Chapter Ten – The Spy

I’m quickly realizing that this ‘novel’ has nowhere to go but down.

They see something shining like a jewel and it turns out to be a snake. I would mock this, but it turns out that the snake is covered in jewels. So….I’m going to mock it anyway. A snake covered in jewels? That’s pretty stupid. But the snake slithers right up to them.

Joey and Maya were frightened and in shock. The snake was very beautiful (page 47).

When you’re frightened and in shock because of something you think is going to kill you, you don’t notice that that thing is beautiful.

Hoppy pokes his head out, sees the snake, and then ducks back down into Joey’s pocket. This makes it obvious that he doesn’t like snakes. How Maya even notices this, given that he’s a tiny grasshopper and the large, possibly poisonous snake has her attention, is beyond me.

Maya was shocked and watched Joey…but Joey opened only his mouth in disbelieve (page 48).

That’s ‘only opened’. And that’s ‘disbelief’.

“What is this place? First we meet a grasshopper who talks and now we meet a snake who talks. What’s next?” Maya wondered. (page 48)

This might just be me, but if I was magically transported into a different world and I met a talking grasshopper, I would not be even remotely surprised if any of the other creatures could talk as well.

The snake introduces herself as Arabella. Arabella explains that she works for a great king, drawing out some of the letter ‘s’ in her speech. Not all of them, just some. Arabella says that the king will give them awesome treasures, like the jewels she wears.

Suddenly Joey shouted “Yes! I also want these gems, diamonds, and the money. Don’t you realize Maya, once we come back home I could buy everything I want, even the new skateboards and the video games that I wanted for such a long time.”

Joey continued, “Forget the lagoon Maya. Let’s change course and go direct to that great king and get from him all the riches, gems and the money. Let us follow the advice of the fortune teller and have a rich future.” (page 49)

Words fail me. I feel bad, I really do, because instead of sporking this all I really need to do is quote pretty much everything and let the putrid pestilence stand and fail on its own merits. How am I supposed to make fun of this? It’s like kicking someone after you’ve already beaten them unconscious and tied them to the train tracks.

And no, I have no idea why he calls the snake a fortune teller.

Arabella smirks. Snakes can’t smirk. But suddenly they hear the cry of an eagle. Everyone freaks out, because holy shit, eagles don’t exist in real life! Wait… Anyway, Arabella mentions that she hates the eagle, she doesn’t know why the eagle is around, but the fact that the eagle’s around means that something important is going on and she wants to find out what that is. I have no idea why she’s expositing like this.

Then the seven doves fly down and tell Maya and Joey to follow them. This makes Arabella very Suspicious.

Drinks: 3

Chapter Eleven – Libertine

There’s a poorly drawn picture of Maya. Her lips are too big, her nose is too long, and her forehead is disproportionate with her head.

Maya has a Feeling to lift her hand up, and a dove lands on it. I hate Feelings. Hate them. Essentially, it robs the characters from having to make their own intelligent and difficult decisions, because they have Feelings, and Feelings, of course, are Never Wrong.

The golden-tail-feather dove introduces herself as Libertine. She begins to exposit about how Maya needs to fulfill her destiny (gag) and Arabella is possessed and serves Apollyon, the King of Darkness. Maya asks what it means to be possessed, which is a concept that most people don’t struggle with. The dove explains that it means that a spirit lives inside you and controls what you do. The dove exposits for awhile longer and flies back to the tree. Then Arabella pipes up and tells them that they shouldn’t listen to the doves, and going to the lagoon will only lead to disaster, blah blah. Joey asks her how she knows this, and Tesch uses the single most….unique…dialogue tag that I have ever seen:

“Because I am a part of it, “Arabella sizzled. (page 53).

Sizzled? Really? How the fuck do you ‘sizzle’ dialogue, unless you’re anthropomorphic frying pan? Also, the quotation mark being attached to Arabella instead of ‘it’? Yeah, that’s how it actually appears in the book. Proofreading? What’s that?

Arabella continued, “Here is my ‘aphorism of trouble’, my statement of truth for you: ‘Over seven bridges must you go’!

