#2 The Chronicles of Galen Sword
The Book Cage: Episode 143
Nightfeeder
That's right, Judfield is back! And they lost their series title. Nightfeeder, the sequel to The Chronicles of Galen Sword #1: Shifter, but this time a vampire menace has been unleashed. Maybe? The first chapter involves a beachhouse dwelling vampire learning that his bodyguards have quit. At least this time no psychic children will get their throats ripped open and their blood drank. Ideally. We'll find out together, this Friday, 5pm eastern.
Coming up on the hour, it's Nightfeeder, the second part of The Chronicles of Galen Sword, but they forgot that part of the title. Anyway, here's the preview
Can't wait to see which characters get pointlessly and brutally murdered in this one
Hooray, it's the continuing adventures of Galen Sword! The lost heir of House Pendragon prepares to get pissed off at all his friends and allies while they do the work he insists is his life mission!
Galen's closest confidant, Forsyte, was tragically cursed by the Fae to misspell his own name forever! He is driven by an unending desire for revenge on the man responsible... Galen Sword!
Ko is Galen's 2nd-in-command in the field, his right hand man... Wait a second... Record scratch! Make that right hand woman?! Melody Ko can tell she's going to end up as Galen's romantic interest and her greatest wish is to exit the narrative before that can happen.
There was a plucky young kid with a mysterious past but she died in agony and she's dead forever now and she'll never not be dead
And then there's Martin, tranquilized were-ape and Scrappy-Doo-in-training
And you're all caught up!
BOOK
CAGE
Hi, @Velo, Juice Criminal !
Hi, @Tom strips for action! !
Book cage indeed
I'm looking forward to getting a new name out of this one, been Bob's foetus batch number for exactly long enough
Hi @FancyShark !
Gellaho must be experiencing technical difficulties
Un momentito
He was paid for that shoot in booze and he very cleverly asked for an advance
You'd drink too if you had to spend the day with Cool Cat
Had a minor work blip, give me two minutes to get ready
Docker pushed up an update that borked it on macs. Cool stuff
bleagh
Rude of them
Anyway, time to feed on the night
In what appears to be the day
Hell yeah
Hi, @gellaho !
No more docking for you.
Google tells me that's a bank
Google doesn't know where that is
This is like lighting yourself on fire every morning
Sometimes alarm clocks aren't enough
That's literally a Kids in the Hall sketch
Hi, @Ozzie !
See, this is why I dislike Vampire rules where the sun is anything less than catastrophic.
D&D 3.5 rules had it right - vampires get 6 seconds max.
Hi, @Dyosy !
DAMN YOU THE SUN
Haha immediately with this shit. This is exactly what I would have written if I played vtm when I was 15
The most vtm name and characteristics
YOU HEAR ME, THE SUN!
For years, Man has yearned to destroy the sun!
Okay so we all agree these authors are one terrible child
I think that is the sentence that convinced me to read this series
It's just so dumb
FUCK YOU, MOTHER NATURE! YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!
FUCK YOUR BITCH ASS THE SUN
Hi, @Areze !
Now this vampire has told us his name is Orion, which I believe is a star
Which is just another word for SUN!
So far, I'm seeing no evidence this man isn't just a basement dwelling shut-in
There are better ways to wake up in the morning, try jogging. Or coffee
And he does this every morning, does he?
Vlad the Incel-er
I hope there's an elderly couple that watches this every morning while eating toast
Also, his blood-sucking teeth are behind his normal teeth?
Yeah that sucks
Now you see who you are dealing with, the Sun! I almost got to half a sunrise! TRY AND CROSS ME AGAIN, SOL!
it bulged huh
Do his regular teeth fold outward or are his vampire teeth stuck deep inside his mouth?
This is like showing your table saw it's a bitch by switching it on and pressing your face against it
Pa Kent testing his superpowers
Time to run back to my beach house, crying. Like a victor!
I was thinking stuck deep but now I'm picturing his teeth flipping forward like a Transformer's head
That'll learn it!
Hi, @Eric, now 51! !
If his vamp teeth are behind his regular teeth that implies he can only bite someone on an appendage small enough to fit inside his mouth
Yeah, you're real tough, buddy.
