Hamlet's Father Part II -- How Do You Make Hamlet So Boring?

Let's move right along, shall we?

So... when we last left our "hero," Hamlet was being shipped off to school in Heidelberg.  And just to recap -- his father is evil, Claudius and Hamlet are both made of Incorruptible Pure Pureness, and Card has already dropped some blindingly obvious hints that the king of Denmark is a child molester.  Or maybe they're just blindingly obvious to me because I went into the book expecting them, I dunno...

And just like Eden, Hamlet thinks that everything is about him.  At least with Hamlet it's a tiny bit justified, seeing as he's a freaking prince, but it's still obnoxious to read about.

None of the Companions were with him at supper, and Hamlet realized that Father was punishing him.  Even though Hamlet hadn't asked to go anywhere, Father had apparently disapproved of him going, and so he would be barred from saying good-bye to his friends.  - p. 20

Or the Companions (guh, sounds like a bad 50s doo-wop band name) all had obligations at their respective homes... or someone decided a clean break was better than a prolonged goodbye... or they could be planning a special, separate goodbye for you...  There are numerous reasons why they might not be there, stop assuming it's all about you.  Protagonist-Centered Morality -- where the entire universe of the novel seems to revolve around the protagonist's wants, needs, and moral compass -- is present in some degree in most books, which is only natural, but in both Revealing Eden and Hamlet's Father they're both prevalent and very obnoxious.

After supper Hamlet goes up to the battlements and finds Laertes lurking there.  Turns out Hamlet's father did bar the Companions from saying good-bye to Hamlet.  Okay, so Hamlet was right, but my point still stands -- just because the king told them not to show up doesn't mean it was specifically meant to hurt his son.  He could have had other reasons.

Laertes tells him that he's being called into the king's service, and that it's an honor he doesn't want.  Hamlet, instead of sympathizing, whines that he doesn't want to go to Heidelberg.  For being such an impeccably perfect hero, Card's sure made his version of Hamlet completely lacking in empathy.  And while Shakespeare's Hamlet was by no means perfect, at least he wasn't a budding psychopath.

"Sometimes we just have to be patient with inconvenient honors."

Hamlet's tone had been jesting, but the darkness that came upon Laertes' face was almost painful.  "What is it?"

"Hamlet, I beg you, before you go, ask your father to send me away.  To France.  My mother's brother is there, lord of a small holding on the border between Normandy and the Ile-de-France.  Father will never ask -- he's too much the courtier.  But if you ask --" -- p. 21

What is this, #5 now?

Hamlet says his dad won't listen to him and doesn't Laertes' sister, Ophelia, need him to protect her?  Don't get too excited, Ophelia's role has been gutted down to almost nothing in this book...

Finally they go to Hamlet's mother to ask her permission.  And of course Hamlet thinks that his father wanting to send him to school is a terrible thing because it means he doesn't love him, but it's a wonderful thing that his mom wants him to go because it means she cares about his education.  Double standards much?

She apparently had no idea that the Companions (still thinking of white horses here) were being disbanded or that Laertes was being called into the king's service.  Her remarks here are disturbing and telling:

"One would have thought," she said to the boy, "that you served him well enough already." -- p. 22

#6...

"I think that if you bide only a little while, my dear husband will have no further use of you." -- p. 22

#7...

The queen says she'll arrange things so that Laertes is released from the king's service, but suggests he book it to France as soon as he can, because "my dear husband will be in a snappish mood for some months to come."  And here I skeeve out and run to take a shower, because it's bad enough that  Hamlet's father is apparently molesting young boys but the fact that the queen knows and does NOTHING up until this point -- nothing to alert the public, nothing to protect the boys in question, nothing to even tell the king "you touch a kid and I'll cut your junk off" -- makes me instantly lose any and all sympathy for her.  Because I don't care if this is the freaking King of Denmark we're talking about, he's still a pedophile, and you freaking do SOMETHING on the kids' behalf.

Valid reaction to this bit

The queen shoos Laertes off so she can say goodbye to her son, which is something else the king apparently forbids.  Can't forget that the king is EVIL and a JERK, after all...  

"You're a better son than your father and I had any right to hope for," she said.

"It's a well-kept secret from my father."

"You do not know what you do not know," said Mother.  "Your father has loved you better than you think."  -- p. 23

Couldn't decide between Red Flag #8 and Squicked-Out

Starscream... Starscream won out.  Primus almighty...

Then Claudius appears from behind a tapestry in the room -- apparently they were discussing matters of state, but the EVIL king forbids his brother from taking interest in the affairs of the kingdom, so the queen has to get his advice in secret.  I'm not sure if this bit was intended to hint at an affair between the queen and Claudius or just to hammer home how EVIL the king is.  Maybe some of both?  I somehow suspect it's the latter, actually, because Card has been making Claudius out to be PURE and GOOD and NOBLE and making him the queen's boy-toy wouldn't jive with that plan very well, I think.

There's some more banter about how the queen has taught Hamlet about everything pertaining to be a king except war, some talk of religion, and the queen remarks that she and God are "little acquainted as of late."  She also implies that the archbishop might be in the king's pocket, which makes me wonder if there's someone ELSE that knows about the king's deplorable antics.  Seriously, is Hamlet the only freaking character who doesn't know?  And why hasn't anyone done anything yet?  Even if he IS the king, shouldn't someone step in?

"Ever since your father became king, the only teacher I've had is your mother.  But she holds back the juiciest bits of information for herself.  She's afraid we'll become too powerful, if we know what she knows."

"I don't even know what I know," said Mother.  "I don't dare ask myself a single question for fear I'll tell me an answer I can't afford to hear." -- p. 25

I... what?

Hamlet tells his mom he'll make her proud of him, and Claudius says he's already proud of the king he will become.  Hamlet protests, saying his father's still young and that Denmark won't need another king for awhile.  Claudius almost blurts something out, but Hamlet is sure that he's about to say that Denmark needs another king right now.  Having characters guess what someone else is about to say is, in my mind, a sloppy way to get information across.  Humans are unpredictable creatures, and more often than not what you think they're going to say next isn't what's going to come out of their mouths.  Either have Claudius say it outright or find some other way to get the information across.

Hamlet goes back to his room, packs his backs, is off on a ship to Heidelberg the next day, and boom, page break.  Let's press on...

I'm going to summarize this next section a bit, because there's not a whole lot to say about it.  It's basically Hamlet going to school and establishing himself as even more of a Mary Sue, as he defeats everyone he crosses blades with in a sword fight, impresses all his teachers, becomes a star student despite starting off behind most of his classmates, uses his wealth to generously buy expensive books for the school, and soon has everyone loving him and wanting to be his best friend.  *yawn*  Card, perfect characters are BORING, you don't have to make Hamlet the best at absolutely everything he does...

Four years later Hamlet gets a letter that his father has died and he's needed at home.  And instead of any sort of mourning for Hamlet, or even a "oh wow, my father's died, that's a shock," we instead launch into him telling his professors how kings in Denmark are elected, and even though he's the likeliest candidate someone else could be chosen in his stead.  Seriously, he has NO emotional reaction whatsoever to his father's death.  