You have to successfully pass seven stations of temptations to reach the lagoon!

Hear me! Hear me! ‘Heaven and Earth’, hear this aphorism saying by the great Arabella: ‘Over seven bridges must you go’!” (page 54)

Where to begin? The obvious first: this isn’t an aphorism. Even if it was, what exactly is the point of saying ‘aphorism saying’? That’s almost as stupid as the title “Manos: The Hands of Fate”. Also, Tesch seems to be trying to deliberately enrage me by throwing in little bits of Destiny and fortune-tellers. Sure, let’s just telegraph the entire story before it actually happens, why not?

Joey says something sarcastically which isn’t actually sarcastic, and it’s not even close, so that’s another drink. Maya says that they need to go to the lagoon, and Hoppy nods in agreement. How, precisely, would you see a grasshopper nod? This is not an oversized grasshopper. It’s tiny, and it’s poking out of Joey’s pocket. I think we need to add a drink for every time Hoppy does something completely unrealistic. Anyway, the sometimes-omniscient narrator tells us that Joey has already decided that he’s going to go visit King Apollyon. In other words, he’s going to pull an Edmund.

Then we get these idiotic quotes:

Maya knew what Joey was thinking because his past history showed clearly that Joey always tried to get what he wanted (page 54).

Reasonable, although we don’t have any examples of this actually happening, we’re just told that it has happened. But this is immediately followed by this:

Maya and Joey had made their final decision not to follow the advice of Arabella to get riches, success and money but instead to follow the doves (page 55).

Ignoring the fact that that sentence is one of the worst sentences in the English language, how have they made their final decision? You just told us how Joey has secretly decided to sneak off to the White Witch’s castle to get more Turkish Delight!

They walk for awhile. Joey notices his watch has stopped. Maya thinks it’s nothing. But Joey wonders if the fact that his watch has stopped means that his compass isn’t working either. GASP! And no, they don’t actually test the compass to see if this is true. After all, it’s not like they’re relying on it at all.

Drinks: 13

Chapter Twelve – Glitter of Darkness

Maya is jealous because Joey has already made a friend, in Hoppy. Slave, rather. Anyway, the doves land in a glitter tree and then start falling to the ground. Turns out that this is not just a glitter tree, it’s a POISON GLITTER TREE. The horror!

Maya cleans the glitter off the doves – the poison doesn’t affect her, I guess – and the doves are very thankful. They’re fine, too. Apparently all you need to do is brush the poison glitter off and then you’re fine. But I’m starting to wonder if they should be following these doves. You’d think that reasonably intelligent creatures would be able to tell the poison glitter from the regular glitter.

One of the doves makes a cryptic comment about how the ‘spies of darkness’ will try to end their mission. Great. Now they have a Mission?

Drinks: 5

Chapter Thirteen – Oraculus and the Prophecy

Shit. Now there’s a Prophecy as well?

So they get to a swamp. There’s a frog. It starts talking to them. With the help of a lot of unneeded quotation marks, the frog says that there is a Legend that says a brother and sister, called ‘The Encouragers’ (really? No, really?) would show up and help the ‘Land of Maradonia’ fight back against the ‘kingdom of darkness’. The clichés mount rapidly. He pointedly says that Apollyon is Evil and then starts to tweak out because the legend has come true and he has seen the coming of The Encouragers. And there’s another quote that is truly too amazing for me to have made up:

I can already smell the smoke of the burning fire when your last test, the ‘burnt offering’ is successfully completed and the people of Maradonia are inspired, stimulated, and reassured by the actions and by the success of ‘The Encouragers’ (page 62).

I can’t really improve this with snarky comments, so I’m just going to say that I giggled very immaturely at the thought of Maya and Joey stimulating the people of Maradonia.

