Chapter 7 -- Leaving On a Jet Plane

I know, it's been a month between posts.  I've been putting off sporking this chapter because, frankly it's BORING.  It could easily have been absorbed into another chapter, as it contains a LOT of unnecessary padding.  Probably not cut as there's a major (if incredibly stupid) plot point toward the end, but at least condensed and added to another chapter.

When we last left our "heroes" -- and I use that term loosely because these characters are about as heroic and likable as the freaking Malfoys -- Bramford had just rescued Eden's ungrateful little butt from violence at the hands of Giant and Squeaky and was dragging her off.  Now Bramford and Shem are heading through a tunnel leading to the surface, with Eden in tow.  No thank-yous from Eden, because of COURSE not.

Eden feels the temperature rise and her ears pop, which seems reasonable enough -- even modest changes in altitude can make your ears pop.  Still, if the temperature down below is a hundred and ten, if it's getting any hotter then all three of these characters should be sweating buckets or even passing out.  But apparently Eden only "began to sweat" as they started hiking closer to the surface.  Do people just not sweat anymore or what?

Bramford takes Eden to a supersonic aircraft piloted by "a small-boned Tiger's Eye."  I'm getting rather sick of these names for the different races... not just Coals and Pearls either.

Please, tell us again how stones like these are

ugly and worthless...

"Get in," he [Bramford] insisted.

"No," Eden said, as stunned as he, by her daring refusal.

"What's wrong?"

"Can't.  Fly."  -- p. 47-48

First of all, I'm bugged by the flagrant case of Wanton Cruelty to the Common Comma there.  Is anyone else, or is it just me?  The random period in Eden's second sentence is a little more forgivable as it implies stammering, but commas are not punctuation confetti.  Learn to use them properly.

Second of all, I don't see how her refusal is particularly daring, nor does Bramford give any sign of being stunned by it.  Either this was sarcasm and neither of them are stunned at all, or (far more likely) Foyt just blatantly ignored the rule of "show, don't tell" again.

Bramford drags her inside the aircraft, and she goes light-headed and falls into a seat.  He tells her to "relax, you'll enjoy it," which is more than a little squicky to me.  Did Foyt intend the unfortunate implications of this bit or not?

The plane takes off, and Eden has a freakout -- not a panic attack, but a freakout.  Yes, there's a difference.  She can't stop thinking about footage of air accident's she's seen, "common due to the erratic jet streams," though why anyone would want to fly in a world where everything important is underground seems weird in itself.

She glanced at Bramford, who appeared calm as usual.  Probably enjoying her distress.  -- p. 48

The fact that Eden takes every little thing Bramford does as a personal insult says a lot -- not only that she thinks the worst of him, but that she also seems to have a huge ego in that everything HAS to be about HER.  It probably doesn't occur to her that Bramford's used to flying, or that he's just learned to tune out and deal with unpleasant matters.  Something Eden could use to learn...

Eden tells herself to breathe, and randomly thinks that "her mother always had said it was the key to happiness."  I'm not sure of breathing is the key to happiness so much as it's the key to freaking LIFE ITSELF, but what do I know?

"One does not love breathing." -- p. 18

Again, stop reminding me of better books, Foyt...

Eden stares at the seat in front of her, mentally whining again about how he's stamped it with his logo and how it's made of leather, which is awful because society "treated its scant remaining livestock like gods."  You'd think that society would be working on ways to increase its number of livestock -- breeding programs, cloning, etc. -- but apparently stupid stuff like the World Ban and hating on Pearls was more important.

Bramford starts watching a news feed on his Life Band of an albino -- excuse me, Cotton -- boy being burned alive.  Apparently they're not extinct after all?  Here Foyt tries to retcon her earlier statement of albinos being a race by showing the government has been trying to wipe out the gene responsible for albinism, but when you make a goof you're supposed to go back and correct it, not leave it in and throw in a retcon later on in the book.

Eden watched as a mob tied the screaming albino to a funeral pyre.  It was the only time she'd seen Coals and Pearls united in action... Strange how she didn't feel deep hatred for the albino, as she had been taught in school.  She might even feel sorry for the poor boy.  -- p. 49

You'd think Pearls would feel some measure of sympathy for albinos -- um, Cottons -- due to them having pale skin shades, but nope.  And apparently this scene is supposed to show that by golly, Eden really DOES have a caring heart!  Far too little and far too late, Foyt.  

And seriously... Cotton?  We couldn't even stick with a mineral name, like Talc or Alabaster?  Who needs consistency, I guess.

Bramford's ring flashed and the news story changed.  Eden quickly glanced at him, surprised to see the anxiety in his face.  Why would a megalomaniac like him care about the doomed Cotton? -- p. 49

Again, SHOW DON'T TELL.  We have seen ZERO evidence that Bramford is cruel or megalomaniacal, and are having to take Eden's heavily-biased word for it instead.  Give us some examples, Foyt!  Because as it stands he seems to be the most reasonable and even kindly character in the book.  

The aircraft took a sharp turn, nearly throwing her into Bramford's lap.  He looked stunned and she wondered if he had felt the same mysterious electric charge.  Was he wearing some new device that generated overwhelming magnetism? -- p. 49

Starscream's "whut" face

Geez, and here I thought I sucked at writing romance.  What the heck is this even?  Even stupid romantic comedies feel more natural than these "romantic" scenes.

Shen offers her an oxy tablet -- apparently only the military gets oxy tablets instead of helmets because they need to be able to move around.  I still think the helmets are an absolutely stupid idea and it would have made more sense to use needles, but what do I know?

Bramford also gives Eden a glass of water, despite the fact that she's already had her allotment for the day.  This is the first we've heard of a water shortage, but given that the world's so hot I guess it makes sense.  I just wish it had been brought up before now so it didn't feel so shoehorned in.

The image of her dying mother, desperate for a drink of water, burned in her mind.  Many times, shame-faced, she'd allowed Eden to sacrifice part of her nightly share.  Lasers and leather and oxy tablets, Eden could understand.  But extra water?  She wished that greedy bastard could know how it felt to live on the edge.  -- p. 50

Oh my PRIMUS, can't you accept a kind gesture as a kind gesture, you little brat?  He's trying to be nice and all you can do is bitch and moan about how awful he is?  For all you know he's giving up his own allotment for you.  But no, you have to automatically assume the worst!  Ugh...

