People are probably wondering what the hell is going on with the Brisingr spork. Unfortunately ![]()
snarkbotanya has been delayed in her spork of the next chapter. Kind of... a lot. Rest assurred I've been kicking her backside in private and the chapter should be posted soonish.
For now - time for more Enchanter! Be very afraid.
The next chapter is still with Azhure, who’s getting ready to leave. She’s all sore from last night’s Sue Orgy (ick), and chatting with Rivkah. Rivkah knows what happened, and Azhure says she doesn’t really want to go back to Talon Spike because of StarDrifter. And I’m just going to read this as her saying she’s afraid he’ll sexually assault her again, because I would be.
Instead Azhure is going to do the sensible thing and get the hell out of Dodge. She earns some respect from me by saying she’s “heartily sick of this Prophecy”, and adds that she doesn’t want to get in Axis’ way. So she’s going with Rivkah, who thinks that Azhure wants to leave “before he had the chance to tear her soul apart”. Yes. Get away from him. He’s a violent misogynistic asshole who’s probably gonna cheat on you too if he gets the chance.
(Spoilers: He will).
Cut to the jackass himself, currently talking to his new underlings. Predictably, he’s in a foul mood. For some reason FarSight finds this surprising. He really must not have been paying attention.
Unfortunately, Ogden and Veremund are present, and they’re still “quirky” and “funny” (I need bigger sarcastic inverted commas). When Axis says he’s gonna send some guys to Sigholt with a message, they seriously chorus “we’ll go!” in unison. For some godsforsaken reason Axis finds all this terribly amusing and calls them “rascals” again. I really hope this is the book were they both die.
(Yes, the Sentinels are going to die. All of them. Knowing that is one of the things keeping me sane while having to put up with their bullshit “antics”).
Axis gives them permission, then says the Strike Force has to go back to Talon Spike for more training until Belial has “established a supply route strong enough to feed both his men and the Strike Force”. That’s… surprisingly sensible and realistic. Paolini should take notes. Unlike him, this author is aware that warfare – and especially medieval warfare – is often a slow business. Armies take a long time to move around and things have to be properly set up, plus you have to take the seasons and rationing into acount. All of which Axis covers here. Finally that PhD is showing.
Cut to the next scene, which – oh joy – is from the POVs of Ogden and Veremund. Fuck these guys, seriously. They bump into Rivkah and Azhure, and we’re again informed that they’re fascinated with Azhure and determined to pry into her personal business. Charming people. By the way, you’ll have noticed I never draw any distinction between the two of them and that’s because the author doesn’t either. The two of them are completely interchangeable.
Anyway, Rivkah asks if she and Azhure can go with them and they’re accepted. Azhure realises the route to Sigholt will take her close by her original home village, and we get what I’m about 80% sure is a word use flub as it’s stated that she “would be loathe to get that close”. Shouldn't that be "loath"? Even if it’s not incorrect, it’s still clunky as hell.
Ogden and Veremund say no, they’re going by some other route which is secret. Predictably Veremund addresses Azhure as “sweet lady” and makes patronising comments about how it’ll be great to have “such charming company to keep us amused”.
I really, really hope this is the book where he dies. (Straight guys reading this, take note: Talk like this to most women and you'll need her shoe removed from your arse shortly thereafter).
Naturally Rivkah finds all this very charming, and then – oh no– StarDrifter shows up. She tells him she’s leaving with Azhure and StarDrifter is all “aw shit, now I can’t sexually assault her any more!”. Just to make everything even more uncomfortable, Axis shows up as well. He’s noticed that Azhure’s been avoiding him since the – ahem – incident, and is all jealous and possessive. He goes to kiss Azhure purely in order to annoy StarDrifter, but – hah! – Azhure dodges and makes him look like an idiot with his lips hanging in the air. Azhure thinks about how she’s driven a wedge between the two of them and how the Prophecy can’t afford to have them “torn apart by jealousy over her”.
She wonders why the hell she didn’t just walk away from the pair of them last night. Because you were under the influence of Magic Rohypnol, that’s why. You can dress it up and call it “magic” all you like, but if it removes anybody’s ability to say no to sex, it’s a date rape drug and I’ll be damned if I’m calling it anything else.