The frog introduces himself as Oraculus, and then the semi-omniscient narrator tells us that Arabella has been following them and is listening in. Joey is very excited to be an encourager, but Maya starts to tweak out a little bit. And thus follows probably the most amazing speech I have ever seen. This speech could win Oscars. I want to deliver this as a monologue on Broadway. It’s that good. Observe:

“Listen Oraculus, my name is Maya and I am fifteen years old and this is my brother Joey. He is fourteen years old and his is a fashion freak if you understand what that means. [snip] I am only a teenager. I don’t have a boyfriend and when I went once to the movie theater and was holding hands with a very nice boy from the neighborhood and Joey told my parents about it, you should have seen my father. He got so angry that he forbid me to set my foot into any movie theater alone and made his final decision that our family will not install the ‘internet’ in our house, if you understand what I mean. We have only local television in our home and I am dreaming about my own cell phone. Everybody in my class has one, except me. I feel that I am cut off from the real world. I am alone! I have nobody! I am sitting here in this dirty swamp and listen to a grasshopper (page 64).

I have a feeling that Tesch is channeling a lot of angst into her author insert. Also, that ‘listen’ instead of ‘listening’? Yeah, that’s in the book.

Anyway, Maya continues for two more solid pages, has a serious breakdown (not kidding, Tesch describes it exactly like that), starts crying, and gets all shaky and out of breath. Finally she calms down and gets to the crux of the matter:

“And I do not want to talk or listen to you any more unless you answer this one question, ‘Why is it that the sun is not moving, like normal’? “ (page 65).

Yes. That is her grand question. Not about Apollyon. Or the doves. Or their Destiny. Or the Prophecy. Or the fact that they found an underground portal to an alternate universe. Nope, Maya is desperate to discover the science behind the unmoving sun.

Oraculus explains that it’s because the sun never goes down in Maradonia. He goes onto explain that you can spend a thousand years in Maradonia and when you get back to the US only one day will have passed. So Maradonia is Narnia, essentially. In Tesch’s words:

The ‘Land of Maradonia’ is a land between lands or let me explain it with these words ‘a space between spaces’ and you came bodily into this land (page 66).

No, I didn’t leave out any commas or periods. This is exactly what the book is like. No exaggeration whatsoever.

Finally Joey says that he wants to be an encourager and all that.

Oraculus explains that the eagle is called Sagitta and serves King Ruach, which sounds awkward, so I’m going to call him King Roach. Oraculus exposits that King Roach has four servants (Sagitta is one of them) and they can all fly and they can see everything in the entire land and also see every single thought that every single creature in the entire land has. I wonder, then, why Roach doesn’t rule the world. That ability is incredibly overpowered. The frog explains that Maya has faith and Joey has imagination and this potent combination means they are encouragers and have Powahs. He also says that there’s a king of Maradonia, apparently, named King Astrodoulos. I now have no idea how Apollyon and Roach fit into this picture. Apparently, Astro King dove into a pool of blood and now he’s indestructible. Joey wants to visit this pool and become indestructible. Then he sees Arabella and starts screaming. Yes, the transition happens just that abruptly. Not that I would call it a transition. Then Arabella takes off for ‘Mountain Peak Glacier’, which sounds like a national park instead of a fantasy location. But at least this time Tesch isn’t spelling it ‘peek’.

Oraculus enters a trance and says they need to go to the Poseidon Stone Plateau. He further exposits about other things that are going to happen to them but I’m not interested in spoiling the story. He spends two more pages providing nothing but exposition and there’s six or seven sentences that are so horribly written, so lacking even the basic competence that the shittiest of published writers have, sentences so atrocious that Robert Stanek would give a Beretta a blowjob before he wrote them. Essentially, after awhile they will bathe in the pool of blood, become Mary-Sues, and lead the world against Apollyon. And the knowledge that all the stars are going to align in their favor horrifies them:

This was just too much for the siblings and both of them started to cry bitterly after they heard the message of Oraculus.

Joey said “I don’t want to die! I want to go home. I don’t want this ‘Abaddon Dude’ to kill my sister and me. We want to go home” (page 78)

Yeah. Abaddon Dude.

Then suddenly a hush falls over the swamp. And…the chapter ends.

Drinks: 76*

*That is not a typo.

Tagged as: ,

Comment

  1. dragonarya on 27 May 2010, 08:05 said:

    Joey and Maya were frightened and in shock. The snake was very beautiful (page 47).