Eden plays passive-aggressive and swallows the tablet without water.  Shen says something about a fire breaking out, and Bramford tells him to go faster.  Weirdly random bit but we'll see if it plays out into anything actually important... though there are enough things thrown in here that turn out to not be important later that it's a chancy gamble.

Bramford contacts Eden's father and says to delay the experiment until he gets there, and he complains about the heat damaging the viral samples.  Peach leans into the picture to whisper something, and of COURSE the author has to point out about her being plump.  Because all black people are fat, you know... *gags*

Peach informs her father, who informs Bramford, that the test subjects have gone missing... as has Ashina, who's supposed to report on the test subjects.  Eden's sure "that bitch" has sabotaged the operation and says so to Bramford, though thankfully he ignores her whining because he's got more important things to worry about now.

So does Bramford punish her father as a cruel megalomaniac would do?  Does he throw a fit or demand to know details?  Let's find out...

"I was afraid it would come to this."

"To what?"

He ignored her.  "Proceed as planned, doctor."

"But how?" he said, once more in view.  "No subject, no experiment."

Poor Father, he looked crushed.  This was meant to be the crowning achievement of his lifetime.  (I'd make a dig here but that'd just be mean to furries... sorry your fandom is associated with this horrible book...)

"I guarantee you'll have a subject," Bramford said.  "Just stay on schedule."

"But who?" Eden said.

Bramford took a deep breath, his hands floating to his lap.  "Me, that's who."  -- p. 51-52

So here we have a man who's willing to risk his well-being -- even his life -- for an experiment that can possibly save the world (inasmuch as turning the population of the world into cat people can save the world), and does that improve Eden's view of him?  

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Who else would be brave or stupid enough to volunteer for an illegal and highly experimental procedure?  -- p. 52

So... why isn't Bramford the hero of this book?  Seriously, Foyt has been building him up to be the bad guy who's out to have a relationship with the heroine, but he's by far the more sympathetic and heroic character of this book.  And personally I'd rather see this story from HIS point of view.  He's by far the more likable character, and has done a lot more good in the story than Eden so far.

Maybe Foyt'll write a POV sequel to this with Bramford, much like E. L. James did with Grey and Stephanie Meyer was planning to do with Midnight Sun before she pulled the plug on it.  Though given the quality of this book, do we WANT to see such a thing...

Eden's father asks him to post his genome, though if Eden's already gotten a chance at his genome I'd assume they already have a copy of it in the lab somewhere.  Bramford says "I've taken bigger risks" and Eden promptly starts griping about him again in her head.

What risks? Eden wondered.  He'd lived his life insulated by wealth and privilege.  Besides, she didn't believe he would go through with it.  He was only showing off.  -- p. 52

I wanna slap this girl.  Stop making judgments about this guy, will you?  He's already doing far more to help your father than you could ever dream of.

Eden thinks that the missing test subjects could explain why Jamal was absent, as he'd have to take care of that before coming to the Moon Dance.  I think it explains it too, but not in the same way Eden's thinking...  

The plane lands, and Eden starts immediately looking around the tunnel they've reached for Jamal.  Bramford tells her she's coming with him, she mouths off to him, and he drags her off, causing "a strange knocking in her gut."  That sounds more like gas than feelings of burgeoning love, honestly...

Never mind, her Dark Prince would save her.  -- p. 53

Honey, your Dark Prince isn't coming for you.  Get it through your head already.  And I'm gonna hazard a guess that Mr. Dark Prince sold you out and used the info you gave him to sabotage the experiment.  Which will mean that Eden, the supposed heroine of this story, has effectively done more damage than the supposed villain.  Way to go, Foyt... I don't think this was your plan, but you screwed up royally here.

Overall, a rather boring chapter, and I think it could have been meshed into the previous chapter instead of standing alone.  The plane ride feels superfluous, and I don't understand why it was needed when the labs are already located in the same set of tunnels as the rest of this place.

A common mistake of amateur writers (and I'm guilty of it as well) is thinking you have to write every last detail of the story.  And the key to writing well is understanding what's important, and what can be cut.  Unless something vital to the story happens on a journey from one point to another, we don't need to hear about the journey.  Unless something plot-vital happens during a meal, we don't need to see the meal.  There's a lot that could have been trimmed from this chapter, and it feels like it was included here just for the sake of being here.

Hopefully not so much of a delay before the next chapter...

Chapter 6 - Let's All Play the "Save the Pearls" Drinking Game!

Gather 'round, folks, it's time for the Save the Pearls drinking game!  \~/

Best GIF ever

If you drink, keep a bottle of your drink of choice close by and take a shot whenever one of the following pops up.  If you don't drink, you can substitute something caffeinated if you'd like.  Be warned -- you'll probably be quite hammered/buzzed at the end of a chapter.  And for Primus' sake DON'T try to read the whole book in one shot if you're playing the Drinking Game.  You could end up dead from liver damage or a heart attack.  XD

• Take a shot whenever a black person is literally described as black
• Take a shot whenever a black person is given a ridiculous name/nickname.  Two shots if its their real name (Peach, Ashina, etc.) and not some stupid nickname Eden came up with (such as Giant and Squeaky from the previous chapter)
• Take a shot whenever a random Latin name is tossed in
• Take a shot whenever Eden obsesses over being beautiful.  Two shots if she considers beauty more important than functionality or anything else important.
• Take a shot whenever Eden refers to Jamal as her Dark Prince
• Take a shot whenever the author screws up her research (biology, history, basic science, etc.)
• Take a shot whenever you see another, better sci-fi/dystopian franchise ripped off
• Take a shot whenever Eden starts hating on a Coal for no reason other than they're black
• Take a shot whenever the author misuses a word
• Drink the entire bottle and go read Hunger Games, Brave New World, Ready Player One, and/or Naughts and Crosses (which I'm told does the race-flip concept much better than this book) if you suspect you might actually be ENJOYING this wretched waste of wood pulp

More to be added if/when they come up...

So we left off with Eden being hauled off by two EVIL, NASTY, HORRIBLE Coals to the Moon Dance.  Don't get your hopes up that they're going to off her, we've still got over two hundred pages to go...  Eden's hoping for a rescue from Jamal, of course, but he hasn't shown.