LIKE DICK LIKE DICK
I had forgotten just how impotent and pathetic the opening of this book was
Really outdone yourselves, Judfield
Next, he shows his superiority to public transportation by letting a bus drive over his scrotum
So it seems like he can stand in the sun for a good 15 minutes or so and has some minor dental deformities, which makes him less vampire and more English
that's just what he's into
I mean, the blood sucking parasitism too...
dear god
Also the bizarre desire to conquer all of nature
Certainly a great general. Who almost stood in the Sun for a little bit
Clan Isis in retrospect has made this much funnier, but very :ruffchuckles:
Anyway, now he retreats to his beach house, where he is watched over by shapeshifting bodyguards via treaty. You know, like a warrior
Foolproof plan for a vampire who has lots of enemies. Spend all day in a tiny wooden shack surrounded by open sunlight, and every morning stand in the sunlight and scream about what a vampire you are
kinda like irl vampire fans but somehow more pathetic
Oh, no. His bodyguards up and quit on him
"I don't drink blood, per se, but I am revitalised by supping upon a person's essence, you could say..."
Wait, is his plan to innoculate himself against the sun like it's rattlesnake venom?
If that's his plan it isn't working
literally a Terry Pratchett plot
"Boss, we're tired of your morning screaming"
I didn't say it was a good plan.
Time to make a pissy phone call
"I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOUR MANAGER"
Is he being dramatic or is the phone literally a toy?
Please say he's calling on a Fisher Price phone
I can't wait for Ko and Martin to kill this vampire while Galen Sword complains about things
i desperately hope its a colorful playmobil one with the face
I WILL CONQUER THE SUN
...
Oh, no. My legally required bodyguards have left me, I'm sou scawed
Better question, is he saying "cycles" because he's a Farscape fan or because vampires get periods?
Pressing the squeaker in the center of the dial, trying to get an operator
Really overusing louvers
is that lovers but in Pretentious Fuckwit
im picturing that or shoes
It's blinds
From context I'm guessing it's like wooden window shutters?
I can't wait to read about what the perfect human male looks like
Yeah what Ozzie said
so just blinds but for assholes
I WAS JOKING ABOUT THE VLAD THE INCEL BIT
oh right, the Seyshen are the shadow ninja people who showed up at the last second in the previous book
Christ, Judfield. I don't need 800 words describing someone lighting a cigarette
he wants to fuck this dude so hard
Fuck me, that's a lot of proper nouns
LORE
What the Yotz?
They used years and cycles in the same sentence, so @Ozzie 's right. Vampires get periods
a brooklyn slur?
This story is completely farbot
Clan Arkady were the werecreatures from the last book, I believe, although I could easily be wrong
Really, one vampire?
This is what I hate more than anything in genre publishing: The Chronicles of Galen Sword #1: Shifter,
The best living weapons spend every morning screaming at light
Makes you wonder why all the other vampires are gone
HELLO, @Brendan !
Okay, what's the gist?
Hi, Shark and non-shark based combatants!
Considering the Seyshen just rolled in with a bunch of guns and killed all the shifters, I don't know why they needed a pet vampire
A vampire lets the sun burn him every morning because he's declared war on it. Then his bodyguards quit
So far it's just been this grumpy vampire yelling at the sun and complaining that his bodyguards got fired
Then there was a lore dump about clan warfare that I refused to try and learn
I'm 100% on board with whoever said this was someone who played VtM. They were just mad that werewolves were stronger than vampires and had to fix it.
I mean, they basically did
"Guns. Sorry, not help. We had guns."
I know Galen took their magical ritual stone or whatever, but you could have killed all of them any time before that ceremony without Galen
If the implication is that Galen Sword tipped the scales in that fight, I disagree
Galen did slightly less than nothing in that fight
Christ alive, these books are stupid
This is the most teenager-written series we've ever read
:TheUnfuckableHulk: :nerds:
That's more silly than intimidating
That's just Venom
Or New Pennywise
Haha and then Orion just no-sells it anyway
Just cut it! Save that bit for when this character is talking to a human
The Swords
Completely biffing the horror reveal for a giggle
No good book ever included a halfling.
