antishurtugal_reborn | TSiaSoS Spork: Part 6, Chapter 4: "Exeunt VI" (Reply)

The last chapter. Hallelujah. Thank every single deity. Our collective suffering is almost over.

Kira’s traveling to the edge of the galaxy to get rid of the leftover Maw. (That sounds disgusting.) In a surprisingly human detail, she’s worried about being alone for who knows how long. Well, not “frightened”, but “concerned”, which lessens the impact a little bit. She traces the other Maws’ path on a “map of textured flesh, part plant, part animal” (*noises of horrified disgust here*), and then talks to Falconi. He says hi and she speaks in that weird, pseudo-biblical-fantasy way.

Then she confessed to [Falconi] her concern, and she said, “I do not know what I may become, given enough time and space.”

Falconi comforts her by saying she’s “too strong” to go insane (fuck you), and that this will be easy compared to defeating the Maw. He asks if she wants someone to go with her, and she declines, as she would be too worried about protecting them. Which is actually kind of thoughtful. She’s putting someone else’s needs before her own. Too bad it’s the last chapter. Kira then says “My one regret is that I won’t be around to watch how things turn out between us and the Jellies.”

Falconi replies that it’s good she includes herself in the human category, because Admiral Calvin Klein was worried she thought of herself as nonhuman. Kira says “part of [her]” thinks of herself as human, which, again, is really creepy. Especially since the change happened without her consent.

Falconi asks to stay in touch. Kira says yes, but privately thinks that they won’t be able to reach her because they won’t know where she even is, and won’t be able to send a signal. But she could probably send a signal to them. Seriously, this seems tailor made to be a bittersweet ending. In a more serious work, this would’ve fit, but here, where no major characters die? It feels super out of place and contrived.

Kira also shows some caring about her family, because she sends a message to see if they are alive. This is like the fifth time in 800 pages, right. Seriously, these people could’ve just been cut out and nothing would’ve changed. It apparently “pain[s]” her to possibly “never know the truth”, but it falls flat. She listens to Bach again (at least he’s consistent), and waits.

In part 2, she gets a last message from Falconi and goes into FTL. There’s more pretentious phrasing and blatant telling (of regret, anxiety, and excitement), but we’re already used to that by now. And then we get this part, because why not:

Despite herself, Kira felt sad, and she allowed herself to feel that sadness, to acknowledge her loss and give the emotion the respect it deserved.

She’s become even more of a robot. I don’t know how that’s possible, but it is.

Part of her resisted. Part of her still made excuses. If she could find the Maw’s emissaries and eradicate them within a reasonable amount of time, maybe she could still return home, have a life of peace.

How the hell is that an excuse?! That’s just her being hopeful.

She took a breath. No. What was done was done. There was no going back, no point regretting the choices she had made nor, as Falconi had said, what was out of her control.

And again with the “You can’t change things so why even try?” fatalistic attitude that plagues Paolini’s works. Is it too much to ask for a protagonist with some ambition?

Then she goes to sleep.

Part three is where it gets weird.

…

An emerald ship sailed through the darkness, a tiny gleaming dot, lost within the immensity of space. No other vessel accompanied it, no guards or companions or watchful machines. It was alone among the firmament, and all was quiet.

The ship sailed, but it seemed not to move. A butterfly, bright and delicate, frozen in crystal, preserved like that for all eternity. Deathless and unchanging.

Once it had flown faster than light. Once and many times besides. Now it did not. The scent it followed was too delicate to track otherwise.

The galaxy turned upon its axis for time without measure.

Those ellipses are from the book, by the way. It actually does last for three paragraphs. The other thing weird about this is that it’s the only part of the book that doesn’t take place from Kira’s POV (or another alien POV), but is instead narrated. The stylistic change hurts the book, because after 800 pages of traveling with this character, readers will want to end with this character.

Then, the Wallfish appears ahead, quickly traveling the opposite way. Falconi is able to tell Kira that her family is alive before going out of range. Wow. We were all so worried. And if Falconi can find Kira after she made a bunch of FLT jumps, then what was all that about not being able to keep in touch? I mean, wouldn’t it be better to have a bunch of people hunting the Maws?

But anyway…

Within the lonely ship, within the emerald cocoon and the swaddling flesh, there lay a woman. And though her eyes were closed and her skin was blue, and though her blood was ice and her heart was still—though all of that, a smile appeared upon her face.

So she’s dead? Her previous hibernations weren’t like this at all. This is really weird. And she can’t be in cryo, because Limp Dick doesn’t allow that. Eh, I’ll just chalk it up to plot-induced-powers and move on. But wouldn’t this be much better in Kira’s POV? She’s sleeping there, silent, and then she finds a glimmer of hopeful news. It would still be Paolini writing it, but at least the book would be consistent.

And so she sailed on, content to hold and wait and there to sleep, to sleep in a sea of stars.

I don’t think that sentence even made sense, but we have to get our title drop. If anyone noticed, this is an almost complete copy of a line from Paolini’s space poem, “The Farthest Shore”, albeit with “here” changed to “there”.

And we’re done. We’re finally done. I guess it’s now up to me to give the final summary.

I don’t know what to say about this novel’s flaws that hasn’t already been said. It’s just largely boring with occasional bouts of horror and rage. It’s not the worst novel ever, though. Ready Player One is pretty bad, too.

This could’ve been improved by several ways:

Streamline the story. Cut the entire Staff of Blue thing and just focus on getting an alliance with that group of Jellies. Also, there seem to be a bunch of characters that are there one page and tossed aside the next. (Most notably Kira’s entire team.) This could be fixed by the next suggestion.
Start In Media Res. The first few chapters are quite boring. If we started with Kira already having the suit, and flashing back to what happened, it would be more entertaining. Also, we wouldn’t be focused on her not grieving Alanbot as much, because we wouldn’t see her on screen.
Chop out the offensive crap. No terrible mental illness depictions.
Chop out the disgusting crap. No terrible sex scenes and weird flesh like aliens.
Cut the fuck down. Self explanatory.

This novel still wouldn’t be great, but it’s a start.

When I think back on this novel, I mostly feel disappointed. I was once a fan of the Inheritance Cycle, and even now, I thought there would be something better. At least something I could laugh at, or read ironically.

But the spark is gone.