...okay, pause here.  Story time!

If you don't get the reference or just need a break from

the spork, look up Thomas Sanders' "Narrating People's

Lives" sometime.  It's hysterical.

When I was in junior high, I was a teacher's aid at the elementary school next door, and another student and I would walk to the school together.  He teased me constantly and made a show of walking ten feet away from me because he claimed I stank -- you know, typical junior high stuff.  Late into the school year he died in an accident, and despite the fact that we weren't close at all and didn't interact outside of that three-minute walk every day, hearing he had died was still a huge shock to me.  It wasn't grief, not necessarily, but still a shock.

Most normal people, when they find out a relative (even an estranged or distant one), an acquaintance (even a casual one), or a celebrity (even if it's one they don't particularly like) dies, are going to react somehow, even if it's just a "oh, they died, that's too bad."  For Hamlet to have no reaction at all to his father's death makes him come across as a sociopath.  I don't care if his father ignored him all his life, he should still be feeling SOMETHING here.  Not calmly going off about Denmark's politics to his professor.

The professor tells Hamlet he'll make an excellent king, because we can't forget that Hamlet's perfect in this universe.  He says that Hamlet's reputation as a swordsman had reached them before he did, and that rumor had it he'd "killed half of Denmark, and that's why you were sent here."

"I've never killed a man, sir," said Hamlet.

"And never will, God willing," said the professor. -- p. 30

Subtle, card

They get back to Denmark, and FINALLY we reach the beginning of the play, where Hamlet learns Claudius has been elected king in his stead and married his mother.  31 pages into a 92-page Hamlet adaptation (well, 86 if you count the fact that the story proper doesn't even start until page 7), and we finally get to the beginning of the freaking play.  I really need to read something else by Card and see if he has this sort of pacing problem in his longer works...

And of course, Hamlet doesn't want to be king, because only EVIL people want to be kings in fiction, so it's not being supplanted as king that upsets him (even though he rants for a paragraph about how Claudius is only about ten years older than him and he'll be an old man by the time he gets the throne, and that's IF Claudius doesn't have kids first).  Nope, what upsets him is that his mom got married to Claudius to legitimize the king-ship.  Oh yay, finally, we get some of the conflict that drove Hamlet through the play!  Now he's going to angst about how Mom didn't even wait until the funeral to get married and how morally wrong it is for her to get married to her brother-in-law, right?

Hamlet had never thought of her as ambitious.  She had endured Father's slighting treatment of her for all of Hamlet's life.  He always thought that it was for his sake that she lived; it had never occurred to him that she might have loved being Queen so much that she cared little who sat the throne, as long as she sat beside him. -- p. 32

Oh, for Celestia's sake...

It's been awhile since I've read Hamlet, but I've looked up several interpretations of the play online, and NONE even hint that ambition played a role in the queen's remarriage, or was even mentioned in the play as a factor.  Of all the interpretations you could have gone with, you have to go with the Starscream gambit?  When did we ever see any evidence that Hamlet saw her as ambitious or considers that the main problem with the marriage?  I could buy jealousy, I could buy claims of incest (at the time a widow marrying her brother-in-law was considered incest), I could buy him being upset that she barley waited a month before getting married, but I don't buy her being so grasping for the throne that she'd do anything to keep it.

Also, Hamlet, if you don't want the throne, what do you care if someone else wants it?  Besides, maybe the queen DOES love Claudius (see earlier in the chapter for evidence), or maybe she's just doing what she thinks is best to make sure Denmark's government stays stable.  Don't assume she's just a power-monger.

Hamlet also muses that he doesn't know Claudius that well, and worries that he might see his nephew as a threat to the throne.  Understandable, I suppose... though his solution is a weird one.  He decides that acting sullen and distraught will prove he's a threat to the throne, but that acting cheerful will make people think he's hiding something... so he's going to pretend to mourn his father instead.  Great, so any and all mourning and grief we saw in the play is apparently an act?  Card, did you MEAN to make your character such a sociopath?

So yeah, Hamlet gives a dramatic speech to his guards saying that he's grieving for his father, despite admitting to himself he doesn't even miss his father and thinks Denmark is better off without him.  They believe him, and Hamlet is suddenly all happy that he won't have to take the throne and he can go back to school once the funeral's over.  Seriously???  Where's our brooding hero from the play?  Dang-nabbit, Card, when you said you were shredding the play I didn't think you'd grind the blasted thing into powder...

He would not even begrudge Mother and Uncle Claudius their happiness.  There was no blood relation between Claudius and Mother, after all.  And didn't the Bible command that a man take his brother's widow to wife, to raise up progeny to his brother? -- p. 34

HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH...  Okay, Card, stop.  Just stop.  You're tearing away absolutely everything that made the original play interesting.  You're depriving Hamlet of all the conflict and introspection that made HIM interesting.  And may I remind you that the whole marrying-your-brother's-wife was not only controversial during this time period, but the Bible itself is contradictory on the matter?  You're a religious man, you should know this...

It was not a matter of legalisms.  God had taken Father away from Denmark, away from Mother, away from them all.  Whatever dark and brooding spirit had kept Father from showing genuine love to him or Mother, he was gone now, and with him the shadows he had cast in their lives.  They were all free, and Hamlet most of all, for instead of having to bear the royal burden Father had borne so badly all these years, he could live his life as he saw fit. -- p. 34

And with that, we get started on the actual story of the play.  And instead of setting the stage for a great psychological drama that grapples with complex moral issues (ones pertinent to the time period but that still resonate and are discussed today), we're going to start off with a Mary Sue character who manages to be both bland and an apparent sociopath, and a story that seems to have no conflict whatsoever.  Ugh... 

There's a page break here, and even though I was hoping to get further than this, I'm gonna stop here.  I may have to renew this sucker at least once...

Hamlet's Father Part I -- All Hail Prince Mary Sue!

A couple things before we begin this spork in earnest...

First of all, this book is not separated into chapters.  I can understand that -- it probably feels a little silly to chop a 92-page book up into chapters -- but it does make finding a decent stopping point for reading/sporking hard.  So each post will cover about twenty pages of material, more or less if I want to avoid ending in the middle of a scene.

Second, according to Card's website, Hatrack River (which happens to be the name of his publishing company), the book version of Hamlet's Father was apparently supposed to be published with a foreword by Card.  It appears to not have made it into the book proper, but I'm reposting it here anyhow (with my commentary in non-italics), because it's chuckle-worthy reading alongside the book:

I have loved Shakespeare's plays since my days as a theatre undergraduate, when I learned to get my head into his characters and my mouth around the blank verse.  I have taught his plays to literature students, directed actors in performing his plays, and even fiddled with some of his scripts so they'd be fresh and funny to modern audiences despite the way the language has changed since he wrote them.  (See my adaptations of Romeo & Juliet and The Taming of the Shrew at www.hatrack.com.)

Part of me is curious to read those other adaptations now, but most of me is terrified.  No, I'm not going to spork them too... find them yourself if you're morbidly curious.

