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ayearofpike · 6 years

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The Last Vampire 6: Creatures of Forever

Pocket Books, 1996 181 pages, 17 chapters + epilogue ISBN 0-671-55052-7 LOC: PZ7.P626 Lav 1996 OCLC: 35300865 Released September 1, 1996 (per B&N)

Sita, the last vampire, is tired of killing and not hungry anymore, but she still feels a sense of duty to stop those who would harm others. In her service, though, she encounters a larger set of monsters than she had ever imagined. These monsters, she learns, are here to convert humanity to a predominantly negative energy, and their power in our realm stems from their having some of her blood. The only way Sita can stop them is to go back in time and prevent the monsters from getting her blood in the first place.

Holy shit, did I just write that? But yeah, it’s totally what happens in this story. It’s half sci-fi, half period action drama, all frustrating. Not even because of the St. Elsewhere ending — I can deal with that. It’s more about having to craft my own pieces to complete Pike’s puzzle. I’ve said it before, and it’s still true: I don’t get mad at a story that makes me do some of the legwork in figuring out how it gets from start to finish. But I do resent when I’m expected to read the author’s mind and pull in hints that he’s dropped in other places besides the story I’m reading in order to understand what he meant.

I also don’t really appreciate a series that makes a sudden turn right at the end and forces me to mentally retcon practically every activity that has occurred to this point. Here? Aliens. Pike takes all the metaphysical and spiritual elements and jams ‘em in outer space. I know, Sita’s been dreaming about talking to Krishna before getting on a big purple spaceship for the whole series, but it could at least still be understood as a metaphor. And yeah, we got the spectral lizard spaceship in TLV5, but that’s couched in the understanding that the Setians figured out how to spread out rather than that they actually CAME from elsewhere. Not here. You’ll see.

We open up with Sita and Seymour in a bar. Remember how she turned him into a vampire last time? It’s still true, and as he figures out his powers she’s coaching him through how to use them ethically. Like, he’s picking up this fly skimmie but Sita won’t let him hypnotize her, nor will she let him both drink from her AND fuck her. Man, save one Jeebus Baby and accept the blood of one Hindu goddess to save your own life and all of a sudden you’ve got a complicated moral code.

Sita’s more worried about the murderer in the corner. Yes, she knows he’s a murderer. It’s a new consequence of having drunk Kalika’s blood, that she can read minds rather than simply being aware of emotions and mental states. So she goes and picks the dude up, and he takes her to a creepy warehouse so they can get busy. Only the weapon he pulls out of his pocket is not a gun or a knife ... it’s a box with buttons on it. Obviously he’s been warned about Sita. She disarms him and asks who told him about her, and right at that moment who should show up but Seymour and his skimmie. She’s got an identical box pointed at his head and tells Sita to drop the weapon. Sita grabs the murderer and tries to negotiate, but Skimmie isn’t having it. She disintegrates Murderer without even blinking.

Of course Sita immediately hides, and Skimmie makes it clear that she better come out without any weapons if she wants Seymour to have, you know, particles. So Sita stashes her knife, with the point aimed at Skimmie, and insists she release Seymour before they continue talking. Skimmie is only too happy to do so — but then she says that Sita must join her side and the first step in the initiation is to kill Seymour. Nuh-uh, Sita says, and uses her other new power: telekinesis. She makes the knife fly from its hiding spot and stab Skimmie in the neck, and while she’s surprised Sita leaps across the warehouse, kicks the box out of her hand, and rips her fucking head off and throws it into a corner.

Sita and Seymour have to run, and the safest place to be is Jeebus Baby’s house on Lake Tahoe. It turns out that his mom has started to remember some things from her previous life as Sita’s old teacher the seer/healer. She listens to Sita’s story and understands what it means: that a change in the lives of humanity is coming, but that there’s an evil that is trying to steer people away from the light side and into darkness. This evil wants us to focus on powering ourselves for its own sake, rather than spreading the power around to everyone. It wants us to be more invested in ourselves than others, to value strength over love, to value ourselves over others. I swear I am not getting political — okay, maybe a little bit, but this is eerily prescient from a book that was written twenty-two years ago.

