You rub two sticks together until something good happens.

Pretty, no?

And in the picture I wanted to find, blond, too. But oddly, the photos from Eragon weren't quite as amusing.

Actually, I don't find blond twinks all /that/
attractive; I find them more purely aesthetically pleasing than anything else.

Riiiight.


Anyway, I posted that picture because I'm currently working my way through the novel the film is based on. I've been hired*, you see, to do a sword-fighting demonstration for the release of the third novel in the series. I figured it behooves me to know what sort of sword-fighting actually goes on therein.

And the book's not horrible. It seems to me exactly the sort of novel a bright but not very wordly 15-year-old would write -- he works in the verb "to fletch" on the first page, which ought to tell you enough -- and though I'm none too keen on fantasy, the book works. Too supplement some of its weak spots, though, I've taken to imaging the protagonist pretty much as you see above and his dragon as a giant basset hound**. And added a shower scene or two. And a rather different sort of treatment for chafed thighs.***

But reading the books has done largely what I wanted it to: finding out what kinds of hardware the mention and what their fighting and/or training is like. Pleasantly, they make a point of mentioning training with wooden wasters and there are both (anachronistically) rapiers and broadswords. And target shields.

Although, pointedly****, no daggers with those rapiers. So that'll be a fun thing to fold in.

The only thing I can really find fault with is the use of language. Well, not language, as such. It's pretty much just a "drop a letter from a real Germanic word and pretend it's a new one" deal. It's the orthography is /awful/. I don't think the kid has a grip on what actual diacritical marks mean. I mean, I know I can't castigate someone's /made-up/ language, and only someone trained in hist/comp linguistics would probably even notice, but still.

*Well, asked.

**Okay, that crosses the "creepy" line from fanfic to slash that I am unwilling to actually make.

***Think the Falcor the Luckdragon from The NeverEnding Story, but with more drool.

****Insert rim shot.