(no subject)

[skygiants]

So I got my hands on Mary Brown's Pigs Don't Fly, and promptly stayed up way too late last night reading it in horrified fascination. I remembered how weird it was! I had forgotten how TERRIBLE it was. Like, not just the awful fat-shaming -- I remembered that -- and the ablism -- which I had forgotten about but promptly remembered again -- but so much misogyny! SO MUCH! Literally EVERY OTHER woman who is not our heroine is a terrible person. (Spoiler alert: it turns out that our heroine is possibly also a terrible person, although I'm not sure Mary Brown realizes this.)

Well, except the secret princess horse. The secret princess horse is fine.


So our book begins with Summer, daughter of the town whore. Summer loves her mom, but we are already given enough textual clues to understand that her mother is TERRIBLE, because every not-Summer woman in the book is TERRIBLE.

Summer, however, thinks SHE is the one who is terrible, because she is fat.

Anyway, Summer's mom dies, leaving her only a little bit of money and a magic ring that lets her talk to animals. Summer promptly sets out on a journey and collects a menagerie who want to travel with her and find their homes:

GROWCH THE MANGY DOG, who talks with a horrible in-text Cockney accent and makes misogynistic jokes
MISTRAL THE HORSE, who is secretly a HORSE PRINCESS
TRAVELER THE MESSENGER PIGEON, who is carrying a ROMANTIC MESSAGE to . . . somewhere
BASHER THE TORTOISE, whose defining characteristic is that he is a SEX GOD AMONG TORTOISES
THE WIMPERLING, a know-it-all pig with wings

Summer also collects a human companion, who also needs to find his home!

SUMMER: YESSSSS omg a HOT AMNESIAC BLND KNIGHT! PERFECT! He is so HOT and HELPLESS and he will depend on me totally for EVERYTHING and I can look at his beautiful face EVERY DAY and give him SPONGE BATHS and he will never know I am a FAT MONSTER
GILL THE HOT BLIND AMNESIAC KNIGHT: ugh why am I traveling with PEASANTS. Summer, spend more of your money on food and wine!
SUMMER: . . . okay, so he is kind of a whiny hot amnesiac blind knight. But what does it matter as long as he's decorative, amirite?

There is also a lot of text space dedicated to Summer's enjoyment of washing ALL of him, including his MOST PRIVATE PARTS and, like, oh, Summer, NO. Summer, that is not consent! (I thought this was bad, but the consent issues down below are going to get way worse.)

Summer & Co. bop around having all kinds of adventures, most of which go like this:

SUMMER: Hey, an obviously evil castle! Let's stop here!
THE WIMPERLING: I have a bad feeling about this obviously evil castle and I think we should go.
SUMMER: Nah, we're totally fine. Gill, are we fine?
GILL: What a nice luxurious castle, we're totally fine!
A MENACE: OMG I am going to KILLLLL you ALLLLLL.
THE WIMPERLING: Told you so.
SUMMER: Wimperling, I will never doubt you again!

[rinse, repeat]

Special mention goes to the castle of the EVIL BORED LADY who wants to keep them there forever and spends all her onscreen time shrieking things like "What matter YOUR little wishes?! YOUR little lives?! All that matters here is what I WANT!"

Summer escapes from this one by riding away on the back of the Wimperling, who has learned how to fly by farting, and muses on how important her weird pig friend has come to be to her.

Anyway, then they start delivering people home! The pigeon goes to his owner, who is a pretty woman and therefore of course turns out to be a PIGEON-MURDERING MONSTER that they have to rescue him from again; the tortoise runs off as soon as the prospect of tortoise sex rears its tortoise head; Mistral the PRINCESS HORSE finds her HORSE PEOPLE; and Gill eventually regains his memory and his sight by a magic blow to the head and goes home to his fiancee . . . who is, of course, TERRIBLE.

