StarMan Sporking: Part Eighteen

[epistler]

The next chapter opens with StarDrifter having used his random Jedi powers to sense the death of RavenCrest, who you can be forgiven for forgetting was his brother. But rather than go into any detail as to his emotional reaction to this, Axis (who’s been telepathically chatting with him) just passes on some Sue praise to Azhure for being Awesome and masturbating the gryphons to death (and no I am not going to let that go). Now they’re all going to go to Talon Spike to clean the place up and make FreeFall the new leader. Meanwhile Axis makes a little speech to his supposed “friends” about what a great job they’ve been doing, but now it’s time for him to go off by himself and deal with Gorge. Belial and Margarita have to lead the army back South, and we get a cute little moment where Axis tells them how much they Mean To Him and how they helped him to keep going, etc. Roran-like, Margarita is going to go build himself a castle (he’s not allowed to use Sigholt as his base of operations because Axis won’t let him, like the big bully he is).

As for Belial, he has to go back to Carlon with his wife. But he insists on staying in Sigholt until he knows whether Axis has beaten Gorge, because he cares about his best pal. You know, the best pal who’s treated him like shit from day one. Belial still needs to ditch his ass.

Meanwhile Axis will be reclaiming Demi Moore’s homeland with a few units, and Azhure’s going with him. Naturally she refers to this as an “adventure”. Oh, and Rimmer the Nonentity is going with them. Who was he again?

Clearly this is supposed to be a big emotional “parting of the ways” moment before the book finally goes into endgame, but it’s not working because theses character are all hopelessly underdeveloped and range from “cardboard cutout” to “hateful sociopath Sue I want to disembowel with a rusty hook”. Axis closes out the chapter by saying that once he’s done with the Ravensbund he’s going to the Avar for Fire-Night and then he’s going to “meet my destiny with Gorgrael”. It’s very dramatic. And moving. It’s dra-moving.

Wait, not it isn’t. It’s Dramamine. As in the medication I feel like I should be taking right now.

In the next chapter everyone says goodbye, and apparently the Sue Baby is still going with his Sue parents. Why? Because. No mention of Drago or RiverStar whatsoever. Bad Parenting 101: Favouring one child over the others. And we’re supposed to be shocked that Drago (ne DragonStar) was jealous? Eesh. His own fucking parents made it clear they didn’t want him before he was even born.

Blah blah descriptions of the army, and the author shows some rather hilarious self-awareness when she calls this “A sadly anticlimactic end to what had been a sometimes grand but often tragic campaign”.

I must have missed the “grand” and “tragic” parts, because all I remember reading is “ridiculous” and “boring”.

The Sues ride off, and the only living creatures they see are “ravens come to fish in the [river with annoying unpronounceable name]”. This just read as weird to me, so I looked it up. Turns out ravens sometimes do catch fish, but it still looks weird to me, like the ravens are being depicted as semi-aquatic or something. (Look, I ran out of charity after the “PTSD sufferers aren’t special enough to magically get over it” bit, okay?).

Axis makes a comment about how he hopes Evil Timmy is still alive so he can murder the shit out of him himself. Charming fellow.

Meanwhile Demi Moore is worried because there’s no sign of life anywhere. Oh god, I think I remember this bit. It involved an even more ridiculous Deus ex Machina. Let’s see if I’m right.

After lots of descriptions of landscapes Demi starts making annoyingly vague references to “holes”. They eventually come across one: it’s a damn great pit in the earth, full of “steaming springs and luxuriant vegetation”. Demi gives a semi-mythological explanation as to where the things came from. It’s sort of interesting, but I’m not going to bother recapping it except to add that apparently there’s about three hundred of them and the Ravensbund call them “The Necklet”.

Axis makes yet another unfunny joke, and after a quick lunch break they move on to another glory hole, which is full of birds and such, and Demi says the Ravensbund are, essentially, complete idiots because they have access to these nice comfy places to live, but instead choose to live in the extreme north surrounded by ice and snow. For no reason.

And we just wasted an entire chapter on this. And no, the glory holes will never be seen again and will not be relevant to the plot. The next chapter is called “Urbeth’s Joke”, and yes – this means that exactly what I’m vaguely remembering from last time I read this book is going to happen. And it’ll be stupid. And don’t ask me why it’s called a “joke”, because it’s not the slightest bit funny.

Prepare to meet one of the more annoying characters in the series, too.

