Chapter 7– Master Therapass
The chapter begins with Kyja dashing off to the city of Terra ne Staric to meet with her master.
Normally she paused on her way into the city to admire the stone sculpture of Tankum Heartstrong that stood just outside the gates. She often wondered what it would have been like to see the great warrior in battle—mythic blades swinging, lips pulled back into a snarl.
Heh. Tankum Heartstrong. I don’t know why but that name amuses me immensely. Though Kyja is supposedly out of breath from her running, Riph Raph decides to be a jerk and starts insulting her pace in the most juvenile way possible.
”Get a move on,” Riph Raph said, flying just above her shoulder. “I’ve seen slow-worms move faster than you.”
”If you want to be helpful,” she answered in an irritated tone, “you could carry this basket of eggs to the kitchen for me.”
Riph Raph flipped his ears. “You know perfectly well I can’t. A skyte’s wings are for transportation only. We are not beasts of burden.”
Well Riph Raph is an ass. And how the fuck do you flip your ears? Savage, I think the word you were looking for is “flick”. Not “flip”. When he talks about how he’s not a beast of burden, I’m eerily reminded of that conversation in Eldest (as in Christopher Paolini’s Eldest), where the elves babble about how dragons aren’t beasts of burden and shouldn’t be made to carry things. I wonder if Savage has read the Inheritance Cycle. Somehow I wouldn’t be surprised if he idolizes Paolini’s (extremely derivative) writing. Also, the goldfish that live in the fountains in this book can fly. Cool.
Actually, everything in this world seems to be special. Seems Kyja’s world is one of these. The grass talks, statues move and make “dark scowls” at Kyja for no apparent reason. I suppose that’s why the animals all talk as well.
Kyja arrives at the tower and there’s a guard there. She tells him she’s got “eggs for the kitchen” and, after eyeing “her threadbare robe through the grate of his plumed helmet” (what is he, a Roman Centurion?), he lets her through. Apparently she’s on friendly terms with the rest of the people that work in the tower, but not the guards.
Kyja sprints into the kitchen of the tower. Why is there a kitchen in a tower? That doesn’t make so much sense. If it were part of a castle I could understand, but from the writing I can only infer that the tower is standing alone, separate from any other buildings. Huh. In the kitchen, there are many people cooking using magic. Kyja singles out a woman who is apparently the head chef, and the description of her is laden with beautiful prose. [/rampant sarcasm]
At the far end of the kitchen, a sweaty woman with arms like fire logs was overseeing the staff.
I cannot even imagine what that would look like. How do arms look like logs?! Are they all knobby and rough and covered in bark? Also, her name is Bella. Ewwww.
They have some friendly banter and Kyja gets called “child” (typical name everyone seems to have for kids or teens in fantasy books).
Bella shook her head and armed big beads of sweat from her forehead.
Now I’m imagining her giving little swords to her beads of sweat. Lovely.
Kyja then leaves her eggs in the kitchen and runs off to her lesson with Master Therapass. She climbs a lot of steps and then arrives at a large oak door. She calls out for Master Therapass but no one answers. Riph Raph says:
“I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
Kyja walks into the room with Riph Raph on her shoulder, and we get a brief, boring description of it. Riph Raph has something creative to say as usual.
”This place always appears so homey,” Riph Raph whispered, grimacing at what looked like a human finger.
So a human finger makes him think the place looks homey? Either that’s an author adjective fail, or Kyja and he live in a seriously creepy home.
Suddenly a big wolf rises from a rug in front of the fireplace and says, “You’re late.” And the chapter ends there. Oh, the suspense!
Darkes on 28 April 2012, 17:01 said:
To this day I will never understand why authors make these generic Narnia-esque fantasies. I mean, there’s so many original ideas that no one has attempted that would make great stories.
Also, why is it always in a medieval time period? Some of the older periods are far more interesting and diverse. For example, I’m basing my current story on what the world was like before the Romans, with bits from other periods as well.
This story also involves, instead of humans, four legged wolves that fight with swords and cats with bows. Sometimes the cats even have swords too.
I like to think that’s pretty original, so it baffles me why people are still recycling the same bullshit over and over again.
LoneWolf on 28 April 2012, 17:31 said:
Well, post-medieval/early modern fantasy has the problem of technology interfering with magic(steampunk genre solves it, but it’s fairly specific). But yeah, you can play all other time periods.
This story also involves, instead of humans, four legged wolves that fight with swords and cats with bows. Sometimes the cats even have swords too.
Well, civilized animals and warrior cats (there’s even a series with that title) hadn’t been that neglected.
