I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: BLACK SABBATH-“Neon Knights” (1980).

There was no way I could read this book about Plasma Knights, Oxygen Knights and, yes, Neon Knights, and not think of this song.

This was the lead off track to the first Black Sabbath album in which Ronnie James Dio replaced Ozzy Osbourne.   It is a great song and a huge testament to Dio’s ability to revive a flagging band.

It’s really catchy, too.  Geezer Butler’s thumping bass riff opens before Tony Iommi’s chords add a nice rhythmic juxtaposition.  And with Dio’s voice you can hear that Black Sabbath sounds rejuvenated.

Dio’s crooning goes really well with the fast chords and propulsive beat.

This is a great song from a great album.  Although it’s hard to say that the Dio era of Black Sabbath was better than the Ozzy years, the two Dio albums are really fantastic.

[READ: February 27, 2019] Chasma Knights

Although this book was satisfying in the end, I thought it was kind of weirdly unsatisfying overall.

Perhaps it’s because there no real context to the story aside from a rhymed poem that introduces it.  It tells us that if you catalyze toys your powers grow.  And everyone loves to do it except Neon Knights, because they can’t catalyze anything–they don’t have the power.  Aside from that there is no explanation of the setting or the people or anything.

Weird huh?

So Beryl is a Neon Knight.  She collects toys (as the story opens, she has caught (in a trap) a cat backpack thing which is “a bronze toy”).  It had a Pokemon feel to it.  Then she find a gold toy and is very excited by that.  Until the sulfur knights arrive to make fun of her for collecting junk.  They mock her for her toys being broken and chant “Broken Beryl.”  She shouts that she will become a toy maker and make everyone sorry.

They steal the cat backpack thing and head off to the toy market.  Beryl follows, vowing to get the cat back.

At the Toy Market is Coro who is flying in the air, totally showing off.   She’s an oxygen knight, the most powerful kind.   When the jerky people release Beryl’s cat thing into the crowd, it makes Coro crash her device.  She blames Beryl.  Beryl apologizes but is happy to buy parts (and take the broken parts) back to her shop.  Coro is intrigued by what Beryl could possibly want with them so she goes along with her.

Beryl shows that by mixing cores, she makes ultra toys.  But you can’t catalyze ultra toys–that’s the whole point.  Coro really can’t imagine why you wouldn’t want to catalyze your toys. When she finds out that Beryl is a Neon Knight, she is embarrassed for her.  But they become friends and start to work together making old toys into something greater.

Until Coro tries to catalyze it.  It all goes wrong of course and Coro blames Beryl again.

Beryl consoles herself by making a new toy, but she’s not careful and it gets out of control;.  Meanwhile, Coro decides that if Beryl can make toys so can she, so she sneaks into Beryl’s workshop and tries on the secret toy–a flaying suit.  The two of them have a near catastrophe on their hands until they work together to avert disaster.  And realize that making things is better than buying new toys.

I’m totally on board with the making rather than buying aspect of it.  And I realize that stories don’t have to make sense per se, but they have created this whole universe with so much potential and they use it to showcase someone who makes toys out of broken ones?  This could have been a much simpler story set in our world too.

I felt like the whole Neon/Oxygen/Chlorine/Sulfur was not explained at all.  It was a like a huge complex world was created just to prove a point.  I’m sure kids don’t mind, but as an adult I felt pretty frustrated by the creativity that seems wasted.