(no subject)
Mar. 4th, 2010 11:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
impyMy level of masochism is rising, though to be fair, I did not bring this entirely upon myself. When at the library during our last visit, Mums pointed out the new Merry Gentry book. Cass had begun reading it and she needed someone to commiserate with, so I decided I'd read it next.
Yeaaaaaaaah. Three pages in and I realized that for the most part, I don't really care all that much. Seems a bit odd since I like the Merry-verse more than Anita's (because while the joke is that Merry and Anita are the same character, they aren't. I think they're rapidly blurring together for their author, but I can still pretend that if the two met, Merry would be horrified by how much Anita lies to herself and the way she treats her gaggle of interchangeable boytoys.) but I couldn't really muster up any enthusiasm for the book. Possibly because Cass was bitching about it and I'd heard that a character I sort of liked (as much as one can like anyone on the B/C-list, I guess) suffered a serious case of character assasination.
It was worse than I feared. My pain, let me share it with you.
First and most damning: Barinthus goes off the goddamned deep end. At first little comments are made about how Barinthus seems to be taking over command but that Doyle doesn't really seem to see it yet, and it'll be (theoretically) interesting when he catches on. Then Barinthus flips his shit over... I don't even know what the hell starts this mess. Something about him and Essus being lovers back in the day before B ended up under the crazy thumb of Andais. That part I followed. The logic given was as sound as logic in these books ever is.
But WHY does he have issues with Frost? Because Merry threw the Unseelie throne away for Frost's life? Because Doyle not only LET her but did the same damn thing? THIS could be interesting, but instead of being frustrated and reacting semi-normally, he gets pissed at Galen when little G manages to bespell big B. B throws him into a wall and there's a lot of grandstanding in front of some faceless female guards, one of whom just went nuts a little while ago, off-camera. (Leading little G and Merry to explain "trigger events" to the audience. I kinda figure your average Merry reader could at least infer what a trigger was without Galen being seen as surprisingly intelligent by the other characters.) So, B goes nutty, people are all, let's taunt the big, bad former sea god. Cuz that's absolutely brilliant when you're staying at a motherfuckingbeachhouse.
For a moment, even as I wondered when someone would ask why the hell he was being bespelled to act so stupid-crazy, I hoped he'd drag the whole damn house into the sea. I mean, we keep hearing how the sidhe won't drown, they'll just wish they could. The only one I honestly give more than half a damn about at any given time is Rhys.
And then he taunts Barinthus and I'm still not sure why we needed him to go crazy. Maybe this becomes clear later on. Or maybe LKH needs someone to rail against lest she seems like the craziest fuck in the room? She killed Cel off and Andais is going mad back in the Unseelie court, so we need someone to yell at and flaunt Our TWU LUV in front of? Why?
Merry ain't gonne rule with blood to begin with. Fertility goddess. Repeatedly stated. In this book alone.
Which brings us to our second issue: All the overused cliches and phrases and things that let you know you're reading a Merry book? Cease being cute when there's nothing to connect them to one another. It's an endless parade of hairstyles being discusses, eyes being admired, "what look do you want to see on my face?" right before "so wet, so tight" sex scenes (as another aside, I'd buy M being able to do this trick, but do I need to hear it every damn sex scene in either series? NO. NO I DO NOT. STOP IT, NOW, LKH!) There's a chapter that is basically nothing but "cannon fodder and their hair/eyes/clothes." I think it's the one that leads to Galen being thrown into the wall. It's painful.
Problem the third: Some of this stuff should have seriously been edited out. I don't know how true the rumors of LKH no longer being edited are, but how many people couldn't figure out that "I'd move the Summerlands themselves to _accomplish something, I don't remember what, it's not important_" is the same as "Move Heaven and Earth"? Did I need you to ruin your semi nifty little tirade by informing me in the clumsiest way possible that the Summerlands are like, btw, totally the faerie version of Heaven? YEAH. I got that.
This: They made a pile around him like petals torn from an impatient flower.
...I guess the imagery we're going for is the after effect of "he loves me, he loves me not" or a flower that's spontaneously lost all or most of its petals, but... I still don't get this. Is this a phrase I'm just wholly unfamiliar with?
This: I would say apologies, but we're both so old that that's an insult, so what do I say, that the sight of the princess naked distracted me from anything you could say?
For fuck's sake, we're 141 pages into this mess and we've had it hammered home more times than Merry's had sex in the entire freakin' series that if you say sorry or thank you to the fae here it's a freakin' insult. WHO THE FUCK.... *throws book across the room in annoyance*
Seriously. I get it. You get it. The slow kids on the short bus get it. Even. Anita. Would. Get. It.
Still, earlier when Rhys makes coffee and offers it to Merry and she reminds him that she's preggers and no caffeine for her, he apologizes to her and there's no big thing about it.
Earlier I mentioned one of the female guards went cuckoo. Someone (Ivi, I think) grabbed her around the waist as that's apparently his thing for his fuckbuddies, and she freaked out due to memories of what Cel and his other guards used to do. Much is made of how everyone else goes to see her, but then Merry stays behind so she and Sholto can screw. Why? Shouldn't Merry be trying to, I dunno, make nice with someone who is staying with her and, oh yeah, helping to guard her royal ass? But no. Not even a smidge of tentacle sex makes this better for me.
On the flipside, there's at least one semi decent plot point made: Andais and most of the others in her line did not begin their reign mad. They twisted over time. So some of the guards wonder if perhaps Merry would be the same way. Merry then takes it a step further and wonders how her children will be.
For one glorious second I imagined them turning out just like Cel and it was fantastic.
