Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to DARKER THAN NIGHT. A class act from the very first page.
The major problem here of course is that this turgid gent with the poorly defined sense of personal space won't turn out to be some creepy weirdo stalker badguy or anything. Oh no. This will be the HERO. The guy we are supposed to be identifying with and rooting for. Who likes to stare at unconscious women and touch himself in a sinister fashion. It's no wonder the badguys in these books seem so lame, they can't compete with the heroes level of sheer wrongness.
Anyway, having established before the first proper chapter the tone for the entire book to come...
Where do we go next? I'll give you a clue, these books have 3 types of sections. Creepy sexual situations, "plot" and garden parties.
I will however leave it up to you to try and work out where one ends and the other begins. Think of it like a game of bingo. Get all 3 in the same paragraph and win a prize!
Anyway, yes. It's a garden party. Queen Victorias, for some reason. You really think she'd have a better agent and be able to avoid these sort of things, but I guess she hasn't been in demand as once she was, poor dear. So now we get our second introduction to our "hero", only this time he's wearing pants, so I guess it's not all bad. Does he have a name and description? Sure. Do you need to be told any of it? Not really. He is Sancho V3 and frankly that's as far as it goes.
Not the coolest type 3 hero you could be if we're brutally honest
But that's not enough to really start things off is it? And since nothing gets things going than the sound of my tortured screams echoing off the wall I'm currently beating my head against, we get two for the price of one! That's right, it's HIM. The original one might say. Sancho himself. Oh frabjous day.
Anyhoo, the two Sanchos are both their because they're each after something apparently. However whilst Sancho V3 is there because he wants to get a favour from the Queen, Sancho the first is there because he wants anal.
Oh, did I not mention that Binto was there as well? But yes. It's quickly made abundantly clear that Binto is trading a day out for sexual favours. Isn't it impressive how the book sets about destroying your faith in humanity right from the get go? But what is it that Sancho V3 want? Oh dear, I'm going to have explain some background here aren't I?
At the "climax" of the last book Sancho Junior was almost consumed with brain AIDS, when at the last minute he was saved by his twin sister the Countess Bitchy, who flew in with Science Ninja Team Gothaman and TOOK HIS AIDS using some magical plate or other.
Picture this, only everyone's wearing black
Bitchy was then put to sleep by Binto, lest she spread her AIDS any further and so that the book could end.
Anyway, turns out that Sancho V3 is like the head of Science Ninja Team Gothaman, which I guess would make him the Black Ranger. Except that EVERYONE is the black ranger. It must get pretty confusing. Point is, Bitchy has been confined to the tower of London where all the black rangers live, and Sancho V3 wants shot of her before he rapes her in her sleep. Sadly he doesn't use those exact words so his pleas fall on deaf ears. But not all is lost, as apparently Binto has pulled a cure out of her ass.
Well, the word "cure" might be a bit strong. I stand by the "pulled out of her arse" part though. Anyway she's got an untested serum of description which no one has the slightest clue if it will work, make things worse, or indeed do ANYTHING whatsoever.
But fuck it, let's give it to her anyway, right? NOTHING COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG™
INTERIOR, TOWER OF LONDON, NIGHT. SOMETHING IS ABOUT TO GO WRONG.
Sancho and company arrive at the tower and spend some time chatting with the comedy duo of the goth rangers about the various ghosts of tower. Not content with all the other crimes against literature we now have the distinct impression that things are going take a turn for the Harry Potter. And not in a good way. Anyway, once we finish with the foreshadowing and clumsily hinted exposition which only time and a course of psychotherapy will reveal as having any relevance they finally decide to give the recumbent Bitchy her dose of the Kool Aid. For some reason this requires the aid of Sancho V3, who instantly gets an erection. Oh yay.
Thing is, ANYONE could have held her head whilst Binto poured her dubious fluid down Bitchys gob hole. She could have done it herself. Personally I think she got V3 to do it just to fuck with him. Clearly there wasn't QUITE enough sexual tension going on in the room.
Whatever. The mystery fluid is deposited in the requisite orifice, and then..... Nothing happens. Nothing continues to happen until everyone gets bored and fucks off. Binto heads home to sulk and wonder why her untested mystery drug of dubious providence didn't instantly make everything better, and V3 heads of into the night with his erection.
Specifically, he goes to see that whore I mentioned earlier. Only it turns out she's not QUITE a whore. He just treats her like one. She's got some mates over, and is all like "why don't you hang with us for a bit, it's cool" and he's all like "THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU'RE FOR, HARLOT" which, it has to be said, doesn't go over well. She kinda works out that he's just been using her for sex and he can't actually even look her in the face.
Once again, I'd just like to remind you that this worthless sack of abusive lying shit is OUR HERO.
Even in the future they can still feel our pain
However, before we are given much chance to fully contemplate just how badly V3 deserves an atomic Nutpunt, the plot kicks in.
Shit is kicking off at the Tower! Who could have foreseen that the mystery serum might take time to kick in? I ask you, just what is the purpose of science?!?!?!!
Well, now that you ask....
So yeah, Bitchys room is like exploding with magic light. Or maybe dark. One of the two. The earth shakes, the ceilings tremble, cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria etc. The big bird cage fall off the ceiling and one of the ravens contained therein gets it's neck broke in what is almost certainly NOT foreshadowing. Eventually V3 kicks the door in with his mighty powers of kicking in doors to find Bitchy replaced with a dead goth ranger.
Omg, it WAS foreshadowing!!
Next we find Bitchy on the street, in her nightgown, with a dead whore. By this stage it just sounds like an average night out, but she is someone perturbed by this. Well, Bitchy is anyway. Nobody mentions how the whore feels about the whole situation, but that doesn't matter because she's poor.
So, what terrible powers have been awakened in our heroine? Sadly it appears her only new abilities are those of being like every other female in these books to date. That is she feels all overpowered by the raging Sanchosity of the manly manliness of our current Sancho, as Science Ninja Team Gothaman (minus one) swoop in to arrest her.
So much for an exciting tale of fugitive intrigue.
Cut to casa del Sancho. Bitchy awakes and instantly regrets it, perhaps sensing that she has been rendered drippy, ineffectual, and most importantly subordinate to some guy she barely knows. As in she knows his name and they met like once, but now she's getting all destined around him. Because I guess you can't do "romance" with a powerful woman like that. Mainly because "romance" and "sexual assault" are fairly interchangeable in these books, and the author doesn't seem to like writing fight scenes.
So, stripped of both her powers and dignity Bitchy is bundled into a wheelchair and wheeled off to face trail in front of Queen Victoria (who I guess had nothing better to do that evening) and the mysterious tripartite rulers of the poorly defined mystical realms the immortal space vampires allegedly defend.
They only WISH they were this cool.
After being briefly and not exactly convincingly reassured that you probably didn't maybe kill that whore I guess? Bitchy is then confronted by the shocking revelation that she killed the black ranger. DUN DUN DUNNN!!!
Now we just wait for the next 250 pages of mounting sexual tension between Bitchy and Sancho V3 until she finally proves her innocence and then they fuck.We all KNOW this is what is going to happen, but if I have to sit through this crap then so do you.
Tune in next time and see how long they can stretch it out for.
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