I don't like all the plays equally.  Coriolanus simply doesn't speak to me.  In fact. none of the Roman plays do.  But the play that bothers me the most -- because I don't much care for it and I think I should -- is Hamlet.

If you don't care for Hamlet, why did you feel the need to rewrite it?

Of Shakespeare's great tragedies, I love Lear and Macbeth; Othello at least I understand.  But Hamlet?  I have little interest in a dithering hero; nor am I much inspired by revenge plots.  Yet I keep hearing that this is the greatest of them all.

Hamlet is about far more than a revenge plot -- it's a story of one man's internal struggle with the morality of taking revenge for the death of his father, and raises interesting questions about religion, insanity, and how one man's obsession can have far-reaching consequences.  And while I understand it's not everyone's cup of tea, just calling it a "revenge plot" with a "dithering hero" is way too simplistic.

So I analyzed the story to see what it would take to make me care about it.  "Hamlet's Father" is what I came up with.  I'm fully aware of the fact that I have just messed with the play that many consider the greatest ever written in any language.  But Shakespeare stole his plots from other people; and nothing I do is going to erase a line of his great work or diminish his reputation in any way.  So why not?

If it takes turning a character into a homosexual pedophile to make you care about Hamlet, I'd start asking yourself some questions...  And while your story might not physically alter Shakespeare's work, it can certainly taint other people's enjoyment of the original work.

If you think it's blasphemous to fiddle with Shakespeare's work, then for heaven's sake don't read this story.  I leave his version in shreds on the floor.  But my body count is just as high, as long as you don't expect me to account for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  I figure Tom Stoppard took care of them for all time.

Well, at least you admit to the shredding part... you certainly gutted the story of the original play in your efforts to rewrite it.  And for those who don't know, Tom Stoppard wrote Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, an absurdist play that also retells the story of Hamlet, though it does it through telling the story through the eyes of two minor characters rather than tearing apart the original.  Go read it or watch the film version, it's actually pretty hysterical.

Now diving into the actual book... wish me luck, here we go...

Comic from Perry Bible Fellowship

The book begins with a page stating this is one of a limited run of 1,000 books, complete with Card's autograph and the book's number (139).  Then we get two title pages and a page of copyright information before the story proper begins.  No dedication, curiously...

Hamlet's father sent him to the university at Heidelberg as soon as he turned fourteen.  Even though he had to leave all his friends behind, Hamlet was glad to go.

It wasn't Denmark he wanted to leave.  It was the castle at Elsinore; it was the throne that he would never occupy; it was Mother's endless sadness and infinite distance from him.

It was Father.  -- p. 7

Yes, that's our intro.  And apparently Card's solution to making Hamlet interesting is to saddle him with Daddy issues.  This is a rather common -- and in my mind somewhat cliched -- way to add to a character's backstory, but it feels a little weird to give to a character like Hamlet, whose driven by his desire to find his father's killer.  Note to people who write adaptations (including fanfic writers), before you add to a character's backstory, make sure it fits with the story and character.

The prose goes on to describe that Hamlet's always thought of his father as an equal to God, "all-knowing and all-powerful," but feels inadequate because his father never seems to pay attention to him.  *yawn*  It's the same sort of Freudian Excuse  you've seen in everything from Star Wars to Batman to every crime procedural ever to everything in between, and while it can be done well, it's not particularly innovative here.

Oh, and page 8 has an illustration of Hamlet sitting in a graveyard.  It's nothing particularly inspiring, but it's not awful either.

Hamlet apparently called his friends his age -- sons of noblemen or wealthy commoners -- his "Companions."  No, I don't know why it's capitalized, and frankly, I don't see why it needs to be.  I know the word is capitalized in Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series, but that's because it refers to a race of ultra-magical beings who look like horses.  (It's better than it sounds, I swear...)  Here it's just used to refer to Hamlet's childhood friends, and feels awkward.

Moving on... Hamlet's six and playing with his Companions when Polonius the chamberlain comes in and announces that the king's going on a hunting trip and is bringing Horatio with him.  Normal readers who go into this blind probably won't read too much into this, but knowing what I'm getting into, this is raising nasty red flags...

This is becoming my go-to "squick" face, isn't it?

Hamlet, being six years old, goes off to pout over this... in the graveyard?  Apparently that's his favorite place to go when he wants to be alone.  Odd... though at least the page illustration makes sense. 

He's still moping around in an apple tree in the graveyard when he gets a visitor.

"The fruit has grown large and ugly this year," said a familiar voice -- Yorick, the old jester.

"It's too early for apples."

"Then what kind of weather is it that drops ugly boys out of the sky?" -- p. 10

Muahahaha... I like Yorick already.  He's a character we only ever met as a disembodied skull in the original play, so it's actually pretty nice to see him here.  It's too bad that even at six Hamlet's got no sense of humor.  I thought this book was supposed to make him more interesting, not suck him dry.

Hamlet retorts that he's not ugly, and Yorick says sadly "better to be ugly."  Red flag #2...

That starts a debate over whether it's better to be pretty or ugly and about Hamlet eventually marrying, and Hamlet declares he's never going to get married, which I suppose is normal for a six-year-old boy.  Then Yorick shoos him back into the castle to talk to his mother, though Hamlet pauses to wash up in a fountain... and he hears voices.  Hey, I thought he wasn't supposed to go mad until his father actually kicked the bucket.

Oh wait, the "voices" aren't voices, it's someone crying.  I'd think that voices and crying sound different enough to tell them apart, but what do I know?

It's Horatio crying in the stables, and Hamlet asks him how the hunt was.  Not gonna ask why your friend is crying, kid?  Seriously?  Hamlet's more upset over the fact that Horatio not only went on the hunt instead of him, but got to sit in "his" place on the horse in front of his father.  I'm aware that six-year-olds tend to be selfish little snots, but still, they're capable of a little empathy.

Horatio explains that he and the king got lost during the hunt and didn't rejoin it until the way home, and tearfully expresses how he wishes he had been there to see the actual kill.  Red flag #3...  

Card rushes the timeline here, showing how time and again the king takes the other boys on hunts and expeditions but never Hamlet, and Hamlet thinks it's because there's something wrong with him.  Isn't anyone getting suspicious of what's going on here?  Yes, I'm aware that this is the king, and back in that day before monarchs were largely ceremonial, it was pretty dangerous to accuse a king of anything.  But later on the book suggests that Denmark's actually a constitutional monarchy, so surely someone could bring this up as a problem?  Anyone?

Card also goes on to turn Hamlet into a Mary Sue -- I know the "correct" term for a male Mary Sue is a Gary Stu or a Marty Stu, but Mary Sue is by far the better-known term.  Don't believe me?  Here's a sample:

Not that Hamlet thought for a moment that the other boys were actually better.  Hamlet always took pride in never allowing them to allow him to win at any of their contests.  When he lost, he took it without shame or anger, and no one reported on the outcome to Father or Polonius, lest they interfere and punish someone for outdoing the Prince.  Thus, whenever Hamlet won, he knew that his victory was real.  He was the fastest runner, save Laertes; he was the best at Latin, save Rosencrantz; he was the strongest at wrestling, save Guildenstern, and then only on some days could the older boy throw him down.