    God, this writing is so stilted! Not even my first story was this bad.

    Sizzled? Really? How the fuck do you ‘sizzle’ dialogue, unless you’re anthropomorphic frying pan? Also, the quotation mark being attached to Arabella instead of ‘it’? Yeah, that’s how it actually appears in the book. Proofreading? What’s that?

    I’m cringing here. Where’s the alcohol? Also, an anthro frying pan would be awesome.

    Ignoring the fact that that sentence is one of the worst sentences in the English language, how have they made their final decision? You just told us how Joey has secretly decided to sneak off to the White Witch’s castle to get more Turkish Delight!

    So Tesch is attempting to rip off C.S. Lewis, hm? Well, considering how people always rip off Tolkien, it makes a nice change of pace.

    So Maradonia is Narnia, essentially. In Tesch’s words:
    The ‘Land of Maradonia’ is a land between lands or let me explain it with these words ‘a space between spaces’ and you came bodily into this land (page 66).

    Yep, that proves it.

    Drinks: 76* *That is not a typo.

    I believe you. cries tears of despair for the English language into her glass

  2. Inspector Karamazov on 27 May 2010, 10:56 said:

    Ick. You poor, poor thing. I don’t think I could make it this far.

    hugs

  3. melanthes on 27 May 2010, 11:29 said:

    Oh, but it’s so delightfully symbolic and metatheatrical. Of course the eagle is named Sagitta, to reflect the arrows clutched in the talons of the eagle of the USA, a marker of the role of the state in the life, even imaginary, of the individual. And Oraculus, well, every person worth his or her salt should know the word “oracle” – this is a fine example of metatheatricality, designed to introduce all to its joys. As for “Star-slave”, even the greatest are hostages to fate, clearly.

    (However, I’m not sure how far the Greeks viewed the stars as means to divine fate. Does anyone know?)

    It’s a strange mix of names in this world: Hebrew (and thus Biblical) (Ruach, Abaddon), Greek (Astrodoulos), Latin (Sagitta, Arabella). It’s almost as if Ms Tesch can’t quite build her world properly, but instead must be a magpie…

    Other minor quibble – oraculum in Latin is the prophecy, or the place where an oracle is given, not the prophet. So, it should really be something like oraculator – not that such a word appears to exist in Latin.

  4. Danielle on 27 May 2010, 12:19 said:

    You know what I want to see? I want to see snakes portrayed in a less stereotypical light. Yes, I know that it was the serpent that tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden (or, as many scholars believe, Satan in the form of a serpent) but I personally do not mind snakes. They’re kind of cool, actually. I would love to see two siblings who enter a magical land populated by talking animals and run into a rattlesnake named Bill who talks like a Texan, loves children, puppies and butterflies, and would give his last drop of venom for the Forces of Good.

    “Listen Oraculus, my name is Maya and I am fifteen years old and this is my brother Joey. He is fourteen years old and his is a fashion freak if you understand what that means. [snip] I am only a teenager. I don’t have a boyfriend and when I went once to the movie theater and was holding hands with a very nice boy from the neighborhood and Joey told my parents about it, you should have seen my father. He got so angry that he forbid me to set my foot into any movie theater alone and made his final decision that our family will not install the ‘internet’ in our house, if you understand what I mean. We have only local television in our home and I am dreaming about my own cell phone. Everybody in my class has one, except me. I feel that I am cut off from the real world. I am alone! I have nobody! I am sitting here in this dirty swamp and listen to a grasshopper.”

    Here’s what I would’ve said:

    “Listen, Oraculus, you have a stupid name. I’m just going to call you Orrie from now on. I’ve never really liked frogs, but that snake over there is kinda cool—yes, Arabella, I know you’ve been listening; I’m not a moron—and if you don’t give me one good reason why I should listen to some frog with a stupid name and not a pretty snake that somehow manages to slither while encrusted in jewels, then I’m going to kick your nipples off.”
    “Do frogs have nipples?”
    “Eh, good point. I’ll just throw you in the poison glitter tree.”