GILL: omg Summer! Summer! I never realized until I had a.) my sight and b.) my terrible fiancee to compare you to, but you're SUPER HOT!
SUMMER: No I am not, I am a FAT MONSTER.
GILL: idk what you're talking about but SUMMER I LOVE YOU. LET'S RUN AWAY TOGETHER.
SUMMER: I have dreamed of this during all the times I was giving you sponge baths and gazing on your decorative face! . . . but man, now I have to face the prospect of dealing with your whining for the rest of my life, it somehow seems less appealing than it used to.

THE WIMPERLING: Not that I have an ulterior motive or anything, but I'm pretty sure your feelings for Gill are just infatuation and not REAL LOVE. Think twice before opening your legs, is what I am saying.
SUMMER: Pig friend! You're so wise!
BECCA: . . . PIG FRIEND, you are SO SKETCHY.

Anyway, while Summer is trying to figure out what to do about the Gill thing, she overhears a conversation between his dad and his terrible fiancee!

GILL'S TERRIBLE FIANCEE: So you should know, I'm pregnant, and it's yours.
GILL'S DAD: Are you sure? Given that we all know you're a slutty whore, haha!
GILL'S TERRIBLE FIANCEE: Haha, touche! Okay, but here's what I'm going to do: I will drug your son, date-rape him, make sure EVERYONE KNOWS we did the sex, and get married ASAP before he can figure out the baby's not his!

SUMMER: Well THANK GOD, that solves all my problems! I will just let the drugging and the date rape progress as planned and Gill will be married in like two days without me having to break up with him. :D
BECCA: WHAT. SUMMER. NO. NO, SUMMER. NO.

THE WIMPERLING: What a great idea, Summer! But let's run away fast, because Gill's terrible fiancee will probably still try to kill you. Out of jealousy. Because women are jealous and terrible.
BECCA: WHAT. MARY BROWN. NO. NO, MARY BROWN. NO.

SO THAT'S WHAT THEY DO, leaving Summer with only a misogynistic dog and a pig-dragon left for companionship on her journey!

THE WIMPERLING: It is time for me to finish my mysterious journey! But before we do, I want you to know: Summer, you are smoking hot. Because . . . you LOST ALL YOUR WEIGHT on the journey!
SUMMER: What?
THE WIMPERLING: Yes, it's true! You are no longer a fat monster, but the skinny beautiful thing you were always meant to be, if your TERRIBLE MOTHER hadn't STUFFED YOU WITH FOOD out of JEALOUSY FOR YOUR BEAUTY so that NO ONE WOULD EVER LOVE YOU!
SUMMER: Oh, golly! Now I understand everything!
BECCA: *bangs head gently against the wall*
SUMMER: But wait, how do you know all this, pig friend?
WIMPERLING: Oh, didn't I mention, I can casually read your mind?
BECCA: AGGGGGGH.

Then Summer and the dog fall asleep and wake up four days later.

THE WIMPERLING: Oh, I just figured it would be easier to drug you to sleep over the time-skip.
SUMMER: Oh, okay!
BECCA: @____@
THE WIMPERLING: Anyway, now I must complete my final transformation! You must . . . KILL ME!
SUMMER: Nooooo! Pig friend! I can't kill you! Instead I will . . . kiss you!

Bang, crash, the lightning flashes, and instead of a pig friend, Summer has . . . a dragon! After some initial confusion in which Summer assumes the dragon has EATEN the pig, it is ascertained that, yes, the pig was really a dragon all along. But not only that, because Summer kissed it while a pig, the dragon can turn for short periods of time into . . . A REALLY HOT DUDE.

THE FORMER WIMPERLING: So, Summer, thank you so much for all your help in regaining my true dragon self! Um, less thanks for kissing me though, I would have preferred not to have a human shape or human feeeelings. Now I shall be off to find my true destiny in the exotic Somewhere Else.
SUMMER: Wait! Darling! You can't leave! Let's make out!
THE FORMER WIMPERLING: . . . 'kay.
SUMMER: YESSSS excellent -- OH WAIT WHAT WHY IS THERE A DRAGON ON TOP OF ME. WHAT. WHOA. DID NOT SIGN ON FOR THIS.
THE FORMER WIMPERLING: . . . so I guess it turns out that I can't stay in human form that long! Too bad, Summer, even though you are hot now but it will never work between us.
SUMMER: But -- but --
THE FORMER WIMPERLING: Love 'em and leave 'em, its the dragon way! Bye, baby! Have a nice life!

OFF GOES THE DRAGON, leaving a very confused and sore Summer.

GROWCH THE MISOGYNISTIC DOG: Hey kiddo, why'd you dump the hot knight if you were just going to do the nasty with the first pig-dragon you came across?
SUMMER: Wait! That was sex?! I thought we were just making out! SHIT.

And so we end on a CLIFFHANGER, as Summer decides to set out in search of her creepy pig-dragon boyfriend. And, God help me, there is a part of me that wants to go find the sequel, Master of Many Treasures, just to see if it can possibly get worse.

Comments

[opusculasedfera]

...That is amazing levels of terrible and confused. Everyone sounds appalling!

But also I really want you to read the sequel because I need to know if the batshit ramps up. Sorry.

Also what is up with the secret princess horse?

[skygiants]

NOTHING. That's the most frustrating part! NOTHING IS UP WITH THE SECRET PRINCESS HORSE. She shows up, announces she is a secret princess, does nothing at all relevant for three hundred pages, and then is like "well I found my people off to be a horse princess bye y'all!"

WHAT A WASTE OF A SECRET PRINCESS HORSE.

[brownbetty]

Welp, this may finally be the cure for my longstanding inability to tell Mary Gentle and Mary Brown apart.

(I mean, I had never read any Mary Brown, I don't think, but every time I see her, I go "Oooh, Mary Brown, I liked her that one time I... no, wait, this looks wrong.")

[skygiants]

Just make sure that when you see "Brown" you think "MISOGYNISTIC DRAGON-PIG BOYFRIEND" and you will be all set!

[greenygal]

Well THANK GOD, that solves all my problems! I will just let the drugging and the date rape progress as planned and Gill will be married in like two days without me having to break up with him. :D

...wait, does she really...

*pauses, flips through book*

Um. Yes. Yes she does. Now admittedly, this is kind of a difficult situation to be in, even without the part where people are planning to kill you; most people do not want to hear "your fiancee is pregnant by your father and is planning to drug you so you'll think it's yours." But she could have made at least an attempt at warning him--or even concluded that there was no possible way to warn him, because people are ready to kill her if she gets in the way--and instead she just goes "Well, he won't believe me, and really everyone is better off this way." Mmmm-hm.

Mostly what I remember about the sequel is the ending, which is kind of...unusual.

[skygiants]

SHE DOES. Like, she does not even pause to try and consider if she's going to warn him, it is an immediate "WELL I'M OUTTA HERE, good luck with your miserable future!"

It's extra hilarious because a.) up until five pages before that point she was convinced he was her True Love and b.) we are constantly being told what a kind and unselfish and altruistic person Summer is. O RLY.

. . . oh, man, PLEASE tell me what happens in the end of the sequel! Amazon reviews are dropping all these hilariously ominous hints, and I want to fend off the desire to actually read it as much as possible!

[jinian]

Holy crap. Does the dragon still fly by farting, or can it fly with its presumable wings?

... So what kind of bribery would be required to get you to read the sequel, exactly?

[skygiants]

Presumably with wings! Farting unspecified.

. . . I think this is "make me an offer" time. >:D

[bookblather]

Oh my god. I thought for sure I was misremembering how terrible this book was. I WAS NOT. AT ALL. Holy jesus.

[skygiants]

I can sincerely assure you: IT'S WORSE THAN YOU REMEMBER.

[gogollescent]

I want you to know that I read BASHER THE TORTOISE as BASHIR THE TORTOISE, whose defining characteristic is that he is a SEX GOD AMONG TORTOISE, and I was therefore distracted for the rest of this review. But……. I am impressed……………. by the bit about the dragon.

[dragovianknight]

OH THANK GOD IT WAS NOT JUST ME.

[musesfool]

I, otoh, went to the Don Cheadle-as-Basher-in-Ocean's-11 place, and...yes.

[skygiants]

I am now fairly convinced that someone has written the fanfic where Bashir is a sex god among tortoises, admittedly. IT SEEMS PLAUSIBLE.