At one thing, though, Hamlet was the best save nobody, and that was the sword.  It was a natural gift -- the armsmaster said so. -- p. 13

And that's not all!  He also learns all the important matters of running the kingdom before he's even thirteen, from how to greet important visitors to how to prepare food for the winter to how to tell if one can tax the people more heavily or ease up on the taxes.  Card... did no one ever tell you that perfect characters are BORING?  You might not have liked a "dithering hero," but a hero who's automatically the best at everything he does isn't going to interest most readers.  Especially when the wicked, often dark sense of humor Hamlet showed in the original play seems to have been surgically removed.

Oh, and apparently Hamlet's father is a terrible king, and treats his brother Claudius (yes, THAT Claudius from the play) like dirt.  But Claudius too is just OH SO PERFECT and lets it roll off his back without any problem.  And Hamlet likes Claudius so much he wishes he was his father.

So... Card's solution to making the play more interesting in his eyes is to eliminate all the moral arguments and ambiguities that made the original play so fascinating?  To take complex and troubled characters and reduce them down to "good or evil, black or white, nothing in between"?  I'm sorry, but no.  You don't get to do that to Hamlet.  Pure "good vs. evil" works in 80s kids' cartoons (somewhat), but most people prefer their heroes and villains more complex than just "ultimate pure good vs. cackling kitten-eating evil."

Save the kittens, write more complex villains!

While swimming one day, Hamlet tells Laertes that he wishes Claudius were his father, and Laertes goes off on him.

Laertes turned on him savagely -- angrily, even.  "Do you wish your mother were an adultress, then?  Or do you wish her not to be your mother, either?"

"I was just... wishing," said Hamlet.  "Father hates me, so I might as well not be his son."

Laertes looked out across the water, his face dark with -- what, anger?  "There is no boy happier than the King's own son," he said. -- p. 16

Red flag #4...

Laertes tells Hamlet to stop worrying about his father's approval, that a good king doesn't surround himself with "toadies who will always tell him that he's wonderful and brilliant" and instead work to become the kind of man he wants to be.  Decent advice...  He also says that if he got his wish and hung around with his father all the time, he'll just become a terrible king like he is.  I'm sorry, I don't recall the king being terrible in the original play... I know, Card did say he was shredding the play as he wrote this, but still, this irks me.

Laertes gets out of the water, and we get THIS lovely bit:

Hamlet watched him, thinking two things:

Why is there no one I can talk to about the things that matter most to me?

How beautiful he is. 

Um... wow.  For as reportedly homophobic as Card is, this is a major Ho Yay moment.  Remember this moment, I plan on coming back to it later...

Hamlet wonders if his father chose to surround him with Companions (why is that capitalized this is gonna bug me all book) more beautiful and lovely (his exact words) than he was to make sure he never thought of himself highly.  He also wonders if he was a horrible baby to make his father hate him as soon as he was born, but Yorick tells him no.

"All I have of my father is his name," said Hamlet.

"What if his greatest gift," said Yorick, "is to give you no gift?"

"Which is the greater fool," answer (sic) Hamlet, "the fool who thinks he's wise, or the fool who knows he's a fool and plays the part?"

"The fool who knows he's a fool is wise, and therefore no fool," said Yorick.  "But the greater fool is the wise man who does not know he is wise, for then he follows not his own council." -- p. 17

Star Wars did it better

More chatter with Yorick that doesn't amount to much, and we have a page break.  Whee.

We skip forward to the last time Hamlet saw his father alive -- at sword practice.  And of course Hamlet is so good with a sword he no longer fences with boys his own age but with the grown men.  Because Hamlet's last name is Stu, apparently.  At least we actually see him training, I guess, instead of learning swordplay in two weeks like Eragon...

Anyhow, once sword practice is over Hamlet goes and kneels to his father, who scolds him for getting his leggings dirty.  Because we can't forget that Hamlet's dad is EVIL and a jerk, I guess.

So the king is dissolving the Fellowship... I mean the Companions and sending Hamlet off to school in Heidelberg.  Hamlet assumes this means his dad despises him, because just like Eden everything has to be about Hamlet.  *sigh*

I'm only at about Page 20 of this thing, and was hoping to push forward to 30, but this post is already pretty long, so I think I'll stop here for now.  This is enough to establish that Hamlet's a Mary Sue, there are ominous red flags pointing towards Card's controversial ending to the story, and Card's solution to making the story "interesting" is to chop out anything that might be morally ambiguous or complex and reduce one of the greatest psychological studies in the theater world to an utterly banal story of "good vs. evil."

I need a freaking drink.  And by "drink" I mean "go eat ice cream."  

Gimmie... I deserve it for getting THIS far...

Hamlet's Father Cover - What Nightmares May Come

We interrupt this Revealing Eden sporking to bring you a quick spork of Hamlet's Father!  The bonus sporking that nobody asked for!

Hamlet's Father is by Orson Scott Card, and was originally published in 2008 by Tor Books, as part of an anthology titled Ghost Quartet, edited by Marvin Kaye.  It was re-printed as a stand-alone novella in 2011 by Subterranean Press (which, incidentally, also publishes one of my favorite steampunk series, The Clockwork Century).  Subterranean Press's printing was a limited run of only 1,000 books, so I guess I'm lucky I got my hands on a copy at all.

Orson Scott Card, for those who might not know, is no Victoria Foyt who had to self-publish to get his work to see the light of day.  He's a HUGE name in the science fiction community, probably best known for his bestselling novel Ender's Game, though he's also written such series as Alvin Maker, the Homecoming saga, and the religious novels Women of Genesis, as well as miscellaneous fantasy, sci-fi, and religious fiction series and stand-alones.

Anymore, however, Card seems to have gained a reputation for using his books as a soapbox for his political views.  TV Tropes has an entry for him on their Fallen Creator page, which reads thusly:

Orson Scott Card is also an excellent example of this trope in action.  Between Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, the early books of the Alvin Maker series, and even his work on games like Monkey Island, Card was easily one of the best sci-fi/fantasy authors of the '80s and early '90s.  But he took a turn with the increasingly political and continuity-contradictory Ender's Shadow series and Advent Rising.  Now Card can't seem to write anything without having to rehash his political views and run them smack dab into the plot as he did in Empire.  His online non-fiction essays and blogosphere reaction to them also made his more controversial social and political views much more visible and hotly-debated, reaching a peak with an article (which he later back-pedalled from) that appeared to suggest that legalisation of gay marriage in the US would justify armed revolution against the government.  Now just the mere mention of his name can cause problems, such his work on the plot for Shadow Complex.

Then under another bullet they have this addition, which got me interested in this book in the first place (warning for spoilers):

Then he rewrote Hamlet and explained that Hamlet's father was a gay pedophile who was killed by Horatio because he molested him as a child. Oh and he, Laertes, Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern all turned gay because of it.  It ends with Hamlet damned to Hell, where his father tells them now they can be together.  This was initially published in an anthology, and then someone somehow decided that it should have a wider release.

What the frag...

