Chapter 4 - Just Bite the Mary Sue Already, Dog

Independence Day in my country, and how do I celebrate it?  By reading a Primus-awful book and commenting on it.  I must be some kind of masochist.

With the previous chapters of this book, I've been reading the chapter as I create the blog posts, essentially commenting as I go.  This time I actually sat down and read the whole chapter, then gave myself a little time to process it before I go back to re-read and comment on it.  Hopefully this makes for a better sporking experience.

So Eden is preparing for a hot date with her "dark prince" Jamal.  I was expecting to see her go out into the real world for this, but apparently "date" in this instance just means Jamal visiting her apartment in hologram form.  Well... I guess her wearing a nightgown instead of an evening gown makes a LITTLE more sense now, inasmuch as anything in this book makes sense.

"How's my Little Bunny" he said.  (Kenya's note -- no, I don't know why "Little Bunny" is capitalized either.)

"Jamal," she said, her sensors registering the warmth of his arms as they snaked around her. -- (p. 27)

Wait, wait, wait, so these holograms are REAL?  As in, you can actually touch them as well as see and hear them?  People can access virtual reality in this world?  It IS a Ready Player One ripoff!  Okay, so probably more a ripoff of the Holodeck from Star Trek, but still... is there no sci-fi series sacred here?  I just hope we don't get a scene where Eden finds out Bramford is really her father or something...

Austin shot up, growling.  She had forgotten about him.  It was embarrassing, really.  As if she'd trained her dog to hate Coals.  Maybe he wasn't color-blind, after all.  (p. 27)

Oh, lay off the "color-blind" bit, lady.  It's starting to get annoying.  I was going to ignore it, but seeing as it's come up three times now, I'm going to say that all this focus on "the characters are color-blind" is starting to grate on me.  Claiming you're color-blind, that you don't see people as having color, has some unfortunate implications of its own -- you're implying that everyone is exactly the same.  What about acknowledging that people have color, but that they're still good nonetheless and entitled to the same rights and privileges?  I'd rather celebrate diversity than have someone constantly crow about "we're all the same!"

Also, did it occur to Eden that Austin's just reacting to a strange man showing up in the apartment, and not just the fact that he's black?  Don't get mad at the dog for doing his job -- almost any dog is going to have a fit if a stranger intrudes on its territory.  It could also be that Foyt's trying to foreshadow that Jamal's not as nice as he appears to be by having Austin "smell" trouble on him.  Yay for the Evil-Detecting Dog, I guess?

So Eden gives her dog the boot by locking him in the other room (so much for giving her a dog to make her more sympathetic), and then we get this:

To her delight, things progressed in the right direction when Jamal kissed her for the first time.  His lips were moist and searching.  The heat coming off of his body loosened her limbs.  It couldn't be any better if he were actually present.  -- (p. 27-28)

*shudder*  I can't think of any word less appropriate for a kissing scene than "moist."  Seriously, don't have this word show up in any romantic scene EVER, please.

If you're not baking, "moist" has no business

being in your conversation

But word choice aside (Foyt sucks at descriptive phrases), this scene raises all sorts of questions.  Such as... if their holograms/VR technology are this good, then WHY does anyone actually leave their rooms at all?  In this post-apocalyptic society where nobody dares go outside, if you have the tech to make holograms or VR this good, why not just give everyone the VR tech and then keep them in their rooms?  They'd be happy, they wouldn't be running around all over the place wasting resources, and they could even create avatars of themselves that physically look however they want them to look -- black, white, fat, thin, green and scaly, whatever.  You could make the world into the freaking Matrix and everyone would still be better off.

Of course, with that solution, we'd have no bitter Pearls/Coals battle or earnest, ham-fisted exploration of racism and its effects.  *sigh*  Ready Player One DID do this better, and Cline even managed a bit of commentary on race that didn't feel forced or like he was beating the reader over the head with it...

Moving on... Eden's life band alerts her that she's overstimulated, and even Jamal suggests they slow down.  But Eden refuses and throws herself at him, thinking how they don't want her to mate and she's going to show them.

"Whoa, pet.  I'm receiving dangerous signals.  I don't want you to explode.  I need you around."

"You do?"

"You have no idea."

"Oh."  That meant he wanted to pick up her option to mate, right?  -- (p. 28)

We get it, you want a black husband as protection against all the other meanie Coals, stop hammering us over the head with it!  Gah... does Foyt assume we're all stupid and need to hear everything fifty times?

