[JURACAN walks into his apartment to find a MASKED MAN (MM) at his desk.]
Juracan: Who the hell are you?
MM: Who I am isn’t important. What is important is what I can do for you.
Juracan: I don’t follow.
MM: [opens laptop] According to your profile on ImpishIdea, you hope to one day rule the world?
Juracan: Well yeah, doesn’t everyone?
MM: Not really. But I can give you the knowledge you need to do it.
Juracan: Yeah, sure. Now could you please leave my apartment asshole? [pulls out Swiss Army knife and fumbles with it until blade finally comes out]
MM: [snaps fingers, and knife becomes broccoli]
Juracan: GAH GREEN VEGETABLES [throws aside] How’d you do that?
MM: Let’s just say I have my ways.
Juracan: Fine. But what you do want from me?
MM: All I need from you is… a sporking.
Juracan: Seriously, that’s it?
MM: Yes.
Juracan: I can do that.
MM: Exactly.
Juracan: So what do you want me to spork exactly? Another Twilight clone, an awful fantasy novel, or something like that?
MM: Something like that, yes…
Juracan: …
MM: …
Juracan: …there’s something you’re not telling me, isn’t there?
MM: The book I want you to spork is not only bad, but it is boring, offensive, and mind-numbingly stupid.
Juracan: …I’m not sure why I should agree to this—
MM: Also I’ll make the Wi-Fi in this apartment not suck.
Juracan: Deal! Wait, what book?
MM: Toolateyoualreadyacceptedsosorry! [disappears with a thunderclap]
Juracan: Well it can’t be that ba—
Juracan: NOOOOOO [runs to door, finds it locked] DAMN YOU UNNAMED MASKED MAN!
***
Since I’m stuck here, I might as well get started.
Right, so as you know from my article on the previous book, I am not a huge fan of Angelopolis by Danielle Trussoni. Whereas Angelology was an okay mystery and urban fantasy that mostly did not hold up due to not being all that well thought out, its sequel cranked up the stupid by not continuing the interesting plot threads and throwing all kinds of insane conspiracies at the reader. It’s a bad book, with a bad plot, unmemorable characters, and a setting that doesn’t make sense and sometimes contradicts the previous book.
I should warn you guys: at first, this book is just going to sound boring. But don’t worry, the Crazy Train will get going once we get into the real meat of this book, and you’ll really see what I’m talking about.
Let’s get started, shall we?
RECAP: You can find most of the important bits in my review here, but it basically goes like this: nephilim, the descendants of a group of angels called the Watchers who went rogue, secretly ruled the world and live among us. Our villains were the Grigori family, a nephilim family of great influence and blondness, mostly headed by Percival Grigori who had a mysterious illness. The society of angelologists studies angelic beings and hopes to find a way to free humanity from the control of the nephilim. Back in the day they found the cave where the Watchers were trapped. In the modern day of the late nineties, Evangeline the nun and Verlaine the… kind of boring guy… find out about the conspiracy and get wrapped up in it. We find out that Evangeline is descended from Percival Grigori on her mother’s side, and Verlaine becomes an angelologist, and Percival gets what’s coming to him. Also, there was some business with Saint Gabriel’s harp, but we’ve kind of forgotten about that for the plot of this book, so… yeah…
The book opens with a quote:
“And she began to speak to me—so gently and softly—with angelic voice.”
—Dante, Inferno
Well technically his full name is Dante Alighieri, and I don’t understand why no one ever bothers to use his last name, but… yes, that’s more or less a correct quote. It’s from the second Canto, in case you were wondering. It also doesn’t have much to do with the story, as far as I can tell—it’s from Vergil telling Alighieri how Beatrice appeared to him and sent him to the poet. There’s not really anything relating to the Divine Comedy relating to the plot or anything, it’s just… there because Trussoni likes it, I guess?
And now we get our prologue. Now in these books the chapters aren’t titled or numbered, we just get a short statement of where we are:
33 Champ de Mars, seventh arrondissement, Paris, 1983
That’s…. oddly specific…
I mean, I wrote a story recently that took place in Aberdeen, Scotland, and I traced the events of the story throughout different streets and such for myself, so I knew what was going on where. But I didn’t mark addresses in the actual story itself, because… you know, it’s fiction, and you don’t need all the details. But to each her or his own, I guess?