Welp... needless to say, this book hasn't gone over very well with Card's fanbase, Shakespeare buffs, or readers in general.  With a 2.6-star rating on Amazon and a 2.56-star rating on Goodreads, it rates only slightly better than Revealing Eden, though part of me thinks that's mostly because Card is an established writer who was partially saved by his prior reputation, whereas Foyt didn't even have a reputation to squander.

Card himself had a rebuttal to all the hate and backlash this book has gotten... but I'll save his reaction for the end.  It's a doozy...

I did not purchase this book -- I actually had our library ship it in from a library in Oregon.  I honestly did not feel like shelling out twenty to sixty bucks for a book that I would only read once, probably hate, and then be stuck with because it feels wrong to throw away or burn a book that costs that much, especially a signed limited-edition copy.  (For the record, this copy happens to be #139 out of 1,000, and yes, is signed by Orson himself.)

Looking at the cover of this book... it's actually pretty decent.  The cover art is a bit murky-looking, but given that the play it's based on is a tragedy, gloomy cover art isn't necessarily a bad thing.  Said art is hand-painted (credited to one Tom Kidd, who also did interior illustrations) and portrays a dead king on a bench in a garden, with a hooded ghost/angel looking on from the garden gate.  This doesn't look like a scene from the play, but it's possible the artist took some creative license, or just decided to combine two of the most famous images from the play into one image.

Summary from the dust jacket:

We all know Shakespeare's classic ghost story -- the young prince Hamlet's dead father appears to him, demanding vengeance upon Hamlet's uncle Claudius, who has usurped the throne and, to add insult to injury, married Hamlet's mother.

Hamlet dithers and delays, coming up with reason after reason to postpone his vengeance.  But it's not for the reason Shakespeare told us.  It's because Hamlet keeps discovering evidence that things are not quite what they seem in the Kingdom of Denmark -- and never have been, throughout Hamlet's entire life.

Once you've read Orson Scott Card's revelatory version of the Hamlet story, Shakespeare's play will be much more fun to watch -- because now you'll know what's really going on.

Hmmm... seems a bit presumptuous for the publisher to claim that this book tells the REAL story about Hamlet.  It's one thing to claim that your book is an alternate retelling, or even "Hamlet as you've never seen it before," but for Card to claim that his story is the "TRUE AND HONEST" story of how Hamlet really went down seems rather arrogant to me.  Orson, it's okay to admit you've written Shakespeare fanfic, you don't have to pretend Hamlet was broken and you had to fix it...

Strap yourselves in, folks -- we're about to go for a ride.  And for those of you disappointed that the longer sporking is being paused, don't worry.  This should only take a few posts...

Chapter 17 -- Too Bad They're Not the Berries from Hunger Games...

The book I mentioned in the last post is on its way to the library, so I should have my grubby hands on it soon!  Like I said, I don't anticipate a huge delay in the Revealing Eden posts, since this one's pretty short, but hopefully people will enjoy this one regardless.  It's controversial and (reportedly) horrible in its own right, from what I've read, and made even better/worse by the fact that it comes from a famous and respected writer instead of a random self-published yahoo like Foyt.

In the meantime, let's move on to the Furry Romance... I mean the next chapter of Revealing Eden.

The last chapter ended with Eden and Bramford cuddling just after nearly drowning in a river thanks to Eden's stupidity.  And because this is Revealing Eden, the next chapter opens with a bird singing and Eden immediately calling it by its Latin name.  I could whittle the drinking game down to "take a drink every time Eden calls a plant or animal by its Latin name" and someone would still get black-out drunk reading this stupid book...

Also, out of curiosity's sake, I looked up the particular bird she used in this scene, a black-faced solitaire.  It lives in Costa Rica and Panama, not Ecuador -- and none of those countries even share borders, so it's not like one blundered on over from a neighboring area either.  If you're going to do your research on wildlife, Foyt, maybe you should focus on what species are indigenous to your location instead of just looking up the Latin names...

Bramford starts to wake up, and we get more "romantic" writing that sounds more like one of the X-Men just discovering their powers.

He began to stir, his hand falling down the length of her back, leaving a trail of electric sparks.  She gasped, as they exploded in her brain. -- p. 119

FYI, don't Google "head explosion" if you just ate

or don't want to hate yourself...

Have I mentioned lately that Foyt's attempts at writing good similes and metaphors, or romantic prose, or much fiction in general, stink?  I'm sure I must have at some point...

Anyhow, Bramford gets up, and we get the lovely revelation that his pants are "in tatters."  Thankfully we don't get a detailed description full of horrible metaphors about his junk...  He growls at Eden and walks away, and she immediately thinks "beast" at him.  He just nearly drowned trying to save your sorry butt from your own Darwin-Award-worthy stunt, girl, I think he's got a right to be a little ticked at you.  Plus, have you not realized yet that people just don't have the time to lavish attention on you 24/7?  Or are you just that egocentric?

Bramford finds a gourd and uses it to get a drink from the lake, Eden watches him drink like a creeper and then admires the scenery, we get the Latin name for the ducks on the lake for no good reason, yadda yadda yadda.  Also, Eden misses her Life-Band and states that the real world feels "unreal" without it.  Was this supposed to be a commentary on our Internet-addicted world?  Maybe this book would have been better if it focused on THAT instead of racism, even if it would have made it a weak Ready Player One ripoff...

Bramford offers her water, and we get... you guessed it, more awkwardly-written attraction!

Her hand brushed against his, as she took the gourd from him.  Once more she felt a crazy, magnetic pull towards him.  She could feel his eyes burning into her as she gulped thirstily. -- p. 120

Eden realizes she can now drink as much water as she wants without rationing and laughs, which gets Bramford glaring at her in disgust.  She, of course, assumes it's because she "looked like a freak," but it's something else.

"At least I'm alive.  Thanks to you."  It sounded like an accusation, which Eden immediately regretted.

Bramford stiffened.  "You could have gotten us both killed."

"No one asked you to come in after me."

"What was I supposed to do?  Let you drown?"

"What do you care?"  -- p. 121

Now to be fair, Eden DOES thank him for saving her life here... but she does it in such a way that it still sounds pretty ungrateful.  And her getting snarky at the guy who just saved her life really isn't winning her any brownie points here.

Bramford looks like he wants to hit her -- and in a weird Fifty-Shades-ish twist, Eden "almost" wants him to hit her -- but instead he offers her a handful of acai berries and says they'll relieve her oxy-deprivation.  Hmmm, maybe I spoke too soon last chapter, but the point stands that I still haven't seen her show symptoms of withdrawal, so I still maintain that Foyt should have either researched drug addition or just dropped that sub-plot entirely.

Shockingly, we don't get the Latin name for acai berries... but despite them being toted as a superfood  and antioxidant online and being able to cure anything from diabetes to impotence, I can't find anything that claims they can relieve drug withdrawal symptoms.  Well, I suppose people make up enough claims about the health benefits of acai, why not Foyt?  She seems happy enough making other stuff up... though am I just being picky, expecting a fiction writer to do their dang research?

At least she's not trying to pass hers off

as actual fact, I suppose...