He was late, that's all.  Preparations for the Big Night at the lab must have detained him.  He would save her.  He simply had to. -- p. 40

Nice that Foyt has given us such a strong and independent heroine, isn't it?  *sarcasm*

Her captors, helpfully labeled "Giant and Squeaky," force her into the dance hall, "packed with writhing dancers."  And here we get one of the most laughable and stupid examples of Foyt's attempt to show racism against white people in this book:

On the main stage a band of Coals performed in whiteface.  Eden's sensors told her their name: The Lost Caucasian Tribe.  A wild-looking girl whose wailing pierced the air fronted the group.  Her sheer, electric orange dress flashed, like a beacon in the somber sea of black. -- p. 40

This GIF needs to be more popular

First of all, that "sea of black" could be an example of "black people being described as black."  Take a drink!  \~/  

Second, really?  SERIOUSLY?  Yes, I know blackface was a thing that white people used to imitate and mock black people in the past -- I've even seen some examples of it, mostly in old Loony Toons and Little Rascals shows that came out long before things like Civil Rights and political correctness did.  And yes, I know that it's a sticky subject and one that's still a sore spot for people of color.  But this is just... no.  Once you use blackface in your book promotion and try to get your fans to indulge in it to promote your work, you don't get to critique it in your actual writing.  This is hypocrisy, plain and simple.

Also, the whole idea of reversing blackface to make fun of white people falls on its face here.  Why is the group called Lost Caucasian Tribe anyhow?  Historically, Caucasians have almost never come from tribes -- the word "tribe" is associated more with African-Americans, Native Americans, and other races.  Wouldn't a more appropriate word here be "clan?"  

I get the feeling that Foyt wanted to lampoon the old-time minstrel shows somehow but got mixed up in how to aim it at white people instead of black people.  Because this scene feels a bit like a missed opportunity here.  Instead of adjusting the concept to truly make fun of white people (why not have the band named The Yuppies or something and have them all wear Ugg boots or something?), she's just switching out the colors and going "good enough."  The scene's not only in bad taste, but smacks of laziness.

Vendors are selling goods in the hall as well, with Coals getting the prime spots and Pearls relegated to the "dim recesses" of the building.  There's also "a gaunt woman with feverish eyes, un-dotted and well past eighteen," trying to hit on random passerby for "a shot of oxy."  

Eden's head throbbed as she scanned the hall.  Still, no sign of her Dark Prince.  If he failed her, she'd end up like that poor woman, begging for a shot.  She'd rather be dead.  -- p. 41.

Um... I thought un-mated Pearls over eighteen got tossed outside.  And while it's possible that one might slip through the cracks, I highly doubt she'd get away with it by hanging out at a public event like the Moon Dance.  And wasn't Eden worried that she WOULD die if she wasn't mated by eighteen?  Consistency, who needs it?

Also Dark Prince!  Take a drink!  \~/  And another for misuse of the word "tribe" earlier, why not... \~/

Eden tries to get the attention of an Ethics Officer passing by, but Giant orders her to dance instead.  She does so, "jerking" her limbs, and he promptly kisses her neck and cracks open her coating to reveal her white skin.  Somehow that gets the attention of "hundreds of Coals" who turn to stare at her with "rabid" looks.  Given how packed this place is and how much dancing is going on, would a tiny patch of skin showing through really get THAT much attention?  It's not like she's on stage or anything... does her skin glow or something?

Giant and Squeaky start to drag her off, and Eden realizes that the solders must have a plan for her and her capture might not be pure coincidence.  So she FINALLY shows some self-preservation instincts and bites Giant's wrist, then drops to her hands and knees and crawls off through the crowd, tripping people up before she gets up and tries to run for it.

She twisted her slender frame through the throng until a couple of hard-bodies (I didn't add that hyphen, it's in the book) pinned her between them.  Grinning, two male Pearls bobbed with her to the beat.  Their glassy eyes, full of wild hope, and their papery, red-tinged skin told her they had The Heat.  Probably, celebrating one last Moon Dance. -- p. 42

So... that's The Heat?  Sounds like a bad sunburn to me.  Unless the symptoms for cancer have radically changed over the years...

Eden knees one of the guys in the crotch and runs... and for some reason it's the other guy who starts crying.  What the heck?  Apparently The Heat causes mood swings, but still, this comes across as really random...

Finally Giant catches her again and hauls her back into the crowd... until someone orders him to let her go. and hits Squeaky with a stun laser.  Do lasers even come in a "stun" setting?  

Her captor turned around, dragging Eden with him.  Dark shadows hid the man's face.

"What's it to you?" Giant said.

"She belongs to me."  Just then a strobe light passed over him, revealing his dark, chiseled features.

Bramford.  Of course, he thought he owned her. -- p. 43

*facepalm*  This guy is trying to save your life, chick!  Now is not the time to start going off on a rant about him!  

Turns out it was Shen who fired the stun laser, which is apparently illegal.  He tells Giant that if he lets Eden go in five seconds, he won't have to kill him, and the big guy waits until the last second to let her go -- we know this because Bramford helpfully counts down.  I suspect this was included as a way to ramp up the tension, but when Eden is so unlikable and we have no reason whatsoever to worry about Giant's welfare, any sense of tension Foyt was shooting for in this scene is completely lost.  You can't make us worry about characters if we don't care for them first.

Giant picks up Squeaky and they take off, and if they have any sense they won't come back for the rest of this joke of a book.  Bramford pulls Eden in for a dance, and we get a weird moment that I suspect is supposed to be played for romantic tension but just feels awkward.

"Thank you for your help, sir," Eden said, trying to pull away.  "You can go now."

Bramford seemed amused and held her tight.  "Are you dismissing me?"

Why did he always make her feel so small?

"I said thanks."

"You don't want to dance with me?  Is that it?"

She felt tongue-tied with his warm body next to hers.  "Those women are waiting for you," she managed to say.

"Let them wait.  Unless you'd rather we stopped?"

Did she?  Wasn't she enjoying this?  While she hesitated Bramford's expression hardened.

"Let's go," he said, turning away. -- p. 44-45

Maybe I just don't read enough romances, maybe I just don't have any real-life romantic experience to draw from... but this whole exchange doesn't feel like flirting or any kind of romantic moment to me.  It just feels awkward, even out of character.  Eden has hated Bramford up until this point, and Bramford has only behaved professionally toward Eden up until this point.  Had Eden started thawing out gradually toward Bramford or some hint dropped earlier about Bramford being interested in her, it might not feel so out of place, but as it is this whole section feels rather forced.

Especially since Eden immediately goes back to thinking how much she despises "the Pearl-hating Coal" in the next paragraph.  *sigh*  If he hated Pearls so much, why did he just save your life, brat?

She looks around the room again for Jamal, and Bramford informs her that Jamal isn't coming.  Not surprised.

Admit it, you read that line in Gilbert Gottfried's voice

Sweet Mother Earth, what had happened to her Dark Prince?  (Take a drink! \~/ )  Once more, Eden tried to connect with his Life-Band.  Still, no response.  The devastating truth hit her: Jamal wasn't coming.

Eden caught a glimpse of Bramford weaving through the crowd.  Any second, it would swallow him without a trace.  She had no choice but to follow the arrogant bastard. -- (p. 46)

Nice way to think about the guy who just saved your life.  Why are we supposed to care about the protagonist again?

Chapter 5 -- Everybody's a Little Bit Racist, But Eden's Hogging Her Share

I am suddenly glad for the minor "breather" that was last chapter -- it wasn't anywhere near GOOD, but it wasn't as head-whackingly bad as the last few.  This chapter, however... this chapter was painful.  And I'm surprised I haven't flattened my forehead with all the facepalms I've done.

Also brace yourselves -- this is gonna be a long and image-heavy one...

So Eden is off to the Moon Dance, despite being on probation.  I'm hoping they explain why it's called the Moon Dance at some point, because if these people live underground, I highly doubt they're going to be seeing the moon at all.  And I haven't seen any indication that "moon" is synonymous with "month" in this universe, which seems to be a common thing in a lot of fantasy and speculative fiction.

If she focused on her feet moving ahead, she wouldn't give in to the paralyzing fear that gripped her.  What if one of her co-workers saw her and reported her illegal leave to Bramford? -- (p. 33)

Yes, this again...

Maybe this is just me being nitpicky, but I'd have picked a different word than "illegal."  Unless Bramford's part of the government (and as far as I can see he's just a businessman and has nothing to do with Uni-Gov), taking an unapproved day of leave would be against the rules, but not necessarily illegal, as "illegal" suggests breaking government laws instead of work policies.  Perhaps Foyt meant "illicit" or "clandestine" or even "unapproved?"  Then again, she's already made it clear that she's not good at picking appropriate words for any occasion...

She couldn't think about the risk or she might lose her nerve and return home.  Never mind, she simply had to reach the regional plaza where her Dark Prince waited.  -- (p. 33)

Maybe another nitpick, but I am getting sick and tired of Dark Prince being thrown around all the time.  We get it, he's black, shut up about it.  And by continuously using this term, Eden proves that she only cares about Jamal because of his skin color.  Does Foyt realize that preferring someone because of their skin color can be just as racist as hating someone because of their skin color?  Did she TRY to make her protagonist such a racist little brat?

We get some snippets of description of life in the tunnels, including Coals riding bicycles or in rickshaws.  Um... they have super-duper holographic technology, but not high-tech transportation?  Did they just blow all their resources on the World Band and run out of funds for hovercraft or personal hoverboards?

Then again, this wouldn't be the first sci-fi series

to just randomly throw in a rickshaw...

Also, if this society lives in underground tunnels, it would make far more sense to have a mass transit system, such as a train, than for people to scoot around on bikes and rickshaws.  (She even mentions such a mass-transit system later in the chapter, which renders the bikes and rickshaws redundant.)  Tunnels and bicycles don't sound like a healthy mix to me, and if the tunnels are as overcrowded as Eden claims they are, then there's very little benefit to even having a bicycle -- ever tried to ride a bike through a crowd?

We also get mentions of military sirens (but no reason why they'd be going off -- are the Combs under attack?) and vendors hawking wares from recessed stalls in the walls.  There's also mention of dozens of languages and how Eden's sensors automatically translate everything to English, though if society has been trapped underground for very long, you'd think they'd have established a common language by now.

Oh, and we're also treated to this LOVELY snippet.

She suspected that each and every Coal passerby wanted to hurt her, though the statistical odds against that were high.  -- (p. 33)

Foyt... you do realize that this is exactly how many RACIST people feel today when around black people?  Did the irony of making your main character terrified of black people not strike you at any point?  Yes, I'm sure that there are black people today who are scared of being hurt by white people, but it's far more common for it to be the opposite, for white people to automatically assume the worst of any black person -- just look at all the recent shootings of unarmed black people by cops and others who jumped the gun when confronting someone of color.

I have no idea if this is how Foyt intended to write Eden -- if she's supposed to be racist and having her let go of her prejudices will be her eventual character development -- or if Foyt's just massively ignorant of how her main character is appearing to the reader.  Either way, Eden is one heck of an unpleasant protagonist.  Even Bella Swan wasn't THIS unlikable.

Yes, we're still on the first page of the chapter.  I warned y'all...

"How can you read this?"

"Because I'm a masochist at heart, Gaston."

Eden's still panicking about being outside her room as she heads for the dance, and she's sweating enough that she's worried about it messing up her coating.  She also remarks that it's "only a hundred and ten degrees Fahrenheit in the tunnel.  Not bad for a spring night."  

Foyt IS aware that even if your skin is dark, whether naturally or artificially, you can STILL die of heatstroke, right?  At a hundred and ten degrees Eden and everyone else who's spent very long in the tunnels should be having major health problems.  We've just had a hundred-and-ten-degree heat spell in my area and it's led to people being hospitalized, even to deaths.  If a hundred and ten is mild for the tunnels, why isn't the entire population of the Combs DEAD by now?

Eden's wearing high heels and a techno dress tonight -- and no, I have no idea what a techno dress is and Google Image gave me fifty different types of "techno dress" to choose from.  Must be a future thing, though we don't get a very good description of it other than it's frayed and losing its sheen.

There's a high-speed bullet train picking up passengers (again, why ride bikes and rickshaws in the tunnels when there's a perfectly good mass transit system?), and Eden waits for the line to die down before getting on.  Two drunk Coals are right behind her, just to provide the "big scary black man" stereotype and justify Eden's fright.  So much for trying to defy stereotypes, Foyt...

The back section of the train is reserved for Pearls, which is the first realistic depiction of black-against-white racism so far in the book.  I was expecting more of this than just "Coals hate Pearls and want to kill them," but I guess I was expecting too much from a lady who thinks Pearl is a racist slur.

Yes, tell us again how these are worthless

and weak, Foyt... and you ARE aware pearls

come in other colors, even black, right?

While on the train, Eden shows off telepathic skills.  Okay, not really, but she can apparently feel the negative emotions coming off of everyone on the train.  Which is reasonable to an extent -- most people can read the emotions of others to some degree -- but the way it's described here makes Eden seem almost superhuman.  Or she's just jumping to conclusions, which is entirely possible too.

She felt a malevolent current coursing through the riders on the transport.  Not only from Coal to Pearl, or from Tiger's Eye to Amber, but within each racial group.  The Uni-Gov got it wrong.  The monthly Moon Dance usually left a wake of mayhem throughout each zone.  -- (p. 35)

I say again -- why doesn't the Uni-Gov just keep everyone in their rooms and pull a Matrix instead of forcing everyone to mingle if they hate each other so much?  They certainly have the technology.  And zone?  We've heard nothing about zones up to this point... is this going to get explained at all or is it just another silly term that's going to fall by the wayside?

Eden wonders about Ms. Polka-Dot Bikini (from her Beauty Map in the first chapter) and what she'd think of this ruined, hateful world.  Then we get an info-dump as Eden starts thinking about her father's experiment, and how it'll supposedly save mankind.  Too bad we couldn't have seen this info firsthand instead of getting an info-dump flashback right now...

Oh, and Eden's father never let her in on the experiment -- Eden is just SO SMART that she figured out what he was doing herself.  Guh... Mary Sue levels rising... though so far the only indication that Eden is smart is that she knows a lot of Latin scientific names.  Still not convinced.

Eden's father's big plan?  An "Interspecies Structural Adaptation."  A.K.A. making humankind into a race of furries.

...I REALLY wish I was making that part up.

On a random note, I had no idea there were goat

furries until this moment...

Only her crazy Father would think of implanting a human being with genetic material from key animals that thrived in the hottest climates.  Only he might succeed, too.  His secret approach to programming the epigenome -- the genetic master control for DNA -- allowed him to skirt the pesky problem of one species rejecting another's code.

(Kenya's note:  So we're not going to try to undo the damage we did to the Earth, we're just gonna hack our DNA to get out of our own mess?  Okay then...)

This wasn't going to be some mild genetic exchange, either.  Valuable DNA had been gathered from nearly extinct species with tremendous effort and probably a lot of Bramford's uni-credits.

(And Bramford is still supposed to be the bad guy?  Seems to me he should be seen as an ally to the heroes, not a villain -- oh wait, he's a Coal.  Of COURSE he has to be evil, silly me...)

The primary genetic donor was the ultimate jungle predator, a jaguar, Panthera onca.  (New drinking game, drink every time a pointless Latin name is thrown in.)  Even better, a melanistic cat with a black coat had been found.  Its coloring would not only increase resistance to solar radiation, but also minimize the appearance of camouflage spots, for vanity's sake.  (If you're working on saving humankind, why are you worried about vanity?  Why are we still going on about "black is beautiful" even with animals?  And for the last time, just because something is black doesn't mean it's immune to solar radiation!)  

The jaguar's only natural enemy, the green anaconda, Eunectes murinus, contributed its cold-blooded resistance to heat.  (Most nature websites I've looked at says that even the anaconda isn't a predator toward the jaguar, and actually heat can be even more deadly to cold-blooded animals than to warm-blooded, because they can't regulate their internal temperatures.)  The third donor in this potent cocktail was the Harpy Eagle, Harpia harpyja, the most powerful raptor in the world.  It could spot a bug from a hundred yards in the air, and its keen vision had been added to the mix.  (Don't know how super-vision is supposed to help defend you against heat...)

Land, water, and air -- a brilliant killing machine.  (Again, what does this have to do with protecting you against heat?)

If her father's work succeeded, a Pearl might be able to withstand solar radiation as well as, or even better than, a Coal.  Maybe then Pearls would no longer be treated like garbage.  And maybe -- did Eden dare think it -- even she might be beautiful.  -- (p. 36-37)

Still on about being beautiful, are we, Eden?  Gah, you're not only racist, you're the shallowest human being I've ever met in a work of fiction.  *gags*

So... basically Mr. Newman's plan to save the world is to turn all the living humans in the world into animal-human hybrids -- essentially furries.  Seriously?  THAT is the master plan?  This is so stupid I can't even laugh at it.  How did anyone decide that turning the world's population into cat/snake/bird people would make everyone magically immune to solar radiation?  What is the logic behind this?  Did ANY thought go into this plan -- either on the characters' end or the author's end?  I have a feeling the answer on both counts is a resounding "no."

And yes, I know DNA splicing goes on today, and that scientists mix all kinds of DNA together to create new chimera-creatures -- and the ethics of all that is a can of worms I don't care to open in this blog.  But I get the feeling that this isn't how it works at all.  I can only imagine what kind of rage-fit an actual geneticist would have upon reading this chapter.

I know Prowl's not a scientist, but I think he'd be

pretty upset by the insult to logic that is this book

And even if we give Foyt the benefit of the doubt and assume that, in this futuristic alternate reality, gene splicing DOES work this way... wouldn't it make more sense to use desert animals for the DNA sources?  Fennec foxes, horned toads, kangaroo rats, roadrunners, armadillos, jackrabbits, and other animals that are biologically suited to living in hot, waterless climates?  (Though a lot of that has to do more with their behaviors, such as staying out of the sun and venturing out mostly at night to hunt and forage, but still...)  The again, those creatures aren't pretty or badass like jaguars, pythons, and eagles... but still, if you wanted awesome as well as practical, go for a cougar/rattlesnake/desert hawk mix, not jungle animals.

Eden's dad, understandably, is pretty irritated that she figured it out and warns her not to tell anyone else -- it's dangerous and illegal.  Apparently Bramford's only helping so he can use the discovery to get power for himself, but he's promised to be fair to Mr. Newman and his daughter, so it's hard to fault him for that.  Also this is apparently "the biggest leap in evolution since man discovered fire."  Won't the furries be happy to hear THAT...

For the record, folks, I have nothing personally against most furries.  The furries I've met happen to be very nice people who just happen to like anthropomorphic animals and/or occasionally dressing up as them.  And while they get a bad rap on most of the Internet, I'm a grown woman who collects robot toys, so I can't exactly point fingers.  But this book, in addition to being ill-researched and very confused in its approach to racism, is also toting turning the world's population into furries as a serious solution to the global warming problem.  I'm sure even a lot of furries would think that's laughable.

Oh, and apparently despite her father's warning, Eden told someone.  Three guesses who.

Eden never had intended to tell anyone.  But then, Jamal wasn't just anyone.  It had seemed only natural to share her life with him.  Besides, he liked smart women.  But if she were honest, she'd have to admit she really wanted him to know that one day she might be more desirable.  -- (p. 38)

WHAT PART OF "DON'T TELL ANYONE" DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND, YOU LITTLE TWAT?!  Did your father say "don't tell anyone but Jamal" or "don't tell anyone but your Dark Prince" or "don't tell anyone except if you feel like it and the guy is hot, then it's perfectly okay?"  No!  Do you realize what you've done, you little self-centered... *grumblegrumblegrumble*

Gah... they say it's a good sign when a villain in a book makes you want to reach in and strangle them.  What does it say when it's the book's protagonist that inspires the murderous feelings in you?  All I can say is, if this DOESN'T come back to bite her in the aft at some point, I'm gonna hunt Foyt down just so I can throw this book at her head.

So an hour later the train finally stops at the Regional Hall, where the dance is.  Eden gets in line to get off, only to come face to face with two FFP soldiers with "berets over their shaved heads," which makes me think less of a KKK ripoff and more of mimes, but whatever.

The larger of the duo, a blue-black giant, smiled at her and licked his lips.  His tall, skinny friend laughed.  -- (p. 38)

Black person being literally described as black!  Take a drink!

I will NEVER get tired of this GIF...

And of course, the two Coals have to harass Eden as she gets off the train, because despite Foyt's insistence that this book is about defying racial stereotypes, she has to indulge in the classic "racist white girl's nightmare" of two scary black men targeting an innocent white girl out on her own.  *retch*  And even worse, we get a "childhood ditty" that I can't imagine ANY parent wanting to teach their child:

Little Pearly whirly

lost inside the mines

tossed from Coal to Coal

in fear she whines

"I'm sorry, Mother

he said he only wanted

to see my white skin shine."

Yeah, you read that right... a RAPE song.  A song about a white girl being attacked by a gang of black men.  No wonder this book was self-published -- any legitimate publisher with any shred of decency would have set the manuscript on fire and run screaming from this bit.

Seriously, I get sick and tired of authors using rape as a cheap plot device in even the best of books.  And for Foyt to indulge in it here -- and make a racist caricature of it, no less -- is just horrific.  How can she claim this book is meant to be anti-racist when it indulges in some of the most horrible racist imagery and caricatures at every opportunity?  It's almost like this book was written by a white supremacist who's trying to scream "Look!  This is what the world will become if black people are in charge!  Hide your white women and protect yourselves!"

(And the writer in me manages to shake off the horror enough to say that the rhymes in this song are forced and there's no sense of meter or rhythm whatsoever, but frankly, there's nothing salvageable in that song anyhow.  Or most of this book, for that matter.)

"Leave me alone," Eden said, shakily.  "Someone is waiting for me.  Someone important -- one of your people."

"He won't mind if we share a little Pearl stew," Squeaky said.  -- (p. 39)

Ugh.  Just... ugh.

Eden tries to scream, one of the Coals pulls a knife, and Eden's positive she's about to be killed... and chapter ends.  Thank Primus, I dunno how much more of that I could take.

What Foyt fails to realize is that there's far more to racism than just "hurting and killing the people you don't like."  Yes, that's part of racism, but the greater part of it is dividing people -- having separate schools, restaurant sections, drinking fountains, buses and bus sections, etc., and giving one group preference over another group based on skin color or any other factor.  Racists who want actual violence against people of a different race are actually fairly rare -- it's less about "kill 'em all" and more about "keeping them in their place" or "you can't trust them."  And while the more extreme versions of racism (the recent cop shootings, the KKK's lynching and burning, the Holocaust during WWII) are certainly far more attention-grabbing, almost everyone can agree they're very wrong -- it's the subtler versions of racism that are more insidious and that deserve to be railed against.

But in Eden's world, racism apparently means that you live in fear of being raped and killed every day, but otherwise aren't oppressed all that much.  And while fearing for your life is a form of oppression, she seems to think that that's all there is to it.  And unfortunately, her view of racism looks less like actual racism and more like a hyperbolic vision of the future by an actual racist.

I'm a teetotaler and I still feel like I need a freaking drink after this chapter...

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:

Interlude: Eden Newman In Real Life?

No new chapter this week -- I've been preparing for an out-of-state convention and it's eaten up all my time -- but given recent current events I do have one tidbit to share.

The tidbit in question?  This story -- http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3123965/The-white-girl-posed-black-campaign-against-racism-story-brutally-lays-bare-hypocrisy-liberal-America.html

If you don't feel like clicking the link, it's about the recent controversy regarding Rachel Dolezal, the white woman who for years passed herself off as black via makeup, hairstyles, and faking her own family history.  She still claims to be black despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, including her (white) parents speaking out to the media.  And needless to say, media outlets have been having a field day with this.

All I can say is... Eden Newman, is that you? 

Seriously, though, when I picked up Revealing Eden for sporking purposes, I never thought that there'd come a time when something would happen in real life that the book could apply to.  Because even though I've heard stories about black people trying to pass off as white to avoid persecution, it's almost never the other way around.

Unlike Eden, however, it appears Rachel isn't lying about her ethnicity to escape persecution.  Some claim it's because she wants to champion the cause of African-Americans in the US and feels she can only do so as a black person.  Others say it's because her parents adopted black children and she wants the attention that they get.  Still others say she's just delusional, and bring up comparisons to the recent Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner deal.

My thoughts?  I feel this woman's doing it for attention.  There are people who will seek to get attention by any means possible, even if it's negative -- why else do Internet trolls exist, after all.  She sees that black people get a lot of attention, both positive and negative, and she adapted a black persona in order to get some of that attention for herself.  And to be honest, I don't feel sorry for her years of lying about her past coming back to blow up in her face.  Harsh, but when you make your bed, you have to sleep in it.

Okay, done for now... see you all next week.  Hope to have a new chapter sporked by then.

Chapter 3 - You Keep Using That Word...

So far we have established that our protagonist is a self-centered brat who's a heck of a lot more racist than anyone else in the book, and our antagonist is supposed to be a cold and arrogant jerk but comes across as professional and fair.  Oh, and apparently all black people are jet-black and have either stereotypically African-American or just plain ridiculous names.  And this world has pretty high technology for supposedly being a post-apocalyptic dystopia.  Only two chapters and it already hurts to keep going...

