emblazonet

[emblazonet]

DRAGONSDAWN REVIEW

This is a heckin weird book and I started off enjoying it until I Was Not Enjoying it.

The intro seemed interesting enough: we’ve got people who are escaping a variety of circumstances (including retired war veterans). They’re looking to colonize an uninhabited planet, which neatly sidesteps major issues in other colonial literatures, since, well, there’s no one sentient to object!

Personally, the sciencey stuff seems fine... I’m nota science person to begin with, and I was mildly interested by their tech and how it was described. Nothing stood out as weird. Maybe funny, when they refer to film or tapes, since we’ve established this is in our future and the colonists are often from actual places: Ireland, etc.

I did find it weird that they name a bunch of places after places on Earth. Why bother? Why not just make names that actually communicate something about the landscape they’re in? This is somethig that obviously colonists did here to North America—every city I’ve lived in has roads that are named ‘Hillside’ or ‘Pinevale’ or something (even if there are no hills or pines). In my hometown, Beacon Hill was a region my high school was in (and I’m not sure there was ever a beacon or a hill); in my current city, Beacon Hill is a park. It’s stupid and I hate it. Name things organically, or else it feels WEIRD. (In books. Obviously IRL just use the indigenous names and maybe please do a land back, like with Haida Gwaii!)

I know, I’m yelling about colonial problems at an author who has a weird obsession with bloodlines. And who killed off all the black characters in the first Threadfall. Uh huh. Moving on.

There are too many characters in this book, by the way. There are too many AND they are kinda bland. They run together. I don’t know why I should care about any of them. It’s weird that it’s supposed to be multicultural or whatever but it never feels like it. The way other cultures are represented is kinda uncomfortable. Spoilers and stuff upcoming.

Paul and Emily seem like they should have Main Character Energy, but neither does. They’re important people or something but the narrative never makes you feel it. There’s a whole bunch of names that keep coming up but I can never rememeber who they are or what they do... Pol, Bay etc. Idk.

Sorka and Sean are obviously telegraphed as some of the first dragonriders, they’re the sort of Adam and Eve first kids of Pern, and they’re boring and I grew to kinda dislike them by the end of the book because they’re just like Generic Hetero Couple and it was very yawn.

I liked Kenjo, I though he was going to be The First Dragonrider because the book goes on and on about his flying ability, the way he can conserve fuel, all that. But actually he dies halfway through and I hate that actually, because it feels like any build up with this character never went anywhere. His death was pointless but the story didn’t even make it about the pointlessness, so like... why?

Sallah’s seduction of Tarvi, a pretty man, was awkward as fuck. She drugs him and they fuck and then later she’s like ‘why doesn’t he seem to love me?’ BECAUSE YOU DRUGGED HIM? OH MY GOD????? At least Dragon Sex Pollen gives you an out! There’s no excuse to for this nonsense! And then when she dies, Tarvi—changing his name to her last name, Telgar—has this ‘oh I DID love her after all’ grief thing but it comes across as super contrived.

Look, I stand by actually liking Lessa/F’lar, but I’ve pretty much hated every single other romantic relationship in this series (except for Moreta/Alessan ... Moreta is the best book).

Speaking of Sallah’s tragic death aboard the orbiting, fuelless colony ship—her murderer is the Obviously A Villain Avril Bitra. Who is a mean gold-digger lady who is also a slut, and Anne, did you need to work something out with this one? Avril is set up as a villain but instead of being a threat to anything, she basically does a stupid and dies, but manages to take Sallah down with her. But her inexplicably meanness with Sallah has a weird sexual undertone to it? I’d be into it if I didn’t hate it. Like. The scene where Sallah is cut up and Avril is tormenting her is SO CHARGED and it could’ve been so good except it’s... it’s just not. It feels incredibly out of place! It’s the climax of the book in terms of intensity, but it’s in the middle and we haven’t even gotten to the dragons yet!

Thread, by contrast, wasn’t even that dramatic. Oh noo, there’s Thread.

And the dragons feel sort of rushed into the end of the book. There’s something weird about the biologist and her granddaughter. They’re Chinese, and everyone loves the grandmother, but apparently the granddaughter is an unpleasant bitch and there’s no explanation offered at all. I have no idea why the characterizations are so weird and awkward, but they really are.

How many times can I say ‘weird and awkward’ in one review???

Also, why does that one MAGA-style asshole, Ted Tubberman, try to bioenginner felines? What even was that? There’s literally nothing relevant about it? WHY WAS IT INCLUDED? Why wasn’t it cut?? It doesn’t do anything for the plot or characters except, I guess, kill off a loose end? Who was already exiled?

By the way, the glee with which everyone exiles this dude is so weird. ‘We didn’t kill him! We just ostracized him forever!’ Wow. Just. Wow. I don’t even know what to say.

In sum, basically, this book is a structural mess with bad characters. It had a fun dragonfighting sequence three pages from the end, and that was probably my favourite part.

I don’t know how a book with so much stuff happening crammed into it could be so boring, but here we are. Like, this wasn’t Nerilka-level bad: it didn’t do any character assassinations because it wasn’t a sequel to anything that came before. But it was a slog, and it didn’t even have the grace to have a lot of dragon-related screen time to offset it.

3/10, a structural disaster.