Rivkah, bless her, announces that they’re leaving and adds that they’ve had enough of this Enchanter bullshit. StarDrifter says he’ll see her there, and Rivkah makes a catty remark about how it’s really Azhure he’s interested in seeing.
StarDrifter makes a move to kiss Azhure as well, but she avoids that too. Look asshole, she’s already made it clear that she’s not interested in you. Back the fuck off.
Since this is the sort of misogynistic bullshit story it is, Azhure is only worried about “alienating” StarDrifter and keeps her mouth shut in case she says anything “ill-considered”. Empowered woman my butt.
StarDrifter makes a little speech to Axis, telling him he’s managed to out-charm his daddy (what “charm”? This guy’s as charming as a brick to the face), and that Azhure “made her choice” (…no, she really didn’t), and it’s all good, no hard feelings bro.
Might I add, he says this in front of Azhure.
Axis hugs Daddy Rapist, and Azhure and Rivkah both have this “yeah, not buying it” reaction, which is actually rather amusing.
Not amusing in the slightest however is the next scene in which they finally leave and Ogden and Veremund keep “comically” bickering. And it’s the exact same argument they had last time, except now they’re arguing about who brought their magically appearing white donkeys. It wasn’t funny last time, and it’s not funny this time either.
Excuse me – I’m just going to take a moment to fantacise about blowing their heads off with a shotgun.
Mmm, feels good.
Cut back to Axis, who is also saying his goodbyes. MorningStar is there, and she’s sulking because she didn’t get with him last night. You are sick, MorningStar. Sick, sick, sick. And so was the author for writing you.
Axis, meanwhile, plans to learn from the Charonites (what precisely are they gonna teach him? It’s never come up), and is going to ask them about the rogue SunSoar enchanter who trained him and Gorgrael. MorningStar points out that someone that powerful can disguise himself, and it could be anybody. Even someone very close to Axis. What is this, The Thing?
This isn’t foreshadowing anything, by the way. The culprit isn’t any of the important named characters we’ve met. When you do find out who it is, your reaction is going to be either “oh, okay, whatever” or quite possibly “…wait, who was that again?”
Cut to some time later as Axis enters the waterways StarDrifter and co. used in the last book as a shortcut. There he meets the nameless Ferryman and calls in the favour Rivkah got from him before. He asks the guy to teach him everything he knows and the Ferryman is like “yeah, sure thing bro, that’s the whole reason I’m still alive”.
You just know you’re dealing with Epic Sue when certain characters are only alive to serve their interests. I mean really.
The next chapter goes to Faraday, who’s angsting about that vision she had where Axis and Borneheld fight to the death.
Poor, poor Borneheld. (No really, when you see how the guy dies you’re gonna feel extremely sorry for him too).
She’s now in the Chamber of Moons, as she and Borneheld arrived at the capital four days ago (thankyou author, for skipping over the long boring journey to get there). King Priam, Lord of Afros, is there bickering with Borneheld. He yells at him for losing the battle against the Skraelings, and adds that he heard Borneheld only escaped “through Axis’ bravery”.
Because as usual it’s all Axis, Axis, Axis. Channel Axis: All Axis, All the Time. I really wish more authors realised that the more your characters fawn over the hero, the more readers are going to dislike him. Quite frankly every time someone starts rabbiting on about how "brave" and "noble" Axis is, the more I want him to die horribly.
Naturally Borneheld is pissed off, and says Axis has allied himself with the Forbidden, and Priam answers that apparently Axis believes everyone should ally with them, and then calls Axis his nephew. There follows a classic example of bad writing:
"Faraday, as everyone else in the room, took a huge, incredulous breath. Priam had never publicly acknowledged Axis as his nephew previously!"
This is absolutely textbook bad writing. “Telling”, forced “emotion”, use of an exclamation mark in prose… it’s just bad, bad, bad. It's worse than Paolini levels of bad, quite honestly.