The scientist examined the girl, his fingers pressing into her skin. She felt his touch against her shoulder blades, the knobs of her spine, the flat of her back.
…this book makes me uncomfortable in the first line.
So this unnamed scientist is examining the unnamed girl with “deliberate, clinical” motions, “as if he expected to find something wrong with her.” Or, I’m guessing, he’s an angelologist examining her to see if she has any traits of an angelic being. Of course, if we got names or any indication of the girl’s age, we’d be more invested in this, but as it is we’re just getting a minor event that happened in the past and not any of its significance. We’re just being creeped out for no reason.
[HINT: It’s probably Evangeline, our main character from the last book.]
The girl’s mother had told her to do as the scientist asked, and so she endured the prodding in silence: When he twisted a tourniquet around her arm she did not resist; when he traced the sinuous path of her vein with the tip of a needle she held still…
First, that colon: its placement makes me uncomfortable. If you needed to start a new sentence, why don’t you just start a new sentence instead of using a colon?
Second: er… what kind of scientist is this guy that he’s tracing the “sinuous path of her vein with the tip of a needle”? I cut out of the sentence before he actually drew blood, but this is described in an awful lot of detail for something as simple as drawing blood. When you get a needle put in you, does your doctor trace your veins with it? If you said ‘yes’, I recommend switching doctors.
Now in case you missed from my review of the last book, when it comes to angels, Nephilim and other angelic beings, the angelologists isn’t usually hampered by little things such as morality, or ethics. So no, the idea that they’d hired a sketchy-ass scientist to perform a study on a little girl isn’t completely out of the question for these guys. It’s par for the course.
But I feel right now as if Trussoni’s trying too hard—I get it, the guy’s a creepy scientist. But that’s not really that frightening after a bit. This guy shows up later, and acts pretty much how’d you expect him too from this scene: a creep. There’s nothing interesting about this character. He’s just there to be creepy.
Imagine if the scene had been started like this: the scientist meets the girl and her mother before the examination, and acts like a completely normal and not sketchy human being until he begins studying her. There! Already, it’s more unsettling and shows a more complex character!
[sigh] Let’s move on then.
There’s something about how the girl “felt a presence watching over her, as if a spirit had descended to guard her” when she sees sunlight through the windows, but given that there’s no clarity as to whether that’s the case. I mean, this is a book with angelic beings in it, but they tend to not have any sort of metaphysical presence—they are essentially, people with wings and superpowers. So if an angel was in the room, you’d know.
Now the girl finds it comfortable to think of her mother while this creep is taking her blood, so she thinks of all the stories her mother told her.
Her mother liked to tell her stories of enchanted kingdoms and sleeping beauties and brave knights ready to fight for good; she spoke of gods who transformed into swans and beautiful boys who blossomed into flowers and women who grew into trees…
Hang on—“Leda and the swan?” That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it? Look, I was into Greek mythology since a young age, but I didn’t hear that story until I was into my preteens because that’s not generally the kind of story people tell their kids. For those who don’t know: Zeus turns into a swan and seduces Leda. Most artistic portrayals tend to have a naked Leda embracing a swan (which is why I’m not including any of those images here).
There are Greek myths you can censor pretty well, but I’m not sure how you can tell the story of Leda and the Swan without at some point implying that a woman Did the Do with a bird.
There’s also the fact that now we’re getting the story filtered through the girl’s point of view. So was it always that way? Was this kid thinking of the “sinuous path of her vein” earlier on the page? Because that’s pretty poetic for some who is… I dunno, because you didn’t give us her age! But I assume she’s pretty young.
In every fairy tale, the princess woke and the swan transformed back into Zeus and the knight overcame evil. In a moment, with a wave of a wand or the casting of a spell, the nightmare ended and a new era began.
Except… thematically this has nothing to do with what’s going on. I guess that the angels having children with humans is reminiscent of the demigods of Greek mythology; but other than that, I don’t see the reason to bring any of this up. This isn’t a fairy tale type of story, or a mythological one; it’s a mystery conspiracy novel with heavy Old Testament overtones. If fairy tale or Greek mythology were the thematic feels you were going for Trussoni… it didn’t work.
