Zombie Christmas

You'd be surprised at how many Christmas horror stories I had to wade through before I settled on this. It's The Dead of Winter by William T. Tripp.

(Link)

Description:

"It's winter in the zombie apocalypse, and three men see a light in the east. What could it mean?"

Eh? Get it? Three wise men? Jesus? Dead of Winter? Get it? No? Then I'll tell you. This is a story about Melcher, Jaspar, and Ballard, three dudes that see a search light in the zombie apocalypse. Just in case you didn't know, the three Magis' names were Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. There's no freaking way you would notice that, though, unless you read the description and the title and then the story and then made a blog post about Zombie Christmas and read the title and description again and said to yourself, "Oh. Huh."

Well the three wise men go toward the light, encountering no zombies on the way. Once there, Melcher runs ahead when he hears an infant crying and startles a man, who they promptly kill. Turns out the dude's name was Joey. Eh? Get it? Joseph? Baby Jesus? Get it?

So the kid's cries attract Herod, or the zombies or whatever, and the light stays on just long enough for a man named Red to come with his helicopter, piloted by a man named Donnor, and shoot all the zombies. Get it? Like when Santa Claus came and visited the manger?

The End.

Other than the weird Christmas Easter egg thing, this story was spectacularly uneventful. It is a really good example of zombie fiction that fails at even using the zombie gimmick to prop itself up. Let's analyze for a sec.

First, Melcher is a former "squad leader" for the National Guard. This means that the author probably hasn't been anywhere near the military, but that's not a huge issue. It is incredibly cliche to have a former military guy leading a small band in zombie fiction, and it also ruins the Magi metaphor. What, now he's like the equivalent of a Roman soldier? I know you looked up the three magis' names, you could have just read the rest of the page. I don't think it's too highbrowed of me to expect that. Although the names are pretty damned half-assed.

And the zombies are named Zed. Man, that seems clever, almost like you ripped it off, dude. Maybe you can give me some advice, I am writing a story about really short people that don't wear shoes and have curly hair and hang out with wizards. I'm thinking of calling them fucking Hobbits, what do you think?

The names I can overlook, but there was absolutely nothing original about this story. He described the zombies in their cars, unable to get out as if it hadn't been in every zombie fiction ever, and went on for like half his story about how they still performed useless, muscle-memory tasks. What next, will you describe that they smell like rotting flesh and amble slowly? Or that they eat human flesh? Good thing there is something else to this story.

Oh wait, there fucking isn't. It wasn't even original in its shittiness, like the other stories I review; it was an utter waste of time. I would have learned more if I had used that time to find out how many times I can blink in a minute--over and OVER.

Ratings:

Christmas Allusions: Fail out of 5. What the hell, dude? I hope you really think Santa Claus saved Jesus from the Romans and that the three wise men fucking brutally murdered Joseph. The only creative part was the last paragraph being a parody of The Night Before Christmas, and I'm pretty sure the author copied that down from his sixth grade science notebook from the time he showed it to all his friends and they laughed sooo hard!

Emotion: 0 out of 5. You can have an unoriginal story and it's fine as long as you have emotions, but the most we got out of this guy was Mary being teary-eyed. And even at that, these dudes stormed in and killed her husband and she was just like, "What did you do that for? Now he won't be alive anymore." Then the wise men got on the chopper with Santa and everything was right...

Zombies: The point of them is to be scary. They are literally like the worst thing we can think of. But no, let's just write a story where the only danger is Melchior being too jumpy and slaughtering Jesus's dad. Sorry if that seems sacrilegious, don't blame me, blame the guy that wrote it. 0 out of 5.

Overall: 2 out of 5. I'm not worse off having read this. Still, it was pointless. But don't take my word for it!


Just take a look, it's in a book, at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Frustration Event

This week it's Extinction Event... err, sorry, EXTINCTION EVENT by Wil Adams. But first, Wil, you have to add another "l" to your name. Only Wil Wheaton gets away with that, and just barely.

(Link)

Now, Will, let me tell you when I read your description, I knew this was a fit:

"One of the hottest e-short stories of the year is Extinction Event. A first person account of the end of life on Earth as we know it."

Yes, even the author agrees it is great. No, no, I get it, it's 2012, very clever. I'm not so sure what the picture is supposed to be there... the main character has nothing to do with the military, even defies governmental authority in the story, but there are no military men. Anyway...