Priam then invokes the stupid Prophecy, and Faraday is all “yay, if the King allies with Axis I can have my wuvvums back!” You poor fool.
She sees Gilbert and Jayme whispering and thinks “contemptuously” about how much the Seneschal sucks and how soon they’ll lose their power and “the Mother and the Star Gods [will] once more spread their joy over this wondrous land”.
First of all, this is religious intolerance. You used to be a believer in Artor yourself, Faraday – remember that? And so was your mother. Whether you think it’s true or not doesn’t change the fact that this is people’s god you’re talking about, and it very likely brings them joy and meaning in their lives. But no, now you’re arrogantly convinced that you’ve found the correct religion, all that can go die and you’d be quite happy to see the entire belief system burned to the ground just because you don’t like it.
But making everyone bow down to a different god you do approve of? Yeah, that’s just fine and dandy.
And second, how the hell does Faraday know anything about the Star Gods? We barely know anything about them. For all you know the Star Gods demand human sacrifices every week!
So you can shut your self-righteous, ignorant piehole right now, Faraday. And I say that as a lifelong atheist.
Anyway, Borneheld blows his stack and Priam kicks him out, saying that if he’s not going to be reasonable and join the Axis Fan Club, Priam’s gonna reconsider “my choice of both WarLord and heir!”.
Borneheld storms off, and on the way out Priam calls after Faraday and says the Queen would like to have lunch with her tomorrow.
The moment they’re outside Borneheld flies into an even bigger rage and yells about how Priam’s off his rocker. He also yells at Faraday, who snaps back that she only cares about The Good of the People, as opposed to his power-hungry ass. Borneheld calls her a sanctimonious bitch, and I want to give him a medal for that.
Then Gilbert shows up and says he wants to talk about what they discussed back at their last meeting, hint, hint. Borneheld immediately cheers up and sends a suspicious Faraday away. She finds a window to look out of, and thinks about how Priam has made it clear he’s considering making Axis his heir, and then she cries some “tears of hope”. She’s this close to breaking into a rendition of “Someday my Prince Will Come”, I swear.
Boy is she in for a nasty shock.
snarkbotanya has been delayed in her spork of the next chapter. Kind of... a lot. Rest assurred I've been kicking her backside in private and the chapter should be posted soonish.For now - time for more Enchanter! Be very afraid.
The next chapter is still with Azhure, who’s getting ready to leave. She’s all sore from last night’s Sue Orgy (ick), and chatting with Rivkah. Rivkah knows what happened, and Azhure says she doesn’t really want to go back to Talon Spike because of StarDrifter. And I’m just going to read this as her saying she’s afraid he’ll sexually assault her again, because I would be.
Instead Azhure is going to do the sensible thing and get the hell out of Dodge. She earns some respect from me by saying she’s “heartily sick of this Prophecy”, and adds that she doesn’t want to get in Axis’ way. So she’s going with Rivkah, who thinks that Azhure wants to leave “before he had the chance to tear her soul apart”. Yes. Get away from him. He’s a violent misogynistic asshole who’s probably gonna cheat on you too if he gets the chance.
(Spoilers: He will).
Cut to the jackass himself, currently talking to his new underlings. Predictably, he’s in a foul mood. For some reason FarSight finds this surprising. He really must not have been paying attention.
Unfortunately, Ogden and Veremund are present, and they’re still “quirky” and “funny” (I need bigger sarcastic inverted commas). When Axis says he’s gonna send some guys to Sigholt with a message, they seriously chorus “we’ll go!” in unison. For some godsforsaken reason Axis finds all this terribly amusing and calls them “rascals” again. I really hope this is the book were they both die.
(Yes, the Sentinels are going to die. All of them. Knowing that is one of the things keeping me sane while having to put up with their bullshit “antics”).
Axis gives them permission, then says the Strike Force has to go back to Talon Spike for more training until Belial has “established a supply route strong enough to feed both his men and the Strike Force”. That’s… surprisingly sensible and realistic. Paolini should take notes. Unlike him, this author is aware that warfare – and especially medieval warfare – is often a slow business. Armies take a long time to move around and things have to be properly set up, plus you have to take the seasons and rationing into acount. All of which Axis covers here. Finally that PhD is showing.