And with that bit the prologue ends! It’s not particularly noteworthy, and is honestly kind of generic. Join me when we hop into the novel proper with our first chapter (which isn’t labeled) and the first part (which is?). We’ll talk more when we get there.
yaay, a Ñämé on 30 June 2014, 22:25 said:
…
So.
Doctor draws blood. Greek mythos. End Prologue.
Well. That’s unnecessary.
The Smith of Lie on 1 July 2014, 07:58 said:
That cover makes me suspicious. Sonehow I can’t shake off the mental image of escaped Romanov princess, lich Rasputin and singing bugs. Nah, I’m sure it won’t lead to anything so silly.
swenson on 2 July 2014, 09:13 said:
Ah, angel books. My bane. [twitch] Carry on, and don’t mind me weeping quietly in the corner.
Resistance on 3 July 2014, 09:00 said:
The intro was hilarious, can’t wait for the rest of the spork too!
BlackStar on 3 July 2014, 19:14 said:
If this prologue indicates the quality of the rest of the book, then I fear for us all. I do wonder though, why do subpar novels always feel compelled to begin with a prologue? Do they think it impresses readers or something?
swenson on 3 July 2014, 19:47 said:
This is going to sound kinda condescending, but I think prologues in general are very frequently the sign of a poor writer… a well-done prologue can set up the themes and setting and so on in an engaging and effective manner (I’m thinking of A Song of Ice and Fire here), but anything other than a really stellar prologue is just boring, ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Generally speaking, I think a good editor would tell an author either to drop the prologue entirely, or rewrite it to make it actually be interesting.
They’re just really, really easy to get wrong, and amateur writers (Exhibit A: me) love them because they (or at least me) think it will make their book sound Mature and Mysterious and so on. They (me) put them in because they think they should have them, not because the story necessitates one.
Juracan on 3 July 2014, 20:03 said:
That cover’s actually better than the one on the copy I have. The paperback one mostly looks like a retread of the original book’s cover: a naked pale angel spread out on the rocks. Check it out here
[passes tray of muffins]
There, there. It’ll be alright. Well, it won’t, but you’re not the one reading it.
[bows] Much appreciated.
I honestly don’t know. I’d like to say that I’m not against prologues as such, but in truth I really don’t see them as being all that necessary. If something’s important to the story, you might as well just start the story there.
Well, in general, yeah. I remember taking a writing workshop class, and I was generally annoyed with the fact that a lot of people were okay with prologues on the basis that they’re a staple of the fantasy genre. I think if there’s a prologue in your book, there better be a damn good reason for it.
BlackStar on 3 July 2014, 23:27 said:
You two hit the nail on the head. I think swenson’s reasoning that writers love them because it makes one’s book seem instantly more “Mature and Mysterious” is also WHY fantasy writers (and nowadays YA writers as well) treat them as a genre staple. It’s a seemingly quick way to inject a vibe of seriousness, depth, and meaningfulness into a work that might otherwise start off completely vapidly (not to say that the prologues themselves aren’t vapid- they usually are.) So the idea seems to be that your usual Lord of the Rings knock-off fantasy series or your Twilight wanna-be trilogy can instantly seem that much more worthy of being taken seriously simply by virtue of having a prologue.
The Smith of Lie on 4 July 2014, 01:34 said:
At least prologues usually have something to do with the story. Even if only vaguely so. I find random quotes of “serious” and “mature” stuff (and sometimes Rhianna’s song) much more pretentious.
Juracan on 4 July 2014, 17:51 said:
Being honest, I love using quotes, and I’m sure my own stories come across as insanely pretentious because of how many have a quote starting them. That being said, in conjunction with everything else in this story, the quote here doesn’t really raise my confidence.
The Smith of Lie on 5 July 2014, 13:57 said:
Well Impish Idea, you have created a monster. Ever since my first spite fic met with warm welcome I grew to like writing those vignettes connected with books reviewed or sporked. I have no skill, time or work ethic to write a book, but I like writing small pieces and you have encouraged me… What I’m trying to say, you’ve brought it upon yourselves!
