Seduced by Moonlight--chapter 4

Just a reminder, my lovely book-readers, that Starbleached: Legacy is live, and that if you go to Smashwords you can get the first Starbleached free and the rest of the series for half price (Coupons here) until June 11th.

Also: Apparently Nook Press has decided it doesn't want to work at all. I may look at my books but I may not load in new ones. So if you want an e-pub copy either go to Smashwords or wait a week, it'll be up at Barnes and Noble by then (via Smashwords. Where it's half off until June.)

Also a heads up to my blog-readers who are also writers and/or interested in Self Publishing: Publish America, a truly toxic outfit for writers, has just rebranded itself. It's still the same shitty outfit. It still does shit like call itself a traditional, advance offering publisher--which offers a dollar advance on a seven year, self renewing contract--frequently "loses" the letters from authors notifying them that they've got no desire to renew the contract, saying that they'll show your book to everybody from the BEA expo to Hollywood Producers to J.K. Rowling (Actually that entire episode was amusing as fuck. Note to would be shitheads: DO NOT FUCK WITH MS. ROWLING HER LAWYERS WILL HURT YOU) and publishes books with no editing and/or minimal editing (Literally clicking "change all" on MSWord spellcheck, clip art covers with frequently recycled art, and a rotating tredmill of hard-sell e-mails begging authors to buy their own books at horrifically inflated prices. The Absolute Write crew sum it up as Published Author: The Role Playing Game.

They are now America Star Books

Inform your friends.

And yes. YES. I am stalling. Merry is going to make out with Kitto, and I don't want to read this, my dear blog readers.

Merry and Kitto start pawing each other. Fortunately, LKH is going out of her way not to point out that this creature is the size and shape of a small child. Unfortunately, she went out of her way to do just that in the last two books, so the image is still there. Kitto gets into it until Creeda starts shouting "Make him glow!" eagerly. I'm now imagining this chick as the little giggling muppet from Return of the Jedi. You know, the one that sat on Jabba's lap? Kitto, meanwhile, forgets all about this "having sex" thing and huddles into Merry for comfort.

Merry accuses Creeda of raping Kitto. Two sentences later, she makes the most nonsensical statement I ever read in an LKH book, and that's saying a lot.

• "Goblins will rape an enemy, or a prisoner, but they do not rape each other." (Merry) said.

It must be so nice to be clueless in LKH's world. Seriously, you expect a culture that allows for unregulated gang rape to balk at doing it to each other? And instead of addressing that maybe, kind of, sort of, everything about this is fucked up, Kurag starts needling Rhys about his own rape.

Rhys then tops the previous quote of unregulated stupidity by apologizing to his rapist for not doing enough to defend himself.

• "I know I was a fool, Kurag. The princess has told me I could have spared myself a great deal of pain, if I had known what to ask for."

It's very sad that I've hit "I can't even" stage on the fourth fucking chapter of this book, but I am like...what the actual fuck. WHAT. THE ACTUAL. FUCK.

I know that LKH is trying desperately to write non-human standards of behavior, but...yeah. Well, maybe she won't manage to top that any time--

• Kurag's leer faded into a frown. "A Sidhe admitting he is a fool, it's a miracle."
• I glanced back just enough to catch Rhys's nod. "We are an arrogant race, but some of us can learn from our mistakes."

He was raped. That was his "mistake".

...See, this is why asexual alien life forms should not be allowed to write books. They don't have the proper cultural context for the rules and boundaries of actual human interaction, and their working approximations just freaking suck.

Guys, it's the only explination that makes sense.

I shouldn't have to spell this out, you know? It's basic fucking logic. Rhys was captured by the goblins as a POW, I think, and was tortured and gang raped. HE BEARS NO RESPONSABILITY FOR BEING RAPED OR TORTURED AND ANYONE WHO THINKS HE DOES IS A WASTE OF PERFECTLY GOOD RESOURCES.

But there really is no possible way for LKH to make this any worse. I mean, what on earth could she possibly--

• "Kurag, I know your laws...you do not rape your own people..."
• "There is one exception to that rule, Merry...But if one of us sells his body for safety and shelter, then he gives up his right to refuse his body to anyone. Only his protector can dictate who can touch him and who cannot."

This is one of the worst things ever written by a human.

Guys, this is supposed to be the "Good" series. And literally every other paragraph in this chapter is something utterly rage inducing. Also: HOW IS SELLING YOURSELF INTO SEXUAL SLAVERY "SAFETY AND SHELTER". IT FUCKING IS NOT YOU FUCKING MORON. FUCK.

LKH, via Merry, dismisses this as "prostitution".

Prostitution is when you trade money for a consensual sex act. Even when you are paid for sex, you have the right to set limits, like the use of condoms or how far a customer is allowed to go. And just like any other retailer, a prostitute has the right to refuse service to a customer for any reason. Her own safety, health, and the well-being of her colleagues and other clients has priority over the needs of the individual purchaser. (And for the record, raping a prostitute is rape, not theft. You're paying for a consensual sex act, not a non-consensual one.)

SEXUAL SLAVERY is when you lose the right to refuse service. Even if you receive beneficial items from the rape, like money or shelter, you are still being forced to have non-consensual acts, and you have no ability to run or leave.

Kurag then introduces Merry to the only two half-sidhe goblins not reduced to sexual slavery, Holly and Ash. Like everyone else, they're pretty. Holly makes it clear he has no desire whatsoever to sleep with Merry. Given that he's probably fought tooth and nail not to be somebody's special party favor, I do not blame him one iota. But Kurag takes offence to this and beats him bloody in front of Merry.

Ash, meanwhile, really wants to get some magic out of Merry's Great Vag of Holding, and he starts trying to talk his brother into sleeping with Merry. His brother starts almost weeping because, you know, he doesn't want to. Ash assumes it's because he thinks that Merry, or someone else in the Unseelie court, are the ones that abandoned them to the goblins, and he points out that nobody in the mirror could possibly be their mother. Thus missing the entire fact that his brother doesn't want to have sex.

 Holly announces that he does not believe in the Great Vag of Holding, so Kurag demands that Merry make Kitto glow. Merry demands that Kitto be safe from the rest of the goblins, because as soon as he goes back to Goblintown--I really can't finish that sentence. Kurag says no, because if you let one sex slave go all the rest will make a try for it. NO REALLY, YOU THINK? Merry then tries to make herself Kitto's protector. Kurag and her bodyguards refuse to let her do this because she isn't strong enough to protect Kitto from the entire Goblin race.

So, in a movement that could have been really fucking cool if I weren't already pissed off past the point of feeling any emotion whatsoever, Rhys steps in and declares himself Kitto's protector, even though he hates Goblins, and has hated Kitto, since the first book. Doyle then declares that Kitto is Sidhe, and Merry senses that this has either kicked off or advanced a prophesy that changes the fates of all, or some shit. Gee, it'd be real nice if we were focusing on fate changing prophesy instead of INSTITUTED SEXUAL SLAVERY.

And then Kurag lets Merry know that not all the half-sidhe they've got are male, which means one of her bodyguards, like Rhys, will have to be a participant in whatever orgy they're planning.

And then he brings Rhys's primary rapist into the room.

End of chapter.