Cut to the next scene, which – oh joy – is from the POVs of Ogden and Veremund. Fuck these guys, seriously. They bump into Rivkah and Azhure, and we’re again informed that they’re fascinated with Azhure and determined to pry into her personal business. Charming people. By the way, you’ll have noticed I never draw any distinction between the two of them and that’s because the author doesn’t either. The two of them are completely interchangeable.
Anyway, Rivkah asks if she and Azhure can go with them and they’re accepted. Azhure realises the route to Sigholt will take her close by her original home village, and we get what I’m about 80% sure is a word use flub as it’s stated that she “would be loathe to get that close”. Shouldn't that be "loath"? Even if it’s not incorrect, it’s still clunky as hell.
Ogden and Veremund say no, they’re going by some other route which is secret. Predictably Veremund addresses Azhure as “sweet lady” and makes patronising comments about how it’ll be great to have “such charming company to keep us amused”.
I really, really hope this is the book where he dies. (Straight guys reading this, take note: Talk like this to most women and you'll need her shoe removed from your arse shortly thereafter).
Naturally Rivkah finds all this very charming, and then – oh no– StarDrifter shows up. She tells him she’s leaving with Azhure and StarDrifter is all “aw shit, now I can’t sexually assault her any more!”. Just to make everything even more uncomfortable, Axis shows up as well. He’s noticed that Azhure’s been avoiding him since the – ahem – incident, and is all jealous and possessive. He goes to kiss Azhure purely in order to annoy StarDrifter, but – hah! – Azhure dodges and makes him look like an idiot with his lips hanging in the air. Azhure thinks about how she’s driven a wedge between the two of them and how the Prophecy can’t afford to have them “torn apart by jealousy over her”.
She wonders why the hell she didn’t just walk away from the pair of them last night. Because you were under the influence of Magic Rohypnol, that’s why. You can dress it up and call it “magic” all you like, but if it removes anybody’s ability to say no to sex, it’s a date rape drug and I’ll be damned if I’m calling it anything else.
Rivkah, bless her, announces that they’re leaving and adds that they’ve had enough of this Enchanter bullshit. StarDrifter says he’ll see her there, and Rivkah makes a catty remark about how it’s really Azhure he’s interested in seeing.
StarDrifter makes a move to kiss Azhure as well, but she avoids that too. Look asshole, she’s already made it clear that she’s not interested in you. Back the fuck off.
Since this is the sort of misogynistic bullshit story it is, Azhure is only worried about “alienating” StarDrifter and keeps her mouth shut in case she says anything “ill-considered”. Empowered woman my butt.
StarDrifter makes a little speech to Axis, telling him he’s managed to out-charm his daddy (what “charm”? This guy’s as charming as a brick to the face), and that Azhure “made her choice” (…no, she really didn’t), and it’s all good, no hard feelings bro.
Might I add, he says this in front of Azhure.
Axis hugs Daddy Rapist, and Azhure and Rivkah both have this “yeah, not buying it” reaction, which is actually rather amusing.
Not amusing in the slightest however is the next scene in which they finally leave and Ogden and Veremund keep “comically” bickering. And it’s the exact same argument they had last time, except now they’re arguing about who brought their magically appearing white donkeys. It wasn’t funny last time, and it’s not funny this time either.
Excuse me – I’m just going to take a moment to fantacise about blowing their heads off with a shotgun.
Mmm, feels good.
Cut back to Axis, who is also saying his goodbyes. MorningStar is there, and she’s sulking because she didn’t get with him last night. You are sick, MorningStar. Sick, sick, sick. And so was the author for writing you.
Axis, meanwhile, plans to learn from the Charonites (what precisely are they gonna teach him? It’s never come up), and is going to ask them about the rogue SunSoar enchanter who trained him and Gorgrael. MorningStar points out that someone that powerful can disguise himself, and it could be anybody. Even someone very close to Axis. What is this, The Thing?
