“Fiends” — It’s a novella about a young devil sent to seduce a normal man, but ends up being the one seduced instead.
Dramatis Personae:
Teablossom — our devilish seducer.
Henry Lerner — our intrepid hero.
Karas — the opposition.
Riordan James — the lost love.
The story begins with Henry wallowing in grief over the death of his lover, and Teablossom is exactly as advertised–a fiend.
I would never think to lie to anyone and say that I am a happy-go-lucky person… no, I fully admit that I am a terribly moody bitch. But I’m pretty cyclical, so if I time things right I can *fake* it that I’m cheerful most of the time.
Anyways, I’ve noticed the last few days that my taste for life has been degrading rapidly, which is kind of a warning sign that I’m about to go down, down the rabbit hole once again. When I reach my lowest point, about the only thing I have any enthusiasm for is writing–everything else is all just shades of gray. It’s kind of like being a real life zombie. Sure, there’s no craving for brains, but I do shuffle through my days in a mindless stupor.
So there will probably be writing updates here and there, and I am for sure going to make sure I hold to my weekly schedule for “Dragon Knight,” but there’s a good chance that for everything else my contact with the outside world will go dark.
Please do not be offended if I don’t immediately respond to emails or messages. I will try to get back to anyone that messages me, though it might take a little while.
~Pax
Dragon Knight–the Emperor’s Hand. At 12 years old he binds himself in service to the then 16 year old Crown Prince Vedran Malvorta. An orphan of good birth, he gives up his family name and becomes the Empire’s sharpest blade. His love for Vedran is the driving force of his life and there is no one he won’t kill and nothing he won’t do for Vedran.
Through great daring and risk to his soul, he wields the demon sword Silva Morta. It must taste lifeblood each time it is drawn or he will lose control of it and he will be the one wielded.
Emperor Vedran Malvorta–son of an aging tyrannical madman, as a child he watched as war broke out around him as loyalists executed his father and put him on the throne. Bearing the mental stain left behind by the things he’s witnessed, he has vowed that his rule will be just and fair and that he will win the love of his people. To that end, he has angered his Imperial Advisors by using funds from the Imperial Treasury to pay for public works, but he is firm in his desire to ensure his country’s prosperity.
Kameris Teloran–childhood friend of Vedran and Dragon Knight. He is loyal to the core.
Princess Emera Malvorta–the Emperor’s younger sister, she is a sweet and trusting girl. She has no memories of her parents and Vedran is the only family she has ever known. He has been more father than brother to her, and she is certain he won’t mind the feelings she’s developed for Dragon Knight. What brother wouldn’t want his sister and his best friend to fall in love with each other?
Empress Selesta Demarran Malvorta–mother to the Crown Prince, she was raised above the other Imperial wives. Born of the politically powerful Demarran family, she will do anything to ensure her son’s ascension to the throne.
Crown Prince Lulius Demarran Malvorta–Emperor Vedran’s oldest child and heir to the throne. He is a rather quiet boy that would do anything to make his father proud.
The first time I saw a trailer for this back in 2008, I thought it was going to be another one of those stupid “Killer guy has a website and everyone that visits it *mysteriously* dies” type of movies, but I was pleasantly surprised.
I bought the DVD on sale and wasn’t really expecting too much when I watched it. Sure, there’s lots of stupid stuff going on and you can totally be like “Why the hell would she get back in the car?” But come on, it’s a movie, it’s for entertainment, and I honestly really enjoyed it.
You have a guy killing people on his website, building crafty machines that use the hit counter to decide how long someone is going to live. So of course everyone in America was going to check out the site, they got told not to!
It’s kind of a grim commentary about the kind of people we are. We might not go out and kill someone personally, but we have no problem taking a peek at a dead body. Wasn’t that the whole premise of that coming of age story “Stand By Me” where someone asks “Do you wanna see a dead body?” and everyone unanimously replied, “Hell yeah!”
If you suspend some of your belief in the FBI and the police being able to track some guy down, this is actually a pretty good popcorn movie. There’s just enough ick–guy gets killed by sunlamp, guy gets melted by sulfuric acid–that you root for the good guys, and there’s some fairly clever death machines displayed without going completely over the top ala the Saw franchise.
Plus you’ve got a strong female lead in Diane Lane, who I personally adore. I also really like her haircut in this movie and was admiring it throughout 🙂
I can maybe understand why this movie didn’t do so great in the box office, but I still really enjoyed it and I think more people would if they gave it half a chance.
Once again this is a movie that was the victim of bad marketing. Instead of being some teeny-bopper slasher flick with some crazy guy killing people through the computer, you have a disturbed man trying to get some kind of vindication for his father’s death and the way it was publicized on the internet.
I think part of the reason why some people didn’t like this movie was that it struck a nerve because it could really happen. We have become so detached from reality that we no longer associate the things we see online with real people. We’re just in it for the lulz.
My rating: 4 for entertainment value and Diane Lane kicking ass while tied up.