We open with even more descriptions of landscapes. Basically, it’s really fuck-off cold with lots of ice. Azhure responds to this by saying “It’s awesome.”

Yes, really. Too bad Axis doesn’t reply with something about how it’s also totally tubular. Couldn’t Azhure-Sue at least have said something like “it’s awe-inspiring”? Come on.

The company comes to a halt, and Demi Moore whips out a big shell trumpet and blows on it in the hopes of summoning his guys from out on the ice floes.

Nothing happens.

Four days pass, and nothing continues to happen. (So much like most of the rest of this book).

Eventually Demi gets woken up by some shouting, but when he gets out of bed all he finds is a Polar Bear. Oh, I’m sorry – an “icebear”. Real imaginative naming there, guys.

The bear is really fuck-off huge, and Demi and all the other Ravensbund kneel at the sight of it and Demi addresses it as “Urbeth”.

Urbeth, Ursus… yeah, I so see what you did there, author.

It’s the same one-eared bear Evil Timmy saw earlier on his way to meet up with Gorge. I told you she’d be important…ish.

Urbeth comes over to them, and then starts talking. Yup, Talking Bear. Because why not? Everyone bows except for Axis, and he wonders if he and Azhure should be genuflecting as well before Azhure arrogantly tells him they’re too important and special for that.

So Urbeth mauls the pair of them.

Yeah, in my dreams. Instead she just greets the pair of them, and she talks exactly like a human. I’m not a fan of that. In my opinion, talking animals should have a different “voice” to the human characters. Pronunciation, idioms, certain words they can’t or don’t use – anything to indicate that this is a non-human character speaking. Otherwise as far as I’m concerned, you might as well be writing about a thirty year old woman in a bear suit. Hell, she even uses the word “perchance”. Where exactly did she learn to talk like this anyway?

Demi asks where his people are, and Urbeth quickly establishes herself as a jerk by launching into a needlessly long and drawn-out story about what happened to them, and finally says they all died horribly.

And then it turns out she’s just fucking with him anyway.

Then she and Azhure start randomly talking about their offspring. For two pages. Azhure offers to take care of Urbeth’s cubs for a while in return for her telling them the truth, and apparently this is supposed to make her look like some sort of genius negotiator who’s really good with words. Or some bullshit like that; I really don’t care.

After what feels like half a century wasted on “clever” dialogue and obnoxious “characterisation” Urbeth finally asks Demi if he’s ready for “Urbeth’s joke”. I predict that said joke is not going to be in any way funny. She leads them to a place called – groan – “The DeadWood Forest”, which has never been seen or mentioned before. Along the way Axis asks who the hell she is and Suntory, Demi’s wife, says basically all they know is that she’s immortal and occasionally talks to the Ravensbund, and they worship her because they’re pretty sure she’d eat them if they didn’t. Azhure Sue just somehow knows that Urbeth is really just lonely and would like being treated as an equal, and then Urbeth burps “violently” in her sleep. Har har. The conversation ends with Demi and Suntory agreeing to become pals with Urbeth. God this is lazy ass shit. Don’t bother showing any of this or actually letting us get to know the characters – just have one of the Sues give you a shortcut. I actively cannot care about this shit.

The next morning they head off again, and then they get to the DeadPool DeadWood Forest Suntory is surprised to find out that the trees are alive rather than frozen, as they have been for basically forever. Urbeth explains that what actually happened was that the Ravensbund hung out on the ice until they were ready to die, and begged her to eat them and put them out of their misery. So she… uh, “swallowed them whole” and then spat them out, and this made the trees grow.

Whut.

She tells Demi she doesn’t like the trees and tells him to take them away. Everyone basically just stares blankly at her, as you would expect.

Demi invites her to be godmother to his unborn grandkid, and Urbeth likes that. She then proceeds to smack one of the trees with her paw, and they all break apart. And the missing Ravensbund are inside.

Hey, remember when I said this trilogy was completely batshit insane? Well here you go with bells on.

With that Urbeth leaves, having magically solved everyone’s problems for them. And the chapter ends with this entire useless subplot resolved for no effort.

You know, again.

I’m now at the 80% mark. Looks like we’re finally onto the home stretch.

*

The next chapter is called “The Cruel World”. I’m betting it won’t have much of anything to do with the actual content of the chapter, though. The two Sues decide to go to Talon Spike, and Axis says he’d like to explore the holes and such but oh well. Thus rendering the entire chapter spent looking at the things – you guessed it – entirely pointless. Demi tells him how great he is and invites him to come back some time, and Axis says maybe he’ll bring his son.