Then we're given a random flashback to how Eden and Jamal first met that feels rather uncomfortably wedged in, without much transition from the making-out scene to the scene from the past.  Couldn't some effort have been made to smooth out the transition?  Apparently at one point the scanning robot broke and Jamal had to stand in for it, and promptly began flirting with Eden first thing.

"You're an honest girl.  I like that, too."

Too?  What else could he possibly like about her?  He had to know she was a Pearl.  It said so right there on the scanner.  Besides, even with the best skin coating, everything about her screamed lower class.  And yet, he'd stared at her with an openness that had made Eden blush.  No one had ever looked at her for so long or with such sincere interest. -- (p. 29)

I have to wonder why any Pearl wears skin coating if everyone automatically knows they're Pearls anyhow.  It can't be for protection from the sun if everyone lives underground, and if everyone knows you're white even with skin coloring, then you're not really "passing," are you?  The whole skin-coating thing feels like Foyt's just trying to take blackface and make it something less offensive -- which, given blackface's nasty history, was doomed to failure right from the start.

"I get it.  You don't think I like your blue eyes, right?  You're wrong about that.  Maybe some day you'll let me see the real you, Eden Newman." -- (p. 29)

No, Jamal, run!  Run away!  Trust me, you DON'T want to see the real Eden Newman, she's an entitled brat who only wants you as a means to an end!  

So we're told that Jamal and Eden have been dating for a few months in secret, and then we're awkwardly dropped back into the present, where Jamal's hologram is laying beside her.  I can be grateful to that forced flashback for one thing -- it saved me from having to read Foyt's attempts at writing a sex scene.

It probably would have gone something

like this -- and yes, there's a trope for that

Jamal suggests that her probation is a good thing, because it means she's off work tomorrow and can go to the Moon Dance with him.  That gets Eden excited -- not because of the Moon Dance in particular, but because, yes, that stupid mate option.

It was all that Eden had hoped for.  A Coal didn't take a Pearl out in public unless he or she intended to pick up the other's mating option.  And what more public event to show his intentions than at a Moon Dance?  By law, everyone had to attend at least nine a year.  The Uni-Gov insisted these events reduced the frequent violence that naturally resulted from the crowded conditions of the tunnels.

Eden squealed with delight.  She could almost picture a white dot on her dusky-coated forehead.  Mated, and with a desirable Coal! -- (p. 30-31)

My point from earlier still stands -- if you're worried about violence and overcrowding, why not pull a Matrix and just keep everyone in their hologram/VR worlds on an indefinite basis?  That way everyone's happy and there's no cause for violence.  Eden can have her dark prince and hang out with Aunt Emily in her anachronistic time period and be perfectly happy, and we wouldn't need this pointless, offensive book.

Also, we don't need constantly beat over the head with the heroine's goal every other page.  Readers aren't goldfish -- we know what Eden wants.  You won't let us forget.  Seriously, stop it.

At least Eden has enough brains to worry about some of the details -- she's still on probation, and Jamal has to be on duty tomorrow night because of the still-unspecified experiment.  Jamal assures her that he can get clearance and can get someone else to cover his shift, and tells her it's "time for Jamal to make a righteous move," whatever that means.  

Jamal says good night and vanishes, then Eden gets another message, which she answers, thinking it's Jamal again.  Maybe I just don't date enough, but why would a guy call back two seconds after the date has ended, especially when he's already said good night?

Surprise surprise, it's not her boy-toy -- it's this world's equivalent of the KKK.

Instead of his heart-warming face, she saw the dreaded logo of the Federation of Free People: a swirl of black that spun around until it erased a small white circle.

Quit, quit!  It disappeared but she sat there, reeling.  Horrific stories about murdered or missing Pearls ran through her mind.  -- (p. 31-32)

I'm a little confused as to what the Federation of Free People is supposed to mean.  It sounds more like some kind of rebel task force than a terrorist organization.  And really, we've only gotten mentions of them up until now -- we really don't see anything to hint that they're actually dangerous.  Can we get examples instead of you just telling us, Foyt?  

Also why would they be randomly calling a Pearl just to spam her with their logo?  Sounds more like something 4chan or Anonymous would do, not a KKK analog.

Eden finally lets the dog back in and hugs him for comfort, pleading with him to be nice to Jamal, because he'll be her mate if she's lucky.  Just bite her already, dog...

Comparatively, this chapter wasn't quite as bad as some of the preceding ones... though that's kind of like saying walking on broken glass isn't quite as bad as walking on burning coals.  There's still some big gaps in logic in this world Foyt's built, and I'm not feeling a shred of sympathy for her Mary Sue self-insert character.

Here, have a puppy picture to make up for things: