Chapter 15: The Red Dragon's Star

Hello, and welcome back to our irregularly scheduled nonsense!

Well, it's the midpoint of the semester and I'm trying to get through the bulk of this book before finals roll around soon.  Also, every single university in America is having a mass panic attack about COVID-19, so I'm writing these up to burn off some steam because I am incredibly frustrated about the whole thing.

Anyway, last time Houck poorly explained mythology pertaining to Atlantis and dragons.  This time, the Plot actually happens!  And unlike the previous books, the Plot actually keeps happening, instead of stopping and starting at random.  So there will at least be things happening for the foreseeable future.

This time, dragons!

Chapter Fifteen: The Red Dragon's Star

Kelsey asks how it's possible the boat is moving, even though it's pretty obvious that it's magic, given that when she touched the kimono her hand started glowing and the embroidered pattern started moving around.

She looks back at the kimono and there's an embroidered boat traveling between the dots.  Kishan goes above deck and confirms that they're moving in the same direction based on the sun, but the City of Seven Pagodas has disappeared, along with the coastline.  They're moving even though their engines aren't turned on, all their instruments are off, and the anchor is down.

So yeah, they've entered the spirit world, or whatever pocket dimension the MacGuffin is in, just like the other times.  I'm not sure why Houck is playing coy about saying that's what's happening when this is the third time it's happened.

Without saying it, we all knew we'd entered another world--a world without the rules and boundaries we were used to.  A world where dragons ruled the seas, and all we had to protect ourselves were our weapons and Mr. Kadam's research.

This would be exciting if this wasn't the third time this has happened.

Also, note that the "only things" they have to protect them are things that were given to them by other people.  Durga gave them the magical weapons, and they're too lazy to help Mr. Kadam do any research (given that Kelsey literally fell asleep during the last session).  No word on using their own ingenuity or abilities.

They all suit up in their gear--Kelsey puts Fanindra on and straps her bow over her back and slips the Golden Fruit into her quiver.

[Ren] asked the Divine Scarf to shrink down to a hair ribbon and, after a pointed look at my sheared hair, knotted it securely around my wrist.

Oh, fuck off.  It's not even that short!

Ren takes the gada and the trident, and Kishan gets the chakram and the kamandal.

The three of us knew that once we began the hunt, there were no maps; there was no rational path to take.  We depended on fortune and destiny to lead us to the place we needed to go.

Is that why when they were in Shangri-la, Kelsey and Kishan found everything they were looking for by asking for directions from the Silvanae?  Because everything they were looking for was literally pointed out to them by other people.

Mr. Kadam estimates that it'll be a few hours before they get to the dot, so Kelsey fast travels by falling asleep.  When she wakes up, it's a couple of hours later, and Ren and Kishan have been human for longer than twelve hours.  They decide to snack a bit before getting there, natch, so rest assured that Kelsey whips up some kettle corn and root beer, which seems like a bad idea before a potential battle.

Ren asks what the kettle corn is, and Kelsey says that he used to eat it all the time in Oregon.

He picked up a popped kernel and studied it.  He mumbled quietly to himself, "A blue dress.  I dropped the bowl."

"What did you say?" I asked.

"Hmm?"  He looked up suddenly.  "Oh.  Nothing.  It's good."

Aaaand this is exactly why I hate amnesia subplots.  Because this doesn't actually accomplish anything, and Kelsey doesn't even comment on the fact that he's still able to remember some things more than subconsciously.

Actually, I wouldn't be surprised at all if he had already regained his memories and is just acting like this to be a dick.

Kelsey comments on how bright the stars are, so she and Ren start stargazing out of nowhere, despite the fact that when they started eating it was 11:45, giving them about fifteen minutes before they get to where they're going.

It's to give Houck an excuse to show off how Ren and Kelsey are ~destined~ to be together by giving us some very purple descriptions of Kelsey's heart beating faster when he grabs her wrist, and about how she smells sandalwood mixed with the sea.  He points out a constellation and says that it's Draco, the dragon.  Wait, why is Ren using the Greek name?  Wouldn't he be more familiar with the Hindu version of the constellation, since basically every culture has its own version of the constellations?

Also, this would be a great place to have different constellations to really underscore the fact that they're in a different world.  But whatever, that's getting a bit nit-picky.

"He guards the golden apples of Hera, the Greeks say.  Others say he is the serpent who tempted Eve."

Who says that, Houck?  Who says that the Ancient Greek constellation represents fucking Satan from the Bible?

This is another example of Houck just saying "Uhhhh they're both snakes, so they must be the same thing!!!"

Kelsey sees something moving in the constellation, and the stars start to blink on and off.

They started shifting and writhing, becoming bigger and distorted.

Hmm.  Never seen that before.

They get ready to fight, and the constellation changes.  Something big starts coming towards them, in an admittedly pretty cool way.

Suddenly the sky seemed to balloon out and rip, and a dark shape slipped through the tear.

Like, that's pretty neat.

A head emerged, followed by a sinuous long body.  It dipped and twisted in the air like a twirling stunt kite.  It circled the boat at a slow, leisurely pace [. . .]"

Wait, it's dipping and twisting quickly, but also simultaneously moving slowly?  That makes no sense.

It circled the boat at a slow, leisurely pace, moving lower and lower until we could clearly see what it was--a dragon.

WE HAVE DRAGONS BABEEEEEEEEY

I mean, it's the midpoint of the book and there has been absolutely no conflict other than petty relationship drama, but Plot is happening!!!!

But this was not a type of dragon I'd ever seen in the movies.  It looked more like a snake.

Like nothing I've ever seen in any media.  Kelsey's an idiot.

Uh, also.  A dragon appearing out of a constellation isn't even original!

Where...a dragon appears out of a constellation.

This was definitely not the dragon of St. George; it looked more like the drawings of Chinese dragons Mr. Kadam had shown us.

YEAH, WE KNOW, SINCE YOU JUST DESCRIBED IT AS LOOKING LIKE A SNAKE.  THIS IS A BOOK, YOU USE YOUR WORDS TO TELL US THINGS THAT WE READ.

This dragon is red and black, which if you remember from the last chapter, Mr. Kadam explained as being troublemakers.  That's not the case here, because Mr. Kadam is an idiot.

It's pretty big, since its head is the size of a VW Bug.

Shiny scales about the size of dinner plates ran down the length of its body and gleamed in the starlight.

What size dinner plates?  The kind that are eight inches across?

(That was a very niche reference to The Wee Free Men, which I could be reading right now instead of this.)

Eventually it reaches the boat.  Houck really latches onto the "snake" thing, so the dragon uses its tongue to taste the air.  She hears a voice in her head like "tinkling bells," which I'm sure is very intimidating.

The dragon speaks Chinese (more accurately, pinyin, which I won't transcribe because the tones are annoying to format and I'm lazy).  Kishan and Ren speak to it in Mandarin, and ask if the dragon can speak English.  It can, although its Chinese dialogue is surrounded by quotation marks while its English dialogue isn't.  Which is an annoying inconsistency that should have been caught during editing.  But this book was edited by monkeys.

It asks what they're looking for, and tells them that based on what they want it will share its price.  Kishan says that they're looking for Durga's Black Pearl Necklace, and the dragon says that they'll need to visit its brothers.  They'll need a sub-MacGuffin to find the other dragons, so it offers a trade.

If you wish to take it with you, you must give me something in exchange.  A moment while I consider.  Ah, yes.  One of my stars has dimmed.  You may repair it.

"You want us to repair a star?  How do we do that?" I asked.

How is something you must decide.

Suitably fantasy and whimsical!  This is actually a pretty cool task.  I'm okay with it.

The dragon says that they can ride it up to his palace in the sky.  Ren and Kishan try to be chivalrous by blocking Kelsey from getting on the dragon's back, but she points out that they need her.  I'd be pissed the hell off, because fuck yeah I'd want to ride the dragon!

Kelsey politely asks permission to ride the dragon, even though the dragon literally just told them that they could ride it.  Instead of berating Kelsey for not paying attention, it seems amused that Kelsey is so polite.  It warns them that if they fall it won't catch them, though, so I guess that's what Houck meant by saying red and black dragons are evil?  Because they won't bend over backwards to help the protagonists?

When the dragon lowered its head, I stepped forwards and touched a reddish-black spite that had been hiding in the coarse hairy tendrils trailing from the dragon's cheeks and head.  The spike was actually more like a horn.

Why does Kelsey feel the need to tell us that it's a horn and not a spike, when those two words are essentially identical?

They're covered in a velvety material that reminds her of deer antlers.

Hmm.

Ren and Kishan, I guess assuming Kelsey can't manage to sit down without falling off because she's just that incompetent, sandwich her between themselves so that they can catch her if they need to.

The dragon takes off and it's very fast.  Kelsey actually has a smart idea and asks the Golden Scarf to tie them to the dragon, and it finishes just in time for the dragon to do a barrel roll.

Now, surely, this would be the moment for some purple description--they're literally riding a dragon, a thing that exactly no people have ever done before.  Nope.  It's just as bland as all of the scuba diving description.

My stomach lurched as we soared up into the sky then flipped upside down and hung there several moments before turning in spiral freefall.

Holy runon sentence, Batman!  This should have been caught during editing.

It was like riding the scariest roller coaster in the world, and the only thing keeping me from sure death was the strong grip of the men holding me and the threads of the Divine Scarf.

This is the best comparison we're going to get!  Also the only description we're going to get.

She does describe what the scenery looks like (although given how much the dragon is zooming around, how can she get a clear picture of what her surroundings are?) and it's very pretty.

The ocean was so black and clear that it looked like the sky.  We were riding the winds of the universe, dragonback, surrounded by winking stars.

Which is a nice, evocative sentence, but there should be the word "on" before dragonback.  If it works like "on horseback" does.

Kelsey starts to shiver, and Kishan tries to warm her up.  I guess they've forgotten that they still have the Divine Scarf, because Kelsey doesn't make herself a coat or anything.

The dragon says that they're almost to its palace, and flies straight up, which almost causes all of them to fall off.  When the dragon finally levels out, Ren looks rough, since he's been stuck right next to Kelsey the whole way.

I felt a kind of weightlessness.  This must be what zero gravity is like, I thought.  My hair began to rise, and my arms were light as if the buoyancy of the ocean was holding my body afloat.

Alright, that's pretty cool.

The dragon swims through the empty space like a shark and finally comes to its palace.  What could a dragon palace look like?  Dragons are obviously really different from humans so it must look pretty cool.

The dragon's palace was like a diamond mansion hung in the sky.  It gleamed and reflected light from its many facets.

Ah.  It's just a big house but made out of diamonds.

They get to the palace and it lets them off.

The dragon shivered, and its body began to convulse.  It started shrinking; its long shape diminished and twisted.  Then with a snap, it disappeared, and a man stood in its place.

Aaand now he's just a dude, which keeps Houck from having to write the only good scenes she's ever written in this series.  AWESOME.

Yeah, dragons in lots of cultures often have a human form.  Chinese dragons in particular seem to all be able to take human form, and the dragons of the four oceans all can:

But for a novel, the human form kind of has to have a, you know, point.  The point of this dragon's human form is that it's easier to write.

He was black skined and beautiful with red eyes and red robes.  His white teeth were brilliant against his skin.

OOH, that description is another weird emphasis on skin color.

The dragon bows and offers them some refreshments.  Kishan says that they'd just like what they agreed to.  So the dragon leads them through the mansion, which is sparkly and reflective like mirrors.  That's all the description we get.  He takes them to a pedestal, which has a diamond sextant on it.  He lets them examine it, and then points to his balcony and says that they agreed to fix his star in return for it.

Why is the dragon referred to as an "it," but the dragon man is referred to as a "he?"  It's the same person!

The dragon heads back inside while the three of them wrack their tortured brains to come up with a way to fix it.  Kelsey tries to shoot her "lightning power" (note: does not contain actual lightning) at it, but it can't reach.  Kishan decides to go talk to the dragon about other things they could do in return for the sextant.

"Longjun has agreed to play a game of chess with one of us instead.  If we win, we get the sextant.  If we lose, one of us must remain behind."

Ren says that Kishan is the better chess player, so Kishan should try to win that way.  They watch them play for a little bit, and Kelsey internally freaks out that Kishan is going to lose, so she grabs Ren and they head back outside.

She takes his trident and uses the Scarf to tie a long rope to the end.  She gives it back to Ren and tells him to throw it at the star and reel it back in.

"You think it will go that far?"

"I'm hoping the momentum of space will help carry it.  The Scarf can create more ropes as it travels and if we miss we can pull it back.  I'd do it myself, but you have more power in your arm."

Just like their previous challenges, there's no actual risk of failure here because they can try as many times as necessary.  At least Kishan is doing something with real consequences.

Ren throws the trident and misses, so they reel it back.  They hear the dragon say "check" from inside, so at least there's an attempt to put a ticking clock on this, which I appreciate.

He makes it on the next try.  They ask the Scarf to "retreat," which makes no sense.  I think Houck means retract, which is another mistake that should have been caught during editing.  God.

They pull for a bit and they feel the star come loose, and Ren gets up on the balcony to catch it.

Kelsey does acknowledge that all of that is "physically impossible" but decides to just not think about it.  I'm totally okay with it happening, because it's clearly magic, and it's got a nice fairy tale vibe to it, where impossible things just kind of happen with no explanation.  But it doesn't feel consistent with how either Kishkindha or Shangri-la worked.  Both of those places seemed to layer magic on top of the physical world, while the City of Seven Pagodas seems like it's a completely different world that doesn't operate under the same physical rules.  It's a subtle distinction, but it's noticeable enough to be annoying, especially when the City of Seven Pagodas has been overall much more interesting so far.

Ren pulls the trident out of the star and asks what they should do.  Kelsey says that they use fire (oh, so it's not called lightning anymore in the same chapter?) and activates her powers.  She pumps everything into it, but it doesn't work.

She keeps trying to shoot fire into the star, but it's not strong enough.  Ren reaches to grab her arm to stop her, but at his touch "golden fiery hot light shot out from my hand."  The star immediately gets brighter.

This just got really stupid.  Her powers suddenly and without explanation work through the power of love.

"Stand behind me and touch my arms."

[snip]

White light surged forward.  Ren pressed his cheek against mine and slid his hands down my arms.  It burned.  He twined his fingers through mine and the light turned gold and then white again.  It blazed with an intensity ten times more fierce than it had been before.  The star pulsed, then expanded and brightened with a golden inner core that turned white hot.

If you need a soundtrack for this section.

I...

I've never in my life seen magic powers that work through spooning.

That's...that's really stupid.

It's almost too much for the two of them to maintain the heat for long, but of course they do.

Ren moved several feet away and leaned over, clutching his stomach and panting.  The skin of his cheek where he'd pressed it against mine and the inside of his arms were glowing with the same golden color as the star.  Surprised, I looked down at my own arms and found them shining in the same way.  I lifted a tired limb and watched the radiance slowly fade and then disappear altogether.

Note: this is never explained even a single time, and I don't think it ever even shows up again.

Ren climbs back up on the balcony and pushes the star back into space, where it returns to its previous position.

Kelsey struggles to stay awake, and Ren has to keep saying her name to keep her conscious.

I saw Ren still sitting in the same spot, his head against the railing and his long legs stretched out in front of him, his feet crossed at the ankles.

His...bare feet?

Even if they aren't, it's a weird bit of emphasis on his feet that is really making me actually believe my "Kelsey has a foot fetish" theory.

His eyes locked onto me, and I blushed, remembering his fingers entwined with mine.  His look was hot, sultry, and tangible.

Ooh, saucy.

She licks her lips to talk, which makes Ren's eyes tighten.  I guess he's turned on too.

Then they hear Longjun shout, "Checkmate!"  Oh no, how will they solve this easily avoidable problem?  Seriously, if they'd waited literally like ten minutes Kishan wouldn't have had to play.

Longjun (oh, so we're referring to him by his name instead of just "the dragon" now?) comes out onto the balcony and asks which one of them would like to stay with him.  Kishan sees Kelsey and Ren sprawled out on the floor and asks what happened.  She's too tired to answer, so he hugs her.  She look right into Ren's eyes the whole time, which is a really funny image, and angsts about how she's sad he can't remember anything.  Just in case you somehow forgot that he has amnesia.