His son, singular.

No I am not going to let that go either.

Suntory gives them some fancy tea to take with them, and after some more dialogue the two Sues are about to leave. But then Rimmer shows up. He insists that they’re not leaving him behind, and we’re reminded that Veremund (remember that asshole?) gave him a compulsion to always keep an eye on Axis. You know, that little plot element thingy which has never become important and indeed only came up once during the “climactic” battle in the last book.

Azhure talks Axis into letting Mr Cardboard Cutout go with them, and then talks about how she can’t go with him on the Kill Gorge trip at the end, Because Prophecy, and besides, she’s promised to be with Rivkah for the birth. Of the brother Axis still hates for no very good reason. This of course causes him to snarl at Rimmer, and they finally leave. I still hate Axis’ guts.

Cut back to Demi, declaring that he has a promise to keep. He hops in his canoe and paddles off over the ocean. We get a big infodump about how the Ravensbund hunt seals and the various uses of whale meat, blubber and bone. So you’ve read an encyclopedia entry about Eskimos, author – whoop-dee-do. I’ve read the works of Scott O’Dell – you’re not telling me anything new.

Finally Demi opens up the box of, uh, opal ghosts and says this is their new home. They declare that “We love it!”, and promise to attack any skraelings they come across. And there’s another compeltely pointless subplot resolved for free. Couldn’t this have tied into Gorge’s defeat at the end or something? Ugh.

I’m particularly annoyed because all this could have been interesting, except that it comes out of nowhere, serves no purpose other than making the protagonists’ lives easier, and then disappears never to be seen again. It takes a particular kind of talent to make so many potentially cool things so completely useless and boring.

The next chapter is called “Finger of the Gods”. Basically, it’s Axis and Azhure travelling with the Sue Baby, who is still perfect and wonderful and adorable and not the least bit bothered by the whole kidnapping business.

Blah blah, description of landscapes, blah. It’s actually quite nice description as descriptions of useless background details go, but I’m still skipping over it. They eventually come in sign of Talon Spike. Blah blah, more travelling blah, and it occurs to me that back in the day this sort of thing was probably considered desirable. Because once upon a time, epic fantasy novels tended to be setting driven and focused. In other words the plot and characters were largely secondary and the plot just existed to showcase the setting. The modern fantasy reader like me, however, considers this sort of thing very passe – we want and expect plot/character driven books, and we get bored fast when we don’t get it.

Now, while a setting focused story can be good, here it doesn’t work. Because unlike Tolkein, Douglass hasn’t come up with a world that is either coherent or original. It’s just a lazy Euroclone with no consistent “human” culture, and the Icarii are basically just retooled Tolkien elves except horny and incestuous (NOT an improvement), while the Avar basically don’t exist (right at the end of the trilogy, and I still don’t know what the Banes actually do, and haven’t seen one use their supposed powers). I’m just not interested or invested in Tendendor Chicken With Rice. So what if it’s got some nice landscapes? Give me a reason to care. On top of that it’s abundantly clear that Douglass leans naturally towards character-driven storytelling, since most of what’s happened so far was attempted character development rather than plot. Except that she sucks ass at characterisation, so this only succeeds in being both boring and unpleasant. Paolini has the exact same problem – he naturally leans toward character, but his characterisation bites and he’s apparently incapable of writing a POV character who isn’t a horrible, narcissistic sociopath with the morals of pond slime. 

Our sociopathic heroes enter Talon Spike, where they blithely ditch Rimmer (so much for that subplot I guess), and then head up to the Assembly Chamber. There they find StarDrifter… uh… lying facedown on the floor. Why? Because. He gets up when he sees Axis coming and gives him a hug, and the two of them start dramatically bawling. Then he hugs Azhure as well, and Axis decides that he’s finally stopped wanting to get in her pants and now they’re, like, best pals.

I don’t know about you guys, but there’s no way in hell I’d be prepared to make friends with a guy who sexually assaulted me. Just sayin’.

After some mention of the Sue Baby, Axis has a sudden realisation – OMG, Azhure literally did fucking everything in this book! He straight-up says that she’s “our salvation”, and that it’s right there in the stupid prophecy about how a darker power will be the father of salvation. See? Now Azhure has taken over the fucking prophecy as well. There really is nothing she can’t warp into being All About Her.