Eden decides to be a brat and refuses to eat, so Bramford eats the berries.  Eden wonders how they're going to get back to her father, and Bramford announces they're not going back.

"But what about my father?"

Bramford's eyes narrowed with a faraway look.  Eden had the eerie feeling he could see into the future, maybe like El Tigre, after all.  But that was impossible. -- p. 122

Argh... you just barely found out about this totally-made-up god, how do you know he can even see into the future?  I suppose that's just an assumed power of gods in general, but still... and the fact that they're still going on about this El Tigre god who's NOT EVEN A REAL MYTH, let alone one worshiped by this particular tribe, makes the mythology buff in me want to flip a table.

Me too, Prowl... me too

Bramford says they'll meet the Huaorani back at camp.  Eden asks where it is, hoping to backtrack and get the Life-Band again, but Bramford refuses to tell her.

"What?  Do you think I'll tell someone?" she said, with a pang of guilt.  That was exactly what she hoped to do.

He cocked an eyebrow.  "Given the chance, you'd betray me in a heartbeat."

"Betray you?  I didn't ask to come here.  I just want to go home."

"We don't always get what we want, Eden." -- p. 122

For being the designated Hate Sink of the novel, Bramford is really the only reasonable and smart character, random Latin names notwithstanding.  Between this, his heroic nature, and the fact that he's the only character who will call Eden on her bullcrap, he's pretty much my favorite character from this book... or really, the only character I don't want to see die in a fire or get eaten.  It's a shame the author seems to want us to dislike him along with Eden.

Eden thinks "what did Bramford know about disappointment" but then sees his new furry form and figures now he knows what it's like to be different.  I'm sorry, but even if you've flipped around who's the persecuted race and who's not, this comes across as uncomfortable.

Then Eden mouths off to him again.

"Maybe I should have let you sink," he said, turning on her.

"Well, why didn't you?  How am I supposed to survive by day?  And what's going to happen to my father in this sinkhole?  Did you think of that when you kidnapped us and brought us here" --she jerked her arm in an arc-- "to this deserted, sunny place?  No, as usual, you only thought about yourself-"

Alas, this doesn't happen...

Bramford jumped on her, pinning her beneath him.  His brutally handsome face hovered over hers.  Eden stared, transfixed, into fiery eyes as an unfamiliar fluttering darted in her chest, like a small bird released from its cage.  She kicked her feet and squirmed, but she was powerless against him. -- p. 122-123

Mandatory squicked-out Starscream face

Eden taunts him, telling him he'd enjoy tearing her to pieces.  At this point, girl, who wouldn't?  Bramford calls her a pain in the ass and forces her to eat the berries, which she says are "almost as good as oxy."  I'm pretty sure most of the medical claims regarding acai are bogus, Foyt... stop acting like they can cure drug addiction or give you a high.

(On an aside note, as I was trying to come up with a title for this post I suddenly thought "wouldn't it be great if these were the nightlock berries from Hunger Games and our protagonist just dropped dead from poisoning in this chapter?  Wishful thinking...)

Bramford then picks up Eden and carries her piggyback, saying she won't be able to walk where they're going.  O...kay?  This just leads to more awkward quasi-romantic (queasy-romantic?) dialogue.

Eden tentatively wrapped her legs around his broad back, barely able to encircle his girth.  In spots, Bramford's downy fur rubbed against her skin, surprisingly pleasant.  A faint shudder ran through her. -- p. 124

Bramford tells her to hold on, and we get a doozy of a closing paragraph, which just happens to be another infamous excerpt that's made the rounds of the Internet.

She sunk her fingers into his long silky hair, like reins on a horse.  As if she controlled the beast.  Eden knew it wasn't true, but she enjoyed the illusion just the same. -- p. 124

...no.

Just... no.  I just... no.  NO.  WHAT THE FLYING FRAKKITY FRAG ARE YOU DOING FOYT AAAAAAAARGHasleplkalskdjfls... *bangs head on keyboard*

...

...sorry, I just needed a moment there.  The sheer audacity of that line just floors me every time I come across it (like I said, I'd previously seen it in reviews and on blogs talking about this book).  Foyt goes on and on about how this book is supposed to show Caucasians how terrible racism is, but yet again it's indulging in some pretty horrific racist imagery of its own.  Having a white girl riding a big black man like a horse, flat-out calling him a beast and enjoying the feeling of controlling him, evokes all kinds of disgusting mental images, even if you do keep your mind out of the gutter...

Boy, this book is SLOW.  It seriously feels like nothing much has happened story-wise since the labs blew up.  For all its unfortunate implications and awful moments, there are huge chunks that are just boring and a pain to slog through.  In a sick sort of way I almost welcome those moments that make me want to chuck the book into a bonfire, because even if they're terrible at least they're interesting.  Too bad Foyt couldn't seem to make the book interesting in a GOOD way.

Chapter 17 -- Bratty and the Beast

For everyone's information, the Revealing Eden spork might be going on a mini-hiatus in the near future.  I know, the blog just came back from a hiatus over the summer, but at least I'm announcing this one.  And it won't mean the blog goes quiet -- it just means Revealing Eden will be briefly put on hold while I spork another book.  I have to get this one through inter-library loan, so it'll have to be done quickly so I can return it on time and not incur a hefty fine...

Don't worry, the book in question isn't terribly long -- only about a hundred pages or so according to Amazon.  It shouldn't take too long to breeze through it and get back to Eden.  As for the book in question... let's just say it's a terrible effort by a well-known and highly-respected (or at least highly-respected at one time) author, and one that created quite a bit of backlash when it was first published.  Stay tuned...

Anyhow, on to the next chapter of this train wreck!

Oldie but a goodie

Eden takes off into the jungle with her backpack, as sunlight "strafes" through the trees.  I'm now thinking of laser guns, but whatever...  We get a mention of "silvery specks" in the trees "as if dozens of eyes watched her."  For being a desolate wasteland destroyed by the heat, there's sure a lot of animals in this world.  Unless Eden's hallucinating, which is possible but hasn't been alluded to up to this point.

Off-topic but the hallucination thing makes me wonder -- if Eden's been using oxy all her life, why isn't she showing withdrawal symptoms?  Even benign or relatively harmless drugs will give you withdrawal symptoms if you stop using them after a long time of being on them -- ask anyone who's had to give up caffeine for whatever reason.  If oxy is short for "oxycontin," she should be suffering from nausea, sweating, rapid heartbeat, abdominal pain, and anxiety, among other things.  She's showing zilch -- and no, I don't count her freakouts as anxiety, she was doing that periodically long before this point.

Sorry, folks, but you can't make your character a drug addict and then expect to have them quit cold turkey without nasty side effects.  That's a cheat, pure and simple.

Anyhow... a monkey hoots at her, and we get a quick info-dump that includes the scientific name of the capuchin monkeys and that they're named after a type of monk.  We get it, you know how to use Wikipedia or Encyclopedia Britannica or whatever, how is this important to the story?  The monkeys throw seed pods at her and she tries to chase them off.  Just be grateful they didn't conform to the old stereotype about monkeys, I guess?  

