The insufficient snark of Ch 1.

[easol.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh, this is gonna do some damage to my wall. I have a hard head.

http://www.laurellkhamilton.org/Merry/SwallowingDarknessChapterOne.html



Hospitals are where people go to be saved, but the doctors can only patch you up, put you back together. They can't undo the damage. They can't make it so you didn't wake up in the bad place, or change the truth to lies.

This is one of those things that LKH clearly thinks is tewwibly clever and insightful, but which just sounds melodramatic and pretentious.

The nice doctor and the nice woman from the SART, Sexual Assault Response Team, couldn't change that I had indeed been raped.

Why include the damn acronym if you're going to spell out the name in detail? And what's with the "nice" crap? It sounds like some artificially grinning parent saying to a small child, "Now the NICE doctor and the NICE lady..."

You would think being a real live faerie princess would make your life fairy -tale like, but fairy tales only end well.

Lest anyone forget that I am a fairy princess and my life is full of woe.

That said, it really pisses me off that LKH is using a real life trauma as another way for her heroine to have temporary angst-du-jour.

Pick any fairy tale that's based on older stories, and the heroine of the piece has a miserable, dangerous, nightmarish time of it.

One of the three fairy tales mentioned gives the HERO a miserable dangerous nightmarish time of it. So what's with this "oh woe poor heroines" stuff?

I am Princess Meredith NicEssus, next in line to a high throne of faerie,

We know. This is several books into the series -- if we haven't figured out by now then we're too stupid to live. Either that, or LKH needs to put this in so she doesn't forget that she isn't writing Anita and has Merry gleefully gun down a bunch of Evil Jellus Haterz.

and I'm in the middle of my story.

OH DEAR LORD MAKE IT STOP! Is this another hint about the length of the series.

I had been pregnant before he stole me away. Pregnant with the children of men I loved. They'd risked everything to rescue me from Taranis. Now, I was safe.

And for the record. I talk. Like William Shatner. In really short sentences.

But his eyes were as black as the glasses that hid them.

Pray tell, why bother then?

The only color in the dim light of the room was the glints from the silver rings that climbed the graceful line of one ear

Small question: does silver count as a color?

to the point that marked him as not pure blood, not truly high court, but mixed blood, like me.

Because I am MIXED RACIALLY OH WOE... seriously, does she ever write a heroine who isn't? Anita, Merry, that chick from her Ravenloft novel, Deanna Troi...

His ankle-length hair moved like a black cloak as he came toward me. He was wearing green hospital scrubs that he'd been loaned.

Oh, the snark Dr. House could provide if he saw all that ankle-length hair crap.

The many earrings and the nipple piercing survived his return to human form, maybe because they were part of him.

What the hell? Since when is jewelry -- even piercings -- a "part" of you? We're not talking about a pacemaker here!

Seriously, with this passage in mind I think we have LKH's new "kink."

I gripped Doyle's hand, my hand so small and pale in his large, dark one.

Lest anyone forget, she has teeny tiny pale hands and she's so small and fragile but also tough and blah blah blahity blah.

But there should have been another beside him, beside me. Frost, our Killing Frost, was gone. Not dead, not exactly, but lost to us.

Well it's nice that the only character with any development or personality hasn't been totally forgotten as soon as he leaves the stage.

The lands of faerie were growing, instead of shrinking, for the first time in centuries.

And it's all thanks to the Magic Coochie of Life and Joy and Happy Puppies!

We were dying as a people, but maybe not.

MAKE UP your friggin mind!

The thought that I would bear his child and he would neither know nor understand made my chest tight.

Well, he's only one-third of a daddy so somehow it's not quite as moving as LKH thinks it is.

He spoke in his deep, deep voice, as if molasses, and other, thick, sweet things, could be words,

Ye gods, and we're back to the "things" that she uses instead of real descriptions. What are these thick sweet things? Enormous chocolate logs?

But I could not allow my lover and future king to assassinate the King of Light and Illusion, the king of our enemy court.

This would sound waaaaaaayyyyy more impressive if she weren't gonna have five-to-six kings (and by kings I mean concubines), and if they weren't going to hand the court over to Merry's Magic Vagina already.

"Yes. He does not deserve a chance to defend himself, but if I assassinate him, it will be war between the courts, and we cannot afford that."

"No," I said, "we can't." I looked up at him then.

Again, this would be more impressive if Merry hadn't spend a few paragraphs saying JUST THAT on the same page!

He touched my face with his free hand. "Your eyes glow in the dark with a light of their own, Meredith. Green and gold circles of light in your face. Your emotions betray you."

Remember, people! Merry has Superspeshul tri-coloured eyes that glow in the dark with the SuperMagic!

"I was at the signing of the treaty, Meredith. I know what it said."

So why is she telling him in detail? For that matter, if she knows that he knows -- along with every other fey -- why is she outlining what it contains?

He smiled, and nodded. "My emotions make me slow."

No, your author's determination to make her Sues seem clever makes you slow.

"Me, too," I said.

No, you're just dumb.

and had long, straight hair that fell toward his ankles, but the color was white-blonde

Well, that makes ankle-length hair TOTALLY different.

and his skin was like mine, moonlight pale.

Lest anyone forget that Laumerita is white as toilet paper! Can't have a heroine who isn't!

Sholto's eyes were three colors of yellow and gold, as if autumn leaves from three different trees had been melted down to color his eyes, then everything had been edged in gold.

That would be two colours, not three. When you melt down different metals they become ONE colour, not three. And even if they did, edging them in gold would make it FOUR colours, not three! AAAAAA my brain hurts!

He was as fair of face as any at the courts,

It makes my brain ache even more when she tries to use more classical phraseology with her oh-so-modern style.

Starting at his upper ribs, Sholto had extra bits, tentacles, because, though his mother had been high-court nobility, his father had been one of the nightflyers, part of the sluagh, and the last wild hunt of faerie.

Starting in this sentence, Lkh had extra bits, commas, because, though many had snarked about it, she insisted on using them like sprinkles, sprinkles on a cake, multicolored against the frosting.

Now, things of legend were returning

Cuz nobody was as ultramegamagical as SUPERMERRY and her SuperGoddessCoochie, which is so powerful it can bring AAAAAALLLLLL the legendary stuff back.

Until he had a coat or jacket thick enough to hide the extra bits, he would use magic, glamour, to hide the extras.

Now why wouldn't he just pop on a nice jacket or a thick shirt, pray tell? I suppose it's because Laumerita equates nekkidness with sexual allure, so she prefers the idea of her imaginary harem walking around naked with nobody except her Sue realizing it.

But seriously, it's not like the nurses are going to rip open Sholto's shirt and check for any chest tentacles. Why expend any energy on a glamour?

You do not go lightly against the King of Light and Illusion with illusion as your only shield.

Hello, non sequitur! Besides, who goes lightly against the king of Light (ow, awkward repetition) and Illusion with anything as their shield?

The news seemed to have softened some harshness that had always been there in his handsome body.

Awwwwww, how touching. Except if Richard shows any happiness at impending fatherhood, it means he's an evil domineering Neanderthal who just wants Laurita barefoot and pregnant.

At 5' 6", he was the shortest full-blooded sidhe I'd ever met.

Why does she tell us the specific heights of these characters when she can't keep track of them and nobody cares anyway?

His skin was moonlight pale, like Sholto's, like mine, like Frost's.

Lest anyone forget: you can be literally black or toilet-paper white, but nothing in between!

Rhys had removed the fake beard and mustache he'd worn inside the faerie mound.

Is it silly of me that I'm imagining this sidhe wearing Groucho Glasses now?

But he'd had enough illusion to hide the fact that he only had one eye. The remaining eye was three circles of blue, as beautiful as any in the court, but where his left eye had once lain was white scar tissue.

First of all, eyes don't "lie." "Lain" is the past tense of "lie," and eyes are embedded in the skull.
Second, does anyone else get the vibe that Asher has been split into two different characters in this series?

It had been a hell of a first date, but still, we didn't really know each other yet.

Ah, a "first" date with someone se doesn't even know. Yet more evidence that in Merita's world you can fuck around all you want as long as you keep them all. No "sorry I made a mistake!", ever! Because then you're a slut!

His curly white hair which fell to his waist, was still back in the ponytail he'd worn to match his own jeans and t-shirt.

