Chapter 3: in which we discover that pirates don't think of the economy.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 3 opens with a confirmation that yes, the people of Drall are at a stone-age technology level. This is a plot-relevant reiteration that helps cement an element of the world into the reader’s mind, and is thus an important part of the world-building process. One interesting thing is that no-one is even remotely suspicious of A) someone knowing their names in a country that has never been discovered, that they had no intention of going to, and that by rights shouldn’t speak the same language; B) that person was not just expecting them but waiting for them; and C) that a stone age society is offering gold as payment, implying that they know gold is the basis of your economy. Indeed, Ham-Hand is more concerned by the prospect of working for a woman than by the above weirdness. I guess Viking pirates hire for brawn, not brains.

They head up the coast and arrive at a village, and the captain shows why he gets the big bucks with 2 good ideas:

1) Weigh anchor for the night and approach in the morning, so that their arrival cannot be misinterpreted as a surprise attack.

2) Tell the crew to be on their very best behavior. This is important, considering how pirate Vikings must feel after a few months at sea. Of course, the reason is because they’ll be outnumbered and causing a ruckus might jeopardize their chance of being paid rather than, you know, from being halfway decent human beings… of course, if they were decent human beings then the little talk wouldn’t be necessary.

Anyway, we are introduced to another of our future viewpoint characters at this point: a red-bearded native called, and you’ll never guess this in a million years… Red-beard! This actually raises an interesting question: What did they call him before he grew his beard? Seriously, there’s no mention of a birth name or a family name, he’s just Red-beard. Secondly, if red hair is rare enough to warrant naming someone over, where did the red-hair gene come from? Let’s be generous and say that the tribe has 300 adults (heck, even that many is a lot considering that they get all their food from hunting and gathering). Where would the anomalous red-hair come from? An outside tribe? It’s never mentioned, even though in a few books we get a fairly detailed life history of Red-beard. If red hair isn’t that uncommon, then isn’t it like calling someone ‘Blondie’ or ‘Goldielocks’ or… ok, but it’s still a stupid name! And this from the man who called a main character Kífffrlinï!

Anyway, Red-beard is rowing the chief White-braid (I give up) to speak with the captain. We then move on to the captain meeting with Zelana in her cave a way off from the village. I realize that it may seem like the narrative jumps like crazy with my retelling, but in fact the opposite is true. I’m just giving you a basic framework so you can follow why any of the plot holes is actually, you know, a plot hole.

Now the captain meets Zelana, the most beautiful woman he has ever met. Get used to that sentence. She opens with complaining about how long he took to get there, he calls her on knowing they were coming, and we get “the beloved knows everything.” Take a shot. I hate Eleria.

Apparently Hook-Beak is too busy staring to push the subject any further, even though if someone was spying on me and had just been proclaimed to know EVERYTHING you can bet I would start asking questions rather than getting distracted by the sexy.

Zelana suddenly endears herself to me greatly by kicking the plot into overdrive, leaving Hook-Beak to get caught up in her wake. This is the first time in 96 pages that there’s been any sense of energy, so this is a big thing. Hook-Beak asks how much he’s being paid for a bit of mercenary work, and the energy goes away as the plot stalls for another page of people stating the obvious. Also we are introduced to the running gag of Eleria intentionally mucking up peoples’ names, which is so funny it will obviously never get old… *Grabs suicide pistol*

###Emergency review subroutine loaded.

###Activating cloning vat. Estimated time until clone completion: 3 weeks.

###Resuming review.

Scene: Sorgan Hook-Beak is taken by Eleria to view offered payment gold.

Alert: Thermodynamics violated.

Alert: Gold shown exceeds total mined gold of human population of earth by year 2013.

Alert: Influx of this much gold into Maag economy will create total collapse and cause social regression that is likely to spread to neighboring nations, and is likely to cause a state of total war between Maags and Trogites.

Hypothisis: Total war between these two powers is goddess Zelana’s true goal, eliminating both technologically advanced nations as a threat to her own.

Query: Why is human Sorgan Hook-Beak incapable of suspicion in the presence of gold? Brain scans of test subjects reveal no shutdown of logical reasoning centers due to elements proximity.

Chapter end: A deal is struck, and Maag pirate Sorgan Hook-Beak is now transporting Goddess Zelana and cohorts for recruitment of additional pirate crews for PMC contract.

Logic error: Hook-Beak cannot take much gold as it will weigh down his ship, and speed is a factor. However, ship has not unloaded haul from Trogite merchant ship robbed 2 chapters ago, and is likely already at capacity. How can they be considering taking more?

###End review.

Chapter 2: Yeah, not much to make fun of here.