  5. Charlotte on 27 May 2010, 15:53 said:

    I barely know how to respond to this… I mean, sure she’s a young girl still and I’m pretty sure that I churned out some really horrible stuff at that age, but she’s trying to get acknowledged as a writer with one of the worst things I have ever read. Shame on her parents for not making her wait until she was old enough to know better.

  6. Puppet on 27 May 2010, 16:33 said:

    Maradonia and the Seven Bridges: So bad that it Sporks itself.

    This is awful, it’s disgusting and revolting. No one on II has made it this far, Kawnliee. Keep up the good work.

  7. TakuGifian on 27 May 2010, 22:07 said:

    For a moment there I thought “semi-omniscient” was “semi-conscious”, which would actually explain quite a lot.

    I can’t comment on the rest of it, because aside from your commentary my brain seems to be determined to immediately and ruthlessly repress all memories of this ‘book’.

  8. Durandalski on 27 May 2010, 22:57 said:

    This had me laughing tears of sorrow. I can’t make up my mind whether to die of laughter, or die of a broken heart. That speech reads blatantly like a sadly over sheltered homeschool girl. I have a hard time hating her. Okay I lie, its easy. But I really hate her parents more than anything. They’re destroying their kid, or at least causing permanent damage, by allowing her to embarrass herself with this ‘novel’. Not to mention the apparent sheltering. :P

  9. Asahel on 27 May 2010, 23:24 said:

    That’s ‘only opened’.

    Technically, it’s still correct to say “I opened only my mouth in disbelief,” because one could also open his/her bowels in disbelief.

    As far as “disbelieve,” I have no magnanimous/hilarious justification for that.

  10. Rayquazakid on 30 May 2010, 16:19 said:

    Wow. I’m just… wow.

    Poison glitter tree. Now I’ve heard everything. Excuse me…

    Faceconcrete

  11. SMARTALIENQT on 30 May 2010, 16:47 said:

    “Listen Oraculus, my name is Maya and I am fifteen years old and this is my brother Joey. He is fourteen years old and his is a fashion freak if you understand what that means. [snip] I am only a teenager. I don’t have a boyfriend and when I went once to the movie theater and was holding hands with a very nice boy from the neighborhood and Joey told my parents about it, you should have seen my father. He got so angry that he forbid me to set my foot into any movie theater alone and made his final decision that our family will not install the ‘internet’ in our house, if you understand what I mean. We have only local television in our home and I am dreaming about my own cell phone. Everybody in my class has one, except me. I feel that I am cut off from the real world. I am alone! I have nobody! I am sitting here in this dirty swamp and listen to a grasshopper.”

    Let me tell you a story.

    Once upon a time there was a little eleven-year-old who liked to write and was very unpopular. She watched local TV (five channels on a good day, two of them the same channel) in her spare time, when she wasn’t reading books that were infinitely better than hers. She had no internet. She had no cell phone. She felt cut off from everyone in her class.

    One day, she wrote a few chapters of a fantasy story about herself and her imaginary boyfriend, without changing any names or locations. Why? She was not planning to publish anything so terrible and so ripped off of her own life.

    The book had a good grasp of grammar, but it was stilted, dull, and stopped a few chapters in, because she was eleven years old. It had a scene where the main character stayed up in bed and angsted about her terrible, friendless life. For an entire chapter. And yet this was all fine, because the little girl never planned to publish this, because she knew it was bad.

    Memo to Tesch: there is a difference between ranting in person, or ranting on a forum, and ranting in a book. The character is not you. You are not the character. It is fine to be angsty about your sheltered life – I can understand that. It is fine to take personal experience and apply it to a character – I understand that. It is never okay to write an angst speech into a completely unrelated situation, write it badly, and then expect us to feel sorry for you your character and think that character is awwsum and ejgy!!1!11.

    Yeah. I’ll go mop up my word vomit. whistles

  12. Danielle on 30 May 2010, 22:54 said:

    My biggest question with Maya’s rant is: How did her parents let it slide? If I wrote a rant like that in a book that my parents read and published, I’d get a long, long lecture about safety issues and the benefits of being sheltered and how I should talk to them about my issues instead of writing it out in a book….