After this StarDrifter describes how they burned all the dead Icarii, and then throws himself a pity-party as he finally accepts some responsibility for fathering Gorge. But then Axis immediately lets him off the hook by saying that his “simple lusts” are the reason why all the other, good stuff happened. Because he also fathered Axis, lah-dee-dah.

Then StarDrifter misquotes Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben:

“With great gain needs must also come pain”.

What a spectacularly awful piece of dialogue.

Axis makes another bad joke as he refers to StarDrifter “develop[ing] a conscience”. Thereby implying that he didn’t have one before. I agree.

After that the subject is dropped and StarDrifter thanks Azhure for Sue Ex Machina’ing the gryphons to death. (By being super sexxxay). Then FreeFall and EvenSong show up, and it’s revealed that they’ve gotten married at last. Whereupon Azhure “mischievously” tells FreeFall to “father a beautiful daughter for Caelum to love”.

Yup, not only does this trilogy promote and try to normalise incest, but now it’s apparently considered appropriate to make cute little jokes about it.

I swear to gods, Douglass was Marion Zimmer Bradley 2.0. I know I've said this before, but what the HELL? Mists of Avalon was all about trying to normalise rape, incest and child abuse, and this trilogy is doing exactly the same thing! Why has nobody called this out publicly? Because I googled it and found nothing.

Mercifully, at this point SpikeFeather shows up. He’s got RavenCrest’s jeweled necklace of office, and he formally offers it to FreeFall. And then – oh, for fuck’s sake.

And then FreeFall says he can’t take it, and offers it to Azhure, saying it’s hers by right because she’s WolfStar’s heir. You know, heir to the mass murderer the Icarii all hate. Seems legit. Azhure gives him a big lecture about how it’s not her job to rule the Icarii and he’s got to stop dodging his responsibilities. So FreeFall takes the necklace back and says it was all just a formality and of course he’ll be Talon.

Well that was necessary.

Axis makes a speech in which he grants FreeFall a whole bunch of land plus tithes and such. FreeFall formally accepts and swears “fealty” to the two Sues, and Axis puts the necklace on him. And that’s that over and done with.

Cut to that night, and everyone’s gone up onto a mountaintop to “reconsecrate Talon Spike”. Since when was it a holy place anyway?

The description of the ceremony goes on for several pages, and I’m not going to bother recapping it other than to say that everyone’s in white Jesus robes and Axis looks sooo hawt and manly in his. StarDrifter makes a big speech about his mother MorningStar and how great she was and how she was murdered, etc. He adds that he’s dedicating the place to her from now on, and Azhure thinks that “In daily life it was too easy [snip] to forget just how powerful StarDrifter was.”

I’ve been saying this forever, but I repeat – HOW is he “powerful”? How does this “power” manifest? What does it do? We’ve never seen him do anything other than use one quick and easy spell, way back in the first book! This is so stupid and lazy.

Next up FreeFall comes forward and needless to say he’s, like, really beautiful and looks like a god and has “white, white wings” (he must use Tide). This is still completely meaningless. He starts making a speech of his own about how the place is going to be repurposed as a centre of learning and art, since he’s moving his administration elsewhere, and as such it needs a new name.

Whereupon Axis interrupts him in the middle of his inaugural speech in order to choose the name for him.

Yes, that just happened. He interrupted his own cousin’s first speech as ruler. In order to tell him to use the name he chose instead of the one FreeFall selected himself in advance with StarDrifter’s help.

I think this could be the rudest thing Axis has done so far in the entire trilogy.

Needless to say there are no consequences for this appalling act of bad manners, and everyone instantly likes the new name.

It’s “Star Finger”.

Oh god… so... much... innuendo. Where do I even begin? Hell, why don’t you guys have a competition down in the comments section to see who can come up with the best perverted joke? There's a prize for the best entry!

StarDrifter sings a magic song thingy, and then Axis interrupts again, saying that StarDrifter has called on the Star Gods and that they’ll come. Now StarDrifter gets angry. Because this time it’s him being interrupted instead of Mr Nonentity, I guess. But he does what Axis tells him anyway, and Adam appears, and then Xanon, along with all the others as he says their names. StarDrifter “whispers” that he can’t call on the last two gods because they haven’t been named yet, but Adam basically tells him to search his feelings and know it to be true.