#dragonriders of pern #amber reads pern #dragonsdawn #I miss moreta #moreta was actually good

[emblazonet]

[emblazonet]

no multi option, agonize and choose, no results option, pick one to find out or scroll onward

#I WANT THAT PEN #I'd save so much money with a fountain pen that had any ink in it #Omg

[emblazonet]

Howl truly is the man of all time. He’s a playboy. He’s a malewife. He fell in love with a ninety year old woman. He’s a rugby player. He smells like hyacinths. He’s not a natural blond. When dying his hair went slightly wrong, he filled his home with slime. He has a PhD. He’s a wizard. He found a way to another universe and he told absolutely nobody about it. He makes video games about the magical universe for his nephews. He can’t play the guitar. He always takes a guitar with him when he’s trying to seduce a woman. He’s a self-proclaimed coward. He got drunk to trick himself into doing something dangerous. He overcharges for his services to rich people. He undercharges for his services to poor people. A woman invaded his home and declared herself his cleaning lady and he just let her stay. He loves spiders. He lies about his surname to everyone, including royalty. The true spelling of his first name is Howell, but we don’t find out until halfway through the book because the POV character thinks it’s spelled Howl. He’s even Welsh.

#Hmc

[emblazonet]

luke_penry.exr on TikTok

Credit if used!

#mushrooms #magical

[emblazonet]

Reading the Silmarillion, the elves seem so active and full of life.They’re always doing things. When you get to the Lord of the Rings, they just seem so tired. Elrond holds a meeting and then he’s out. Galadriel has some guests stay with her. They’re so done. They just wanna leave.

[emblazonet]

Whatever its called to have these kinds of colourful squares in your home i want it

Look

[emblazonet]

Camera.

Mailing list | Patreon

[emblazonet]

Another good boomer joke

[emblazonet]

it's so funny to me that the internet is full of all these 'gifted child' memes or whatever. cannot fucking relate.

I got a shitty prize on graduation from high school because no one believed I would, in fact, graduate. I was exceedingly insulted because I'd applied for a scholarship and this prize was both humiliating and had no money attached to it.

#this despite TECHNICALLY being on the honour roll for two years running #I have anti-giftedness #I failed the IQ test

[emblazonet]

the self care industry will sell you face masks and teas and whatnot so i'm here to remind you not to forget the most important self care activity which is masturbation

[emblazonet]

@zahnie

I don’t know what’s funnier.. the baby elephant chasing the birds, or when he fell and ran to his mom xD

[emblazonet]

Chuck Jone's rules for good animation

All living creatures, fictional or not, have anatomy. Equally true of an amoeba, an angle worm, a mastodon , and a Grinch.

If you want believability in your characters, you must have visual consistency. In animation, each character must move according to its own anatomical limitations: Daffy duck must move with Daffy Duck’s anatomy, Donald Duck with Donald Duck’s structure. The amoeba’s anatomy seems to have only one restriction - its bulk; like an inflated baloon, it can vary its shape, but it cannot change its volume. That is, if you want a believable amoeba

All animals - humanized animals or animalized animals - must appear to stand, walk , run or skip under the stablizing pressure of gravity in order to achieve believeability

There is no sympathy without believability, no real laughter without sympathy.

In the sympathetic recognition of any character there must be some evidence of one’s own self, one’s own weaknesses, one’s own mistakes, no matter how well self-concealed, buttoned down or pigeonholded.

The flimmaker as well as the viewer must be able to find the character within himself. We cannot fashion personalities from what we SUPPOSE another person to be.

If you start with character, you probably will end up with good drawings. If you start out with drawings you will almost certinly end up with limited characters, caught in the matrix of your limited drawing. Therefore…

It is not what or where a character is, nor is it the circumsances under which he finds himself that determine who he is. It is only how in a unique way he responds to that enviorment and those circumstances that identifies him as an individual. hopefully, an interesting character becomes interesting because of that uniqueness among his contemporaries.

For identity, you do not DRAW differently, you THINK differently. It is the WHO of the character , not the WHAT that counts. Walk- through circus clowns depend upon WHAT they look like for their brand of comedy. That is WHAT they are. Comedians depend upon HOW they move for comedy and pathos - their wonderful who-ness.

As the writer John Buchan said, you will never succeed in playing a part unless you convince yourself that you are it.

Animation means to invoke life, not to imitate it.

no great children’s book, film or fable was ever written for children. It was written for the witer, the artist , the flimmaker. Again, the mark of any ’ great work ’ for children, from one by Beatrix Potter to a book br Dr. Seuss , can be easily identified: if it can be read with pleasure by adults it is probably a very good, possibly a great, childrens book.

you cannot write DOWN to an audience or to your subject. you must write UP to them with the certainty that you cannot ever do justice to your subject, but must bend every creative nerve and muscle of your heart and brain to its full capacity in an attempt to do so.

The least you owe an audience is the best you can do

No art form can exist without restrictive disciplines. Most of the great paintings in history have been caught in the terrible discipline of the rectangle. The flimmaker finds himself trapped in the exact and severe disciplines of both the rectangle an time. Most cinema features are in a time warm of 90 to 120 minutes, most animated cartoon shorts in a confinement of 6 minutes.

You must not complain of your restrictions. If you cannot live with them, find a discipline you can live with.

——————-

Above is a section from Chuck Jone’s book Chuck Reducks. I’ve bolded some of my favorite and most inspirational rules. Forgive me some spelling errors. I was staring at the book while I was typing so I wasnt really watching the screen haha.

[emblazonet]

[emblazonet]

actually your characters should be pure wish fulfillment and your writing should be entirely self indulgent and it should all be very, incredibly, undeniably horny.

[emblazonet]

Atlantes of the temple of Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli guarding the Palacio Quemado in Tula, Mexico. Around 850 - 1150 AD

[emblazonet]

Ok well I finished Dragonsdawn. That happened.

... Review will happen, I'm just feeling pretty meh about this book rn. It was ... it was weirdly structured.

#dragonsdawn #amber reads pern #dragonriders of pern