across a farmhouse with a woman outside. She notices said woman looks pale and thin, and instantly deduces that she’s suffering from iron deficiency. Presumably she does this using magic, because in the real world you need to do a blood test to determine that sort of thing. Anyway she gives the woman the cure (a bag of iron filings), and is rewarded with some clothes. After that she bumps into some guys leading a herd of horses and gives their leader some relationship advice in exchange for a bag of money. She eventually reaches Nor, where she gives some further advice to a random potter to help save his failing business.
For some reason none of these people ask her how the hell she knows all this. But it sure is coming in handy for her.
She gets to the coast and starts looking for a ship to take her to the Island of Mist and Memory, and conveniently enough she finds a captain who needs some counselling. End chapter.
It's nice to see Faraday is still likeable. Main characters-wise this thing is a BIG improvement. No more watching Axis swagger his way to easy victory after easy victory, no endless pages of Sue praise for Azhure... AWESOME. It's just a shame about all the, y'know, rape. 😒
In the next chapter we cut away to SpikeFeather, who has just reported to Caelum and Orr is missing. We get a bunch of exposition on SpikeFeather's backstory, followed by him brooding. He picked up the word "Qeteb" through some sort of mental link with Orr, and is now wondering what the hell it means along with "Beware the Grail King in the Maze".
He keeps rowing around in Orr's little boat, hoping to find him. He sees a bunch of interesting stuff but no Orr, and eventually gives up and cries. But then he remembers those annoying kids he brought this way in the last book and figures it would be worth asking for their help. (They're the royal guard now, in case you've forgotten).
SpikeFeather meets up with their leader WingRidge, and turns out WingRidge does know what this is all about. After some unnecessary drama and shouting (...remember how Icarii are supposed to be above all that and "rarely lose their tempers in an argument"? Because I do) WingRidge gets down to business and explains that back when he and the other kids were travelling on Orr's boat they had a visit from WolfStar who showed them this Maze thingy and told them their duty was to protect the StarSon.
SpikeFeather asks where the Maze is, so WingRidge draws him a map.
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Date: 2022-04-11 03:35 pm (UTC)If only. Instead the "heroes" get the Skraelings drunk and they all turn into trees.
No I'm not kidding.
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Date: 2022-04-11 03:39 pm (UTC)If your reviewers say this about your books, maybe it's time to reconsider.
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Date: 2022-04-11 03:48 pm (UTC)Yeah, the heroes use them to wipe out the enemy somehow or other.
Also the two white donkeys Ogden and Veremund rode, who end up pulling the cart Faraday used, turn out to actually be magical polar bears who are the offspring of Urbeth the one-eared iceabear from the first trilogy or some such random nonsense.
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Date: 2022-04-11 03:54 pm (UTC)I've downloaded the other books now, and I'll read them in due time (hopefully never).
I'm going to be sporking the Axis hendecalogy once I've read all of them, but in the meantime, I will be doing a kind of positive sporking of the series Keys to the Kingdom on my own journal. It's nice to see good books sometimes.
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Date: 2022-04-12 07:48 am (UTC)Ooooh, I can't wait! As far as I know I'm the only person who's done it so far, and I gave up partway through Sinner.
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Date: 2022-04-12 02:11 pm (UTC)And I can really see why you gave up. It was quite evident you wanted it to be over as soon as possible, as you skimmed it more. Given how bad they are, it sure was for the better.
In order, I'll be doing BattleAxe, Enchanter, StarMan, then Sinner, Pelgrim, Crusader, then the two prequels and then the final trilogy.
By the way, do you know who the titels of the second trilogy refer to? BattleAxe, Enchanter and StarMan clearly refer to Axis, as he gets more and more titles. With Sinner, Pelgrim and Crusader I think it might be Drago(nStar). (When I see his name, I always think of Draco Malfoy, by the way).
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Date: 2022-04-14 12:39 pm (UTC)Actually I would have stuck with it if I'd been getting a better audience response, so to speak. Instead I was getting progressively fewer comments and the comments were growing less interested and/or enthusiastic and I decided it was time to quit. Both I and my readers had pretty much run out of things to say.
Yep, that's who they're referring to. At least the sequel trilogy has a protagonist who isn't a huge fuck-off Sue. I genuinely liked Drago.
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Date: 2022-04-14 01:15 pm (UTC)I see.
Having a relatable protagonist is much better. And Drago seems quite likeable indeed, as are Faraday, Zenith and Borneheld. Even Gorgrael is more likeable than most.
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Date: 2022-04-14 03:02 pm (UTC)Sporking, like publishing novels, isn't just for you - it's for your readers.
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Date: 2022-04-14 03:04 pm (UTC)