This Is DEFINITELY Not A Published Reylo Fanfic Novel

so I love to read strange and obscure books and I think I have found some real diamonds in the rough before usually my strategy is just to go on Amazon search under the name of one of their popular independent publisher clients and then add a keyword that I think will yield funny results in the past I've searched creepypasta characters the word hacker in the romance category and now and then I'll just plug in blatantly copyright in terms just to see if I find anything usually no luck usually if you search terms like ed Sheeran or Darth Vader or Princess Elsa you're going to find a lot of journals on Amazon people love to take a copyrighted image printed on the cover of a book leave the interior of the book completely blank and sell it as a journal that's illegal but I doubt they sell that many and nobody's cracking down on it so it just clogs up all the search results and makes my life so much harder so this time I guess I was feeling lucky and I searched kylo Ren I'm scrolling through and it's a million coloring books and journals and then suddenly a novel pops up I get really excited that it's a fanfic and I click it and I'm like wait a second this isn't a fanfic this is an original book what was this doing in the search results for kylo Ren but wait a second I start reading the description and some things start to sound a little familiar Black Moon rising is an original science fiction romance novel set in a universe where humans have taken to the stars and coexist in a vast galaxy with a bunch of humanoid alien species it's the story of a girl who comes from a know where sand planet but possesses mysterious magical power she is connected by some kind of magical energy to a black haired warrior working for a sinister political power so let's be fair here science fiction is not exactly the realm of creativity I'm not saying that it can't be or that it shouldn't be but it's not always it has its tropes it always has and Star Wars didn't exactly invent the wheel so if you see evil space empires or laser guns or hyperspace you don't get to just assume that somebody's ripping off Star Wars what I'm saying is I'm pretty lenient and that's we're really egregious to trigger my alarm system you're probably wondering how egregious this is there's a little prologue page before the proper book begins which um for no reason at all I guess I'll present it like this in the early 24th century mankind took to the stars countless colonies were established on countless habitable planets the Common Wealth of planets was forged to maintain peace and civility amongst all races a thousand years of prosperity and harmony followed where humans and other life-forms lived alongside one another unified by their core beliefs corruption poisons even the calmest waters though a group of planetary leaders formed an alliance of their own and deemed the free will of the people to be dangerous and so the construct was born soon the Commonwealth was forced to disband its leaders executed its people kidnapped and integrated into the construct army there are few who refused to bow down to the construct though there are still those fighting for equality liberty and independence so firstly we have a Commonwealth which has enjoyed a thousand years of prosperity and harmony I will not let this Republic that has stood for a thousand years be split in two the Commonwealth is an old Republic which has been forced to disband and all of its supporters have gone underground to form some kind of rebellion or resistance against the new evil space government but again those are broad concepts let's get into the meat of the book the book begins with a graphic sex scene wow that's just like Star Wars - I mean I don't think I can even read like certainly not the first sentence or like much of this chapter without getting demonetised so I'm gonna hope that it's not super important to this story okay fortunately the first chapter is entirely italicized and also entirely a dream or a vision that our main characters having in her dreams our protagonist is connected to a dark evil man and this apparently happens regularly I have no words to describe him curling his thick dark wavy hair around my index finger I study him intensely he really is beautiful murderer assassin puppet he is all of these things but he is so much more I allow myself to drift back down into the silent waters of unconsciousness knowing I won't remember this when I wake okay so these dreams happen regularly but then she forgets them each time but then after she's back in the dream she remembers again that they have happened andr knows that she'll forget okay we're like five pages and I'm gonna worry about this later so it's time to meet our main character Reza or Raisa she is an orphan she actually originally grew up within the construct the evil space empire the construct laid waste to my home planet and murdered my mother and father I was taken and shoved into an orphanage on an outpost planet in the middle of nowhere left to rot with 30 or 40 other children until I reached what the construct elders termed a youthful age she's then put into a brainwashing program for her entire young life which they call conditioning I burped out their dictum every time it was required of me one life one Duty one construct then puberty that Molotov cocktail of hormones is enough to send any child crazy even a child who's been brainwashed once more they're coding started to make no sense why was it necessary to cleanse the dis corrective why was sterilization of the masses for the good of us all I didn't want to murder families in their beds I didn't want to raise cities to the ground if all it takes to snap out of it is puberty how do they have any troops left that was the first time I saw him Jass bail our the boy with the wild wavy hair and the dark soulful eyes I heard of him of course everyone had the construct found him alone on an abandoned planet living amongst the ruins of an ancient city billions of cycles old he is after a while rumors began to spread around the ship the construct was training Jaffe's training him in a way few others were trained and he was responding I guess jazz gets special training because he has magical powers but he is on the same ship as Raisa and their paths cross occasionally he must have been 17 then four cycles older than me in his body but light cycles older in his mind I didn't see him close again until I was 18 the final day I spent on the starship Invictus tell me about that last day Raisa tell me again about what happened with Jasper lar across from me and the rusting metal shack I now call home seared aureus sits with a nylon mesh mask covering his face ever since I found my way to Prius the seers have grilled me endlessly about jazz I don't know why they bother they're telepaths they can see inside my head as well as I can see the sun's overhead or the rolling sand dunes spreading out for miles and miles in every direction around us okay so she's on a sand planet with rolling dunes and multiple suns and there are seers guys in robes who can read minds I shrug it was like any other day until it wasn't we were on our way to the captains system the elders were planning on cleansing a small m-class planet called the DAR ax my favorite thing of any sci-fi book is the wacky names the Invictus was barely in range before a barrage of missiles were launched from the planet's surface we sustained critical damage to nearly every sector I seized my opportunity I ran for the hangar and I climbed into one of the emergency escape pods Jass bailar seize her from a distance and tries to stop her escape shuttle with telekinetic powers which I guess he has she also feels like he's trying to enter her mind but ultimately he just gives up I guess and she leaves suing this extremely natural scene rays that just happens to be telling her whole backstory to a random character and I guess she escaped the construct a few years ago and is no longer a soldier and now she lives on a planet whose name I got wrong I think I said Prius because it looks like Prius the car you know it's furious the perience the natives of the planet they live in tunnels underground Raisa just lives all alone on the surface darius straightens up shifting with meticulously slow considered movements he sighs heavily making his way toward the tattered cloth covering the entrance into my home I know I've been asking the same questions of you for a long time now child and I apologize for that he says over his shoulder I just had to get the exposition out of the way so you know how it is my people can glimpse into another's mind we can normally see visions of the future but ever since you landed here none of us have been able to see a thing we cannot reach inside your mind our cues from the future have all but disappeared oh not to sound evil but it kind of sounds like they should have immediately killed her you're a bright light blinding all of those who stand too close to you Darius miles before you arrived here a small part of your future was witnessed you and Josh you are one in the same a jolt of dread hammers through me I'm sorry the same I don't think so the same energy that runs through Josh's veins also runs through yours you can feel it when you close your eyes Raisa you know it exists there dormant and sleeping something inside me has always been Panoz awake I like this setup where they needed to have some kind of prophecy to inform her that she needs to bond with Josh Baylor but the author also must have realized that makes your story more difficult to navigate if your characters are all seen at all knowing so they had to write in this thing where these characters had been able to see the future until a point just prior to the story beginning so now we get a little Jaws perspective trying not to read someone's mind is like trying not to poke it up broken tooth much easier to go into someone's mind and simply pluck out the information you seek instead of wasting hours torturing it out of them oh so he's an interrogator and he uses telepathy to do it Joss is summoned by his superior a creepy old tall man named regis governor regis governor regis he has someone he wishes you to interrogate someone a commonwealth fighter he was found wandering out in the flatlands he was dehydrated and delirious but now he's recovered enough for questioning on the command deck Regis is waiting for me with a young man who's bent double at the waist and bleeding from the nose the Commonwealth fighter tries to shift back but Regis beckons a foot soldier to take him out at the knees the man hits the deck hard he knows something Regis says flicking his hand at the fighter get it out of him before he bleeds to death he marches out of the room as soon as the doors closed behind Regis I turned to the remaining men and stare at them my eyes sear into their skin I continue to stare until they slowly begin to back away and then hurry out of the room that's a neat trick the fighter says groaning he spits blood out onto the metal grating moody teenager wins staring contest oh so the resistance fighter that they recovered from out in the desert who's now going to be interrogated by the evil warlord boy is quippy and unintimidating so who talks first you tell first I tell first I'm not a teenager my voice is flat and even I wish someone would call kylo Ren a teenager like at least one time also based on him being called a teenager I'm starting to doubt the accuracy of our cover model the fighter laughs I was told very specifically about what was going to happen today and the story ended with me back in my own bed and you're prone to believing stories only when they're from a seer now it's my turn to laugh cold scathing unfeeling there are no more Sears fool they were wiped out cycles ago the galaxy's free of such nonsense now I take off my left glove first and then my right the fighters eyes widen but he doesn't shrink away he screams I get what I am looking for named Cole paka home planet pyrius cool the fighter looks up at me through wincing watering eyes and smiles you probably won't believe this either he says but the seer told me we were going to be friends good friends why don't you mean like in some kind of redemption or I placed my hands on him again me need to see more there is no glitch though there's no fault in his memories everything's stored within his head is real the seer is in long robes so nice there were long robes telling him of this precise moment the guards ticking Cole and bringing him right here to me and her he's seen her long brown hair tied back into a complexity of knots and braids dark eye is filled with determination and fire her lips blushed and parted her brow creased in confusion it's Raisa furious I've heard of it the sand that covers every last square click of the planet's surface oh they use clicks a mansell of the planet's crust is a honeycomb it's a nowhere planet unimportant and worthless she's like me of all the people in this godforsaken galaxy she is the only person I've ever looked in the eye and recognized in some way I read every move a bit faster through this we learn that jazz is addicted to something called the light which I guess in this universe is a drug that's just called the light forgive me I feel it again the culprit worked the way the light affects me nothing can compare my mind wanders to places and planets unknown to me I'm filled with power and perhaps the strongest during that time but I'm also incapable of reigning myself in his superiors give it to him in order to control him Oh while cole is mocking jos we find out that jess is wearing black boots black pants and a black cape to my infinite disappointment there's no indication that he's wearing a mask or a helmet or anything like that but you know that might come later so I guess jazz remembers the dreams too and he wants to get to Raisa but he could only do that with Cole's help so Jax is going to have this kind of Odd Couple adventure where he's going to help break coal out of the enemy ship and return him to his desert home planet sit down and strap yourself in I command stabbing my finger at