Meme not mine... and apologies for the language

Eden feels a bulge in the lining of her backpack and rips it open with her teeth  (???).  Lo and behold, Daisy left her a Life-Band.  I don't understand how Eden could have endeared herself to the flight attendant during the flight, she showed NO signs of civil, let alone charming, behavior during that whole time.  But hey, Eden is our precious special snowflake -- of COURSE everyone has to bow to her whims no matter how much of a spoiled brat she is...

Dr. Newman calls out for his "daught"  (I am sick of that nickname already), and Eden reaches for her backpack... only for a monkey to steal it.  Which leads to a sequence of Eden chasing the monkeys while Bramford chases her that goes on for about a page.  Um, yay?  I honestly can't tell if this bit is supposed to be played for laughs or drama...

Then the chase comes to its logical conclusion:

[The monkey] swung the stolen bag into the air and sent it sailing.  Eden had a sick feeling, as it spiraled over a steep cliff.  She skidded to a stop and looked over the edge. -- p. 115

I love how Foyt waxes eloquent when it comes to Eden getting all swoon-happy and hot and bothered over Bramford, but when it comes to seeing valuable supplies get lost it's "a sick feeling."  Could this be any blander?  If I'd have been writing this I'd have written it it out as "Eden felt as if she'd been punched in the gut" or "Eden stared in disbelief" or something.  Of course I'd have also nixed the furry romance and the racism, but then we wouldn't have much of the original plot left...

Just like in every movie and cartoon ever, the backpack is hanging off a convenient bush several yards down the cliff... and there's a rapid-filled river at the bottom of the cliff.  Eden knows if she falls she's either going to drown or go squish on the rocks, but is perfectly willing to risk her life to get the backpack and its Life-Band.  Is it me, or are a lot of YA heroines way too willing to risk their lives for stupid things?

Bramford catches up to her and gives a "throttled roar."  Um... "throttled" means either "forcibly choked" or "silenced," Foyt... I dunno what YOU thought it meant...

And of course, what everyone expected to happen happens -- Eden falls into the river.  Yay, protagonist dead, we can all go home now!

Oh, how I wish, Porky... how I wish...

Just kidding... Eden's swept downriver by the rapids as her heart hammers "like an anvil."  Um, it's not the anvil that does the hammering...  Something grabs her from behind, and at first she thinks it's an anaconda.  I was hoping for an alligator, but I doubt either of us is right...

Of course it's Bramford.  And of course he's putting his life on the line to save this spoiled brat of a main character.  This could be the most villainous thing he's done all book.

Ahead, Eden spied a series of large boulders.  She screamed as they hurtled toward the first one.

Just in time, Bramford twisted her out of harm's way by wedging himself between her and the rock.  He vaulted them past the danger with his powerful legs.  Over and over, he navigated the tortuous obstacle course.  Twice, his legs slipped, and he bashed against a huge rock.  And yet, he never let Eden slip from his grasp.  -- p. 116

I'm gonna guess that THIS is the turning point when Eden starts falling in love with Bramford.  It's so transparently obvious that I'm not even taking bets on it.  Nice to see that all it takes for a girl to stop hating a guy is for him to save her skin.  Am I the only one sick of the Rescue Romance trope?

Finally they get out of the river, and Bramford drags them into a palm grove.  There's an aside about how all Eden's dark coating has been washed away now, which is probably supposed to be all SYMBOLIC of something but I really don't care at this point.  Not that the author dwells much on it, because look, romance!

She collapsed onto the sand beside Bramford, her limbs intertwined with his.  Her head rested on his chest, rising and falling with each labored breath.  His warm chin brushed the top of her head.  the rapid drumming of his heartbeat in her ear reminded her of the risks he'd take.

Why on Blessed Earth had El Tigre saved her?  -- p. 117

This is why I don't read romance novels...

Despite the fact that she's done nothing but hate Bramford, trash-talk him, and outright try to get him KILLED up to this point, Eden actually snuggles with him on the beach.  And she thinks of him as a "ship's anchor," and that for the first time since leaving home "she didn't feel adrift in a rocky storm."  Foyt needs help with metaphors...

And now, the last few paragraphs of the chapter, for your reading "pleasure."

Eden brushed her cheek against Bramford's chest and he made a soft, vibrating sound.  Was he purring?  He tightened his arms around her, rolling her against him.  Her long golden hair fanned over his dark torso, the contrast startling her.  She never had felt more exposed in her life.

At the same time, a curious, buoyant feeling welled up inside of her.  Eden had experienced some pleasure with Jamal, although her sensors had manufactured it.  She always had been in control, never losing sight of her goal to be mated.

Now, she felt captive to the strange, pleasurable sensations that stampeded like wild horses up and down her body.  (Seriously, Foyt, ease up on the metaphors, they're not your strong point...)  She never wanted to leave Bramford's side.  amazingly, her abysmal circumstances and even the loss of her Life-Band suddenly seemed trivial.

Unpredictable, her father had called this beastly man.  But he hadn't warned her how unpredictable she would be.   -- p. 117-118

My default image for any of Foyt's attempts at writing

sexy/romantic scenes

Somehow, this last bit reminds me of a story by Anne McCaffrey -- the short story "A Meeting of Minds" from her anthology Get Off the Unicorn, which would later be expanded into a novel for her The Tower and the Hive series.  Said short story is about a powerful telepathic and telekinetic girl who hopes to find a husband who's an intellectual and psychic match for her, and so vows to only fall in love with someone as powerful as she is.  In the end, she ends up falling for a man much weaker psychically but who's handsome and physically muscular, and she reflects that it's only natural for a woman to be attracted to someone who can overpower her.  It's an uncomfortable read, and the fact that said man is quite a bit older than her (he was a friend of her mother's) makes it even squickier, albeit off the topic at hand.

McCaffrey's story, while cringe-worthy, was a product of its time (published in the '60s).  To read something similar written in the 2010s -- of a girl perfectly willing to relinquish her goals for a future mate simply because she's found a powerful and attractive man who turns her on -- is even harder to read with modern sensibilities in mind.  I don't like Eden as a character, but it's still saddening and sickening to see her drop her goal (even if it's a stupid one) in favor of a guy who makes her all giddy and emotional.  I know, I know, love is driven by emotions and not logic, that's the basis of just about every romance out there... but there comes a point where you need to use your head and not just think with your heart.  Or your hormones.

Now we're moving on to the furry romance segment of the book... Primus have mercy on our wretched souls...

Chapter 15 -- Still Alive!

Hey guys, what's happening?  Did I miss anything?

Sorry for the long silence -- I ended up packing up most of my books so I could paint my bedroom, and my copy of Revealing Eden ended up at the bottom of one of the boxes.  (Yes, multiple boxes -- I own a lot of books, okay?)  I'm still in the process of moving stuff back in, but I finally dug out the book and am back to shredding it.  Figuratively, of course, though there may be some literal shredding or even burning done once I'm done with this thing...

I do not advocate book-burning, but in this case

I might make an exception...

