D. T. Kane reads chapter 10 of his epic fantasy fiction novel, The Acktus Trials, and discusses the chapter with his audience.
YouTube: https://youtu.be/-fCtZqQhv7I
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Map of Oration: https://dtkane.com/resources/map-of-oration/
Characters in this Chapter:
Baztian (Baz): Our main character
Rox: Deliritous’s Harbour (bodyguard)
Deliritous: Baz’s master, heir to Torchsire Library
Hellar Xavier: Reader, heir to Xavier Library, one of the competitors going on the Trials
Trunnel: Hellar’s Speaker, an Influencer
Arrow: Hellar’s Harbour
Marla Kolnar: Nice of the Duchess of Kolnar Library, one of the competitors going on the Trials
Ryle: Marla’s Harbour
Retch: Marla’s Speaker, a Creator
Below are my notes/script for the episode, not an exact transcription.
PERSONAL UPDATE
Welcome to Episode 9. It’s Thursday, March 10, 2022 as I record this.
It’s good to be back! I know you all had an episode to listen to last week, but I haven’t sat down to record in a couple weeks, and it feels great to be back talking with all of you.
Chicago was a blast, amazing food and drink, probably too much of both. But that’s what vacation’s for! A few highlights were Goose Island Brewery’s Tap Room and Aba Mediterranean restaurant. Rare varieties of Goose Island’s famed barrel-aged Bourbon County Stout, and lamb ragu hummus! Yum-o! And I even got some outlining in for Part IV of the Spoken Books Uprising.
Declaimer’s Discovery, Part II of the Spoken Books Uprising, had its cover release this past Friday, and man, it’s a thing of beauty I must say. It’s available for pre-order now and releases April 15. If you think you’re going to read it, consider pre-ordering. Pre-orders help give me a boost in the charts on launch day, which helps my ranking and thus visibility. Thank you! Link in the show notes.
ANAYLIS CH. 10
Three primary scenes, plus a glum intro from Baz. And I think I recognized last week (or maybe it was two episodes ago) that it’s not lost on me that I’m sometimes essentially praising my own writing here on the show. Well, here’s the opposite. I don’t really love this chapter. It wasn’t in the original draft of the book, I just had a placeholder, something like “travel scene with other Readers.”
I wanted my readers to have an opportunity to meet the other competitors in more detail then the brief glances we got at the torture of the Citiless. And I suppose I did that here, but I find it a bit slow and looking back I probably could have done a better job with this one. But that’s the writing life–there’s always something you could have done better, but eventually you have to release the story into the wild and move on. There’s also a saying that if you don’t look back on something you wrote a year or two ago and cringe, you’re probably doing something wrong, because it indicates you aren’t improving your writing. So I’ll take this as a positive sign of improvement and carry on!
Baz is really down
Baz already morose, thinking that he’s traveling the same road that dead Citiless had traveled on. And we also see just how jaded he is about life. Sometimes he wishes he had fond childhood memories, but he tells us he’s actually glad of the awful experience he had so young (seeing Tax blinded). “It had taught him the reality of his existence, the uselessness of resisting his circumstances.” Wow. Baz has gone from bad to worse with his view of things. But part of us wonders too if put in the right situation whether Baz truly feels this way? I mean, he didn’t stand there all apathetic when Deliritous was about to die, and he certainly isn’t afraid to stand up to Deliritous it seems.
Did Deliritous just do something… useful?
Deliritous actually shows us some cojones. He sees Hellar and Marla conversing and sort of just butts in, right? He’s not going to let the other two competitors gang up on him. He’s realistic, noting he understands that neither Xavier nor Kolnar would be interested in a true alliance with Torchsire, but he’s also smart, offering political advantage to Hellar by offering him Torchsire’s backing at the Table of Ennea to help them fend off the rise in influence of Exgahl Library, which remember we learned last chapter is the second most powerful Library in Erstwhile after having found that powerful Spoken Book for growing food a few Trials back.