Clearly LKH does not watch HGTV or she'd know that it never works to have a room full of whites. I think the same applies to outfits and..... guh, curly white waist-length hair.

Does hair even curl when it gets that long?

"Meredith has told me no," Doyle said.

"Oh, good," Rhys said. "I get to do it."

"No," I said, "and I thought you were afraid of Taranis."

"I was, maybe I still am, but we can't let this go, Merry, we can't."

"Why? Because your pride is hurt?"

He gave me a look. "Give me more credit than that."

"I will challenge him, then," Sholto said.

The scariest thing is that this woman has to work hard for dialogue this stilted.

"No," I said. "No one is to challenge him to a duel, or to kill him in any other way."

It took me awhile to figure out why this comment bugged me so, but I figured it out -- challenging someone to a duel is not killing them.

"We can't let this insult stand, princess. He has to pay."

Thus confirming that Sholto has officially joined the harem -- now he's one of a "we."

"we use the human law. We get his DNA, and we charge him with my rape."

Which would be way more impressive sounding if we hadn't already had the whole rape-suit debacle, and it hadn't dissolved after about one chapter of Merita whining about how prudish humans are.

Doyle's face betrayed nothing. "You have thought of something, My Princess. You are already planning how this will help our cause."

Again, this would be more impressive if she hadn't said the same thing a page ago.

I gave him the look he deserved. "You're a king, too, of your father's people. Would you destroy your entire kingdom for vengeance?"

Mind, Sholto merely complained that she sounded a politician, so he "deserves" to be treated nastily? I suspect we have a new whipping boy...

And how would challenging Taranis to a duel destroy Sholto's kingdom?

"I would face the king for you, Merry. You know that."

Cuz you are just so SPESHUL and everyone who isn't jealous just LOVES you.

"I don't want to lose anyone else, Rhys. No more of that."

Someone needs to take LKH to a shrink to deal with her morbid obsession with never "losing" anyone. She has two different Sues constantly rambling about keeping "their" people safe and never losing anybody and blah blah blah.

"I will not see a hundred and thirty-three years. He may return as the Killing Frost, but it will be too late for me."

Thus assuring that Frost is definitely going to be restored back to normal in a book or two. Otherwise, her secondary Sue would be sad and we can't have that. Angst yes, but no lasting problems.

"It came to us both in a dream, Meredith. We knew that one of us would be sacrificed for the return of faerie's power. An identical dream on the same night, and we knew."

Translation: LKH didn't make p her mind until the last minute which boytoy would be sacrificed for the return of angst's power.

"You're fools, all of you. Don't you understand that I would mourn you all? That there is none of my inner circle that I would lose, or risk? Do you not all understand that?"

Because she LUUUUUUURRRRRVVVEEEESSS all the men she boinks!

I jerked free of his hand, and glared up at him, happy to be angry, because it felt better than any other emotion inside me in that moment... I was shouting, and it felt much better than tears.

And we have the return of tantrum-throwing whiner Anita!

Dr. Mason was a baby doctor,

As in, a baby with a medical degree? The only other synonym is "pediatrician," which is only for babies that are already born. In the embryonic stage, you have an obstetrician or a gynecologist. Has LKH blocked out EVERYTHING from her past pregnant, or does she not have a medical-professional-of-the-day calendar?

It made it more clear, at least to me, that the color wasn't her natural shade.

I bet she wears MAKEUP and HEELS too! Not like the natural untouched beauty of Laurita!

"I swear to you, that the twins are fine. As far as I can see on the ultrasound and tell from your blood workup, you're healthy and at the beginning of a normal pregnancy. Multiples can make a pregnancy more challenging for the mother and for the doctor." She smiled at that last,. "But everything about the twins looks wonderful. I swear."

Warming up for a miscarriage or for merely more angst?

"Be careful swearing to me, Doctor. I am a princess of the faerie court, and swearing is too close to giving your word. You don't want to know what might happen to you if you were forsworn to me."

The doctor would have to have sex with her?

"I heard about the loss of your . . . lover. My condolences, though in all honesty I don't understand everything I was told about it."

People, this is somethnig we haven't seen in a long time -- a female character who is not portrayed as an ignorant jellus hater who envies Laumerita's vast harem of tiny men with floor-length hair. Course, Merry has already decided that she's a rotten person because she dared to tell Doyle not to excite her patient, which any decent doctor would do. But because it's Doyle, obviously she's an evil bitch.