one of the rear seats we don't have clearance to leave as soon as I power up the engines the flight crew will know something's up we're going to have to scramble you'll need a co-pilot then Cole says you need the pilot I need a pilot the intercom on the control panel buzzes and strikers voice floods the cockpit where do you think you're going with that prisoner jazz I've never liked Stryker the man was put in charge of my training by the order of the elders and ever since he's made it his personal mission to make me miserable keep me chained and compliant Stryker is a mean intimidating high-ranking officer in the construct military force and also in charge of training the different recruits and apparently differentiates his uniform from other people's uniform with gold metallic highlighting anyway Jasin cola escapes they damage some of the ships and the hangar bay on their way out and we're back to Raisa the Sears subsidy is much like the rest of the settlements on pyrius a network of underground tunnels and passageways that all twist and turn interconnecting and diverging over many miles protected from the persistent sandstorms that Buffett the planet's surface Oh buffer buffer I don't think the book has that right I think I had that right so I think that all purines are seers and that would mean the terms period and seer are interchangeable it's unclear Darius lumbers slowly through the passage way ahead of me seemingly unfazed by the close quarters they're moving her to live underground I guess an anticipation of Jos getting here but she's not happy about it because she's claustrophobic dangers approaching he won't be safe out there it was seen a long time ago before we lost our abilities the order in which Darius receives and divulges information is very mysterious to me we stopped having visions months ago but I'm telling you about it now and we're going to have danger here soon which I found out when I still had visions earlier so you're gonna move underground now I won't try and leave if what you're saying is true and Jass bail are is on his way to pyrius I don't want to be out there on my own the days ahead are uncertain Darius Muses quietly I mean they sound kind of conditionally uncertain Chancellor paka received many visions of this time before we lost our sight completely Oh convenient but there are many who don't trust in visions that are so old you are like Allen's raisa a black polished lens we can neither see through or around you conceal the timeline of our future and shield it from us so more like a wall then and then kind of not like a lens at all you are like a lens and opaque lens that's the color lenses never are which can't be seen through which would be the only function of a lens could it be that Jass isn't coming here anymore then darius makes a clicking sound at the back of his throat we sent Cole to retrieve him and guide him here so we will meet him on our own terms plus Chancellor pakka can still see jazz weight whites his life flickers in and out of you distorted by your lens so they don't have visions but they can see Jass but they can't see him clearly because Raisa is a lens which sometimes distorts things but most of the time can't be seen through it all it is like staring into deep water child when the water is calm the bottom of the ocean floor may be seen the sand the creatures living within the water but when the water is no longer calm stirred up by a ferocious whirlpool the sand clouds the water is ok are we using a lens metaphor or are we using an ocean metaphor like this is bold to put them in the same block of quotation there are troubled times approaching very troubled times indeed the power that explodes forth into the universe when you and Jaspal are made in the same location at the same time could be catastrophic for you for him for every living creature in this galaxy then why are they orchestrating it I don't need to be able to read your mind to know what you're thinking child Darius says you're wondering why we would have our man bring Joss here I guess Darius is speaking directly to me now it is not our place to try and redirect a stone once it is started rolling down a hill we're back to more metaphor there's a chance always a chance that the surge in power that arises from the strange connection between you and Jax could be used for good jazz bailar is the black moon hovering over the horizon Raisa you are a pale moon stark and silver there is a chance you will eclipse his shadow there is a chance he will eclipse your light we must see which one of you will rise well based on the title of the book ok so we had a lot of information as well as four different metaphors across two pages the rules of this universe are completely lost on me the seers can see the future except when they can't and sometimes their view is clear but other times they're wrong and jazz is a fish and Raisa is a lens or she is a storm in the ocean or sand which you can see the bottom through and the bottom of the ocean is destiny but Raisa is also a moon and Jass is also a moon he's a darker scarier moon and Raisa is a good mood and you don't eclipse shadow that's not a thing is it that's not how an eclipse works and if two moons are rising it's not a question of which one Rises it's which one is in front right okay anyway jazz is taking a nap I guess while he's in space flight flying away from the construct because suddenly we have another dream sequence so I guess Raisa is also asleep somewhere it's called just watching Josh sleep on the spaceship what's that five so this one is not as intense that's the first one we saw they're basically just using this dream scenario to have a little cuddle and re-establish the rules of the dream connection which is good because we haven't had enough exposition yet I've been dying for it why do you keep taking these memories from me I don't take them from you I never have you just never remember when you wake up I want you to remember this I say oh it's Jazz's perspective now out there in the waking world you're terrified of me her eyes grow wide this new revelation taking a while to sink in what are you going to do when you're finally in front of me jaws she asks we're not going to be friends I'm going to do anything and everything I can to avoid you at all costs I shrug one shoulder we'll cross that bridge when we come to it but I'm not worried okay good so Josh wakes up and pretty much immediately just reiterates that he has no plan but I guess he has to play by the commonwealth's rules and he can't kill Cole I felt the seers intent quite clearly when I ripped through Cole's mind the string of seers I will need to meet on my road to find a girl each one only in version of a snippet of the information I require to find her wow it sounds like he's about to live a similar experience to me reading the beginning of this book and if one of them has their mind taken against their will or finds that coal pakka is dead they kill themselves severing the chain I'll make them pay for inconveniencing me but when the time is right and not before this is a weird thing about the book which I haven't addressed yet I kind of intentionally skipped over it there is like a weird fixation on characters taking their own lives or trying to do so or threatening to do so as a means of leverage like I said I skipped it because it's it's kind of tasteless they talk about methods they talk about details but it is a major factor of raises backstory not in the sense that you're missing anything by not hearing about it because I don't think it alters the story by major I just mean that it was discussed a lot wasn't really in service of anything but the book brought it up again so there you go raises point of view Jass bail heiress here not close but somewhere on the planet I have to fight the extraordinary need inside me to bolt out of my window instead I lean over the side of my cot and throw up I've never known such a feeling of dread and apprehension before not like the one that coils itself into knots inside me like a pit of snakes right now snakes snakes are cannon hold on a second snakes confirmed we got I just truly feel at this point like snakes are the only constant in my life and I have to celebrate the little things so anyway it's probably not a great sign that raises vomits on the floor when her love interest is nearby but it's possible it's not even nerves it could just be that she experienced his rough landing through her bond like she was on some kind of simulator ride a young seer enters an apprentice not quite yet in possession of his sight you have been summoned he says softly avoiding making eye contact with me the council wishes to speak with you about a matter of great importance oh that's good for them that the seers have a counsel I get up already fully dressed sliding my feet into my boots and I follow behind the young apprentice Darius told me that his people used to live in cities and towns on the planet surface but many generations ago the Sears had visions of a terrible catastrophe they prepared by relocating underground a number of tables and chairs have been arranged around a central observation deck where three seers stand together staring up at the grand star map overhead a woman steps out of the shadows on the other side of the room Chancellor paka her white hair is heavily braided and her nose is high and unusually narrow for a seer that's a little load and Erica says in her rich raspy voice it's good to see you again Raisa I trust you know why you were summoned yes I know he just Baylor has arrived on the planet you sent your own son to bring him back here I didn't know Cole was completing solo missions for the Commonwealth as long as I've known Cole he's only ever wanted to be a pilot so we've just met the leader of the Commonwealth Erica pakka a woman with braided hair and a raspy voice and who is the adopted mother figure of a quipping pilot character who just escaped from the constructs ship it's not often were shown conflicting visions of the future Raisa before my sight vanished I saw the people of pure Ian period their planet is called pyrius whatever I saw great ships falling from the sky construct ships I saw a black moon floating out in space floating was it rising but then I also saw you here Raisa and I saw Jaspal artoo he was helping us I saw him help us defeat the construct we're aware of jazz's interest in you Raisa if he comes here there's a chance a very slim chance you might be able to convince him to work with us so the plan is just basically Raisa has to try to redeem Jaz presumably through flirting the time line is set everything will occur is it supposed to there is nothing to fear and once you have him I hesitate once Jass baler arrives here at the sub city what happens then all three of the seers turned to me they remain silent for far too long eventually Darius speaks and his words nothing to comfort me you will have to be ready to face him then Reza you will have to be the one to confront him and for that there are things you must learn my veins are suddenly filled with ice learn and what do you mean confront him I like this scene where I believe what's happening is everyone in the room understands that Raisa is basically expected to seduce the bad guy and none of them feel comfortable expressing it in so many words meanwhile Joss and Cole have made a sloppy landing on the planet's surface my eyes adjust slowly to the burning Suns overhead two of them I hadn't noticed this was a binary system on approach to the planet I wasn't paying attention Cole pakka stands over me you know you could use a haircut he remarks clearing his throat honestly I didn't think you'd have hair at all I expected you to look like an albino Ross tick so honestly I just skipped a lot I felt like there was like it was a lot of stagnation Joss was immediately tranquilized with a dart so he's now I guess Imperium custody we did have another dream sequence but so remember when Cole explained or Jass pulled from his thoughts or something that in order to get two arrays that he would have to basically play nice and go through a long chain of talking to people one after the other before he gets there I kind of thought this was just a long-winded explanation as to why he couldn't kill Cole and and quickly they would just skip to him being here but no it turns out they intend to I guess play out all of those conversations which is just kind of filler and not necessary for me to read out loud and like hyper aware of this cowlick happening on the back of my head but unaware of how to fix it so it's just gonna live there well that was a revelation so we're back to Raisa I can't do this I can't I just I'm not who you think I am I can't force people to bend to my will I'm just a girl who ran away from the construct the galaxy's full of people who ran away from the construct why should I be any different oh so maybe they do just lose a lot of soldiers to puberty Darius spins the staff he's holding around in his hand other people aren't special simply because they aren't special your special simply because you are I don't like that as far as sage wisdom goes well you're just a girl a simple girl there's something hibernating within you that makes you remarkable we need to awaken those skills and fast oh so they need to awaken some kind is already struck me with his staff twice on left side and once on my right I'm going to be black and blue and covered in bruises by the end of the day two days ago I spent two solid 18 hours with Erica practicing how to defend my mind a difficult task since Erica can't read me in the first place and so I left her sparse library feeling dissatisfied and anxious unsure if her training will actually accomplish anything when the time comes oh my god these people's plan is so bad in every way that it can be it can block most of Darius's attacks but it takes concentration to try and maintain the mental guard Erica taught me how to build at the same time facing someone like Joss Bale are someone who's been endlessly trained and honed into a deadly weapon I am going to die oh I forgot nobody's told poor Raisa that she's in a romance novel yet you don't have to fight baylor darius informs me however however i've created something for you a way out a safeguard in case the sand does end up shifting beneath our feet oh another sand metaphor but this time I think not sand that's in the ocean Darius reaches into his robes and withdraws something he opens his fist and in his palm a small black capsule oh I thought it was a lightsaber hilt or something but it's actually a toxic capsule night creeper he says gravely incredibly hard to come by even harder to diagnose impossible to cure you swallow this and there's no coming back for you child an awful sense of foreboding digs it's claws into my back if it's so deadly how is it possibly meant to keep me safe Baylor's hungry for something you must have something he needs Darius says but how can he claim it from you if you're no longer alive okay two things what did I just say about this books weird fascination with characters taking their own lives as some kind of power move - I thought this plan couldn't be any less of a plan but it somehow got worse so back to Jasper lar he is now meeting with another person in the chain so he can get to where Raisa is and in case the plan wasn't convoluted enough it changes again and jazz is now going to a different location it doesn't change the stakes at all it's just a weird thing that happens and that's life man we're met at the first sector by another Chancellor this time Cole's own mother she turns her smile on me her eyes crinkling at the corners I'm very glad you're here Joss I've been waiting a long time to meet you she places a hand on my shoulder but Neverland some kindness shining from her I saw what was going to happen here before I was blinded to the universe it made me hopeful I've been looking forward to this day for seven cycles I would be less uncomfortable right now if she were making threats to my life instead of looking at me like I am her own personal Savior I'm not sure what you saw but time must have warped your visions Chancellor I'm here for Raisa Erica nothing more nothing less she promised me an audience she also promised me she'd submit herself to me the moment I discovered she wasn't true to her word when she promised these things though to be fair I could have been in the dream sequence that I skipped seems to me like the periods are making a lot of promises but unless he's trying to hold something that occurred in a dream to be a promise in the real world and in that case how was he gonna sell that to these people that don't know about the dreams then like where is he coming from raises an honest person she keeps her promises she also swore she'd take her own life if you didn't conduct yourself civilly you have no reason to doubt her she's right I don't I knew she meant it didn't see it as an act of cowardice it was an act of bravery on her part where she took control back from the construct what is with these people what is with this author it's my real question I already said I was uncomfortable with how often this theme crops up but do we really need a bit of dialogue where the hunky romantic lead contemplates how believes Raisa would take the poison capsule and that in fact he would respect her for it just seems irresponsible raises point of view my heart's stumbling around the inside of my chest I stand on the other side of the door my head bowed the tips of my fingers numb if I don't manage to make some sort of headway here with Jass the construct will arrive in time for the next double Eclipse and they'll eradicate this outpost there will be so much death and destruction Jass will become unstoppable force of evil in the galaxy another typo jaws will rise to power and madness he won't let them kill me he'll harness the energy inside me and use it to control me I'll be his slave doomed to carry out his bidding trapped inside my own body unable to prevent the death that will befall so many worlds I will kill over and over again and I'll be unable to look away okay um where is she getting any of this like literally all of that was news to me I did not know that harnessing her energy was within his power or coal my friend for the last seven cycles places a hand on my back rubbing in small circles I like how we've seen no interaction between these characters and this is their way of like showing us seven years of friendship she just goes he's been my friend for seven years and we're supposed to go okay I'm on board I can come in with you if you like he offers I've kind of gotten used to him over the last few days there's a trick to dealing with him don't show him your fear he's like a blood horse if he knows you're intimidated by him he'll discount you right out of hand oh that is like a blood horn honestly I really don't mind coming in with you if you like Cole's kind smile says he means it I'll be okay I think I hope I take a deep breath hand pressed lightly on the ready rooms access panel oh cool they opened their doors using access panels a boy no a man sits in a chair he's alone his mop of dark hair waves wildly all over the place thick and untamable his eyes are dark to dark brown like molten chocolate flecked with gold and caramel warm very intense beneath his eyes along arrow-straight nose and full lips that are pressed together his cheekbones are high higher than they normally would be on a boy but they somehow suit him his face is all angles severe yet soft at the same time you're exactly as I remember Josh says quietly your hair your eyes your freckles that birthmark on your shoulder he points to the small mark that indeed sits upon my right shoulder you look nothing like I remember I fire back I seem to recall being terrified of you on that ship you look fairly harmless to me now though it's foolish to tell him he looks harmless his shoulders are broad his chest packed with muscle his hands resting in front of him on the tables surface palm down are strong and capable his dark eyes are sharp and focused studying and assessing you're still the constructs plaything you still hurt people and caused them to suffer you're a faceless monster a night terror a dark ghost Josh's eyes glitter with some unknown emotion he shrugs his right shoulder only as you say Nicole mere monster [Music] yes I am are you trying to claim my energy is that it you've gone to all this trouble to find me because he want to drain me until I'm dead yes she's really on the him stealing her energy thing I don't really know where it came from yes I'm interested in your energy he confesses I don't want to drain it from you though I'm far more interested in what could be accomplished if we were to combine our energies together voluntarily I want you to join me we can rule together and bring a new order to the galaxy you see your mind has high walls Raisa he tells me airily but I can still get inside stubborn though you are your powers to raw untamed and untrained he's strong with the force untrained but stronger than she knows raises fleas in um I guess just comfort and then Erica shows up and just starts berating her about the Jazza ship not being Canon yet you need to go back in there you need to convince him did you try and enter his mind like we practiced Erica paces up and down beneath the canopy of stars projected high overhead on the caverns roof wringing her hands there's so little time Raisa we're working against the clock I saw the attack happening Darien and double Eclipse the next double eclipse to occur takes place in less than a month I know this is far from easy but the galaxy hangs in the balance so I'm just gonna say it this book has been 80% characters expositing and explaining the consequences of things they need to do and 15% Jass and Raisa interacting sexily in dreams and like 5% Jass and Raisa interacting in real life I'm sorry I know what a daunting task this must seem Raisa I know you're trying to meet the challenges we've set you head on I apologize for the burden we've placed on your shoulders this is all a lot - Wow Erica's powers must be back because she just read my mind Raisa is in another dream we never see the characters going to bed they just manifest in dreams and we go oh they must be asleep I have sand in my eyes a storm is building on the horizon and for some reason I'm walking toward it my shirt is slick with sweat my muscles protesting as I steadily climb up the tallest dune I have ever seen I don't drink it don't pause I don't rest I push onward through the sand wrapping my head in a scarf as the winds start to pick up and grains of sand begin to buff at my face o Buffett are you sure it's not a buffer in your face took you long enough a voice says I don't panic when jaws rises my fear is there like a fire raging beneath a blanket and yet I don't really feel it it comes back to me slowly all of the times I've met with him like this before so many times he's kissed me he's held me he's oh okay I have to say every time something sexually explicit happens or the characters even cuss I feel newly surprised because otherwise this book puts out such strong why a novel energy you must have thought it was hilarious sitting in there across from me in that room with me not remembering any of this I mutter not particularly I wanted to touch you I wanted to kiss you you'd have had me shot I lift my chin in defiance staring right back at him refusing to look away I'm an orphan I have no heritage no home I have no wealth and no power no place in my story you come from nothing you know but it would be a mistake to underestimate me I fight hard when I'm backed into a corner a flicker of amusement passes over his face I've entertained him but who said anything about fighting I'm no fool Jass you want my energy I feel like this energy stealing concept was probably decided early on in the author's mind like she knew it was there and then perhaps just forgot to include it in this draft or at least to set it up and now we're just seeing the remnants of it later in this story and we don't know where raised I got this idea she hasn't seen Josh do this to anyone we haven't heard mention of it Raisa didn't even understand that she wasn't completely normal until like a week ago when Darius told her she's just been training to use her powers so I don't know how she would suddenly reframe it into the idea that she has energy that it can be stolen and that Joss wants to steal it and that that's a power that he has you're a murderer you've killed of people motor snake jaws smiles an odd twisted smile that contorts his features there will always be those with power and those without it so can we talk a minute about these dreams jazz always remembers them when he wakes up but Raisa never does but when Raisa enters the dream she begins to remember the previous dreams but it takes a minute except in some dreams like the one we've just seen she does remember eventually that there have been other dreams and I suppose she remembers the events from within those dreams but she doesn't empathize with her mindset and doesn't understand why she was in love with him in the other dreams almost as if she's just a new person being informed of old events without living through them and so in those dreams she is immediately distrustful of jazz but in other dreams she kind of picks up where she's left off and is just his loving girlfriend but regardless she remembers nothing when she wakes up and then it's like back to square one the next time also it's always confusing when the dreams begin because they happen about every other chapter and you never see the characters actually going to bed or understand how the story got from where it was in the last scene to the characters sleeping peacefully in a bed because this has been a very tumultuous story so far Jaffe's wakes up in a guest room I guess that they've given him the dream was different this time hard to initiate and then out of control I would have liked to stay longer but her retreat made it impossible to hold the strands of the dream state together without my own mind buckling under the strain now that we're in such close proximity she's much stronger than she knows stronger than she knows I lie in the dark for an hour or more listening to the dreams of the people sleeping close by marveling at how obliviously they traipse through the experience barely even participating in the journey their subconscious takes them on things could be so different for them revenge could be one success could be achieved anger could be a suede sexual desires could be fulfilled and yet none of these people are aware that they can take the reins and control their night Time misadventures Jazz's just every dude on reddit who wants to brag about how he lucid dreamed one time after a while I sends an irregularity amongst all the slumbering minds someone else is awake I throw the sheets back on my cot I pulled my clothes on and shoved my feet inside my boots eventually my walk leads me to a dark dry cavern just like the old chapel back on the nexus this place feels sacred they called this the reckoning hall a voice says the man who's been waiting for me steps in division a long staff propped gracefully over one shoulder so it's Darius this is his first scene with Joss and he immediately observes that Jass is in the early stages of light withdrawal Jazz's source of the light is back at the construct so now that he's been away it's starting to take a toll on him and he tried to bring some of the light with him but he lost his bag in the shipwreck my hands are trembling my mind has been so filled with thoughts of Reza that it's been relatively easy to put aside my body's increasing need for light I won't be able to ignore it soon though my addiction will come calling and I'll have to pay heed to it Darius smirks would you consider yourself a man of honor jazz he asks I suppose so I say whatever that's worth it's worth a lot down here your word your honor is your only currency I don't need currency down here stranger I can take whatever I want you know I can take whatever I want I can help you I'm an expert healer there isn't a compound in this galaxy I can't cure you of it'll take a number of days and you'll have to be compliant but it can be done you'll be free of the yoke