For Juracan’s Angelopolis spork I am going to challenge my meagre literary talent and try something different. After each spork I’ll post a part of a story. The story will generally mirror the events in the chapter but otherwise I’ll be creating my own angel centric (short) story.
“Dear, merciful God! Why would you do such hateful, cruel thing Smith?!” Well, beside being a misanthrope my purpose in exposing you to my prose is twofold. One, to prove that even someone as bad as I could write a story less painful than published author. I’ll let Juracan judge that one. Secondly, to have fun. And maybe to make yuo suffer (remember – you have collectively brought it upon yoursleves), but I guess that is coverd by the whole misanthropy thing.
And no, without further ado, I give you the prologue to the story.
Paris 1983
„It’s just a standard check up. No reason to worry, I’m sure she’s a healthy young lady.” The doctor had a faint Slavic accent, despite speaking perfectly fluent French. He measured both mother and daughter with his lively, grey eyes and smiled. “Now, if you’d be so kind to wait here for a minute.” He had a charming, maybe little mischievous smile. “It won’t take long.”
Michelle entered the consulting-room while her mother waited outside. Doctor’s manner changed almost immediately once the thick, padded doors closed. He looked at her as if she was a slab of meat. “Sit.” He gestured at the couch. “Look up.” He had some kind of flashlight in his hand, but the light was strange. It had wrong color. He flashed it straight into Michelle’s eyes and she wanted to close them, but his fingers caught her eyelids and forced them open. First the right eye than the left one. He noted something down.
“Take off your shirt.” He was turned back to her looking for something in one drawers. She hesitated. Mother always told her to listen to the doctors they went to, but Michelle felt uncomfortable with the man. He was nothing like other pediatricians she met.”I told you to take your shirt off.” He didn’t raise his voice, but she could hear his fury. She started undoing the buttons while he stood behind her. “Sit straight.” He started measuring her back. “Interesting, very interesting…”
He used two separate keys to open heavy metal cabinet in the corner of the room. He took a small vial from inside and loaded its contents into syringe. “Hand.” She looked at him scared. “Hand.” He repeated as if was talking to an inadequately trained animal. When she failed to comply he just grabbed her hand. She struggled but he was a fit man and she was 6 years old, there was simply no chance she could stop him. She screamed, but he did not care. Almost like wasn’t expecint anyone to hear her scream. And then he injected her.
At first she felt nothing. She even thought she was being silly for a moment. She had vaccine jabs before and she was brave. Her mom told her so. But then she felt something burning in her back. Crying out, this time in agony, she fell to the floor. It was like something was trying to tear her from inside. Skin on her back stretched almost to the point of bursting. Her shoulder blades felt like someone drew the hooks thought them and started pulling. She vomited.
The doctor was on the phone. “Yes mister Weisshaupt, I have found one. Please send the team to the Paris lab. I’ll take care of the family.” Receiver clicked as he put it back. Than with calm, studied motions he took a handkerchief from his pocked and soaked it in some liquid from a brown, glass bottle. He grabbed her by her neck without paying attention to violent fits of sobbing that were shaking her whole body and put the kerchief to her face. After that, there was only darkness.
“I’m sorry ma’am. It seems she has contracted a rather nasty case of infectious mononucleosis. I’m afraid she’ll need to be hospitalized and isolated to avoid spread of the disease.” Woman looked stunned. He followed up with explanations and offered her a comforting words about how most people do recover. He slipped how he already contacted nearby hospital. His kind tone and professional demeanor coupled with quick talking allowed the team to take the girl away before her mother had time to ask any questions. And then, he was already working on properly saddened expression when he’ll inform her that Michelle has passed.
pug on 6 July 2014, 02:12 said:
The intro is the least funny thing I’ve ever read.
Juracan on 6 July 2014, 16:10 said:
Oh. Um. My apologies; any suggestions?
go.a on 6 July 2014, 17:50 said:
I agree with Pug. You can’t read a review nowadays without stumbling across some stupid OCs or another “quirky” special snowflake reviewer with multiple personality disorder. Once upon a time someone might have done it well but now this is just a tired gimmick that needs to stop. You’re not being cute or funny or whatever, it’s just annoying. Get to the review and if you’re a funny person it’ll come across.
Finn on 6 July 2014, 22:54 said:
I respectfully disagree. I thought it was quite funny.