Then again, maybe not.

Anyway, Sita knows she needs to do something about these evil beings for the good of humanity. She tracks down the skimmie’s address and finds an indifferent boyfriend drinking beer and watching baseball, who tells Sita that she was supposed to be at a UFO convention in Phoenix. So she flies there (which, like, I know LA is a hub, but how does Sita get flights right when she wants to go?) and sits through a whole bunch of talks until she gets to the last one of the day, where the professor up front describes exactly the dilemma Sita understands (as she and some random lady she befriended snark at him under their breath). She wants to talk to him afterward, but he fuckin’ books it away into the desert.

Of course she follows him, to a hill only thirty minutes from the Holiday Inn, which shows that Pike has never been to Phoenix (it takes at least 45 minutes to get ANYWHERE in that monstrosity). The professor says the same thing the skimmie did — that they’re going to win anyway and Sita should just join them. Plus! They already have some of her blood, dating back to a ninth-century occultist she wrangled with, thus making them more powerful than ever. And now they have her surrounded: out of nowhere three dudes with ray guns show up, and they try to take her prisoner. Luckily Sita still has her hypnotic powers, and she makes one of the guards break just enough that the other two aim at him and take him down. This gives her time to jump toward one, steal his phaser, and vaporize everybody.

The random friend is waiting for her where the desert road meets the highway. This is unexpected enough that Sita is suspicious, but the woman identifies herself as a genuine friend — and certainly Sita feels deep down that this is true. She listens as the friend talks about the coming change: it’s an increase in density or dimensionality or some such shit. This is one of the places where Pike makes us fill in the gaps, but I was too bored to do it. But anyway, our move forward has to be a choice, a conscious step into the next ... whateverthefuck, and it’ll be predicated on whether we’re positive or negative. And the phaser aliens want us to be negative for ... some reason, and they’re going to get more negativity because of that incident all those centuries ago where they got some of Sita’s blood.

There’s a way to undo this! Sita can mentally travel back in time to her body as it was when she met this evil occultist, who also so happens to be a dimension-shifting alien (I don’t remember if this is where we learn this, but who fuckin’ cares at this point). To do this she has to get on a spaceship with her new random friend and get up to hyperspeed, at which time she just has to focus on where she was and she’ll join consciousness with herself at that time.

The moment she remembers is when she met the castrated leper who showed her the way to the dude’s castle. I’m totally serious. There’s three people torturing him, and Sita kills them all and saves his life, then talks to him about the evil dude and how to find him. It turns out the castrated leper used to be one of his servants and knows exactly where to find him, but obviously he’s afraid because of how he specifically watched the dude turn evil and get cast out by the pope and invoke demons that gave him his disease. (The missing balls were just to preserve his sweet, sweet singing voice.) Still, she persuades him to take her to the castle, and as they walk there he tells the tale of Perseus and Medusa, and the importance of the power of being able to freeze someone. This will come back later.

Near the castle, she tells the castrated leper to turn back and continues on alone. She happens on a cage on a cart full of naked women, no doubt for sacrifice to this evil monster, and she kills the guards and frees the women, and continues on without so much as a disguise or a costume change or even really a cover story. Like, she’s a four-thousand-year-old immortal vampire and doesn’t give a shit about Satanists. It’s important to note that she’s having trouble remembering the future thoughts she brought back with her, so maybe she doesn’t fully grasp the importance of what she’s doing here now. But anyway, she gets to the castle and meets the lady of the house, who insists she should have dinner with them that night.