My second biggest peeve with books with titles like this is how much lint they pick out of their own navels doing new vocab for existing things and then trying to explain it through character scenes.
Journal of the Whills: Being an Account of the Clonus Warres by Master Padawana Qui-Gon Jin Weeaboo
Why would there be a legend about an unmagical offspring of a magic family
Especially when the first book made it sounds like a cover up
Yeah legends are usually interesting
To be fair, this is just called Nightfeeder. They removed The Chronicles of Galen Sword bit. For some reason
"one time there was a boy who couldn't do anything. We got rid of him."
I like the authors admitting even they didn't read the last book
Nightfeeder is just my dinner habit
I feel like he would already know that
I'm not like other vampires. I'm a NIGHTfeeder
Also, if you're allergic to the Sun, why live on the beach?
To rub it in that smug sonuvabitch sun's FACE
This is a real stretch to make Galen Sword """""legendary""""
He's got a sci-fi coffin: the hibernaculum
It's always a treat seeing how they try to infodump with casual conversation. It can never be "harken, mortal from another realm!" It's always "I'm sure you know, but The Eternal Court hates The Imperial Lords and their Killprotector Armada"
Let me recount to you the battle of fuckbongle mountain
You are going to be very disappointed
As you're well aware, legend has it...
Every exposition is mansplaining
Meanwhile, Galen's got a big booboo
I hope the technocoffin has robo spider legs like ready player two
it aint his face cheek
"You know you can change out the razor on that Gillette, don't you?"
New character?
Ah, yes, Dmitri. The invulnerable skeleton. Unless you remove his crucifix
I forget Dmitry dying
Or worse-than-dying
"Indeed...not one of we Shadowbeings, those monsters who dwell in the darkness and stalk mortals, would ever help YOU! The Law of Blood Oath demands you are Outcast because you violated the Commandment of No Mixing!"
"How right you are, Laertehemotomus...that is why I sought aid among the Feeble Realm."
"Lies!" Snarled Laertehemotomus. "No human being, for that is how they call themselves, would ever aid you!"
Shut the fuck up, Judfield
subpar fanfiction tier
The way these books usually go, this dialogue had me expecting the speaker to be very much the opposite of a Leah Bernstein.
If a feral child shows up, all is forgiven.
Oh, goddammit, Judfield. Don't go back to the dead kid
Are you sure it was the secrets that changed your face, Galen? Not the talon that cut it in half?
Why are you remembering her neck as tender, Sword
Then we spend a lot of time introducing Dmitri even though he is dead
Sword vows to ruthlessly murder many more people
Dmitry was good because he immolated Galen's lawyer, which gave us the 'Wizard Columbo solves Tweety Bird murder" bit
Oh wait, I remember Ja'Nette.
She died?
Yeah while begging for her absent mother to save her
It was a real downer
Murder gets easier after the first couple.
First I will reinvent a term for wormhole, then I will define it as the concept that already exists, and then I will explain what that concept is.
They did the whole "big bad threatens a team member" thing, then decided to be edgelordy and had him kill her
A werewolf ripped out her throat and drank her blood
Fuck me, the terminology in this book
It was reading from Orion's character sheet by mistake but the GM ruled that the death still counted
And back for seconds on the dead child
Since this is all very VtM, I'm assuming Ja'Nette's player couldn't make the sessions anymore and the DM didn't take it well
"A werewolf according to those terms used by humans." Fuck this book.
"She went to a farm. Upstate. Where she can run around in the field all day with other children."
"Other children with intact necks."
Back for thirds
Yeah better be careful, Sword, or someone might get hurt
Who the hell wants sweet food for dinner? That's right, teenagers. Busted, Judfield
I forgot how much I hate Martin
Martin drinks otter blood to wake up in the morning
Unfortunate, since Martin is the second-most likable character
That's still not a good thing
This is the most exhausting world-building I've read all month, and I did all of GL Far Sector in a weekend.
We take a very long time talking about Martin's healing factor
Relatively pointless chapter.