    Yeah. Tesch may be sheltered, but she is also spoiled.

  13. Kawnliee on 30 May 2010, 23:33 said:

    Honestly, the further I get into this book, the more I doubt her parents actually read it. Because if they had, they probably would have noticed all the many, many spelling and formatting errors, incorrect words being used, and utterly ridiculousness that the book contains.

    Either that, or her parents are just as insane as Gloria herself is. I find that option to be nearly as likely.

  14. RikkiTikkiTavi on 2 June 2010, 22:01 said:

    Thank you so much. I can’t imagine the pain of it…which probably isn’t too much considering the copious amounts of alcohol involved at this point ;). But THANK YOU…for doing the dastardly deed so that lazy people like me can sit and chortle sizzling.

  15. swenson on 4 June 2010, 19:38 said:

    I would really love to see artwork of this. Could you scan it and post it up, possibly? (and by “love” I mean “love so that I can mock it mercilessly, as the few bits I’ve seen so far look rather terrible”)

    Also, was this the same Arabella from the beginning, the one who was annoyed because she didn’t get recognized but the ravens did or something, and then the teleporting dwarves came in? If so, THE PLOT THICKENS. I’m rather shocked Miz Tesch actually wove the prologue back into the body of the story as something more than just “DUR HUR THE DUDE NAMED AFTER SATAN IS EVUL”.

    Also, Joey is kind of a jerk. So far, he’s pushed his sister into a pool, pressured her into going places and doing things she doesn’t want to do (going to the NO TRESPASSING area, etc.), enslaved an innocent and supposedly super-intelligent insect, constantly focused on himself, acted selfish instead of noble, and now is more excited about being an ‘Encourager’, whatever that is, than anything else. Seriously. Heavy-handed much, Miz Tesch? So this guy is literally more obsessed with being a jerk than with noticing “Hey, I’m in a fantasy world with things that talk?” He’s a jerk AND stupid.

  16. Argeus on 19 June 2010, 02:26 said:

    Just to point out that Ruach is actually a character in Super Robot Wars Alpha 3.

    Probably a coincidence, but it’d be much more lulzy if it was not.

  17. Rayquazakid on 25 June 2010, 15:34 said:

    I just read this whole thing a second time. At the chapter where you took 76 drinks, I starte laughing for five minutes straight. Not ever joking. My insides hurt now.

    This is really bad. Almost makes me want to see the actual thing to see just how bad it is (though that would put my life at risk).

  18. CheeseMaster on 6 July 2010, 21:03 said:

    I’m on the floor. Arabella sizzled? There are no words..

  19. Arya on 19 July 2010, 17:43 said:

    Maya asks what it means to be possessed,

    Wait a minute, isn’t she 15? 15 year olds should know what the heck possessed means. That’s just…not even right.

  20. ManIWonder on 30 July 2010, 02:12 said:

    Does anyone know anything about Tesch besides her own self-promotional pieces? Someone has to go sit in on an appearance she makes.. I genuinely want to know if it seems like there may be shades of autism or something in there. Not saying it to be mean, but the whole escaping into fantasy, writing 7 books, 900 or so pages apiece, yet having the writing skills of an 8 year old with a thesaurus? Might explain home schooling, parents’ willingness to really make her feel like a truly published author…?

  21. Yael on 3 August 2010, 16:18 said:

    ‘“Because I am a part of it, “Arabella sizzled. (page 53).’

    I just imagined a pan on the stove.

    Ugh, this is a horrible rip off of Narnia. Heck, I’m 14 and I can write way better than that. Even my earlier stories were shit and they were still better than this crap. At least I have a better grasp on grammar. Which is a little sad, since English isn’t even my first language (you’d think she’d have better English than me. 0_o’)

  22. swenson on 4 August 2010, 12:45 said:

    I’ve noticed that’s often the case. It seems backwards, but I guess if someone learns a foreign language, they tend to learn it correctly… unlike someone who grows up speaking it incorrectly.

    Still drives me crazy, though. Give me a non-native English speaker any day over a native speaker! They’re always better!