At the dinner table, the evil lord seems ... kinda nice, actually. He claims that his falling out with the Church is over how to handle the invading Moslems from across the sea, and that they tried to keep the castrated leper safe and warm but that he ran away in fear of who he was. (I should mention: there’s a kinda gross thread throughout this book that equates the Moors with the Satanic rituals and practices we’ll see in a little bit. I’m going to mostly skip it because it’s not really about Sita, but I sure didn’t like reading it in 2018.) On the wall there’s a spear that the lord claims is the actual spearhead used to kill Christ on the cross and end his suffering, and that the owner is in charge of destiny the way the initial wielder was. There is a nail wired to it ... maybe one of the nails that held him to the cross? It makes Sita think about a baby Jesus ... or is it a baby Jeebus? She’s confused.

She gets back to her room and feels tired. Not just tired ... lethargic and slack. Obviously her food was drugged. She makes herself throw up, and then bursts the door open to find a housemaid waiting to hear her collapse and drag her down to the black rites. Sita demands to be taken there without being seen, and so they use a secret passageway that takes them far underground and into a passage with grates on the floor from which they can observe hundreds of acolytes in red robes gathered around a pentagram watching the lord (who is an evil occultist after all) sacrifice one of the girls Sita thought she’d saved. Suddenly there’s a knife in her back. Literally — the servant stabs her, and obviously has been told there’s power in Sita’s blood, because she starts licking it. They lose their balance and fall through the grate, where the servant dies instantly and Sita blacks out from the knife being shoved all the way through her body.

When she comes to, she is hanging from a wall in a dungeon cell. It’s this pain of being in a crucifixion position that finally makes her memories of the future clear — specifically, she remembers watching a Wagner production in Germany in the 1920s that retold the story of this evil douche, through the veil of being related to a devil preventing King Arthur’s knights from ever finding the holy grail. Pike has obviously done his research here: it’s a real opera that tells how the forces of good are obstructed by an evil wizard with a magic spear. I wonder if he saw a production at some point and thought it would make a cool villain for his eternal vampire to fight, and this was the best way to fit it in.

Anyway, the occult lord shows up with the castrated leper, who he hangs up on the wall next to her with the taunt that he’ll be the object of torture if she doesn’t capitulate. Sure enough, he burns the leper’s wounds until she begs him to stop, and then leaves them alone to stew on their stubbornness of love and the next step. Luckily, they don’t take the leper’s wooden leg brace, which has a wire cross concealed in it. Through much finagling, Sita manages to bend the cross into a hook that she then uses to pick the locks on her shackles. The leper knows of a secret way out of the castle on the other side of the cell wall, but it’ll require them to go through hallways and risk being seen. Unless Sita can just kick through the brick wall itself and make an opening for them to get out. Once there, she tells the leper to get up out and away, while she goes back for the monster to stop him forever.

She finds him on the beach, inside a pentagram, with his wife dead next to another of the girls Sita thought she’d saved. She goes after him, but there’s an invisible force field all the way around the pentagram, and he tells her the only way she’s going to get in after him is to kill the girl. He’s holding his wife’s heart in his hand, and it suddenly starts beating, pounding inside Sita’s head, until she’s driven to madness and rips out the other girl’s heart and jumps in after the monster. But! Now she can only stand on the points of the pentagram. The open space in the circle is fire, and the center has some kind of invisible ravenous beast that will devour her if she goes in there. Her only option is to give up, open up her veins so that the Dark Lord can have her blood. She asks to do it with the nail that is on his spear, and he throws it to her, and sure enough she’s able to use her future powers to make it fly straight into his head, which stuns him long enough that she steals the spear and stabs him in the heart. This makes him stumble into the center of the pentagram, where all his flesh is flayed off before his body is sucked down into nothingness.