Eden leaves the lab and heads into the security area, where she steps into a glass cage for an inspection.  Apparently no one's allowed to enter any area in the Combs (which is still a stupid name for a city, I don't care if it's underground or not) without an inspection to check for sickness.  Seems kind of time-consuming if you have to get scanned anytime you enter or leave a building... though this is the first mention we've gotten of plague or sickness, so it seems kind of thrown in for no reason.

The robot that does the scanning is made to look like a "dark, masculine" human, which intimidates Eden.  I'm not sure why they need an android to do this job, which simply entails scanning the computer chips embedded in her head.  Probably just to hammer home yet again how Coals rule everything and Eden hates them.  At least the robot is described as "mahogany" instead of any shade of black, though the fact that our first black person who's not literally black is a robot is laughable.

Let them look.  They would never know anything about the Real Eden Newman.  Only Jamal saw her. -- p. 18

I dunno, lady, we've gotten to see plenty of your innermost thoughts and feelings, and they're not pretty.  If Jamal gets to see the "real" Eden Neman, why hasn't he taken off screaming yet?

We get a look at the employees' quarters, and once again Eden gets to bitch about Branson:

Even here, she couldn't escape Bramford's colossal ego.  Like an animal, he had marked his territory by carving a ridiculously large initial "B" onto each unit door.  His audacious company logo -- a snow-capped black mountain against a red desert background that offered false hope in a parched land -- glowed at intervals along the walls.  As if he owned everything, including her.  -- p. 18-19

Helpfully labeled online as the "are you

<expletive deleted> kidding me?" Samurai Jack face

Sorry, I think I just rolled my eyes so hard they fell out of my head.  If this is company property, of COURSE they'd be putting their logo on things.  It's what companies do.  Next time you're in a McDonalds, count how many times the Golden Arches show up on the walls, menu, uniforms, etc.  Bramford is hardly unique in this respect.  Also, the whole "marking his territory like an animal" analogy is pretty damn racist -- insisting that African-Americans are more "beastly" and "animal-like" than people of other races has long been a tactic of white supremacists and/or people trying to justify slavery, segregation, and other racist practices.

We still don't know much about what Bramford's company does, either... but I'm still failing to see how a mountain can be an audacious logo for a company.  It's a logo used by lots of companies -- Paramount Pictures, Sierra Entertainment, Shadow Mountain Publishing, Toblerone, and even Adidas use mountains or mountain-like shapes in their logos.  I can't wait until we get some flimsy justification from Eden or Foyt about how mountains have come to symbolize arrogance and pride in this post-apocalyptic future...

Eden starts to stew over getting put on probation again, and starts to have something akin to a panic attack.  Sweat "drilled down the sides of her face," which is the weirdest verb I have ever seen used to describe sweat.

The mental image it calls to mind...

In response to her freakout, her World Band pipes up and says her oxy levels are in the "red zone" -- and I forgot to mention last time that her world band constantly refers to her as "my dear," which is probably supposed to come across as comforting but seems more condescending than anything else to me.  Oxy is a "happy drug" that keeps Eden on an even keel, and is pretty much a ripoff of the soma drug from Brave New World.  It seems to me that what Eragon is to high fantasy (namely, a ripoff of elements from the most famous series of the genre), Revealing Eden is to dystopian novels, albeit with a nice dose of confused racism on top of it.

We also get a mention that happiness has gone "the way of the dolphins."

Stop reminding me of things I'd rather be reading/watching

than this dreck, book

Eden finally gets into her apartment, getting the jittery cravings from her oxy habit, and what do you know, she has a dog.  She MUST be a good guy!  Except she doesn't even act happy to see him, just charges into the room to get at her drug stash and shoot up a fix via a weird futuristic cap she has to pull over her head (apparently hypodermic needles no longer exist in the future).  The dog might as well just be furniture as far as this book is concerned.

So our protagonist is not only a selfish, whiny racist, she's an addict as well.  And we're supposed to sympathize with her?

We do get a little musing on Eden's part about how the apartment's too small for Austin, the dog (the fact that the dog gets a halfway normal name and the black people get named stupid things like Peach and Ashina is laughable but at this point minor compared to everything else), and Eden has to once again make it about her, pondering "Neither one of us fit, do we?"  Sympathy levels reaching negative levels...

Eden puts on her drug cap, gets her fix, and calms herself by having her World Band conjure up an image of a redwood forest -- excuse me, Sequoiadendron giganteum.  Throwing in random scientific names for plants and animals does not show me how smart your protagonist is.

Then we get this insensitive little bit:

At last, the familiar, pleasant rush flooded into her body.  Her world slowly turned a muted shade of gray.  Possibly, she wouldn't kill herself tonight.  -- p. 20

Good Primus, that's not something you just casually throw into the text!  I don't know if Foyt was doing this to shock the reader or to hammer home how miserable Eden's life is, but I'm feeling no sympathy for Eden and I'm shocked for the wrong reasons.  Depression and suicide are serious topics, and deserve to be treated with the proper respect in fiction.  When anyone, even a good writer, uses them for shock value or humor, it rubs me the wrong way... and when a crap writer uses them for cheap drama, it makes me want to hurl the book at the wall.  Again, in this case.

And by the way, the "killing herself" bit isn't followed up on for the rest of the chapter.  Guh... yeah, it was used for shock value.  Primus, I hate Foyt right now...

About this time Eden gets a call from someone called an Ethics Officer, or an EO.  It's a hologram, of course, like everything else in this world, and "naturally, she was a Coal."  Oh, shut up about it already.

The EO informs her that she turns eighteen in six months, and unless she's picked a mate by that date she'll be cut off from Basic Resources, which seems to mean food and oxy.  And somehow, despite the fact that it's hammered in YET AGAIN that Eden's an "ugly Pearl" and damned to never have a mate, the EO points out that despite her "mate-rate" is below average, a few of "her kind" have offered to pick up her mate option, but she's refused.

Eden knew they didn't really care whether or not she reproduced.  Truth was, they wished her dead.  The E.O. simply needed to check her name off a list... (Note:  How about we see some evidence of this instead of Eden just jumping to conclusions?)  "Because I don't want my child to be all Pearl.  I'd rather be dead than mate with one of my kind." -- p. 21-22

Get used to this.  You'll be doing it many times

if you choose to read this... thing.

Foyt, did you do ANY research going into this?  First of all, I have a hard time believing that in a society that's supposedly so against Pearls, the government is going to condone a Coal taking a Pearl for a mate, even if it's the Coal's idea.  Inter-racial marriages have long had a history for being frowned upon or outright banned -- heck, there are places in the US where inter-racial marriages were banned by law until well into the '60s, even later.  If this futuristic society of yours is so against Pearls, I highly doubt they'd be okay with a Coal deciding to marry a Pearl.