And yeah. This chapter was very suspenseful and dramatic!!!
Darkes on 28 April 2012, 17:36 said:
BUT DO THEY HAVE SWORDS???????????????????????
Seriously though, I am aware of Warrior Cats, but as far as I know cats and wolves have never parleyed in any stories I’ve heard of.
Now, maybe there are stories like that, but at least it’s something that hasn’t been explored often enough so that everybody rolls their eyes the moment they see it.
That said, they’d probably still roll their eyes at it.
Mingnon on 28 April 2012, 18:27 said:
‘Cats and dogs fighting with swords? That is SO children’s fairytales! The only way to write about mature fantasy is to have everything hate humanity no matter what! That way it’s much more true to life! [/snobbery]’
(Seriously, I really hate it when everything hates, abuses or wants to eat humans…)
Darkes on 28 April 2012, 18:33 said:
Just once I’d like to see xenofiction that isn’t biased one way or the other.
Kyllorac on 28 April 2012, 20:06 said:
Actually, there have been stories like that. Lots of them. And very, very, very few of them have actually been mediocre enough to bother reading all the way through (especially the amateur ones), much less been good.
The Redwall series by Brian Jaques has cats, wolves, mice, rats, foxes, badgers, hares, etc. all wielding weaponry in battle (including swords, axes, bow, shield, and mace). Depending on the book, the Redwall series varies from being decent to good.
Swordbird (and its prequel and upcoming sequel) by Nancy Yi Fan has birds wielding swords, as the title so succinctly reveals.
There’ve also been countless video games that employ anthropomorphized animals as characters. Wolves and cats are very common species, alongside dragons/lizards and the occasional bear or ox.
The works that include more animalistic portrayals often fail to address the logic and logistics behind the weapons: why are the particular varieties being used, how did they come to be made, and how are the animals capable of wielding the weapons effectively without opposable thumbs?
The inclusion of a particular element doesn’t decide how good a work is; it’s more how the element is used in conjunction with other elements of a story that take a basic, common premise and transform it into something unique.
tl;dr: Having animals that fight using weapons is not a good measure of creativity. It also brings up lots of questions, like how the weapons are made. What’s more important is the overall construction of the work rather than the relative uniqueness of a particular element in making a piece unique.
Getting back on topic:
I think that was supposed to be sarcasm.
PrimordialSuck on 29 April 2012, 00:27 said:
In light of the other sporkings on II, the only problem I have with Savage is the unoriginality of the premise-disabled/alientated/speshul kid gets transported to Narnia rip-off, yeah yeah. The writing is meh and has its Shadow God (Amazon it) moments, but I’ll let that slip since it’s for children…
Right?
Darkes on 29 April 2012, 04:56 said:
Well, looks like I just got schooled.
swenson on 29 April 2012, 21:29 said:
Ahahaha! That’s a glorious image.
Anyway, this author has a serious problem with, well, word usage, methinks. It’s a recurring problem with sub-par writers that they use inappropriate words (because they don’t really know what they mean or just plucked them from a thesaurus without checking all the connotations) or make them up, all in the pursuit of trying to sound high-brow or appropriately fantasy-esque or whatever. In this book, it’s not Thesaurus Abuse yet, but it’s something painful nonetheless.
Darkes on 30 April 2012, 11:33 said:
Savage has a very odd way of saying “she wiped the sweat off her brow with her arm”.
Danielle on 3 May 2012, 16:08 said:
Seriously? C’mon, Savage, if you’re going to have fantastic elements in a book, don’t just throw them in for no reason unless it’s meant to be funny. Give it a reason for being there, or take it out.
The whole “scowling statues” thing brings up so many ethical questions it’s not even funny. Why are they scowling? If it’s just a spell to make them seem more lifelike, then fine, but why would someone do that? If they have some modicum of sentience, why are they put on display? How do they feel about that?
swenson on 3 May 2012, 16:28 said:
If I were stuck as a stone statue for my entire existence, with no other purpose than to be observed by empty-headed girls wandering by, I’d be scowling too.
Danielle on 3 May 2012, 17:23 said:
The best use of a “living statue” I’ve seen was in Riordan’s Son of Neptune. The god Terminus, the god of boundaries, is an OCD statue guarding the Roman camp. He forces Percy to submit to a “pat down,” never mind the fact that he doesn’t have any arms or hands. Of course, that one was played for laughs.
If I were a statue doomed to be stuck in Savage’s world—one where “You’ll have to be a little patient” is hilarious, I’d probably go on a rampage.
HOLY FLIPPING BURGERS BATMAN I HAVE AN IDEA FOR A SEQUEL