She is queen and absolute ruler of our court. Absolute rulers don't make requests."

We know, LKH. We've seen your other Sue.

She blinked at me. "Princess Meredith, you only have twins, not triplets." I looked at her. "I know who the fathers of my children are, yes."

Ah, the required scene where Merry blinkers another pathetic stupid mortal with her shining magical speshulness.

"How can you be certain of something so impossible?"

"I had a vision from Goddess."

Yeah, like a doctor would accept an explanation like that, or even allow it to go unargued. And I doubt they'd just refer to it as "impossible" -- they'd probably give a detailed explanation of WHY.

"Then why all the extra tests?" I asked.

"Honestly?"

"Please."

"Because you are Princess Meredith NicEssus, and I'm covering my ass." She smiled and I smiled back.

Remember, everyone! Merry is the most speshul and amazing and famous person EVAH, and everybody knows it.

She almost smiled, but her eyes had that guarded look like she wasn't certain she believed me.... She actually shook a finger at them.

How dare she not believe Magic Merry! I mean, her patient was screaming and throwing a tantrum ten minutes ago -- why wouldn't she believe that Merry wouldn't rest?

"She is a princess," Sholto said from the corner, "and our future queen. If she demands unpleasant topics, what are we to do?"

Grow some balls?

She nodded, with that grip on her stethoscope again. "I've been talking to Queen Andais, so I do see your problem. Try to get her to rest, try to keep her quiet. She's had a lot of shocks today, and I'd just like it better if she rested."

Note how nobody is even thinking about the rape anymore. Half an hour ago MAXIMUM Merry was traumatized and tearful because of what happened to her and all worried about what her men would do. Now she's all chipper and happy and nobody thinks about the rape except as an insult they can use for their own benefit.

"Yes," Sholto said, "how can we all be king?"

"I think the answer is that Merry will be queen," Doyle said.

Yup, because everybody else is expected to just worship at Merry's feet. After all, a king is just meant to sit around and let the strong-bitchy-yet-loving queen tell him what to do. Anything else would be sexist.

"It's all the answer we have now," Doyle said, and I stared into those black eyes and saw colored lights. Colors of things that were not in this room.

A red toaster? A Mac? A blue sofa? What?

"You want to bespell me and me to allow it," I said softly.

And then you want to drink my blood... whoops, wrong series.

"You won't decide anything important without me? Promise?"

Oh, like they could. These guys can't piddle without Laumerita's permission, because she might get angry at them.

He kissed me, and suddenly all I could see was color and darkness.

Someone please tell LKH that due to the nature of light's interaction with the eye, you can't see "all" both at once.

It was like standing in a summer's night surrounded by fireflies, except these fireflies were red, green, yellow, and . . . I slept.

Two things in mind:
1. I'm genuinely surprised that this wouldn't turn into a huge healing humpfest.
2. That was a lousy kiss if it actually put her to sleep.

Anyway that's the first chapter, and a ridiculously empty one it was too. This one is going to suck.... er, forget that phrase. It just reminds me of the title.

Comments

[lilian413.livejournal.com]

The beginning of this chapter was almost good enough to make me care again... and then it devolved into Princess Merry the Awesome Cooched Wonder and her Amazing Tale of Woe and that sliver of interest went away.

Great flog, BTW!! :-)

[mystickiwi.livejournal.com]

Three Things:
1) Hospitals are where people go to be saved, but the doctors can only patch you up, put you back together. They can't undo the damage. They can't make it so you didn't wake up in the bad place, or change the truth to lies. if you read this like JD from Scrubs doing his closing monologue, it does sound really nice
2)I'm going to say that yes, silver is a color, but only because then it makes gold a color, and then my school is actually using real colors (purple and gold...)
3) This chapter... It could have been worse. Your snark was amazing, and the chapter was still, but because it didn't start out with "My girlfriend will only have missionary bed-sex WAHHH!" I can't bash it too hard

[easol.livejournal.com]

Re #3, that's setting the bar pretty low! :D

[ever-obsessed.livejournal.com]

I gripped Doyle's hand, my hand so small and pale in his large, dark one.
Correction: "I gripped Doyle's hand, mine so small and pale in his large dark one."