hanging around your neck and all I ask in return his words have jarred me thrown me made me shut down I don't want his help I don't need it I can handle this on my own I should rip his head off his shoulders right where he stands I'm vibrating chittering out of control perhaps you're not ready to have this conversation after all Darius says softly he reaches out in places a hand on my shoulder I'm sure I'll see you soon he tells Darrius seems to waver a little and then The Reckoning Hall is melting I throw a hand out trying to grab ahold of Darius's staff again but my fingers grasp at thin air Darius is gone I'm alone in the blackness and I can't move i jolt awake with a start my heart hammering like a piston inside my rib cage hell's I wiped the sweat from my brow with the already soaked sheet that covers me I believed I'd climbed out of my bed and gone to Darius I believed I'd been awake how could he be that strong the anger that rises up in storms inside me is unparalleled he thinks about how he hates being here and wants to just grab Raisa and go I could lock her out of her own body make sure she can't move a muscle an inch can't even blink her eyes all of that is within my power but he won't because he has a crush on Raisa and she'd be mad if he did that Raisa says I wake to the sound of bells and the sensation of a thousand ton weight pressing down on my chest the dream comes flooding back to me and then many more dreams many many more what the I've been to him before for oh no it's been this way for cycles they call years cycles by the way of all of horror slams into me when I remember our past exchanges as H dream comes jolting back to me I want to die I have no idea why this is happening now I just ran over the whole dream dynamic in my head and that was all useless because the dreams are I guess over now and she just remembers everything I can't deny that like this is funny what's happening but why like why have her not remember in the first place if she's going to then start to remember everything after only one confrontation in real life where she didn't remember it didn't really contribute any tension because it ended so quickly anyway when Raisa leaves her room everybody in the underground city is freaking out and running through the halls this sound of running boots and strained voices flood the hallway outside my room as a handful of people hurry by a hundred bodies are packed tightly together where the sides of the panel form a bottleneck and a whaling woman with the child in her arms collapses to the ground disappearing beneath the crash stop ice cream someone fell someone went down wait your turn we'll all get through it if you just wait when he looks at me his eyes glaze over and he releases me though shaking his hand out his mouth hangs open slack and he falls still so Raisa appears to have just done a Jedi mind trick on this guy which I guess is part of the power set we still haven't gotten an explanation as to why but Raisa is suggested to be claustrophobic so this is a bad situation for her everybody's packed in the tunnel it could become dangerous fortunately she runs into Joss who they still act really confrontational toward each other and so her remembering the dreams didn't really change anything I guess that's just because like it's hotter if they argue despite her now remembering that they've been brain dating for like seven years just links down at me he's a classically handsome by any stretch of the imagination but the knife straight strong line of his nose lends his features solidity the High pronounced line of his cheekbones tempers that offering a softness in return his full mouth is expressive the Cupid's bow that forms his upper lip perfect in its line and his eyes so mercurial and volatile calm one moment wild an extreme and their beauty the next are more than a little distracting he's fascinating to look at whatever his mood but worryingly he is that his most breathtaking when he's angry I like how this is in the middle of like kind of an action scene and we're just getting like our third very long paragraph describing his hotness to us as though she's never laid eyes on him before people of pure iasts we're grateful you have been able to join us here today we are aware that this event wasn't supposed to happen for another six days however as you know the timeline of the West sector developed rather dramatically last night Darrius stands in the Dyess a mournful look on his face the cardiac failure Erica and many of her close friends foresaw in her future a long time ago did not come to pass at some point last night someone broke into Erica's rooms and stabbed her in this stomach with a ceremonial blade she didn't seek help she used the minute she had left to write a letter to her son followed by a letter to you her people wait what an assassin stabbed Erica literally six days before she had foreseen her own death anyway and while she was bleeding out she had time to sit down and penned multiple letters not one but two letters and the assassin I guess just didn't stop her again he just stabbed her once and then left without checking to make sure she was going to die and she did not bother to include in either of those letters the identity of her attacker and for that matter if she knew she was going to die in six days shouldn't she have just already written the letter her school stands in the center of the Dyess and carefully tears open the small white scroll of people the small white scroll of people he's holding in his hands found another typo friends I have anticipated the arrival of this day for half a lifetime I've had a long time to consider the words I will leave behind to guide you and yet now at the hour of my death they seemed insufficient for the past 43 cycles and has been my how long is this letter okay this letter is two pages long Darius steps forward and raises his hand urging the periods to calm themselves since Chancellor paka departed us earlier than expected we've not had time to accept nominations for her successor what again she only died six days early really cutting it down to the wire there aren't you guys somebody's like Chancellor Ferran but we're vaguely informed that Chancellor Ferran is evil in part because his name is Chancellor Ferran and that just sounds evil but then Darius is like no he's not eligible to run anyway he already runs another sector and it's like okay cool paka paka is going to run for office and okay and here's the deal I am trying to engage with this book on its own terms and even within the context of the book I could not care less who gets to be Chancellor of pure we're now over halfway our power couple have not even kissed in real life yet and they haven't even left the planet to be in the proximity of Snoke who I assume they have to kill for this story to conclude because that's the big bad guy and by Snoke I mean Regis basically at this point I'm accepting that this is clearly a book one in a series because there's too much they haven't touched yet but I'm not happy about it Jasin raised the reconvene in another scene that was directly after the previous scene time just means nothing in this book perhaps she's been able to sense the agony burning inside me perhaps she's been able to detect just how much I've been suffering over the past two days from the light withdrawal I look at Raisa and she gives me a knowing look that makes my teeth hurt it's a rude awakening that my secrets might not be safe I haven't had to erect high walls around my mind for as long as I've served the construct no one has been capable of looking inside my head the elders assumed I was the only person left in the galaxy capable of such a thing wait but seers can look into people's minds and there's a whole planet of them or I guess they can't now because raises around actually I have this new head Canon that that's a coordinated lie that they're all as a society telling to raise up like if an alien came to earth I would totally be like oh yeah we all knew you were coming usually humans can see the future and read minds and fly but for some reason when you're here it doesn't work well it's crazy you must be Bloch he dies I turned my attention to Raisa what do you remember of your home planet she blinks at me confused I remember nothing I was only seven when the car struck the people what do you know about them you wanna know the truth about your parents have you always known you just hidden it away you know the truth raises face crumples I don't know nothing really raises says the only thing she remembers about her people is that every seven years they worshipped a blood son what a goodly I leaned across the table focusing all of my attention on Raisa her hair is sandy brown but more interesting than that shot through with gold and silver as if it's woven from fine precious metals her long wispy fringe is very pale bleached by the sun's though it looks as though it's been kissed by moonlight instead the freckles scattered across the slender bridge of her nose are delicate and faint but they lend her a girlish quality that makes her look younger than she really is this isn't going anywhere Cole says thank you Cole go on then I tell him gesturing to the door with a flick of my wrist will continue on without you I'm sure Raisa will give you the cliff notes once you wait a second wait wait the cliff notes is Cliff's Notes cannon in the black moon rising universe they have dune dogs rah sticks and blood horses but they also have snakes and cliff notes he's the name of the cliffnotes brand like based on a military expression like you get down from the cliff and they're like give me the report give me your cliff notes I'm gonna look it up okay I looked it up and no cliff notes are called cliff notes because the guy that founded it was named Clifton and they were his notes so I guess Clifton Hill a gasps of Nebraska is cannon to the black moon rising universe Cole spins around and heads for the door obviously seething angling her head and tilting her chin there's a defiant fire burning inside rays as she stares me down okay we're alone how about we stop with the games why are you asking me about my home planet you and I are more alike than I first thought this connection between us it's not some random accidental thing it's far more than that I've had my theories about Raisa for a very long time now but verifying them has turned my head upside down we're not just similar it's no miracle that you can resist me where others can't your ability to reach down the tether that connects us in the same way I can is no fluke we are the same Raisa we both hail from the same planet we are the last remaining true survivors of Earth I mean of course because those are all things Earthlings can do you were there the whole time he whispers softly you were here right underneath my nose I wasn't alone I wasn't alone neither you with that he topples sideways from his chair eyes rolling back into his head completely out cold okay so jaws has collapsed from light withdrawal and he gets taken to Darius who starts treating him for it which I think just entails like putting an IV drip in his arm and waiting for him to sleep it off so that plot detour didn't really matter either I mean it did eat up several chapters and there was a dream sequence in the middle so you also might recall that Darius had offered to treat him for this earlier in exchange for something and Joss neither found out what that thing was nor agreed to the deal but that also didn't matter because Darius is just helping him now anyway oh oh this is important Evil Chancellor Ferran who wasn't eligible to run for office is just running for office anyway and only the top brass know that Jaspal r is Josh Baylor everyone else just thinks he's like some guys visiting I guess so Raisa reads Chancellor Farren's mind to discover that for some reason Chancellor Ferran hates Jass and wants to reveal his identity and he's decided he's going to do that in his victory speech if he wins the election it's a lot of ifs like why doesn't he just do it if he wants to do it why hasn't he done it sooner but whatever we need to add some stakes to this election somehow he was like kind of a dumb way to use your victory speech though like that's your time it should be about you and then Ferren wins the election obviously I thought Ferran couldn't legitimately win I hiss to Darius he can't he answers at least he shouldn't be able to but in this case it looks like the people that have spoken oh cool what is their government who's running the place why are all their plans so bad why don't any of laws matter I hold my breath waiting for Ferran to speak the words that will spell disaster for these people to tell the Assembly that they have had Jass bail are in their midst for nearly two weeks now two weeks you know what fine I couldn't stop him I wouldn't have to do it with my hands tackling him and dragging him from the Dyess I could slip oh so quietly into his mind and I could prevent him from even forming the words better yet I could remove the knowledge that Joss has even here at all you should do that invading someone's mind goes against everything I believe in but I have to try I reach out with my mind searching hunting for a way inside Farren's mine I haven't got the first clue how to proceed i fumble blindly hunting for the information I need to steal from the new chancellor of the first sector his dark eyes glaze over and he takes an unsteady step backward looking around the hall he's discovered me so Raisa fails but then that doesn't matter because Jos standing elsewhere in the crowd now out of his sickbed I guess just does it for her so it's fine raise the fumbles around inside Farren's head essentially tripping all over the furniture and that's when Ferren senses her resolve pours off him in waves as chancellor of the sector he can have her cast out banished he wants to make her suffer for trying to invade his mind though he wants to make her pay before sending her out to die of thirst on the surface I react I don't even think about it i barge my way into Farren's head and the action is as simple as opening up a door I've done nothing to camouflage