And again, this is a perfectly good supernatural occult story. Why is Pike fucking it up with aliens? But Sita wonders why she hasn’t been picked up yet. And she has blood on her hand from the girl’s heart, which won’t wash off. Maybe she has to go see her leper and heal his wounds with her blood like she did the last time she escaped from this castle. So they meet at a pond, and she wants to wash him in it, only he won’t get close to the water. This is weird. Sita has enough doubts, with her memory of the Wagner play and the story he told about Medusa, and so as a test instead of her blood she rubs on blood from a lizard she finds nearby. And sure enough, she notices that the leper’s expression is one of poorly disguised triumph and trickery. She forces him close to the water before he can react —

And his reflection is Medusa. Or maybe the evil occultist. Pike never properly spells it out. But Sita knows right away that she was right: that her buddy with no balls and no left limbs is actually the one in control, that he was the evil lord’s secret puppet master and used the position of power to get what he needed. He’s made her go through the first two steps of the initiation: begging for forgiveness, killing an innocent. But now the third step — willingly giving up some of her blood, despite a warning veiled in a story — has been thwarted.

And before Evil Gorgon Castrated Leper Lord can react, Sita turns to light again, thanks to the stars and the aliens and the completion of her task. And I’m not satisfied with THIS part either. Pike started talking about the light of the stars elevating Sita like four books ago, and we just have to invent so much of the rationale for how it works and why it works and whether these aliens have been assisting her all along in order to get any kind of fulfillment out of this part of the story. It very much smacks of something that just seemed cool back when being haphazardly flushed out in an attempt to build a new (and mostly unnecessary) story element that I just don’t like or believe.

It doesn’t really matter, because Sita goes ahead and undoes the whole series here rather than going back to the ship. She takes advantage of the hyper-light-whatever stage and goes back to when she was seven years old in ancient India and murders the original vampire in the womb, the way her father offered her the opportunity back then. I kinda get this — like, ugh, I just met time-traveling aliens and am going to have to go fix all kinds of ancient wrongs, lemme just get out of it the fastest way possible — but then, didn’t this whole process just make suffering through the evil Satanist for a second time totally worthless?

And if Sita no longer existed in her lengthy state, how did we get the stories? Seymour answers that for us: it seems he’s written the whole thing while feverish with his terminal AIDS, in a six-month marathon of typing that has been handed down to him from the ether. Which, to be fair, Pike said this is how he felt when he wrote these stories too. And it sort of makes sense that in order to end the series (which he said at the time he knew he had to, otherwise he’d only be writing about Sita for the rest of his life) (*cough*Thirst*cough*) he should kill the author.

But that’s The Last Vampire 6: Creatures of Forever. The title is more of a threat than Pike probably realized, but I appreciated him giving this a rest, at least until Stephenie Meyer made it feasible for him to make money again. As for us, we get a break for at least two months before we have to get back to Sita again. Maybe I’ll be ready to plunge in again when she comes back. For now? Get me out of here, star light aliens.

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webart-studio · 6 years

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10 Girls Entrepreneurs Who Have Impressed Me—and Will Encourage You! – Octane Weblog – The official weblog of the Entrepreneurs' Group

By Violet Lim, CEO and Co-Founder at Lunch Truly Group. A model of this text initially appeared on Violet’s LinkedIn weblog. Violet is a member of EO Singapore.

The transition from one yr to a different looks like an ideal time to say thanks to those 10 girls entrepreneurs whom I’ve had the pleasure of assembly and studying from. These are girls who’ve fought in opposition to all odds, made a mark within the enterprise world and crafted their very own manufacturers of management.

I’ve met so many inspirational girls entrepreneurs previously yr, and this was a troublesome record to make! I hope these girls entrepreneurs can provide the similar dose of motivation that they gave me!

1. Kendra Scott: Designer, CEO and Philanthropist

Kendra is the entrepreneur behind a extensively profitable jewellery line now value over a billion {dollars}—and she or he began it from her spare bed room. Once I met Kendra, I used to be struck by how humble and right down to earth she is. She overtly shared her secrets and techniques to success, the imaginative and prescient that she has crafted for herself and her staff, and the way she went on to realize every of her goals. From Kendra Scott, I’ve discovered concerning the energy of imaginative and prescient and perseverance. Since assembly her, I’ve adopted her and her model on-line and I love Kendra’s private contact—clearly seen in all of her jewellery and advertising and marketing items. She has additionally created a tradition that authentically values giving again and making a optimistic distinction on the planet. I like that her enterprise goes means past herself. It continues to encourage me to do the identical.