Is it silly of me that I'm imagining this sidhe wearing Groucho Glasses now?
Dear god, this mental image is so made of win, there's no way to measure it.

The doctor would have to have sex with her?
Don't be silly.

That would be gay.

Very nice flog.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Starting at his upper ribs, Sholto had extra bits, tentacles, because, though his mother had been high-court nobility, his father had been one of the nightflyers, part of the sluagh, and the last wild hunt of faerie.

Correction: "Starting at his upper ribs, Sholto had extra bits - tentacles. Though his mother had been high-court nobility, his father had been one of the nightflyers, part of the sluagh, and the last wild hunt of faerie."

Or even better: "Sholto, who had nightflyer as well as sidhe ancestry, had tentacles starting at his upper ribs."

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

Ok, I am sorry, I had to stop reading it about half way through - not because of your snark, but I couldn't take her writing anymore.

The commas alone were killing me.

"And it's all thanks to the Magic Coochie of Life and Joy and Happy Puppies!" Bawhwhaha!

So, wait. Was she having a child by one man, or did she get preggers by multiple men at once? Because she says: "Pregnant with the children of men I loved." and then "The thought that I would bear his child and he would neither know nor understand made my chest tight." So is the last part rhetorical? Or is it another example of LKH quite unable to keep her story straight?

[morriganscrow.livejournal.com]

The twins have six fathers - three each - Doyle, Frost, Rhys, Galen, Sholto and Mistral.
This is based on Celtic myth, but taken to the Nth degree.

[dreamstrifer.livejournal.com]

It is possible to have curly waist length hair. THe teller who usually handles my paychecks at my bank has absolutely gorgeous red corkscrew curls to her waist. Other than that, the first chapter read like a crappy fanfiction by a 13 year old who's never written before.

[zgirl714.livejournal.com]

Wow, I tried to read it and even the fun snark couldn't stop me from skimming at every hair description. See my biggest problem with LKH isn't her jailbait lust, horrendous grammar, and big porn -- its that she is so boring!

[ellenel13.livejournal.com]

Um, who has ankle length hair in Merry's world?

Also, I forgot the Swallowing Darkness wasn't a Blake book until she got to introducing the name.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Most of them, I think.

[kd-lalala.livejournal.com]

"'It had been a hell of a first date, but still, we didn't really know each other yet.'

Ah, a "first" date with someone se doesn't even know. Yet more evidence that in Merita's world you can fuck around all you want as long as you keep them all. No "sorry I made a mistake!", ever! Because then you're a slut!"

I must admit I am behind on the times. See, I didn't know "getting swept up in magic and fucking like rabbits" was a first date! So old fashioned am I.

[easol.livejournal.com]

I imagine that next she'll be referring to rabbit-fuckery as "going steady" again, even though the last person I heard using that phrase was an insane guy on a comedic anime.

[moonbeamdancer.livejournal.com]

God, I just skimmed most of that crap, makes me glad I dumped this series with the first book...

[lucidscreamer.livejournal.com]

Me, too, though I barely made it through even the first one (I was in an "if I start the book, I must finish it" phase, which I've thankfully grown out of). I couldn't even read more than a third of the book-flog; LKH's writing is just *that* awful.

[siedhr.livejournal.com]

I could not even make it past the first third of the first book in the Merry series. This scene reads to me a lot like pregnant Anita in the hospital, surrounded by all the harem. There was a female doctor in that scene also.

[cicipsychobunny.livejournal.com]

So why is she telling him in detail? For that matter, if she knows that he knows -- along with every other fey -- why is she outlining what it contains?

Oh man, this reminds me of an episode of BSG (about to hit end of season 3, please to not spoil, blessed Americans-who-are-so-damn-ahead) where something's gone wrong with an airlock, Lee starts to explain why they can't fix said airlock, and Adama just snaps, "I know how the system works." Sometimes the redundant exposition is necessary to clue in the reader, but at least BSG acknowledged it was redundant exposition.

[jerel.livejournal.com]

There is actually a term for this technique. It's called "As You Know, Bob." Now, in the BSG example, it works for comic effect. (They also did this as a joke in B5 at least once.) But otherwise? Best dispensed with entirely. If the narrator is going to explain things, it shouldn't be in dialogue, because then it calls attention to itself.