myself I want him to know I'm inside his head and I want him to understand I can end his life right now if I want to I could force him to stop breathing and he would suffocate in front of everyone they wouldn't be able to save him they wouldn't be able to push the oxygen into his lungs if I didn't allow it oh that's a unique application for his power of telekinesis so then even though he thinks all that instead of wiping Farren's mind or killing him jos decides to just go inside his mind so he knows that he could and then back off you know the safest way to deal with your enemies making them feel backed into a corner and afraid of you and making them hate you more and then doing nothing to stop them from being a threat in the future a new residue it's night I guess and for once we aren't getting a shared dream sequence I can feel that he is awake what are you doing the words are marred slightly distorted but I hear them perfectly well inside my head Jack's out get out of my head good oh okay so this is like a waking version of the shared dreams so it's kind of the same thing I need sleep Joss please don't do this again you're just as restless as I am you can feel it too I'm feeling the connection falls dead like a damaged comms radio blasting nothing but quiet static through its speakers Oh a comms radio rap rap rap I freeze the gentle knocking was quiet but it might as well have been a series of deafening explosions I know who it is it better be Joss laying down a sick beat in the hallway he stands there wearing a pair of those loose black pants and nothing else his chest is bare his feet are bare his hair is rumpled curling everywhere in a shock of dark waves that frame his face in the most fascinating distracting way he towers over me the soft subdued light pours over Jazz's shoulders and down his right arm like honey turning his pale skin to gold I don't look at his chest I don't look at the beautifully carved muscle or the defined lines that mark out each of his abs you came half-naked on purpose the man looks darned good in the plain black shirts he's been wearing but he's something else without them his arms are corded and powerful muscle knitted around even more muscle he would probably be a formidable foe even if he didn't possess the ability to control people's thoughts and actions I feel like at this point you need to formally have like an mla citation of Rian Johnson in your book before you can proceed what follows is um not really within my pg YouTube parameters so I never knew a person could be so conflicted being with Joss is like drowning and floating off into oblivion all at once it's burning up and freezing I can't wrap my head around it I know I shouldn't want him but every cell in my body screams otherwise it oh maybe not Jess's hair tumbles into my face as he leans down to kiss me and my heart races away from me he's dope nope okay this is not what the force is for you guys okay so raise the wakes up the next morning Jass is already gone somewhere hammering on the door loud abrasive annoying coal what a pleasant surprise the man stands on the other side of the door Harold must on one side presumably from where he was sleeping on it Jass didn't sleep in his bed last night coal rushes out his bed was untouched his shirt was lying on the floor along with the rest of his clothes my cheeks are on fire and the burn is creeping down my neck he hasn't left the sub City I say swallowing hard okay so raise that just miraculously avoids having to explain what happened last night Cole says that Chancellor Ferran is like on the warpath now that he's in charge and that they're not safe we have to find Jass Cole says rubbing his hands over his face I never thought I'd say this but maybe it's better if we give fair and what he wants if we leave no one will come to any harm I love that like why now and again if they were going to just call it a wash and leave why did the election or in fact most of the book matter at all but I think what's really happening is the author is like deciding that it's time to wrap this story up so she's like okay get him off planet we locate him in the communications Hall alone which is strange Jaffe's it's the control desk at the very front of the hall had bent over the screen Cole hurries across the hall and stands behind jaws peering over his shoulder what have you done to the screen that's not a standard readout I fixed it improved it now you can track in hyperspace jaws Huff's heavily down his nose as he finally turns his gaze to me you look tired do you sleep well I'm fairly confident my blush covers my whole body at this point still haven't mastered the art of lying I see he muses you could learn a thing or two from me if you'd only spend some more time with me I could show you the ways of the force Sirius refuses to come with us he claims he needs to stay in order to keep Ferran in line cool I'm glad that all happened off-screen it sounds like it wasn't important at all the people of pyrius rarely leave the surface of the planet so it's a miracle Cole even managed to salvage the rusting dented beat-up vessel the o.r axises thrusters are filled with sand and the ancient paint job is so sandblasted and eroded that it's impossible to tell what colors originally marked the metalwork wow it sounds like a piece of junk God thing will never get us through the atmosphere josh says bluntly he kicks at the hole with the toe of his boot I've seen some Junkers in my time but this is beyond the pale a little over an hour into our flight Cole receives a transmission from the surface of periods notice henceforth the ship or axis and its occupants will not be granted permissions to port of pyrius construct leaders have been informed of Jass Baylor's last-known whereabouts we assume they will be tracking your vessel shortly grand elder Ferran I scanned the message twice over just to make sure I'm reading it right grand elder Ferran since when does pyrius have a grand elder cold glares at the pixels in front of him utterly dumbstruck not for centuries before the subsidy was divided up and a duly appointed seer took over administration of each sector only one seer ruled the entire city a grand elder it was later decided that a council of leaders would prevent corruption and Aden diplomacy efforts between the quarreling families spread across the sub city though that was a long time ago cool I'm glad we're finding out this important backstory of pyrius on page 328 also I've noticed the author frequently does a thing where characters will say a line of dialogue and it will end with comma though and it happens in narration and across the speech patterns of many different characters so you know that's a thing that like an editor would have seen but Cole speculates that darris is probably now a political prisoner and possibly going to be killed so cool various good job staying behind and keeping Ferran in line a Plus plan on your part will Regis be able to track the o.r axis through hyperspace I am sorry that's a good sentence file rises to the back of my throat at the very thought of the construct the Nexus has been a ground bass since its completion but it does have flight capabilities no doubt a solid portion of its structure would be heavily damaged by uprooting it from its foundations on daya racks but Regis wouldn't give that a second thought if striker was whispering sweet nothings into his ear about victory nice some more exposition about a ship that's a large ground bass but can turn into a flying vessel but the dot is unprecedented so I'm sure that will never come back and we'll never see that happen they will find us from the back of the ship Jass raises his voice I thought he'd gone into the back sleeping quarters and passed out considering how quiet he's been no Reza we'd have a dream chapter if that happened what kind of weapons system does this ship have I asked none this craft was used solely for leisure tours not fighting oh my god even Star Tours has guns on the vehicles don't they have space pirates in this universe Josh sighs getting to his feet he reaches into his pocket and draws something out tossing it to Coll something small black and cylindrical he's just another poison capsule a day to stick Oh huh you don't say a data stick plug the coordinates stored on there into the nav systems they'll take us somewhere close somewhere safe cool angles his sensor array and on it a sea of construct targets all headed our way the Nexus he says grimly they didn't just bring out the big guns they brought out their biggest so yeah you remember like two pages ago when they set up that the large base the Nexus was also a ship and that it could leave its foundation yeah I'm shocked too that it came back around and so soon as well they're not following Cole shouts over the roar of the ship's engines oh no wait yes they are Cole of course they're following that curved my hands around races face lifting her chin so that she's looking up at me she was angry before tense and stressed now she's just afraid it's going to be all right her eyes are bright why but unafraid uh can you take it from me she replies can you take all of the energy from me and still leave me alive even if it is possible for me to siphon energy from Raisa I know with a certainty that I wouldn't be able to take it all there'd be nothing left I shake my head it doesn't matter I won't do it isn't that why you've chased me down your desire for more power if I offer it freely you'll be unstoppable you'll be able to put an end to regis and striker once and for all okay gonna run down my questions really quick one has Jass ever siphoned power from anyone before to know that that is a thing he can do - how did raise it become convinced of this concept three how does he know he'd have to take it all once you engage a hyperdrive and breach faster than light travel you remain at a constant speed until you disengage the drive if we entered hyperspace before the construct the distance between us should remain the same until one or both of us drop back into normal space the construct have somehow developed a technology far beyond that of hyperdrive how long until we reach our target I yell four minutes 37 seconds can you open the cargo bay doors with the drives engaged Cole looks at me like I've lost my mind he'll know the atmosphere will be ripped straight out of the ship none of the seals will hold under such a drastic pressure change and at these speeds the ship will break the part I grind my teeth together never mind when I give you the command you open them I'll keep us alive I point to the Tower of crates stacked in the cargo hold the same crates I was sitting on just now open them up take the lids of five of them at least Raisa does what I've asked she falters when she rips the lid off the first crate and she sees what's inside glowing blue plasma shells designed for the sole purpose of refilling phase rifles at least a hundred of them very safe when in there sealed cartridges but when exposed to immense heat and pressure wait so if this is a pleasure cruise and it's not even equipped with like external cannons why does it just happen to be carrying hundreds of guns I open up the red box on the wall and rifle through its contents until I find what I'm looking for a med scanner the smallest electrical charge that's all I need the med scanner will be enough to provide the spark and the plasma shells will do the rest all these macgyvering pieces might have been more interesting if they had been mentioned even in passing at any time before when I tell you Oh the cargo hold doors I'll send the crates in the Med scanner out into the path of the Nexus once they're clear of us I'll trigger the scanner hopefully the blast will be closer to the Nexus than it is to us take a deep breath I yell once the doors are open the oxygen inside the ship will evacuate don't try and hold the breath if you do your lungs will explode just let it out slowly a little at a time one continuous stream understand I don't know enough about space or biology to know if any of this checks out but I also don't really care this is kind of an exciting climax to the book so I'll take what I can get you know how long can a human survive in space without a suit she asks 90 seconds but don't worry we only need to make it 30 I hit the comms panel on the wall and give the order open the door Cole do it now I closed my mind around the outer hull locking it tightly in place behind us the crates and debris from inside the ship have been pushed away from us by the pressure of the atmosphere leaving the o.r axis but they're still traveling through hyperspace at a constant speed you know what sure out of the corner of my eye something snags at my attention Raisa she's no longer strapped into her harness she's grasping hold of the bench her hands white with the effort her body stretching out toward the open cargo door Jass her voice is frantic inside my head the harness stepped I can't hold on well for God's sake Reza I thrust out my other hand grappling hold of Ray's out with my mind it's now like a comedy of errors Jass is still holding his breath he's trying to track the Med scanners location he's holding on to raise it with the force and physically holding the entire ship together with his mind it happens very quickly I have hold her in my mind one second and then she's being ripped away from me I don't even see the container tearing free from the wall and hurtling toward her I jump as the large metal lockbox crashes into Reyes's body sending her flying from my grasp out into hyperspace oh my god I didn't realize I was kind of rooting for their love until 10 different things were trying to kill them simultaneously raises perspective I managed to keep myself from expelling the remainder of my oxygen as I heard a lot of the open cargo doors and I'm just sitting here like has it not been 90 seconds yet I am going to die and the very last thing I see burned into the very foundations of my salt is the look of horror on Jesse's face he's on his feet and moving before I can blink his hand is reaching out to me his fingers splayed his eyes shining bright with determination his boots are planted firmly