This isn’t foreshadowing anything, by the way. The culprit isn’t any of the important named characters we’ve met. When you do find out who it is, your reaction is going to be either “oh, okay, whatever” or quite possibly “…wait, who was that again?”
Cut to some time later as Axis enters the waterways StarDrifter and co. used in the last book as a shortcut. There he meets the nameless Ferryman and calls in the favour Rivkah got from him before. He asks the guy to teach him everything he knows and the Ferryman is like “yeah, sure thing bro, that’s the whole reason I’m still alive”.
You just know you’re dealing with Epic Sue when certain characters are only alive to serve their interests. I mean really.
The next chapter goes to Faraday, who’s angsting about that vision she had where Axis and Borneheld fight to the death.
Poor, poor Borneheld. (No really, when you see how the guy dies you’re gonna feel extremely sorry for him too).
She’s now in the Chamber of Moons, as she and Borneheld arrived at the capital four days ago (thankyou author, for skipping over the long boring journey to get there). King Priam, Lord of Afros, is there bickering with Borneheld. He yells at him for losing the battle against the Skraelings, and adds that he heard Borneheld only escaped “through Axis’ bravery”.
Because as usual it’s all Axis, Axis, Axis. Channel Axis: All Axis, All the Time. I really wish more authors realised that the more your characters fawn over the hero, the more readers are going to dislike him. Quite frankly every time someone starts rabbiting on about how "brave" and "noble" Axis is, the more I want him to die horribly.
Naturally Borneheld is pissed off, and says Axis has allied himself with the Forbidden, and Priam answers that apparently Axis believes everyone should ally with them, and then calls Axis his nephew. There follows a classic example of bad writing:
"Faraday, as everyone else in the room, took a huge, incredulous breath. Priam had never publicly acknowledged Axis as his nephew previously!"
This is absolutely textbook bad writing. “Telling”, forced “emotion”, use of an exclamation mark in prose… it’s just bad, bad, bad. It's worse than Paolini levels of bad, quite honestly.
Priam then invokes the stupid Prophecy, and Faraday is all “yay, if the King allies with Axis I can have my wuvvums back!” You poor fool.
She sees Gilbert and Jayme whispering and thinks “contemptuously” about how much the Seneschal sucks and how soon they’ll lose their power and “the Mother and the Star Gods [will] once more spread their joy over this wondrous land”.
First of all, this is religious intolerance. You used to be a believer in Artor yourself, Faraday – remember that? And so was your mother. Whether you think it’s true or not doesn’t change the fact that this is people’s god you’re talking about, and it very likely brings them joy and meaning in their lives. But no, now you’re arrogantly convinced that you’ve found the correct religion, all that can go die and you’d be quite happy to see the entire belief system burned to the ground just because you don’t like it.
But making everyone bow down to a different god you do approve of? Yeah, that’s just fine and dandy.
And second, how the hell does Faraday know anything about the Star Gods? We barely know anything about them. For all you know the Star Gods demand human sacrifices every week!
So you can shut your self-righteous, ignorant piehole right now, Faraday. And I say that as a lifelong atheist.
Anyway, Borneheld blows his stack and Priam kicks him out, saying that if he’s not going to be reasonable and join the Axis Fan Club, Priam’s gonna reconsider “my choice of both WarLord and heir!”.
Borneheld storms off, and on the way out Priam calls after Faraday and says the Queen would like to have lunch with her tomorrow.
The moment they’re outside Borneheld flies into an even bigger rage and yells about how Priam’s off his rocker. He also yells at Faraday, who snaps back that she only cares about The Good of the People, as opposed to his power-hungry ass. Borneheld calls her a sanctimonious bitch, and I want to give him a medal for that.
Then Gilbert shows up and says he wants to talk about what they discussed back at their last meeting, hint, hint. Borneheld immediately cheers up and sends a suspicious Faraday away. She finds a window to look out of, and thinks about how Priam has made it clear he’s considering making Axis his heir, and then she cries some “tears of hope”. She’s this close to breaking into a rendition of “Someday my Prince Will Come”, I swear.
Boy is she in for a nasty shock.