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

They got the tube of gloopy stuff that I'd already learned was really, really cold.

Um, usually it's KY jelly or something like that and they do have a goo warmer. Unless the hospital she went to is worse than the one in my dinky home town or the doctor was having a happy passive-aggressive day and didn't turn on the goo warmer. Our ultrasound tech would do that sometimes.

[kd-lalala.livejournal.com]

I got several ultrasounds last year and no one ever used a goo warmer for me ¬¬ Humph!!!

[wyvernfriend.livejournal.com]

Does hair even curl when it gets that long?

My lil'bro has long curly hair and when it was down nearly to his ass you only could tell if it was wet. Otherwise it was a little lower than his shoulders in a pony tail. But then again he's real, not like LKH's characters

[apis-mellifera.livejournal.com]

I've read the whole thing.

[pearkiwi.livejournal.com]

"Lkh had extra bits, commas, because, though many had snarked about it, she insisted on using them like sprinkles, sprinkles on a cake, multicolored against the frosting."

I love you bunches for this line.

Excellent flog! Are you going to do the rest of the book?

[easol.livejournal.com]

If nobody else minds I will. :D:D:D:D

[mermaidcarols.livejournal.com]

I'm just bored to tears at how Merry and Anita are exactly the same and how unoriginal LKH can be when creating a main character. C'mon, some differences here!

[wonderbink.livejournal.com]

Is it silly of me that I'm imagining this sidhe wearing Groucho Glasses now?

Is it awful of me that my first thought was "Well, Rhys probably would . . . "

So this is the first chapter? Did the massively traumatizing rape close the previous book, or this this another fine example of "This really exciting action scene happened completely off-stage and we're just going to tell you all about it." I noticed she did the same thing with another MG book, when she'd been shot or something. I can understand that sort of thing when you're, say, a filmmaker on a budget, but do words really cost that much?

[easol.livejournal.com]

It closed the previous book, but Merry was unconscious throughout it so technically it did happen offstage. And even then, Merry was thinking about how she hoped her uncle HAD raped her because she wanted to use it for herself.

[suzycat.livejournal.com]

Yup. I had a friend whose hair was very curly and if it had been capable of growing to her waist it would have remained so. If she cut it even to shoulder length it stuck out like a hedge.

[okami-no-yume.livejournal.com]

Oh, the snark Dr. House could provide if he saw all that ankle-length hair crap.

You are made of WIN for the House reference alone.

House makes everything better. XD!

But then, House is made of awesome and WIN. And I think that he'd be safe from the sexin', because he doesn't have OMG superlong hair, and isn't some emo pretty boy. :p

I like to think he'd make Merry cry, and he'd NOT be impressed by the sparkly.

Although he would be interested in how it is that a set of twins have six daddies. :p

BTW, awesome flog.

[countessof-roth.livejournal.com]

LUPUS. Thats how the sets of twins have six daddies!!!


*i love House*

[pastygothchick.livejournal.com]

Enormous chocolate logs?

and the content of the current one

[acostilow.livejournal.com]

"Be careful swearing to me, Doctor. I am a princess of the faerie court, and swearing is too close to giving your word. You don't want to know what might happen to you if you were forsworn to me."

Actually, it's thrice sworn, you ignorant twat.

...Uh. LKH. Not OP. OP makes book bearable. :D

[delphinapterus.livejournal.com]

Wonderful. I love the A red toaster? A Mac? A blue sofa? What? line.

Dam it for a brief moment there is looked like Merry was going to board Andais's crazy train but no.

[icecreamempress.livejournal.com]

All I want is to go in that room with scissors. TWO guys with "ankle-length" hair in the same room? REALLY? That makes the guy with "waist-length" hair seem like a skinhead in comparison.

[yaoihuntresse.livejournal.com]

Worst of all it give impressionable readers the idea that it's no big deal.

[rin-x-x.livejournal.com]

I can't read it anymore.

WHY DO WE NEED A DAMN INTRO EVERYTIME SHE STARTS THE BOOK? THE SAME DAMN INTRO EVERY SINGLE DAMN TIME?!?!

Gah.