on the deck of theö axises cargo bay his clothes flap and snap around him and his hair swirls and dances around his face but his body remains locked in place unmoving and strong that's actually a cool visual put that one in the trailer for sure I can't hold my breath anymore against all odds I mean pulled back toward the oh axis I don't think I'm going to make it though I don't think I can my lungs are screaming for oxygen I need to take a breath I'm almost at the mouth of the cargo hold when I noticed how badly Joss is shaking he's fighting harder than I've ever seen him fight before he's trying to save me he's still keeping the ship from splintering apart in hyperspace yeah he's presumably holding the crates in his face uh-huh and he's also holding himself in place to rooting himself to the deck his grip on me loosens and Josh slides forward his boots skidding across the grating three feet closer to the open cargo doors he's not going to be able to save himself and me and the damage to the Nexus blow the crates I tell him and this now now you like five seconds from the door and not blowing anything until you're back on the ship do the right thing Joss it's time just take my energy you'll be strong enough to face the construct on your own I lower the shields that have protected me from him I let them fall and it's the last thing I do yeah I guess raisa just died in front of us I feel like the description of the action and the pacing of this climactic scene are so much more polished and good than the entire rest of the book it definitely seems like this was imagined and written first and then the rest of the book had to be written around it to get them here I actually feel a bit cheated when I can see how the author is capable of writing when she's not bogged down by trying to reacquaint Star Wars to me to justify her fanfic it's like to be honest I've really enjoyed these last couple chapters they're flowing very nicely some good visuals some real tension anyway I think we have like a dozen pages left so let's keep at it oh I'm sorry to pause there I hope you're not stressing you guys out I I highly doubt that raisin just she died races mine shuts down and opens itself to me all at once the energy inside me acts of its own accord reaching out for the energy that exists within her and the two threads of power twined together twisting into one unbreakable rope feeding back into me raises body flies back toward the O axis crashing through the cargo doors as soon as she clears the open second door airlock I accessed the ship's systems and the heavy steel doors slammed closed get ready to cut the hyperdrive I shout so now we're back in business it actually did work to give him a lot of power I cast out my mind hunting for the Med scanner it only takes a thought to create the spark I need the O axis lurches surging forward so he ignites the crates with his mind and then they cut the hyperdrive so they drop out of hyperspace but the explosion is happening in hyperspace so it only effects the enemy ship I think we made it coal sounds even more shocked than I am I'm by races side in the blink of an eye fingers searching for a pulse in her throat her skin is ashen her lips tinged a whirring shade of blue her skin is as cold as ice okay I think I was wrong I think president actually appears to be dead so sorry if she dies I will be true to my word I will travel the length breadth and width of the galaxy until there isn't a single life-form left breathing I will exact my infinite grief on every one I find this is my reservation about redemption arcs explicitly tied to romance stories if you redeem someone with your love I guess that's cute but if that person tells you in no uncertain terms that you or has one tenuous link to redemption and then if anything happens to you he's going to go into the galaxy on an indiscriminate murder spree that kind of sounds like you failed to redeem him and that's not a happy story I can't keep a hold on it anymore I mentally cut the ropes I've been trying to lash the power down with and it surges out of me like a river of white light it strikes again and this time it hits Ray's his lifeless body something clicks in my head this is how it was meant to be how it was always meant to be one person isn't strong enough to house the entirety of a force like this Raisa and I are counterweights balancing each other out slowly the darkness that claimed breezes mine begins to retreat pulling back inch by inch jazz I in my eyes and Cole's faces in mind urgency contorting his features I hate to interrupt with the Nexus it wasn't destroyed not totally they just dropped out of hypertrophy you thought the book was over but just like Raisa its lifespan has been unnaturally prolong okay so they make it to the moon they were heading toward but then the construct starts firing on them and now the ship is failing too late for emergency measures prepare for impact jeff says we'll separate from the ship as soon as we're lower than 4,000 feet and then the ejecta feature fails so they're not going to eject just everything is failing and then we also find out that Geoff's can't help them with his force powers because they have arbitrarily been drained by the quantity of stuff he did with them before there is no gravity on Archimedes none whatsoever the Nexus can fly all the way down to the surface they'll be landing right on top of us gods why did you bring us here jazz this was the worst idea possible Jastas eyes have glossed over he looks distant strange this was as good a place as any Regis would have caught up with us no matter what no matter how far we ran or where we ended up we'll be able to set down and surrender without anyone else losing their lives sorry it says loosing their lives I was taken out of the twist by another typo Cole stops moving he looks like he's just been stung by quite some kind of blood wasps you brought us here so we could give ourselves over to the construct the or axis slows smoothly as Jeff lowers the controls pushing them in and down to manage our landing his actions are calm and confident unhurried as if he was never struggling to control the ship in the first place as if I shiver horror crawling over my skin as if he was in perfect control all along no this is the problem with you people he says stiffly you keep telling me how good I am that I'm better but the problem is I'm not I'm exactly who I am and have always been Jasper lar I'm the bad guy Reza and bad guys do bad things Jos must have been hurt earlier when he was fighting to pull me back in from hyperspace a trail of blood runs from his temple down the side of his cheek he wipes at it with the back of his hand frowning at the scarlet smear that stains his skin I thought we were gonna be subjected to another long paragraph about how he looks hot like that but I guess now's not the time Jass his head kicks to the right when I slap him you lied to me back there on those sand dunes you said you were going to try and help us and you knew all along you were going to do nothing of the sort you're rotten right down to your very core there's nothing inside of you but a black bottomless cold dark hole a black moon rising if you will in the distance in front of the research facility the construct soldiers have formed into ranks and are marching toward the o.r axis with whirring speed at the front of their column a single tall figure leads Gold panels glinting off his shoulders his face mask is striped with two panels of gold don''t sides singling him out as a general general striker my blood runs cold in my veins and now for the first time I've learned that they wear masks huh I knew you were rebellious but your defiance knows no bounds Jass PLR striker spits he hits a button on the side of his face mask and the entire thing splits open concert tuning together until it slides down into the steel rims collar around his neck striker grins at me like he's just run into an old friend well hello there what an unexpected surprise striker used to be her commanding officer when she was still at the constructor I don't remember if I mentioned that it low-key doesn't make sense because striker also personally oversaw chasis training which we were told was separate and very intense and presumably took a lot of time like couldn't the author have just written them both separate trainers is the construct that small cause like their paths rarely crossed as children and they were both in full-time training so like how does this check out was it not full-time training is the construct just like middle school you have like a 40-minute block of training with striker every Monday Wednesday and Friday is striker just the space equivalent of like a really mean pre-algebra teacher Regis is going to be overjoyed when he realizes he has to run aways to play with the streaker grunts show you free read that is like I'm hoping he'll let me take care of you though he pushes her forward sending her sprawling onto the floor she lands in a heap in front of the gathered scientist all one of them I guess who all recoil away from her like she's a venomous snake snakes in space sneak sneak sneak sneak just let me have this you guys I'm calm cool and collected on the outside I've been gathering information I've found out where they're based where they've been hiding for decades we can give the information to regis together you must think I'm completely stupid Bale R if you had that kind of information you would have transmitted it to the elders immediately the place was a dead zone I answer it was impossible to get a message out Stryker frowns muttering under his breath if you're telling the truth you won't mind sharing the name of this planet Bale our I hand it over without thinking twice furious the planet's name is pyrius no raises cry of anguish bounces across the research facilities high-ceilinged arrivals area Jess you're going to get them all killed you've just signed their death warrants way to like confirm the location raise that reason looks at me her eyes burning with hatred I really feel it this time she doesn't answer me when I say her name in my head she doesn't say a word I extend myself down the length of the connection and I don't reach her until I hit the very end of it Raisa you're the worst actresses in the world Wow all of them I didn't mean for this to happen I tell her this is all italicized he's saying it in their heads and I didn't want to hurt you but I had to in order to make this believable I've told you before haven't I you're terrible at hiding your feelings if I told you what I was planning you'd never have agreed you'd never have been able to keep the pretense up you know what they did set up earlier that he knows she's a bad liar so I'm gonna give major props for it the first instance in this book of setting something up a little while before you needed to know it when the Nexus dropped out of hyperspace I heard régis thoughts he'd been learning how to defend his mind the way you and I can for a long time now wait what but he let his guard down for a moment he didn't just get me hooked on the light when the construct took me he also embedded a tracker into my genetic coding what Regis couldn't track me to pyrius Raisa the sandstorms blocked out the trackers transmission what so once we hit open space it began transmitting again there's no way to pull it from me there's no way to remove it from my body it's a part of me now Regis will always know where to find me what so you hand me over to them once and for all raisa answers that's how you solve the problem I'm going to activate the night creeper Darius gave me I'm going to end this yeah hey wait a second oh my god so jazz has decided to do a fake double-cross where he hands Raisa over to the construct her biggest fear when he knows she's equipped with a cyanide capsule that she's fully willing to use at any moment and he just decides to not tell her about the plan because that's not a liability and now also ten minutes later he's telling her anyways so why didn't you just tell her no where is it no no don't do that I have a plan I'll have you out of here before anyone can lay a finger on you I hope she can hear the sincerity in my voice yeah me too this could go south really fast if she doesn't believe you I'll make sure the periods are safe too I had to give strike or something otherwise this would have never worked the people of pyrius are ready for evolution anyway Varun's murderer he doesn't care about the people he only cares about himself he killed Cole's mother we both know he's the one who he didn't kill Erica I say quickly I looked into his mind on the knife he won the election okay more stuff we weren't privy to even though we were in his point of view when this happened he didn't know who harmed the previous Chancellor I accidentally slipped it to someone else's mind that night too Raisa the person who really did commit the murder what I've been keeping this to myself for too long now it's been weighing on me far more than I thought it would darius darius killed Erica well you're out of your mind she hisses even though that entire sentence has no sibilant sounds she asked him to do it she saw what was coming and she knew the people needed to be unified she thought her death would be a catalyst for change well she succeeded in bringing an evil dictator into power so good job Erica I sent her my memories of Darius's thoughts the themes are blurry and confusing in places but the final moments are very clear Derry is holding erricka in his arms kissing the inside of her wrist and stroking her hair then thrusting the ceremonial blade up into her stomach she didn't scream she didn't cry out she held Darius his hand and spoke to him in hushed tones until she couldn't speak anymore and then Darius wept over her body until she went cold well I guess now we know why the letters were so long at least tears streak down raises face out of control how am I going to talk cold let me be real with you raise that you definitely shouldn't tell coal concentrate Raisa striker needs to see that you hate me coals head is hanging his body so limp that I begin to wonder if one of the soldiers knocked him out when