(Right here I’m with Kendra at 2018 EO’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program (EMP) in Boston.)

2. Elizabeth Tan: Founding father of Sight to Sky and CEO of Heatwave Sneakers

Credit score: Image from HNWorth.com

Elizabeth and I met by Entrepreneurs’ Group (EO) Singapore. My husband Jamie and I’ve had the pleasure of becoming a member of Liz’s Sight to Sky journeys to Ladakh. After seven years of main Heatwave Sneakers, she has turned it from a home-grown model in Singapore to a world enterprise with 50 shops all through the area and the Center East. Aside from managing a thriving shoe model and being an superior mom, she desires to assist marginalized individuals. That’s how Elizabeth Tan began Sight to Sky. Along with a staff of medical and non-medical volunteers, Liz travels hard-to-reach mountainous areas to supply fundamental healthcare screenings and care. I’m so pleased with her, and I stay up for the subsequent mountain she’s going to climb—actually and figuratively.

(Right here’s an image from our climb to Taman Kinabalu in 2014.)

3. Hayley Quinn: Founder, Courting Professional and Social Media Character

I met Hayley at one of many courting trade conferences in London in 2018, and she or he has taught and impressed me a lot by her character and information! She’s UK’s high courting coach who’s keen about serving to girls turn out to be empowered in love and dealing with males to enhance their relationships with girls. Her Youtube channel—the place she posts many social experiments and How To movies—has near 100,000 followers. Hayley Quinn can be a fellow TED speaker and we did a video collectively once we met! I’m so motivated by Hayley’s work (genuine and edgy, you can find no motherhood statements right here!) and her ardour for serving to singles. I imagine singles can be taught quite a bit from her movies and her programs on be one of the best model of themselves and achieve success of their courting journey!

4. So-Younger Kang: Serial Entrepreneur, Founding father of Awaken Group and Gnowbe

It has been a few years since I met So-Younger for the primary time and over time we at all times cross paths talking at numerous occasions and conferences. So-Younger left the company world and began Gnowbe, a pioneering transformational app to assist individuals construct personalised studying journeys whereas on-the-go. What has consistently impressed me about So-Younger is her infectious power! She has an enormous coronary heart and contributes to society by The Younger Skilled Group. Among the greatest recommendation I’ve recieved from So-Younger is that, as leaders, we have to consistently empower our associates by permitting them room to develop, giving them duties that they could not be capable of do earlier than, however on the similar time, giving them the assist and assets to ask for assist and recommendation. Watch our Fb Reside video collectively right here!

5. Merry Riana: Millionaire Entrepreneur, Finest-Promoting Writer and Motivational Speaker

I first met Merry Riana once we have been each being nominated for the The Nice Girls of Our Our Time award sponsored by Singapore Girls’s Weekly 2010. Since then, we’ve turn out to be good pals. Our youngsters even attended the identical kindergarten! Merry has impressed thousands and thousands of individuals by her books, her seminars and even her personal film! Each time we catch up, Merry by no means ceases to amaze me with the most recent mission that she is engaged on. I’ve at all times been impressed by Merry’s tenacity, perseverance and make-it-happen perspective! Whilst she continues to develop her enterprise empire, she offers again by mentoring youth who wish to take cost of their lives by her “Private Mentorship Expertise” and champions studying and private growth for the subsequent technology to realize monetary independence, as she has.

(Right here’s an image of me with Merry throughout Chinese language New 12 months together with our husbands, Jamie and Alva)

6. Yvon Bock: Entrepreneur and Managing Director of Hegen Pte Ltd

Credit score: Image from The New Age Dad and mom

I first met Yvon Bock at a good the place I purchased a Hegen starter pack for my good buddy who had a new child. Dad and mom studying this perceive how fussy some infants are with bottles. I used to be so impressed by her ardour to create a sustainable, sensible and high-quality breastfeeding product to assist fellow mummies. Evidently, my buddy’s child loves the Hegen milk bottle! Being a mom of 4 (you superb lady!), Yvon may be very inspiring to me as she continues to combine a number of roles as a spouse, mom, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Yvon has made ripples regionally in addition to globally: The Hegen bottle is so well-received in China that it was chosen as the primary Singapore product to be featured on Alibaba’s standard 11.11 World Buying Competition broadcast in November 2017!