(Mainly because I then crossed Anita over and had mini!not!Cel kill her and most of her entourage.
Conclusion thus far?
Oi.
Yeaaaaaaaah. Three pages in and I realized that for the most part, I don't really care all that much. Seems a bit odd since I like the Merry-verse more than Anita's (because while the joke is that Merry and Anita are the same character, they aren't. I think they're rapidly blurring together for their author, but I can still pretend that if the two met, Merry would be horrified by how much Anita lies to herself and the way she treats her gaggle of interchangeable boytoys.) but I couldn't really muster up any enthusiasm for the book. Possibly because Cass was bitching about it and I'd heard that a character I sort of liked (as much as one can like anyone on the B/C-list, I guess) suffered a serious case of character assasination.
It was worse than I feared. My pain, let me share it with you.
First and most damning: Barinthus goes off the goddamned deep end. At first little comments are made about how Barinthus seems to be taking over command but that Doyle doesn't really seem to see it yet, and it'll be (theoretically) interesting when he catches on. Then Barinthus flips his shit over... I don't even know what the hell starts this mess. Something about him and Essus being lovers back in the day before B ended up under the crazy thumb of Andais. That part I followed. The logic given was as sound as logic in these books ever is.
But WHY does he have issues with Frost? Because Merry threw the Unseelie throne away for Frost's life? Because Doyle not only LET her but did the same damn thing? THIS could be interesting, but instead of being frustrated and reacting semi-normally, he gets pissed at Galen when little G manages to bespell big B. B throws him into a wall and there's a lot of grandstanding in front of some faceless female guards, one of whom just went nuts a little while ago, off-camera. (Leading little G and Merry to explain "trigger events" to the audience. I kinda figure your average Merry reader could at least infer what a trigger was without Galen being seen as surprisingly intelligent by the other characters.) So, B goes nutty, people are all, let's taunt the big, bad former sea god. Cuz that's absolutely brilliant when you're staying at a motherfuckingbeachhouse.
For a moment, even as I wondered when someone would ask why the hell he was being bespelled to act so stupid-crazy, I hoped he'd drag the whole damn house into the sea. I mean, we keep hearing how the sidhe won't drown, they'll just wish they could. The only one I honestly give more than half a damn about at any given time is Rhys.
And then he taunts Barinthus and I'm still not sure why we needed him to go crazy. Maybe this becomes clear later on. Or maybe LKH needs someone to rail against lest she seems like the craziest fuck in the room? She killed Cel off and Andais is going mad back in the Unseelie court, so we need someone to yell at and flaunt Our TWU LUV in front of? Why?
Merry ain't gonne rule with blood to begin with. Fertility goddess. Repeatedly stated. In this book alone.
Which brings us to our second issue: All the overused cliches and phrases and things that let you know you're reading a Merry book? Cease being cute when there's nothing to connect them to one another. It's an endless parade of hairstyles being discusses, eyes being admired, "what look do you want to see on my face?" right before "so wet, so tight" sex scenes (as another aside, I'd buy M being able to do this trick, but do I need to hear it every damn sex scene in either series? NO. NO I DO NOT. STOP IT, NOW, LKH!) There's a chapter that is basically nothing but "cannon fodder and their hair/eyes/clothes." I think it's the one that leads to Galen being thrown into the wall. It's painful.
Problem the third: Some of this stuff should have seriously been edited out. I don't know how true the rumors of LKH no longer being edited are, but how many people couldn't figure out that "I'd move the Summerlands themselves to _accomplish something, I don't remember what, it's not important_" is the same as "Move Heaven and Earth"? Did I need you to ruin your semi nifty little tirade by informing me in the clumsiest way possible that the Summerlands are like, btw, totally the faerie version of Heaven? YEAH. I got that.
This: They made a pile around him like petals torn from an impatient flower.
...I guess the imagery we're going for is the after effect of "he loves me, he loves me not" or a flower that's spontaneously lost all or most of its petals, but... I still don't get this. Is this a phrase I'm just wholly unfamiliar with?
This: I would say apologies, but we're both so old that that's an insult, so what do I say, that the sight of the princess naked distracted me from anything you could say?
For fuck's sake, we're 141 pages into this mess and we've had it hammered home more times than Merry's had sex in the entire freakin' series that if you say sorry or thank you to the fae here it's a freakin' insult. WHO THE FUCK.... *throws book across the room in annoyance*
Seriously. I get it. You get it. The slow kids on the short bus get it. Even. Anita. Would. Get. It.
Still, earlier when Rhys makes coffee and offers it to Merry and she reminds him that she's preggers and no caffeine for her, he apologizes to her and there's no big thing about it.
Earlier I mentioned one of the female guards went cuckoo. Someone (Ivi, I think) grabbed her around the waist as that's apparently his thing for his fuckbuddies, and she freaked out due to memories of what Cel and his other guards used to do. Much is made of how everyone else goes to see her, but then Merry stays behind so she and Sholto can screw. Why? Shouldn't Merry be trying to, I dunno, make nice with someone who is staying with her and, oh yeah, helping to guard her royal ass? But no. Not even a smidge of tentacle sex makes this better for me.
On the flipside, there's at least one semi decent plot point made: Andais and most of the others in her line did not begin their reign mad. They twisted over time. So some of the guards wonder if perhaps Merry would be the same way. Merry then takes it a step further and wonders how her children will be.
For one glorious second I imagined them turning out just like Cel and it was fantastic.
(Mainly because I then crossed Anita over and had mini!not!Cel kill her and most of her entourage.
Conclusion thus far?
Oi.
