Posts
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| TLDR: It Sucks |
Prologue
To start
off this discussion I want to first talk about another book that is more
interesting than this one, “Sheepfarmer's
Daughter” by Elizabeth Moon, in her fantasy saga, “The Deed of
Paksenarrion”. I read that book ages
ago and for all that time I was trying to get my thoughts about it down on
paper. I would start, get bogged down,
start talking about the Hero’s Journey and how character arcs are supposed to
work… Then I would stop and throw it all out.
There was
too much to talk about with “Sheepfarmer's Daughter”. I wrote other massive book reviews for the
other murderer’s row “Worst books I have managed to finish”, a strange subgenre
of things I tell people to stay away from.
There
was my review of “Year One” which I again mention “Sheepfarmer's Daughter”. And my
review of the boring as fuck “Genesis”, a review that I am kind of proud
of. But I was still not able to hammer
out all the things I wanted to get into with the first “Deed of Paksenarrion”
book.
There are
other things that I feel almost obligated to write about one day to explain in excruciating
detail why I dislike them so much, but I don’t feel so bad about Elizabeth Moon’s
book now, because something new has taken the laurel as the worst book I have
ever managed to finish, Terry Goodkind’s “The Scribbly Man”.
Introduction
I came into reading this aware of
Terry Goodkind's status as a prolific writer who helped define the fantasy
genre over the decades... I expected this to be good.
Let me start with the first of many
complaints, this is not a "Book 1" it is the direct continuation of
an earlier series, events from that previous series define the main view point
characters, the world, and serve as the inciting action for this story. I got this assuming it was the author
building a new series from the ground up, it is not, and the lack of clear upfront
explanation of things makes the material surprisingly obtuse. What is more, and this only matters to fans
of his work (and there is a horde, this thing is intensely well reviewed) the
book is comically short, it would be a quarter of a typical fantasy novel, even
one meant to start a series.
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| For reference, this book (which I still hate) is 15 hours and 48 minutes. "Scribbly Man" is 3 hours and 50 minutes. |
The Plot
The King
and his wife who is sort of the Pope of a fantasy world are confronted by
someone telling them that a “Golden Goddess” is coming to conquer their
planet. This guy is carted off for interrogation
and a Witch shows up to be a new character (her presence should be a big red
flag to everyone else… and somehow they treat her like they’ve known her for
years).
Turns out
the guy in the interrogation tried to kill the Pope with the help of the
titular “Scribbly Man” a monster from another world as a herald of the Golden
Goddess. The Pope lives, and together
with the other characters they later resolve to fight the bad guy… And that is
it. Shockingly short book, I would not
have stuck it out if it were longer.
Some Complaints
My initial and core complaints
about this title have to do with the comically bad writing. Dialogue is so stilted that the voice actor
seems to have no idea how to deliver the lines, halting, flat, and repetitive. I swear to god, the number of times the word
"Gift" or "Witch Woman" show up in some chapters the words
start to lose all meaning. And of course
"Scribbly Man" and "Golden Goddess" which are repeated
dozens of times to the point where you just want to shake them and say, call one
of them "They" or "Gary" or something else so that I can
stop rolling my eyes at how overly formal you are all being.
And everything has such boring
nomenclature. "War Wizard"
"Sword of Truth" "Confessor" "Witch Woman", they
all feel like place holders that you put into the script until you can think of
something distinct or punchy to give the world flavor like "Fremen"
in Dune, “Istari” in Lord of the
Rings, or “Jedi” in Star Wars. “Scribbly” lacks sophistication with the
writing terminology and that makes it feel flat. I don’t need a whole fictional language or
whatever, but come up with something more interesting sounding that “War Wizard”.
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| Tank Mage would have at least been a cool visual. But he is just the 10,000th fantasy jerk off with a sword. |
Some More Complaints
The plotting makes little sense
too, there is a part where the heroes all decide to interrogate a villain, so
they walk into a cell and then they stop and have a 10-minute private
conversation that they all could have had in another room. It is like the chapter is in the wrong
place. Same goes for lots of cuts to the
action. A chapter ends with the
Confessor in complete control of a situation, zero tension, and then when we
come back the villain has stabbed her, and an unseen monster has viciously
attacked her. What? You were fine? Why didn’t the last chapter we saw you in end
with a violent attack?
There is also just a lack of
characters. There are 2 main, 2
supporting, and 3 minor in a book about a fantasy kingdom being invaded by
incorporeal mind controlling ghost monsters from the stars. Where is the war council? Where are prominent heroes, intellectuals,
and advisers outside of the two heroes and the random "Witch Woman"
who happens to show up the same day as the evil ghosts... and for some reason
no one treats that as massively suspicious.
There is the real twist that needed
to happen, the “Witch Woman” should have been concocting the whole alien
invasion thing to put her in a position to harm the two main heroes… She even
has motivation to do so… not that it makes any sense because it was the conclusion
to the last series of books, but the Witch doesn’t seem to take, “Sorry I
screwed up the source of one of your many super powers… But I literally was
thwarting the end of life on this planet.
You should probably just get over it.”
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| "Sure, the dead would have walked the earth... But you would have gotten to keep your ability to tell people's fortunes. Idiot." |
Some More Complaints
Also, the heroes are assholes. One of them uses magic to completely enslave
the will of a person who is already brainwashed by the villain and she is so
pissed of at him for telling her that the bad guys are coming she kills him…
Like he was a victim of the monsters. And
what is more that scene has another hero brutally and casually mutilate the guy
to break the villain’s control over him, it is unpleasant and shocking… and the
main heroes are just like, “Ha! I’m
starting to like her!” Which is gross.
Another small thing, the title is
stupid. This is the start of the series
and while “Scribbly Man” is said to the point where the words boarder on
meaningless it is not technically the main threat, the “Golden Goddess” is. And what is more there is some asinine argument
between the two main characters about how one promised the other a “Golden Age”
and she is mad at him because she is now conflating “Golden Age” and “Golden
Goddess” in a train of logic I could not follow. The book, which takes place as a SEQUEL to
the past series should have been called “The Golden Age” to show the contrast
between the promise of the main hero and the looming threat of the villain, you
know, the parallel he was trying to establish and failed to.
A Backhanded Compliment
To switch gears, I will give it one
credit. The idea of the shimmering ghost
like entity, the titular Scribbly Man is a good image. The way its tracks are described, the idea
that it has claws and venom, that it is especially alien and sees causing fear
and killing akin to sexual pleasure.
They are a fitting threat to the protagonists who are the undisputed
supreme monarchs of an entire planet with magic powers and seemingly limitless
resources… Yeesh… way to write identifiable characters am I right? Guess that isn’t a lot of credit there…
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| This is from the show... Which is... Shockingly bad. Also, gotta love that old trope of superior bloodlines making them magically awesome |
Conclusion
Note: I did not pay full price for
this, I got it for $1.99 and still thought about returning it. Overall, this is garbage. The sort of flat clunky mess that I would
expect as the first fantasy novel hacked out by a 15-year-old. Made all the more disappointing because it is
apparently the work of a rock star in the genre. Baffling.
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