Chapter 2.                                                                                  

We start with the introduction of ‘Kaldo Tree-Top’, who is apparently very tall. His line for the series is “Land ho!”, informing us that our protagonists have found their way to Drall. Now in all honesty, this chapter isn’t really that bad. There are no massive plot holes, the story progresses, that sort of thing. However, there is one thing that starts getting on my nerves from the get-go: CharacterShilling. Now it’s a fine line to walk between introducing a new character’s reputation in a conversation and Character Shilling, but when you have a page dedicated to variations on the theme of ‘He runs fast’, I’d be inclined to put it in the latter camp. Other than that we get some world building and the characters make their way up the coast. They come upon a village, are informed that they are expected (but receive no answers as to how this is possible, after which they drop the issue and it is never raised again) and have to head further up the coast to meet with Zelana. We also get an early bird cameo from Longbow, easily the biggest Mary Sue character in this entire Suetopia of a series, but more on him later. A lot more.

And that’s pretty much it. The chapter is short and progresses the story by one notch, but isn’t terrible and contains little for me to mock.

Chapter 1: The Seafarers

Chapter 1

Ok, I have to start out by saying that this isn’t chapter 5. It’s the seafarers, chapter 1. You see these books are divided into different sections to help us keep track of the viewpoint character, which is actually not a bad idea for a story like this where perspective jumps around a bunch. The problem is that every time we reach a new section the chapter count starts over. This part is extremely annoying and makes keeping track of things harder without adding to the story or feeling in any way necessary. Protip for aspiring writers: If it makes your book needlessly more complicated and doesn’t add to the story then don’t put it in.

I’ll put my hand up and admit that my own book contains a timekeeping system which takes a bit of getting your head around, but at least that adds to the setting and is part of the worldbuilding. This? It’s needlessly annoying, and I have no idea why you would bother numbering the chapters at all if you were simply going to reset the count every 60 or so pages.

Right, now that’s out of the way.

This next section of the book is called the seafarers, and follows the charmingly sociopathic pirate/Vikings we were introduced to at the end of the last chapter. Our viewpoint character this chapter is Captain Sorgan Hook-Beak, the lad with firm economic advice about not killing people for kicks if you can still make a buck off of them. I’m going to take a bit of a risk here and post a quote, in spite of the whole ‘no part of this publication can be reprinted’ thing. It’s for a good cause, and if anyone really gets upset let me know and I’ll take it down.

‘Though he would deny it with his dying breath, if the truth were to be known, it was sheer coincidence that led to the discovery of the Land of Dhrall by Captain Sorgan Hook-Beak and the crew of his ship, the Seagull.’

Why was this quoteworthy? Well apart from demonstrating a fondness for commas beyond even my own obsession with them, it generates another plot hole when compared with the series finale. In fact the plot hole comes from the same problem as the preface, so take another shot. There are so many of these that I am convinced that the finale is an ass-pull ending that was never planned at this stage of the undertaking. This is a major problem, and here’s why:

Most stories have a beginning, a middle and an end.

The beginning of the story is where you establish your characters and setting, along with setting in motion whatever plot or conflict is going to drive the series. The beginning can be fast such as in the hobbit, or slow as is the case in the lord of the rings. A strong beginning is vital for getting your readers invested and engaged, and a half-baked beginning can kill an otherwise good book by losing the interest of prospective readers.

The middle of the story is, naturally, everything that happens between beginning and end. Character development, plot progression… almost everything that makes a story enjoyable is going to happen in this section of the series, which is as it should be as this is what makes up the vast majority of the series. Of the three, having only a vague idea of the middle of a book is probably the least damaging as it allows the plot and characters to develop more organically.

Then we come to the end, the culmination of our series. A weak ending can potentially damage a franchise more than several lackluster chapters in the middle of a story, as demonstrated with the fan outcry at the ending of mass effect 3. While knowing exactly how a story will end when you start writing it isn’t vital, having some idea of what is going to happen is a good idea. A good ending will tie up the main plot and preferably deal with the majority of any loose ends still remaining, though with more complex stories one or two threads will inevitable be missed by all but the most methodical and talented.

What you most certainly do not want is an ending that concludes none of your plot threads, comes completely out of left field, and creates a bunch of plot holes. Rest assured, if you stick with me then you’ll see an ending that ticks all of these boxes and more besides.

Ok, major tangent already and we’re only a single sentence in. So let’s take a look at the second sentence. Yes, we’re in for the long haul on this one. It’s basically telling us how awesome Sorgan Hook-Beak is as a sailor, as it’s easier to do this than actually show him being a good sea-captain. Oh, but merely being good isn’t enough for our main character: He’s the best there has ever been. So of the random ships Zelana could have stumbled upon, the first one contains the greatest sea-captain ever. Take a shot, and restock your alcohol because EVERY ONE of our main characters is going to be the best that has ever lived in their respective fields… one of which I will be taking particular issue with as I, an internet reviewer, can out-do him in his field of mastery without even raising a sweat. But more on that later.

We now get some exposition on the land of Maag and the history of Sorgan Hook-Beak. Several pages later we read what we just read last chapter from another point of view (take a shot) and the chapter ends with us catching up to where last chapter left off, his ship and crew getting swept away by a divinely mandated tide and to the land of Drall.