Rapture Fiction lulz

To the Valley of Dragons is a piece of rapture fiction being heavily promoted by its author on various message boards, so I thought I'd check it out. It is amazing. By "amazing" I mean the hero is both lean and heavily muscled. I am hoping that we will later discover he is both black and white, as well as young and old, tall and short and possibly dead and alive.

First of all, I would like to note a technical detail about publishing a work of fiction on blogger: your chapters will be in reverse order due to the way blogger publishes posts. If you have a prologue and then Chapter 1, it would be a good idea to include a link to the prologue at the beginning of Chapter 1. (Not that the prologue helped with comprehension or anything.)

The prologue involves a look at Satan, renamed Xandrous (I guess someone doesn't like Linux) plotting his something. He looks like a dragon, I think. A black dragon. Because good things are white and bad things are black. Demons are called "drayan'os" and angels are "drayan", which is really amusing because the drayan are a race introduced by Star Trek Voyager.

I'm thinking "a bit derivative" is likely to be the least of my complaints about this.

So anyway, off to Earth. Or an Earth-like planet. Or something.

Chapter 1

The theme of Chapter 1 is mini-info dump and ellipses for no particular reason at all.

Drogan fought on as men were fighting and dying all around him... He had joined the Duke of Grey Home's army as a youth, imagining a life more glorious and exciting than working at his father's forge as an apprentice blacksmith for the rest of his life. Now the lean, yet heavily muscled, blond haired and blue eyed man was in his twenty fifth summer and a seasoned veteran in Duke Nordhelm's army, and had quickly risen to the rank of sergeant over his own squad. Having served already in more campaigns than many of the older veterans, he had earned the right to forgo many, but he always volunteered, was always willing to do his duty. He, after all, had nothing else but the army now.

So, how many people, exactly, work as an apprentice blacksmith their entire lives? Was Drogan especially bad at blacksmithing? That description of Drogan? Every single character is described that way: size, hair, eye color just splatted into the text as if culled from a driver's license. I would also like to register my complaint against the phrase "seasoned veteran". Unless you are trying to convey the fact that your character has been rubbed in spices, veteran and seasoned mean virtually the same thing.

Following an info dump of Drogan's tragically tragic past:

Now he commanded a squad of ten men, his company given the task of routing raiders that had been attacking and pillaging outlying villages much like his own, through a pass in the southern tip of the Axeweaver Mountains. The nomadic raiders of the Barren Wastes to the east, were little match for the leather and chain mail armored men of southern Erinor, this campaign, but often it was quite different. The Barren Waste's nomadic people, or the Haira'hem as they called themselves were well trained fighters, often striking quickly and disappearing into the dunes and sandstone canyons of the desert wastes. They wore loose fitting hooded clothes that blended with the colors of the desert, and wore a cloth mask wrapped at the bridge of the nose, covering the bottom half of their faces. They rarely carried a shield, although sometimes a small buckler, and fought with two weapons... a sword and spear, two swords, two spears, whatever the haira'hem's preference, and they were unmatched in their skill with a bow. Except perhaps by the elves of the Forever Lands to the east, or those elves of the Griffonwood, bordering the eastern edge of the Axeweaver Mountains. And Drogan himself, as brave as he was, would think twice before following a haira'hem into the dunes or canyons alone.

If the Haira'hem sound familiar to you, they should. They live on Arrakis where they are called the Fremen. The rest of that paragraph is a discussion of the archery skills of the elves, so now we're smack in the middle of Lord of the Rings meets Dune. All we need now is for Frodo Atreides to wander by on his way to carry a ring made of spice to a volcano.

Next we meet Kendrick. He's a priest of Jandrous/Jesus and he's a nice guy. Really nice.

The slender, short dark haired, and blue eyed Kendrick lived a humble life, but this is what he loved to do. Being a priest was his dream since childhood, and now the life of a follower of Jandrous, and a priest, was all he knew... and he loved it.

Kendrick, who is either short or has short hair, is going on an adventure.

"Young Kendrick. I need a favor of you," the older, white haired and bearded priest said. He glanced around, and his blue eyes darted left to right. He held a wooden tube in his right hand, and in his left was a travel pack made of brown leather.

Do brown leather travel packs signify something other than black leather travel packs or canvas travel packs?

"Uh.... yes... of course brother Donnagan," Kendrick replied, taken by surprise and a bit confused. "What is it you need of me?" Donnagan pushed the tube into the pack, turned Kendrick around by the shoulders, and with one arm around his shoulders urged Kendrick back out the doors and back into the cold winds outside. He whispered quickly as he lead the young, confused, priest around the back of the temple to a small stable. He whispered urgently as he led Kendrick inside.

Young Kendrick, confused, is confused. And young.

"I need you to take the letter in this pack here to the temple in Seaport." he whispered. "I need you to travel quickly, and I need you to travel now. You can take my horse." The old Donnagan was already fastening a saddle. Finally sensing a chance to speak himself, Kendrick questioned the old man.

"Uh... Donnagan... I mean brother Donnagan," he said very much confused and even quite frightened. "I've never even been out of Danir! I wouldn't even know how to find my way to Seaport!"

"I've given you a map in this pack," he whispered. "You will follow the road southwest to Ulrich, then further west to Kilmore, leaving the kingdom of Rylos. And then you'll head to Wolves Tooth which is in Kyrolis. From there, a road moves south through the Axeweaver Mountains and into Bloodgate... a city in the mountains. From there you will head southwest into Erinor, to Castle Erinor and then skirt along the Griffonwood, south to Newblade, Greyhome, and then Seaport. If you stop at all the places I mentioned or some of their outlying villages, you'll be able to replenish your supplies... and I've given you money, food, and warmer clothes... and you should have an occasional bed for the night."

Oh, so here's Frodo, being sent southwest and then further west and then south and then southwest and then south. I wonder if he'll run into a big spider along the way.

And the the trumpet sounds and the Rapture begins. I can't wait.