Both Axis and Azhure stand there looking “compassionate” (lolno), and StarDrifter calls on them as the goddess of the moon and the god of song. Azhure suddenly grows a halo (yes, really), and so does Axis. I thought he hadn’t actually gotten the godhood upgrade yet because Gorge was still alive. Continuity!!!

The Nine Star Gods (no relation to the Nine from the Elder Scrolls games, unfortunately) do some mystic thingy and bless the – snicker – Star Finger. Afterwards StarDrifter tells the two Sues that “I did not know, but, knowing you, I understand”. BARF. 

Cut to King and Queen Sue later on, sitting in the same spot they opened the last book on. They reminisce about the conversation they had back then, and then share some romantic dialogue about how they get to be immortal together. Axis promises to “come home to you”. As if that wasn’t a foregone conclusion. Can you imagine a book in which the prophecised hero gets as far as the Final Confrontation and actually DIES? Well I can now, and I want to read it.

Axis uses the word “bruited”, because apparently he’s been eating Thesaurus Flakes for breakfast again, and then Azhure has a bit of a cry. Then, to my complete horror, she actually suggests that she can make sure Rivkah’s baby dies at birth and make it look like a stillbirth, if Axis wants her to.

Yes, really.

They’re seriously mooting the idea of committing infanticide, with zero remorse. In fact, Axis’ only objection is that it would mean breaking Rivkah’s trust and she shouldn’t do that “for my sake”. Literally no mention of the fact that infanticide is, y’know, an incredibly evil thing to do.

I swear, just when I thought these two couldn’t possibly get any more vile and hateful they still manage to surprise me.

 

Comments

[vorpaltongue]

... What the fuck is it with the brother hating? I'm not sure how else to put it, but it looks like the Sunsoars have this thing of hating their brothers - Axis hated Borneheld, and hates Gorgrael and this unborn infant, DragonStar hated Caelum (for good reason), Caelum at least FEARED DragonStar...

Seriously... What the hell?


...And the innuendos. "Star Finger?" "Mah Jazz Hands and Star Fingers will keep you buzzin' all night, babe."

[epistler]

I'm beginning to suspect the author had a brother or brothers she didn't get along with. Either way the portrayal of families in this trilogy is all kinds of screwed up. Nobody seems to get along with their siblings at all, fathers are either absent or abusive, and mothers play blatant favourites with their kids. And men are allowed to be violent and abusive toward their significant others and everyone just ignores it.

"Mah Jazz Hands and Star Fingers will keep you buzzin' all night, babe."

Heheh, not bad. I'm disappointed that nobody else entered though. Where mah commenters at, huh?

[pipedreamno30]

All I got is Shirley Bassey launching into “Staaaaaar FINGERRRRRRRR!” the opening title to a whacked out fantasy sequel to a Bond flick

[epistler]

LOL

[pipedreamno30]

Or whilst I’m in musing mode, how about Drago moping around in the sequel decked out in jeans and a “I went to Star Finger and all I got was this stupid T-shirt”

Or to get more NSFW...

“Hey Star Drifter, got your eye on anyone at the moment?”
“And how! My blood wasn’t singing quite as loudly given she’s only my third cousin twice removed but I still gave her the ol’ star finger before we star danced all night in bed if you know what I mean wink wink nudge nudge say no more ehhhh?!”

[epistler]

You owe me a new keyboard because I just sprayed my drink all over the original. XD

And okay - you win the competition hands down. Your reward: a custom avatar made by me! Just give me some guidelines and I'll put one together in a jiffy! (I made the avatars for quite a few of our newer members, actually. Well okay, three of them).

[pipedreamno30]

Hahaha cheers! I’ll have a think and get back to you :)

[epistler]

Awesome!
If you're wondering, I made avatars for Bewdtamer, Hergrim, and Paul Pascalau. They joined up with no avatars and by way of a welcoming present I offered to make faces for them. :-)

[pipedreamno30]

How's about a russet coloured gryphon's head?

[epistler]

Oooh! Any text?

[pipedreamno30]

Sounds good, "First Flight" would be amazeballs but if it doesn't fit "Evanon" would be great too :)

[epistler]

Evanon being...?

[pipedreamno30]

The gryphon's name (all similarities between that and another three syllabled name starting with E completely coincidental)

[epistler]

Ah, right, I thought you were making a reference to something I haven't read/watched!
I'll see what I can do. ;-)

[epistler]

How's this?

[pipedreamno30]

Amazing, thanks so much!!

[epistler]

Yay!