The dragon says that he'll just choose someone himself, and Kelsey says that he doesn't have to because they fixed his star.

"Zenme?" the dragon asked incredulously.

"Look for yourself."

Wait, I thought we already established that Kelsey doesn't speak Chinese?

He asks how they did, and they say that an explanation wasn't part of the agreement.  The dragon points out that he's still owed some compensation for winning the game.

"Would you be satisfied with this?"

I put my hands on the dragon's shoulders and pecked his cheek.  It felt very warm and leathery.  He pressed his hand against his cheek, shocked.  "What was that?"

"A kiss," Ren said as he rose silently next to us.  "Men have been known to fight over the favor."

I lowered my eyes and felt Kishan take my hand and squeeze it.  The dragon's eyes twinkled.  "A kiss.  Yes.  I am satisfied.  You may take the sextant and go."

He turned to leave, and I said, "Longjun?  Would you consider giving us a ride back to our boat?"

The dragon man stopped to weigh his answer.  "Yes.  If you give me another . . . kiss.  But this time in my true form."

WHY DOES EVERY MALE CHARACTER HAVE TO HAVE THE HOTS FOR KELSEY

Not even the non-humans are safe.  How does he not know what a kiss is?  He's been around for presumably millennia.  He knows what chess is, so he's obviously had some contact with the human world.

Kelsey agrees and Longjun walks them back through his mansion.  He says that they can only use it in his realm and only to find his brothers, and that once they leave it will go back to him.

He turns back onto a dragon in "an explosion of scaly flesh," which is vivid yet disgusting imagery.  Kishan gets the Scarf ready to tie them back on.

Kelsey kisses the dragon's cheek.  For some reason, now that Longjun is back in dragon form, he's referred to as an "it," which seems not very polite.

What a pleasant gift.  Climb on quickly, my dear.  The stars are waning.

So, yeah.  Even the dragons think that Kelsey is hot.

The chapter ends with a good sentence, for a change:

Kishan pulled me up, and in the instant I had commanded the Divine Scarf to create ropes to wrap around our legs and secure us, the red dragon dove over the floor of its sky palace and spilled into space like a hapless pebble over a waterfall.

Okay, it was mainly the last phrase of that that I liked, but still.  Decent.

Closing Thoughts

This chapter is really frustrating, because it contains some of the better writing in the series up to this point, which shows that Houck can actually come up with creative, interesting scenes.  I really liked how the gravity changed when they got to Longjun's palace.  Fixing Longjun's star was something I hadn't actually seen before, and it fits in with the "fantasy spirit world" thing that hasn't really worked that well in the first two books.

But the couple flashes of good in this chapter really only work to highlight the things that really bog this series down.  Things only happen in order to push Ren and Kelsey together, despite neither of them really doing anything to demonstrate that they'd actually make a good couple.  Every male character is obsessed with Kelsey--we already know that Ren and Kishan would do literally anything for her, but even characters that have never met her before will do what she wants just because she kisses them on the cheek.

The dragon becomes a human because it's easier to write, since he doesn't really do anything differently than when he was a dragon.  In Fablehaven (yes, I know I've been using this as an example a lot, but it's actually really good and there are dragons that can turn into humans in it), when dragons change form, their entire psychology changes because the shape something takes influences how it thinks.  They're so different that a dragon's human form often has a different name.  It serves a purpose, not only to show us how magic works, but there's an actual plot point in the first series that involves how a character thinks and acts differently as a human than as a dragon.

Next: I don't know why this dragon is named Longjun.  Longjun is an actual dragon from mythology, but he seems to be associated with Lake Dongting, as that's the only source I could find that mentions him that isn't a Tiger's Voyage discussion.  Either that or he's the dragon of the East Sea.  Houck seems to think that he's the dragon of the West Sea, which is just blatantly incorrect.

Now, there is a dragon associated with the constellation Draco, which is where Houck's Longjun lives.  That's Tianlong.  No, I have no idea why it's so hard for her to just change the names of the dragons to make sense, especially when three out of the five dragons in this book have names that are entirely made up.

Next time, Chapter Sixteen: The Blue Dragon's Pet!  Just in case you thought there would be some consistent mythology in this book, rest assured, Houck can't help but mix cultures for no reason.