I wasn't paying attention or maybe he went to sleep that's the thing that happens in this universe as we've seen he raises his gaze a second later though perfectly conscious and apparently desperate to rip my insides out my mother she was wrong about you you were supposed to be our Savior Joss you were supposed to be my friend instead you're going to be the damnation of the entire Commonwealth it was sad that you would destroy the Sith not join them I look around surveying the gathered soldiers until I find what I am looking for you I say pointing in one of the men guarding Raisa give me those the guard looks down at his waist where I'm pointing and fumbles to pull out his gloves he offers them to me with shaking hands I ignore him and slide my hands inside the black leather closing my fists one at a time to stretch them out next I removed the helmet from the soldier's head raises eyes are wide and filled with tears as I slide the helmet down over my head obscuring my face and what feels like a very final kind of way I we got all the way the last page and I got what I wanted he's wearing a helmet I was never your friend fool and yes damnation I will be I will help murder them all and when pyrius is gone I will scour the galaxy until every last Commonwealth fighter base is destroyed but don't worry you will be long dead by then I stand and give him a stiff salute one life cold pakka one duty one construct okay and that's the end of the book surprise there's definitely going to be a sequel but I think we kind of knew that going in so that was black moon rising this book was published in January of 2018 only one month after the last Jedi's release for that reason our two romantic leads having a fourth Bond type connection is very curious to me on one hand the fourth Bond connection is a major part of the story it couldn't have been added as a late revision it seems pretty and twined throughout so like yeah maybe it's fair to just chalk this up to one big coincidence it just happens to be a lot like the Star Wars sequel trilogy but it happens in the genre on the other hand fan fiction does have a famously quick turnover rate and when you're online self-publishing there's basically no gap in time between writing and publication so you could get this out pretty quickly besides force bonds as a concept have existed in the Star Wars Expanded Universe for a pretty long time and like let's not pretend they've never been followed to the romantic conclusion I'm of course referring to Yoda and cow no I'm just kidding Bastila Shan and Darth Revan we're like the most obvious example of that actually okay let's do an experiment I am gonna look for reloj fanfic predating the last Jedi using a force bond I am going to assume that I will find at least two dozen Rey and kylo Ren um I could search the phrase but force bond does have its own tag force bondage come on you guys although no I guess we have that in the book too and then there's date updated so I'm gonna set a custom window so it's nothing that's even been updated since before I'll do December 1st of 2017 and that gives us 363 fanfics okay so yes I think we can safely say that this idea was in the public consciousness before the last Jedi came out so I'm gonna go ahead and cross that off our list not a coincidence you're probably wondering what the author's deal is and there's not a lot of tea to spill their Frankie roses a pen name for Callie Hart's all of her work is self-published and I believe all of it is either digital or print on demand but she is a USA Today best-selling author it's weird because the fact that this is a pen name and that it's really Kelly Hart is reiterated all over the product description in the about the author and it's like why use a pen name hmm all of her other books appear to be romance novels about brooding dark alpha male heroes who need to be redeemed by the heroine so it's not like this is really a break from formula so mmm why separate out this one that's that's so strange this isn't like a call-out video and this isn't an invitation for you guys to go leave negative reviews on Amazon I've seen Amazon after I do these book reviews and I know what you guys do you can't leave a review for a book Ian Reed okay it's embarrassing it makes you look like you can't judge books for yourself and you're gonna get the books taken down off Amazon you guys and then nobody gets to read them I'm not here to kill these books I catch them I put a little tag on their ear and I release them back into the wild there's good character beats some funny dialogue exchanges in solid banter and even though the pacing was criminally out of whack I really did like the ending it was very cinematic it had a lot of tension to it it was well described it's possible with all the sloppily handled groundwork out of the way the sequel will actually be good although I am a little salty that she didn't at least like proofread it once before putting it up for sale like if you're gonna try to be $14 at least read it a second time there's even a typo on the back of the book it like it has the whole summary and then at the bottom it says coming January 16 2008 teen it says that on the physical book like she just took the copy of her blurb and copy pasted it onto the bag without looking at it again but anyway I don't hate this book and I don't even actually care that it's stealing from Star Wars yeah I said it I think Disney's gonna be fine you guys so what was the point of this exercise entertainment obviously secondly I just think a published copy of a fanfic is such an interesting little curio to have and I'm excited to put it on my shelf I'm like a non-force user that keeps a bunch of holocrons in my creepy collection the heroes of an animated Star Wars series have to interact with me for exactly one episode to get the fanfic off my hands and then I never appear again but there is a bigger picture I thought this was a good opportunity to talk a little on the topic of publishing fanfiction we've seen a huge rise in this in recent years obviously Fifty Shades of Grey is the big one that started as a twilight fanfic but we also have the Mortal Instruments series which allegedly began as a Draco Malfoy fanfic and after a One Direction fanfic is getting a movie adaptation later this year and which yes you guys really want me to read after and maybe I did order the book so I might do that adapting fanfic for publication and sale is this morally gray area morally fifty shades of gray like in Fifty Shades at least it was an alternate universe fanfic like she took the characters and a lot of the plot elements in a vague sense but they weren't also vampire SLAC moon rising is like if Fifty Shades of Grey got published but Christian Grey was also vampire and Hosea was also a werewolf and they also go to Italy and fight a Council of vampires and just the BDSM stuff is happening peripheral to all that so in other words a much better book but let's even ignore all of that the primary thing that suffers when you publish a fanfic as a new novel is obviously the story of the novel in fanfic since you're using an existing work as a springboard you don't have to bring the entire lore of the universe to the table you just open it up with the characters and they're ready to go and everyone understands what's going on this was well addressed in the Fifty Shades series on the folding ideas channel which I will the eye thing I'll link it it goes right there you can click the link so anyway the audience already understands the universe the character dynamics and if you're writing something where you really just care about the character interactions like say a romance you can just jump right into the parts that you actually want to write in a book like this where it is adapted into an original work but it's not totally divorced from the content it started as you have all this tiresome exposition over explaining things making them make less sense because you need them to not sound too similar and all that stuff detracts from space that could be used to establish the characters show them interacting more and make us understand why they're in love which is important in a romance Jasin raisa are in love why they don't even like each other they're on opposite sides of the conflict the author wants to have a sexy dynamic where like their adversaries but they also love each other and are attracted to each other but it's not built up enough to work if it's a reloj fanfic the amount of explanation you need is the events of the force awakened happened and also kylo Ren is attracted to Rey that's it then people know where they're going from there we don't know jazz or Reza and they haven't apparently interacted much before the events of the book so there's not a lot to work with or I guess I should say they've interacted in person maybe three times but they've been having mind dates for like seven years and I guess maybe during that is when they fell in love but we didn't get to see any of that how are we supposed to invest in this relationship and Raisa doesn't remember any of that and jazz does remember it all but he doesn't act like he's in love we even have a lot of inner monologues when he's on his way to pyrius where he's thinking he doesn't know what he's going to do when he gets there maybe he'll hand Raisa over to the constructor that doesn't sound like a man in love and it's like really you remember everything buddy like from your experience that's basically just your girlfriend so are they in love or aren't they Raisa gets her memories back but she still resents jazz but why does she resent jazz ray hates kylo Ren because he murdered all her friends Raisa hates jazz for working for the constructs but he only does that because he's been brainwashed since he was a kid and raised that was subjected to the same brainwashing so you'd think she'd be sympathetic and by the way she broke out of the brainwashing because of puberty which I guess jazz never went through all things considered he did okay for himself removed from the exact context they were obviously written in the characters motivations make no sense anymore the author did this to herself it's obvious that when she wrote the fanfic it was deeply entrenched in the universe in which it was set which is a good quality for a fanfic but it also means that you can't extract it without breaking it Raisa and Joss are mentally connected because Rey and kylo Ren are mentally connected but because there's no force the explanation for the mental connection becomes that stupid thing about planet Earth that made no sense and from a story perspective the mental link didn't really accomplish all that much so what you remove the mental connection but you can't Rey and kylo Ren have shared experiences beyond their mental connection but those shared experiences are the events of the force awakens so you can't have those in your book but if you had to cut the events of the force awakens you can't cut the mental connection because it's literally all you have left like what else what do you have the they went to space middle school together going from being enemies to being in love is a pretty significant change so if that's what your aim is you need to really hustle to make it work but instead Jass and raise edge go from zero to completely devoted within like 30 pages at the end of the story and instead of fixing that and fleshing it out a little more valuable page length is wasted basically reiterating the entirety of Star Wars Canon with different names if you're going to be this overt about lifting a universe honestly at this point it would be better if the narration just said it's basically Star Wars I mean if this universe has cliff notes they probably have Star Wars you could just have jacks for mark in his internal monologue like gee this universe and the events of my life are a lot like Star Wars I remember watching it on my home planet earth where everybody had telepathic power and then you've just saved me from having to read like 60% of the book I'm not trying to knock fanfic I think it can be a very useful tool for authors it can be great practice for a beginning writer who just wants to start writing a story but is intimidated maybe by world-building it can be a great way for an aspiring author to slide into an existing fandom establish their own fan base and then go write original works and actually have people buy them or it can be a fun place for already established authors to just show up and play around with some ideas purely out of the joy of writing and interacting with the community but your fanfic can't be your book I mean evidently it can but it shouldn't I mean I guess if you really want it to be I can't stop you and it'll be a major motion picture this year actually I hope this is just the way of the future I want every published work to be easily traceable back to its extremely famous source material avatar two's going to come out and we're going to immediately realize that one of the characters is obviously a navi evasion of Captain America and his love interest is obviously a navi version of the Winter Soldier they just happen to be avatars and they're dating I hope we get to see a black moon rising movie and I hope Frankie Rose gives us a sequel I would like to know about the continued Adventures of Joss and Raisa and Cole and Darius and Kant Chancellor Ferran and general general Regis I'll probably buy it I'm sufficiently hooked and I want to see the scene on the casino planet where our heroes free the blood horses you also in the interest of my trap and release fanfic Wildlife Foundation I thought I would buy several more copies of the book and give them out to you guys so you know the author is benefiting in some way at the time of recording I've never done an Amazon giveaway before and have no idea how they work but if you've stuck around this long just check the description or maybe I'll put text up I think it's like random I think if you just click a link and you're like the 300th person it'll tell you if you want and finally I would like to thank black moon rising for sponsoring this video no I'm just kidding can you imagine that no but okay bye