  23. Luni on 15 August 2010, 14:04 said:

    I’m driven to the conclusion that Ms Tesch’s first language might not be English.

    1. Her name’s Tesch, which sounds totally German to me. Of course, that’s not too extraordinary, with the USA being an country of immigration and all.

    2.” …but Joey opened only his mouth in disbelieve (page 48)” That’s German sentence structure.

    3. That person mentioned in the prologue (preface?), which seemed completely awkward between all those fantasy names, because she was called Gertrude, has a name that was once very common in Germany (though today it has some Nazi vibes)

    4. At a previous sporking someone pointed out that Tesch uses German words, like “Tarnkappe” or “Schwarzpulver”.

    Well, even if this her being German/Austrian/whatever were the case, it still wouldn’t justify “publishing” a “Novel” and doing such awkward “Promotion”(huh, that’s actually kinda fun), but I’m desperately looking for some redeeming qualities, like non-native speaker and horrible parents.

  24. Stan on 21 November 2010, 09:29 said:

    Luni, good catch. I’m German myself and have come to a similar conclusion.
    What sold me was the “Aphorism saying”, to wit:

    ‘Over seven bridges must you go’!”

    That’s a word-for-word translation of a song title
    (“Über sieben Brücken musst du geh’n”) that was (and still is) very well known in Germany. Tesch’s garbled translation matches the stresses, you’d be able to sing her “saying” to the original melody.

  25. mitzirocker on 21 November 2010, 11:49 said:

    Suddenly Joey shouted “Yes! I also want these gems, diamonds, and the money. Don’t you realize Maya, once we come back home I could buy everything I want, even the new skateboards and the video games that I wanted for such a long time.”
    Joey continued, “Forget the lagoon Maya. Let’s change course and go direct to that great king and get from him all the riches, gems and the money. Let us follow the advice of the fortune teller and have a rich future.” (page 49)

    In Latin class, when we translate, it comes out incredibly weird. Technically, it makes sense, but it’s all stilted and wrong and has to be adjusted into properly flowing English. That there passage sounds like the stitled English.

  26. meaningless prose on 10 January 2011, 22:26 said:

    How would they know anything about stars if the sun never sets?
    The only star they would ever see is the sun after all.

    When I was ten I was a major bookworm, rarely watched tv and didn’t even have a computer.
    I spent weeks writing and rewriting the first chapter to a book, it was to be about kids exploring space.
    I had the worst trouble trying to get around the parent issue.
    I couldn’t make all the kids orphans/abused/neglected, so why weren’t the parents dragging their kids back home?
    I ended up trunking the story because I couldn’t get past this, at ten.
    Does that mean I was a better writer at ten than she is?

  27. nanayoung on 2 February 2015, 18:21 said:

    How exactly is the Evil King evil?

    Other than killing some dude that spoke out and disrespected him in his own court, I honestly don’t see how he’s evil.

    Classic “tell” not “show” author. How the fuck did this get published?

  28. swenson on 2 February 2015, 23:12 said:

    Through the wonder of self-publishing, thankfully.

  29. Brooklyn on 16 December 2023, 12:49 said:

    God damnit it’s such a late reply, but yeah, Luni, I was wondering if maybe she didn’t grasp English. I’ve heard German capitalizes ALL nouns, which would help with some capitalization.
    Argeus (god I really love reviving old debates): Ruach is an actual word! Just in transliterated Hebrew, so it’s pronounced “roo-akh”, with a sound that’s sort of between an h and a k. Think along the lines of “loch” in Scottish. But yeah, according to Google it means spirit, breath, or wind. So he’s not King Roach; he’s King Fart (actually though I’m not sure if Hebrew calls farts ‘wind’).
    None of this is to imply this was intentional on Tesch’s part, as she doesn’t even have a sufficient grasp of English, and has shown exactly zero indications of being either a) Israeli or b) Jewish (not all Jews know Hebrew but even Reform Jews will be able to understand, say, ‘Elohim’, which means God, or something on that level). (I was going to put in a comment about her being nonolingual, or maybe negative-one-lingual, but hey, maybe she knows German!