[sholio]

Oh god. That book. The horrendous fat-shaming is what really sticks in my head; well, that and the random plotting. I had completely forgotten the consent issues and all the rest of it.

I do remember feeling guilty about returning it to the used bookstore, because putting it back into circulation meant someone else might unwittingly buy it and read it.

[skygiants]

The fat-shaming is PRETTY EGREGIOUSLY TERRIBLE. I mean, ye gods; I find it hard to remember coming across a worse instance of it.

The worst of all the consent issues though is how clearly oblivious Mary Brown is that anything problematic is going on at all. Of course her heroes are likeable, ethical people! In fact, they are basically the ONLY NICE PEOPLE IN THE WORLD! Why wouldn't they be?

[sovay]

BASHER THE TORTOISE, whose defining characteristic is that he is a SEX GOD AMONG TORTOISES

I admit that's not a characterization I see a lot.

As to the rest of what you describe: WHUT.

[skygiants]

Literally all the tortoise does in the book is hibernate, and then wake up in time to chase some lady tortoises across a beach with graphic clattering noises. That's it. THAT'S ALL.

-- oh, and serve as an in-demand artist's model for religious paintings, but that has nothing to do with the tortoise sex and he can do it while hibernating, so its fine, I guess.

[sexybee.livejournal.com]

Reading this I kept thinking, "Wait, I think I read this one!" and then five seconds later, "Nope, I don't remember this at all!" But after checking out the synopses for her other books, I realized it's just that all of them have VERY similar plots. So I read "The Unlikely Ones" which has an "ugly" girl on a journey with a variety of animals and a knight, but this time they have magic gems embedded in their skin causing them pain.

[skygiants]

Hah, yeah, almost all of her books are exactly the same -- I have The Unlikely Ones at home and it is indeed almost EXACTLY THE SAME as this one. Although it's possible that in that case she actually ends up with the knight at the end, I don't really remember. (I do remember the setup where her evil witch mother has sex with a broom.)

[elsane]

...........

Maybe I will just write a whole fic novel doing Les Mis with peas , it is remarkably less insane and skeevy in the grand scheme of things than I had ever, ever dreamed.

(ie thank you for sacrificing yourself so the rest of us could laugh! Oh my god.)

[skygiants]

HAHA DO IT, man, your pod person Les Mis would be SO INFINITELY BETTER than this book I'm not sure I even have words to describe the scale of improvement.

(Mostly I think it's my thirteen-year-old self who sacrificed herself! CHILD WHAT WERE YOU THINKING.)

[shati]

I don't even know what this is on a scale of 1 to Piers Anthony O__o

[skygiants]

I think it's somewhere between "Flying Midair Dragon Sex" and Piers Anthony.

Except the dragon sex doesn't actually happen in midair. Small mercies! On the other hand, the fact that it is interspecies dragon sex might cancel those small mercies out . . .

[rymenhild]

...

[skygiants]

MARY BROWN, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN

[alias_sqbr]

I...I did not know books like this existed.

[skygiants]

Then you had a more fortune childhood (or at least a childhood with better taste) than I did!

[carmarthen]

*stares*

*stares some more*

I read an awful lot of Piers Anthony as a child (shudder), but uh...while this sounds somewhat less rapey and doesn't seem to contain pedophilia apologism, it actually sounds...possibly...more bizarre. O_o

[skygiants]

I will definitely grant: LESS PEDOPHILIA. Then again, it's hard to have more pedophilia apologism in mainstream fiction than Piers Anthony.

. . . also fewer terrible puns? *weak*

[sapote]

Here from Toft and OH MY GOD, I read this when I was thirteen and I have been trying to figure out what the crap it was ever since. I have EXTREMELY VIVID MEMORIES of this book. And the meeting to decide if Summer was going to be the new town prostitute. And the pigdragon sex.

[skygiants]

IT'S THE KIND OF BOOK THAT STICKS WITH YOU. Ye gods. I mean to be fair I didn't remember about half of the most inexplicable things until I reread. Perhaps they all got blotted out by the pig-dragon sex.