I actually liked some of this guy's descriptions; it seems like he's a student of art or something. But just when he's about to do something great he does something haphazard that makes me feel like I'm reading unedited drunken rantings. For example: "I paused for a moment to ponder: what happened to all the existentialists, the religious, the nihilists? They had all disappeared once it was clear the world was endiwlefj FUCK YOIU I"M NNOT DRUNK" Okay, that's not really in there. Here's an actual example:

"The yard in front of the duplex is surreal--like a work by Dali or someone. A Buick--front end crumpled around the trunk of a palm tree--near the verge of my yard. Two SUVs lay like beaten dogs at the junction between the street and the sidewalk. The body of a young Oriental woman has rolled from one of them and lies like exotic flotsam in the green grass of my lawn. If I look closely perhaps I will see the gray color of her brain through the jagged fracture that mars her otherwise flawless face. I do not look."

At first glance this paragraph seems kinda artful, other than the weird emdashes. But then you're like "the verge of my yard?" That's odd. "I sat on the precipice of my chair reading this." And who makes a simile of beaten dogs like that... does this guy beat dogs enough for them to be a clearer image in his head than a car on its side (which we've all seen)? And do people still use the word Oriental? Isn't that supposed to be offensive? And mars is just a strange word altogether. Isn't grass almost always green? And this is only magnified by a bitchload of typos sprayed throughout so I have to wonder what's really going on here. This was my example of a good paragraph of his. The bad ones go something more like, "In she rushes, and without a 'hello' a 'bye your leave' or anything more than..." The fuck? And I promise you I gave you more context and preparation for that sentence than the story did.

So when I get to the part where culturally his Latino woman literally leaves him a note like, "It is your responsibility as a man to figure out how to save my life so you have to do it," and you're like "Is this unreliable narration using absurdity to-?" No. Because he does save the entire world, single-handedly, because of his Latin machismo, by getting on the internet and telling NASA all they need to do is launch every nuclear warhead on earth at the moon to knock it out of the sky (no, don't even go google that, it's NOT fucking possible). If you think I'm joking you clearly haven't read any of the stories I've reviewed so far.

Ratings:

Drunk: "On a scale of one to ten, I'm soooooo wasted." Or watching TV or trying to escape a burning building or something. I'm not going to be a grammar nazi, because I'm convinced anyone with eyes could fix these grammar mistakes.

Badassitude: 10 out of 5. Yeah it was really edgy when you used all those ellipses, and mentioned the cat eating a child's eye and a woman clawing her face open and a crushed stroller and took the extra letter off your name and, shit, man, I don't know where the hell you get all these badass ideas.

Conflict Resolution: 0 out of 5. Come on, man, anything would have done better than "but I have to prove I'm a man...fuck it, MAGIC, the end."

Overall: Uh...2.5 out of 5. It wasn't so bad until the second half. But the second half was complete shit. Wish I had something more entertaining to say to that. Uh.... uh.... poop! HA!

Haha seriously poop. Get it? amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Shit Sense

Let me explain. Today I read two short stories. The first was a gay romance about angels and demons and it was just too boring to review. It turned out to be just like a pretty crappy story surrounding a gay sex scene, and I didn't have it in me to make a bunch of gay jokes and call it good or whatever so I decided I needed to find something truly shitty to read. I mean, I pride myself on being able to spot good material just by the cover and title on the first try, so I was disappointed. But then I saw this one and my shit senses tingled. It's called Fear Sense by Ron Schrader. Heh, no offense if your name is Ron, but it just seems like you're already at a disadvantage with that name because your parents have got to be weird.

 

(Link)

Check out the cover! That font just says Ron all over it. And the shitty ominous wolf behind the cloud of MSPaint spray-paint mist? This looks enthralling. Here's the description:

"After a vicious attack on their village, Aiden and Cade escape to the mountain with only their rifles and wits, hoping to find safety from the beast and it's killing spree. They soon learn that they are not alone and in fact are being hunted. 'Fear Sense' is an easy read that both teens and adults will enjoy

Note: This short story is 4,126 words in length.

About the Author: Ron Schrader has been writing since as early as grade school, focusing primarily on short stories. In November 2012 he finally made the decision to begin publishing his work. Ron's stories are written for adults, but kept clean enough that his own young children can enjoy them as well."

Aiden and Cade? Who names someone Aiden? Hey, by the way, by young children how young do you mean? 'Cause like I'm pretty sure you graphically described a lot of violence in here including a guy with a severed leg bleeding to death in front of the main character. I'm glad I didn't read this to my five-year-old daughter before bed, because she would be terrified of your shallow descriptions of manikin-like emotions, Ronald!