Sometimes people have different senses of humor. Just because you don’t find it funny doesn’t necessarily mean it’s stupid.
Juracan on 7 July 2014, 08:18 said:
In any case, the plan is this: a storyline bit in the next update, then it’ll go away for a while and I’ll just get straight to the sporking for a few chapters.
And as I’ve put this off long enough, now to review Smith’s little fic:
@Smith: Except for a couple minor technical errors (the world ‘mister’ should be capitalized, for instance), I can assure you that it’s better than the prologue of the book I’m sporking. I’m not sure how you intend to continue the same story in a manner that follows the chapters of Angelopolis, but I wish you luck and look forward to seeing what you come up with.
The Smith of Lie on 7 July 2014, 08:58 said:
@Juracan – well, my workshop, to put it mildly, sucks. For one English is my second language. Also, since I am doing this just for a lark, I don’t really proof read too much or do more than one draft. Shoddy craftsmanship at its best.
As for the mirroring the Angelopolis – I don’t intend to stick terribly close to it, if it doesn’t suit what I have in mind. Especially considering that I don’t have the previous story to build on.
Juracan on 7 July 2014, 12:23 said:
Well I found it amusing, and if that’s what you were going for you succeeded.
Resistance on 9 July 2014, 23:19 said:
I don’t think that Juracan was intending to go all “headmate” on us. From what I can tell, the spork is going to be solo; the other “person” was just used as an intro. I liked it, if you didn’t, that’s fine, but I don’t think the “special snowflake” thing is what’s happening here.
pug on 10 July 2014, 11:13 said:
Since I’ve been asked to expound, I will. For the record, your grasp on the language has nothing to do with it. I had no inklings that English is your second language precisely because you write so well in it.
However, there’s more to humor than thinking to yourself, “Hmm, what ‘random’ and ‘quirky’ word can I use now? Oh, I know! Broccoli! It’s cool to hate healthy foods, right? xDDDD”
While everyone’s senses of humor are indeed different, I think there’s much to be learned from certain masters of the craft. Winston Churchill is still regarded as one of the wittiest people on earth. “Some Like it Hot” is probably the wittiest comedy I’ve yet seen. Many, many dramatic movies have their own humorous moments (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAyex536-P4).
Humor comes from the unexpected, but there’s more to that than using silly-sounding words in strange contexts.
The Smith of Lie on 10 July 2014, 13:19 said:
Just a note – I think you are at one point confusing me and Juracan, at least the mention of English as second language indicates so. It was me excusing few grammar mistakes in the comment #11, which contains my spin on the theme of sporked fragment i.e. girl and a creepy doctor (and it wasn’t supposed to be funny at all).
Your comments about using inherently funny words for humor, namely the broccoli thing indicates you mean the introduction of the spork itself, by Juracan.
And while I must admit that it was not a comedic gold or even silver, there are much less funny comdy bits out there.
And by the way – I found idea to use swiss army knife as offensive weapon more funny than the transformation. I’d personally found that scene better if the stranger just let himself be repeatadly stabbed and just ignored it.
pug on 10 July 2014, 13:46 said:
You’re right. That’s a mistake on my part. Everything after the second paragraph is still directed toward Juracan, while the first is directed toward you.
swenson on 10 July 2014, 15:16 said:
The vast majority of things people think he said, he probably didn’t say.
Juracan on 10 July 2014, 17:09 said:
Honestly, I was going more for ‘silly’ than ‘hilarious,’ and I’m sorry if I came across as quirky and twee. Not my intention at all. In any case, I’m happy for the input and will consider it in future endeavors (as well as watch that video when I have the time).
Actually, that did happen in a script I wrote a couple of years ago. Though that script was never published in any form, I decided against that happening again. Now I’m thinking maybe I should have stuck with it…
Tim on 11 July 2014, 07:19 said:
To be honest, I’ve never been fond of “story” in reviews (it’s 50% of why I gave up on Linkara, the other 50 being the creeping realisation that he has no idea what he’s talking about most of the time). It can be done, but it needs to take a back seat to the review itself or be woven into it (for example, you can have two orc characters review Lord of the Rings, but nobody will care what you do with them before or after the review itself).