Brief recap -- Eden and company have fled into what used to be the Amazon and are among the Huaorani, a real-life indigenous tribe from Ecuador who happen to worship furry!Bramford as El Tigre, their jaguar god.  I've already gone into why this is idiotic and ridiculous last post, so if you want a recap you can re-read the last blog entry while I go bang my head against a desk and bemoan this bastardization of South American mythology.

Okay, I'm done...

Anyhow, Chapter 15 opens with Eden riding in a vehicle with the Huaroani, passing "mud-baked shanties and desolate fields with an occasional tree or small rodent scurrying past."  (p. 106)  I thought the upper world was lifeless -- why are there still trees and animals?  Unless by "small rodent" you mean "very large cockroach," seeing as those things are supposed to be able to survive just about anything, up to and including nuclear war, but maybe Foyt thinks any animal with fur is magically immune to The Heat.

We get a paragraph of Eden whining about how hot and dirty she is, and figuring she only has a week or two to survive in the upper world.  I'm feeling absolutely no tension or concern for this heroine, as she's not only completely unlikable, but apparently completely unkillable too.  She has an unfair amount of luck for how sociopathic she is, seriously.

She stared daggers at the back of Bramford's head.  The beast seemed to enjoy the ride.  His broad back and alert posture reminded her of a big cat attuned to subtle signs.  Signs Eden couldn't read without her Life-Band.  -- p. 106-107

Have I added "take a drink every time Bramford's referred to as a beast" to the drinking game rules yet?  If not I need to...

Eden's hands crawl "like spiders" to her backpack (awkward analogy GO!) in the hopes of finding a Life-Band in there, and thinks of contacting Shen.  There's an awkward aside about how Shen's name means "strong spirit" in Chinese, though according to Google it actually means "the spiritual element of a person's psyche," so again Foyt's did a crappy job at her research.  She hopes if Shen comes, then she can convince Bramford to send her and her father back home.  Sorry, Eden, you're still needed for the book's prerequisite "opposites attract" romance...

Eden also has a flashback to working in the lab with her father, and doing her first DNA analysis at age six.  This is probably meant to show just how BRILLIANT and SMART our "genius" heroine is, but considering Eden's shown no intelligence up until this point, it's pretty much there just to back up an Informed Attribute.  

Also during this flashback, we learn that apparently Eden's father goes by the philosophy of "wait and see."  Confused?  So's Eden, and frankly, so am I, so Dr. Newman gives us this story:

"Some of the biggest discoveries have come from plans gone awry.  Think of Albert Einstein unable to obtain a university job.  For two years he suffered odd jobs and even questioned his goal of becoming a physicist.  Imagine that.

"Forced to take a lowly position as a clerk at the patent office, Einstein found 'a kind of salvation,' as he put it.  The regular salary and stimulating work of evaluating patent claims freed him to think, even to dream.  He began to publish important physics papers and change the world.

"You see, Daught, we must be patient.  One door closes and another opens.  Wait and see."  -- p. 107-108

Not a bad philosophy, I suppose.  And for once, it looks like Foyt did her research -- Einstein did work at a patent office, and he enjoyed both the salary and the fact that it was intellectually undemanding enough to let his mind run free on scientific matters.  Which just makes the fact that she half-asses so much of her other research inexcusable in my mind.

Of course, it seems Eden only took this philosophy to mean "wait long enough and you'll find your dreamy dark-skinned prince who sees the Real Eden."  Typical.  

She spends the rest of the car ride analyzing everything Jamal ever said to her, wishing she'd listened to the dog's warning (oh, NOW you think about Austin) and that she was prettier.  You know, for all you've hyped Eden to be a strong, intelligent character, she sure only seems to care about finding a boy to mate with.  The fact that you've set up this society so that women have to be mated by age 18 or die only makes it worse in my mind.  

They end up at a small settlement by the river, with native women and children dressed in rags and covered in rashes -- because of course these people are primitive and so live in squalor, right?  No matter what your race is, this book treats you like crap, it seems... 

Also, we get descriptions of "patches of wild jungle."  Again, if The Heat is so destructive that it ruined the surface world and baked away all vegetation, how did the rainforest, one of the most delicate ecosystems out there, manage to survive?  This place should be a freaking desert!  There shouldn't be random patches of jungle anywhere!  Even if it is along the banks of a river -- you are aware there can still be rivers in a desert, right Foyt?

Oh hey look, more random lusting over Bramford!

Bramford's gaze raked over her as he passed her by.  She watched him head into a palm grove, mesmerized by the rippling of his muscled back and hips.  He moved with the simple grace and powerful confidence of a predator.  No wasted energy, no self-consciousness.  What must that be like?  -- p. 109

Still not sorry...

Suddenly Eden freaks out as the earth seems to move under her -- but it's just ants (and yes, we get the Latin name, because EDEN IS SO SMRT AMIRITE?).

Eden freaks again as the ants crawl all over her, runs, and trips in a mud puddle, which gets the native kids laughing at her.  She just thinks that at least the "pompous action hero" didn't see her fall, which I assume means Bramford.  Still not seeing how these two are supposed to get together, though I'm pretty sure they're going to be in TRUE LOVE FOREVER by the end...

She sits down by the "moribund" river -- that's the word used in the book, seriously.  "Moribund" means "dying" or "at the point of death," but the word doesn't seem to fit here.  Foyt seems to fall into the same trap of thesaurus abuse that Christopher Paolini did in his Inheritance books -- namely, using whatever word in the thesaurus catches her eye without stopping to think if it's an appropriate word choice.  

One of the natives sets Eden's father down on a giant banana leaf.  Instead of thanking them for not setting him on the ground, all she can think is that this place is so poor that their idea of comfort is "a leaf for a bed."  Would it kill you to show a bit of gratitude, Eden?  She at least shows enough human decency to ask if he's all right, since his leg is bleeding again, but he just says something about "the amazing variety of flora" and maybe discovering a new species here.  Shouldn't most animals be dead of The Heat by this point?  Oh wait, rainforests are apparently magically resilient to The Heat and animals are immune to it too... my bad... 

Someone brings them bowls of mashed yucca plant, which Eden refuses to eat.  Her father says "when you're starving you'll eat anything," and all she can think about is how much of a failure she is.  Of course.  *eyeroll*

The guy who brought them food -- Lorenzo (which is a Spanish and Italian name, so why a native from Ecuador would be called that I have no idea) -- also brings them coca leaves (yes, we get the Latin name for these too).  As in the same leaves used to make cocaine.  For a moment I thought Eden was going to scarf these up instead of the food, considering them a good substitute for oxy, but she refuses to.  Not because she's suddenly against drug use but because "they're dirty."  

Eden freaks out AGAIN when she finds they're going to be traveling by boat now.  Again, how is this supposed to be our strong protagonist?  And of course, "like any Pearl," she's scared of water.  What does being a Pearl have to do with being afraid of water?  

Eden takes off "for privacy" and goes to search the backpack, hoping to find a Life-Band.  And that's where the chapter ends.

Apparently Eden's gotten tired of making black people and Asians look terrible, so now we're moving on to trashing indigenous Americans.  No matter what your race is, you're going to be insulted reading this thing...