This story is best reviewed by plot synopsis. So Aiden and Cade, a pair of boys that are more bi-curious than the duo in the gay erotica I read earlier, are trying to get to the mountain peak. Almost immediately Cade is half eaten in the most confusing scene ever written. They see the beast's eyes and then: "I pulled my rifle out, aimed and fired. The canyon echoed into dead silence once again. I rushed to the two black lumps that lie on the cold canyon floor, lifeless in the pale light of the rising moon." I can only assume this means he killed the black lumps dead. Since they are lifeless.

Well the lumps turn out to be living things, neither of which are lifeless, and one of which is a mauled Cade. Cade sa...ys...some...th...i...n...gs....dramatically in annoying ellipses, but then suddenly Ron realizes he has only written like a thousand words and has to drag this story on a little longer. Aiden decides to carry Cade, they find a cave where a villager dies in front of him, Cade can then walk again because it's more convenient for him to be standing away from Aiden for the part where Cade gets attacked again, and he dies after all. Piss luck.

Aiden realizes that the cave from before was the beast's den and he is pissed off and gonna kill it even though the two times he has shot it before did basically nothing. Don't worry, Ron has this covered. Aiden goes into the den and is promptly and casually killed.

Then he wakes up. Fuck you, Ron.

Well, at least the story doesn't end there. Cade comes and helps calm a freaked-out Aiden. "It's just a dream bro... No, I didn't mean you should stop holding me..." Then Aiden explains that there was a strange mist right before sunset and a stranger came to the village with insane eyes like he'd seen some crazy shit then the village was attacked. That jolts Ron, who, like a teenage girl that bumped into her friend at the store and wanted to tell everyone how "ironic" it was, literally says "with a sudden fear in his countenance, 'It's really foggy out right now, and the sun is about to set.'" Get OUT.

They go outside, and sure enough there's a crazy dude with wild eyes, and they shoot that bastard dead! Teach you for seeing beasts.

Well the beast doesn't come after that and Ron ends his tale with a "maybe there was no beast after all, maybe they were just imagining things, or maybe..." Yeah. Maybe they committed murder for no reason. You think about that, Ron? I'm gonna give this story to my children now.

Ratingsss:

Grammar: 0 out of 5. One minute they we're just walking then, I couldnt follow the story becau'se the phrasing got all not normal and misnaturalized with apostrophe's added in random places.

Plot: 1 out of 5. He had conflict. Oh wait, then it was all just a dream. But it was psychological. But not in the way that he investigated any feelings at all, especially not ones concerned with shooting a complete stranger dead in the middle of the street.

Beginner's Luck: Nah, now I'm just being mean. Don't stop writing, Ron. Do go back and edit your stuff. But then again, he did say he had been writing since elementary school. It all makes sense now! This is the story from elementary school, right? I should publish my stuff from school. I wrote a series about a kid that saved a family of tigers, and one about getting sucked into a game of Risk. But then Jumanji came out. Fuck you, Robin Williams!

Overall: 2 out of 5, I guess. This story was not tense or scary like it was meant to be, but it seems like he knows that and aimed it at teens, or preteens or something. You remember Goosebumps? That shit is not at all scary if you read it as an adult. But, it also didn't have people bleeding to death pleading for their children and shit. I guess the point is: find your audience and stick to it, Ron.

If you want to read my story about the board game coming to life, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Boob Sucker

So this week I read something really original. It was called Fat Sucker, by Lotus Rose (definitely a pen name).

(Link)

Here's a description:
"Poor pudgy Tina...she's tried all kinds of diets that didn't work. But then one day she sees an infomercial about pills that absorb fat! She tries them and they prove to be remarkably effective...

Includes the bonus story, Noah's Ark Between 2 Buns, a story explaining the truth about hopping smiling chicken nuggets!"

Nah, I didn't read the bonus story, which I think is actually longer than the title story. I did, however, read up more on this Lotus character, because the story was... strange.

I thought it was a woman at first, but you have to check this guy out. Here's his picture:

Haha, okay it makes sense now. We have gone full nerd. That is seriously the picture he chose to represent himself. And I just can't let you miss out on his bio. I will bold the particularly hilarious part for you:

"Lotus Rose writes delightfully weird tales about young characters in strange situations. At times dark, silly, or bawdy, his writing owes much to such influences as Alice in Wonderland and Roald Dahl, Piers Anthony and Douglas Adams, and explores themes like disillusionment, and the corruption of innocence. If his books were movies, they'd likely be directed by Tim Burton. He often writes in a style that is a more edgy, "grown-up" version of children's literature interspersed with his poetry and songs.