Channel: Jenny Nicholson

Views: 1,842,996

Rating: 4.943428 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: TJGm8Sj7Qn8

Length: 103min 21sec (6201 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 13 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/panmpap]

Although I disagree with her when it comes to films like Rogue One and Solo, I genuinely find her a very level headed person in the fandom. Thank God we still have people like that.

[u/captainjjb84]

Jenny Nicholson once again demonstrating why she is the greatest thing to ever happen to YouTube.

[u/BlindManBaldwin]

This is such a great video

[u/annestan]

Her voice helps me go to sleep at night.

Jenny destroyed the shouty dude in the TLJ debate on the Collider YT channel.

[u/joliet_jane_blues]

I envy her porg collection

[u/rolfraikou]

I've been watching her videos for a long while now, but I have to say, I've really enjoyed the book reviews. It's funny too, I keep telling myself I'll sit down and finally watch a movie all my friends have told me to watch. I never do it because I've got other stuff to do. But book review comes up, and I can manage to watch the hour and a half video on a whim.

[u/sulyen22]

I can't concentrate on what she is saying. I just have to stare on that giant dead porg on her bed.

[u/miragecoordination]

I lover her so much and everything she creates is wonderful, but I also appreciate, about this specific video, how she's very unmalicious in how she approaches what could be a very mean and condescending video that's just about ripping into women's writing and fanfiction or making fun of Reylo and its fans. She'd poking fun at the book and pointing out flaws but in a very honest, not-mean way and her super dry straightforward tone is what makes it funniest. Her discussion of fanfiction and published fanfiction also offers some pretty good insight and it's worth listening to for that as well.