He even has the guts to lie, saying his father will recognize any promises he makes, even though Baz is pretty certain that Duke Octavinal told Deliritous no such thing.
And there seems to be an interesting dynamic between Marla and Hellar too. She doesn’t seem to show him enough respect, but she also stops talking when he interrupts or motions for her to be silent. It seems maybe the two of them had some sort of deal already worked out, and now perhaps Deliritous is jeopardizing it for Marla? We already know she isn’t someone you want to mess with, so maybe gaining a tenuous alliance with Hellar isn’t all it’s cracked up to be if it means Marla wanting to get back at Deliritous.
Did you notice how Deliritous slipped a term into his truce that they aren’t to harm one another’s Harbours or Speakers–“nothing onerous…not try to murder one another’s Speakers and Harbours like a bunch of animals.” Is Deliritous just protecting his assets or does he have a bit of a heart hidden beneath his foolish, giant hat?
Bitter as boot black
In fact, we see almost immediately that we shouldn’t be putting much stock in this alliance with Hellar. First, we have the quick scene of Baz talking to Trunnel–Hellar’s Speaker. Initially, Baz is antagonistic with him, accusing him of kissing Hellar’s boots. But he quickly realizes that Trunnel is probably just as concerned as being killed as Baz is, and he steps back his insult.
Of course, then Trunnel drops the bomb, that Hellar has no issue with dishonesty when it suits him. Is Trunnel just getting Baz back for the insult, or is he trying to help him?
First we’d feed you your tongue… then start removing fingers
We close with another look at Marla, and it’s no better than what we saw earlier. She gives us a front-row seat to how poorly some Readers treat their Speakers, punching hers after she makes a mistake that ruins a spell, then kicking him while he’s down. Hellar and Deliritous don’t even react, showing how desensitized to such treatment they must be.
Baz, though, suffers from “a severe bout of life-threatening stupidity,” yelling for Marla to stop it, pointing out she’s the one who messed up the Reading. Of course, Marla doesn’t like this, threatening Baz with a knife, and explaining to him in rather graphic terms what she’d do to him if given the chance. And maybe she would do it, too, if not for… Who? Of all people, it’s Rox to the rescue!
“Enough,” he says, with his razor out. Rox is quickly turning into a bit of a teddy bear here, right? Baz noted earlier in the chapter that he hums sad Enigman ballads to himself at night and Rox was also the only person who reacted to Marla kicking her Speaker for a mistake that she’d made. And now he’s potentially saved Baz for Marla’s wrath. Rox, a man to keep an eye on!
And that’s the chapter. We’re left very much doubting the benefit of the truce Deliritous has brokered. As Baz points out, even if Hellar isn’t a liar, it seems he has no true control over Marla. Or perhaps they are just working together behind Deliritous’s back. We see Marla look to Hellar and he shakes his head. Are they waiting for something? Or maybe Hellar does have more control over her than Baz thinks. We’ll have to wait next week to see!
CONCLUSION
Alright, a bit of a shorter week here, but next week is going to be a doozy and likely a long one, so stay tuned. We’ll be reading Chapters 11 and 12, and these might be some of the most exciting chapters in the book.
Homework: Baz takes some initiative, and answers a question some of you might have been wondering about since the beginning of the book. Then Deliritous has a… reaction to something Baz does. Predictable or stupid? Hmmm. That’s all I’m going to give you for homework this week. Want you to just enjoy these two chapters.
Listener Question:
Quest: Send me a curse phrase based on something bad happening to books. Baz is going to be in lots of situations that call for cursing soon, and I’d love to hear what you all come up with. 3 XP each to my 3 favorite submissions!
Quote:
“Does it make you brave to stick your hand in a bear’s mouth? Would you do it again just because you didn’t die?”
― Robert Jordan, The Dragon Reborn
Until next time, this has been D. T. Kane’s Epic Fantasy Book Club.
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