Second, does Eden honestly think having a half-Coal child is going to be the best thing for the kid?  Children of mixed heritage were often treated just as harshly as blacks, sometimes moreso -- having white ancestry didn't mean a thing.  There's a strong chance that your child is going to have it even worse off than you for being a "half-breed."  And what happens if your child is born light-skinned despite having Coal ancestry?  Without actual engineering, genetics aren't an exact science -- look at any family that randomly has a blond child show up after generations of brunette kids.

...Trying to think by this book's logic actually hurts.  Ouch.

The EO suggests Eden abide by the government's standard recommendations -- a suggestion Eden blows off as useless -- before ending the conversation.  Eden bitches to Austin, who of course can't do anything about it but be his usual loyal doggy self.  At least the dog is the one sympathetic character in this book.  C'mere, puppy, you belong in a better book than this.

We get a random flashback to when Eden got Austin ten years ago as a gift from her mom, and of course Eden/Foyt can't resist showing off how much she knows by rattling off the Latin name for a domestic dog, as well as the physical traits of the breed.  Yay, you know how to use Wikipedia, good for you.  *sarcasm*

Austin is apparently named after Emily Dickinson's brother (and an aside about how families are limited to one child each is uncomfortably wedged in here).  And here we're introduced to one of the book's weirder gimmicks.

To increase the size of their family, her optimistic mother had adopted her favorite poet, Emily Dickinson, as an ancestor.  Eden and her mother had spent many hours in Emily's World, the World-band destination where the Dickinson family lived in the 1900's.  When Eden's mother started to refer to her as Aunt Emily, Eden simply had accepted it.  And so, she'd also embraced the dog's name.  -- p. 23-24.

Dang, this book has pretty great technology for being a supposed dystopian novel.  I'd say the World-Band is a ripoff of OASIS from Ready Player One, but the publication dates of both novels are so close together (RPO came out August 2011, Eden January 2012) that this is probably more chance than actual plagiarism.  Still, RPO pulled it off better.

But back to my point -- as a plot device, Foyt has given Eden an "adopted aunt" in the form of American poet Emily Dickinson.  This is... I don't even know what to make of this.  It just FEELS weird.  Sure, there are people who claim to have famous people in their ancestry -- sometimes rightly so, sometimes faking it -- but here it just feels like one more thing thrown in for no reason.  Is it going to factor into the plot at all, or is it just one more thing Foyt felt like tossing in?  

Also, research fail -- Emily Dickinson died in 1886.  Scratch that, Foyt only knows how to use Wikipedia when she feels like it, or needs to look up a Latin name for a critter.  

Yes, this again already... I told you to get used to it

In the flashback, Eden asks if the dog is a Pearl -- because that's apparently the only important thing to her even at seven years old.  How in the world does Foyt consider this book to be anti-racist when the main character is so casually racist herself?

Eden's mom has a really winning answer, and by "winning" I mean "eye-rolling."

Austin is colorblind, Eden.  He responds to love and kindness.  Remember what Aunt Emily said?  'That Love is all there is, / Is all we know of Love.'  Promise me you won't forget.  Love is like a gentle wind that will open your heart if you let it.  -- p. 24

Eh, this doesn't need a caption

Okay, I get what Foyt is trying to say here -- that a dog doesn't care what color someone's skin is, so long as that person's good to it.  And that's a nice sentiment, to value people for who they are instead of their race.  But the term "colorblind" just feels off.  It's taking a word that means an actual medical condition (one that dogs, ironically, have long been said to suffer from, though research has since proven this isn't true) and appropriating it to mean something else entirely.  And really, you have to be VERY careful doing this.  

Eden continues to state that even at the age of seven, she knew love was dead, and now that her mom's dead she's given up on love and on Emily's world.  Somehow I doubt this -- I have an annoying feeling that "Aunt Emily" is going to come back to haunt us all...

Now I have a most satisfying vision of the ghost of Emily Dickinson coming back from the grave to haunt Foyt for attaching her name to this garbage.  *evil cackle*

Eden goes to eat and to feed Austin -- and because this is Da Future, "dinner" consists of pills for her and a "nutrient teat" for Austin, which he sucks on.  Dogs don't suck -- their cheek muscles aren't big or strong enough to allow for that past the puppy stage -- which is why they use their tongues to lap up water instead of sucking it up like a horse.  Unless Austin's still a nursing puppy or has a psychological problem (some dogs suck on blankets or toys if they were abused as a pup), he shouldn't be sucking a teat like this.

Also, Eden's food pills consist of white carbohydrate pills, blue protein pills, and red fat pills.  No vitamin pills, I'm noticing... is it too much to hope for that Eden dies of scurvy or rickets as the book goes on?  She also swaps out her protein pill for one of her father's fat pills, because apparently black people, the "beautiful race," aren't skinny.  *eyeroll*

Eden does her mandatory half-hour of exercise, which means jogging in place, and then heads to the bathroom to shower, get checked for cancerous moles, and get the "good stuff" -- her daily coating of Midnight Luster.  And for some reason, for her date with Jamal, she's chosen to wear a silky black nightgown.  Um... don't you usually sleep in nightgowns?  Unless Foyt got her words mixed up and meant "evening gown," though somehow I doubt it.

Also, "it wasn't a nightgown, it was a weapon."  So she's using sex to get her hooks into Jamal and get a Coal for a mate.  Lovely.  

Finally Eden touches up her makeup, giving us one last line of (possibly?) unintentional racist hilarity:

Red lipstick, smoothed over the lines to make her lips seem fuller, was the last touch.  She let her long black hair dip over one eye and smiled.

"Definitely passing, right?" -- p. 26

I'm just gonna leave this here... *

Every time I think it's no longer possible to hate the main character any more, Foyt finds a way to raise the bar.  I swear...

I'm gonna go finish The Last Bookaneer by Matthew Pearl (is that ironic or what?) before I do another chapter of this thing.  At least Matthew can actually write, does his research, uses a famous author's name and work (Robert Louis Stevenson in this case) with some modicum of respect, and actually treats issues of race with the proper respect...

* Picture credit -- "Golliwoggs on sale 2008" by alx_chief - AreYouReallySellingThat20080526. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Golliwoggs_on_sale_2008.jpg#/media/File:Golliwoggs_on_sale_2008.jpg