7. Lisa Clampitt: Founding father of Matchmaking Institute of New York, Skilled Matchmaker and Relationship Professional | Linkedin

A lot of you who’ve adopted my profession from day one would know that I’ve obtained my matchmaking accreditation from Matchmaking Institute of New York over 14 years in the past, and I’ve to thank Lisa Clampitt for that! Lisa is the visionary behind the Matchmaking Institute of New York, the longest established matchmaking college on the planet. Lisa and her college of skilled matchmakers and coaches educate passionate entrepreneurs and aspiring matchmakers to play cupid and develop profitable companies. Lisa additionally owns her personal profitable high-end matchmaking enterprise and has introduced collectively many lovely {couples}. In an trade the place some choose to battle it alone, I’m consistently impressed by Lisa’s imaginative and prescient of collaboration—to carry collectively matchmakers from all all over the world, work collectively, share greatest practices and assist extra singles discover love!

8. Kalika Yap: Serial Entrepreneur and Inventor

I first met Kalika Yap at EO’s Entrepreneurial Masters Program (EMP), an government training program. The very first thing that struck me about Kalika is her lovely smile and her optimistic outlook on life. Kalika is a kind of born entrepreneurs! Her companies embody award-winning model company Citrus Studios, Luxe Hyperlink, the Waxing Co., Tangerine Co. and the Orange and Bergamot! Kalika evokes me not simply as an entrepreneur but additionally as a loving spouse and devoted mom. She additionally believes within the significance of giving again and integrates the value-based tradition of philanthropy inside all her enterprise items. Regardless of her busy life and schedule, she nonetheless has time to host a podcast! I had the privilege to be interviewed by her right here. Thank you, Kalika, for the inspiration. I’m trying ahead to seeing many extra achievements to come back!

(Right here I’m with Kalika throughout Sinulog 2017 in Cebu, Philippines.)

9. Christina Teo: Advisor, Mentor, Coach and Founding father of Startup Asia Girls, she1K and Need Issues Carried out

Christina Teo and I first met over lunch the place she shared with me the story of transferring from the company world to entrepreneurship. Since then, I’ve witnessed her speedy development as an entrepreneur. Christina believes in empowering girls and she or he believes that ladies should embrace tech. That’s why she began Startup Asia Girls, a group of ladies concerned in startups in Asia. Her platform has given many ladies in tech entry to assist, assets, networks and shared experiences. Not too long ago, she launched she1K, the world’s first international company girls’s personal community and collective angel fund. She goals to recruit 1,000 girls globally to champion 100 startups in a single yr! You go woman!

10. Suzanne Ling: Co-Founding father of The Pitcha Venture, Social Entrepreneur

I met Suzanna Ling this yr in Jakarta after I was moderating the Younger Social Entrepreneurs Panel that Suzanne was a part of on the Transformational Enterprise Community (TBN) Asia Convention. I used to be shortly captivated by her startup story. She is the co-founder of The Pitcha Venture, a social enterprise in Malaysia that empowers refugees by sustainable meals enterprise. It was inspiring to listen to how her work has modified the lives of many refugees. Suzanne has represented Malaysia in lots of worldwide alternate applications and was named to Forbes 30 underneath 30. Assembly Suzanne makes me understand that there are such a lot of alternatives on the market that may assist us make a distinction. With younger social entrepreneurs like Suzanne main the best way, I’m assured the world can be a greater place.

(Right here I’m with Suzanne at Younger Social Entrepreneurs Panel in Jakarta in 2018.)

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