Let's move onto something more exciting
Feeding a cat
The cat that turns invisible randomly
And what's that? You want more about the dead child? Well, if you insist
This is toeing the line between haunting memory and discovered fetish
Judfield thinks Asian people don't smile
I forgot she suddenly declared she loved the guy in the wheelchair
She bought some spare facial features from the chinese market?
You know it, you love it. Dead child!
Wait, they haven't buried her?
Do you idiots need to do an autopsy?
Is there some question as to cause of death?
Are we getting an autopsy scene?
Is this book really going to hit every cliche?
I guess it's only the next morning and they need to figure out where to hide the child corpse!
Pfft. That's easy. Chuck E Cheese ballpit
Oh, and that werewolf we forgot about covered in its own piss and shit
I don't know what a "humanform shifter" is but I also don't care
I wouldn't smile either if I'd been up 36 hours.
They are so bad at this
I did such a great job forgetting all about Book One.
Sword is the worst name for an urban fantasy hero.
You're the ones writing the book, Judfield
My brain is incapable of not thinking this is an actual enchanted sword. Maybe it's just the fact that there's no action flow, only expository verbs.
"throat ripped out, evidence that the blood has been consumed. Start with the employees, those sick fucks."
I doubt that punch very much
And nearly every other sentence is still about the dead child
I choose to believe it is the rock band Sword.
Yeah, we're in fetish territory
Important note: the dick is fully out
Or the authors think if they insist enough, we'll feel sad
Hang on if they only change during that ritual, how come Calder's wife was in beast form when they killed her ages before the ritual
It's a marvel these two got things published
That is two paragraphs of fantasy nonsense language, followed by a paragraph theorizing about what they might have said
Getting so many flashbacks to terrible stories I dreamt up in high school
This universe is stupid
"Rules arbitrary. Authors hacks."
Eh I'm fine with that as a rule. I'd be happier if the person explaining it had greater than toddler vocabulary
We're back to Martin refusing to ever explain anything. When choosing an option, choose the most annoying one say Judfield
Please become a were-elephant
That is a lot of words to not describe the shape of something at all
I know it has two legs and a mouth
By the actual heroes who literally toss our protagonist aside to fight the monster.
A weregoathulhu
Then the mouth it just grew explodes into a different mouth
Really painting a picture with words, Judfield
The kind of painting they do in therapy
Ahuh, whatever
Sounds like the end of The Thing
How did these harebrained freaks ever get it together enough to create a culture?
It's astonishing that they have shapeshifters called Seyshen and werebeasts called shifters. But the werebeasts don't turn into half man monsters, but just random bits of animal parts
Except for Martin, who is a half a shifter and is just a wolfman
It's fucking stupid, is what I'm saying
Also yeah the failure to describe what these beast forms look like is a real problem
Like when we couldn't tell if Calder's wife was a spider or a spider monkey
She was a beautiful bride and that's ALL you need to know. 😤
Saved by the invisible cat
Okay see now I would like an overwrought definition of her translocation ability even though she's dead and it doesn't appear.
Then Ko throws a molotov cocktail. Then a silver molotov cocktail
I don't know why the first one was necessary
How does he know the cat isn't still in the line of fire?
If I had an invisible cat, I would almost never throw a firebomb.
I think Ko might be an idiot
This is like in Doctor Who when someone tells the Doctor that he's dangerous because he inspires other people to risk their lives for his cause, except without the inspiration
Also why the fuck are we still doing this Mulder and Scully shit
And he's still alive
Nately's Whore wasn't this tedious
Ko stupidly insists they don't kill the murderous monster man. Then, a hole randomly appears in the garage
It's been too long without a reminder of a child murdered horribly, can we get some guilt from those who failed to protect her?
Damn you, Bugs Bunny!
Then, Judfield's best explanation is that a different shifter was hiding... somewhere inside
This is despite the fact that Martin could smell Calder on a different floor
Got ye
Shut the fuck up
Meanwhile, the vampire is in our world now
Yep he's dressed like a larper
Vash the Stampede but minus flair
He then accidentally enthralls some dude
Hey, Judfield? You don't get to moisten lips, alright
If a smell explodes, that's usually not good
It's not exactly hunting if you attract your prey like a corpse flower