Here's a short poem he wrote:"

I'll spare you the poem. I like that his list of favorite authors reveals he has read like two books ever. And yeah, if by children's literature you mean literature written by children. BOOM! ZING, KAPOW! The list of his other works includes "5 Tales of Erotic Horror" and "Malice in Wonderland."

At least he's not boring. That brings me to the story. It was interesting. I'm not saying it wasn't horribly written, because it was, but it was definitely unique, and had some funny moments.

My first impression was "This shit is hilarious." Not really because he meant it to be, but because of his descriptions. He can't think of other words to use so he just repeats his adjectives to hammer the point in. They read something like, "The pudgy girl was really pudgy. Her pudginess was at levels of pudgy." Dude, there's another word for pudgy in your title!

Well fine, it was still entertaining, her being stupid ('cause fat=stupid, DUH) and eating a whole thing of Slim Jim's after taking a diet pill then wondering why she gained weight and then going on a pill-eating rampage. I thought it was social commentary, but after reading a bit about this Lotus character I think it's just autobiographical.

Anyway, after that I got a little bored until I read this description and laughed out loud (brackets are my words): "The pain was the worst pain she had ever felt, [This description is genius! I can't wait to read more of your poetry.] times two. [My god, upping the ante from the worst to double the worst!?] She trembled, then she trembled more violently. [Fuck thesauruses!] Then she fell over into a floppy thud. Then she rolled up into a pudgy ball. [Hahaha!]" So you see, I can't tell if this guy is intentionally doing this or not, but it's funny.

Things get absurd when she actually loses a ton of weight and all the pills she took start literally attracting fat to her like a magnet and absorbing it. The story comes to an abrupt and hilarious end when (Spoiler) she confesses her love to her crush and in the following embrace he is sucked into her boobs. That's it.

Ratings:

Huh!?: 5 out of 5. What can I say, I have no idea what the hell is going on anymore. This story could probably make the Pope into a nihilist...

Lol.: 5 out of 5. This was really funny. I think it was supposed to be funny, but I think most of the parts that were supposed to be funny I didn't laugh at and most of the serious stuff I did laugh at. Including the dude's picture.

Pilled Out of His Mind Levels of English: 5 out of 5. This dude is on drugs. Five seconds around his writing and you feel it.

Overall: 2 out of 5. I thought that a teenage girl had written it, and I was gonna give her props for being so creative. But a grown man wearing a pink feather boa wrote this. Probably the same one he wears while DMing D&D games and his friends all hate it. No thank you sir!

Read what I wrote wearing nothing but a pink feather boa at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

The Story That Ate My Week

This week (and last week) I read an English author, Thomas Murphy, writing about the American Civil War. What? Yeah. The story was called "The Vine That Ate The South" (Yeah, fine, let's just capitalize everything).

(Link)

You got rights for that picture, bro? Well you might think from the cover, the fact that it's about the Civil War, and the title being a reference to Kudzu (the vine that actually ate the South) that this is a non-fiction, historical account. You thought wrong. Did you really expect a British author to write a factual account of the Civil War? Here is the description:

"A story told from multiple perspectives of a fateful decision taken during the darkest days of the American Civil War. Including a cast of characters including President Abraham Lincoln, a mysterious war photographer and an ardent genius biologist; this alternate history sci-fi tale tackles the lengths good men will go to to prevent evil happening in the world."

Well my first impression of this story has to do exactly with that description. "Cast of characters" in a short story isn't a good thing. He had like a paragraph from one person's POV then went on to the next like some sort of fiction version of Debbie Does Dallas. I mean that his fiction whores around, not that Debbie Does Dallas was a true story, although it might have been, you never know. This schizophrenic switching of inner dialogue serves the much  needed purpose of letting us feel every step the painful experience of this guy trying to drag a story out of his ass after getting high and watching the History Channel and hearing them dramatically say, "the vine that ate the South" and thinking how like totally badass would it be if he wrote a story about a vine that literally was like scary as shit. It's pretty apparent that he got a couple words in and had no idea where to go next, so he decided to just throw in another character.

I think he kept watching the History Channel too, because this story reads like an equally uninspired special of theirs. He lists off things regularly that make it pretty apparent he looked at that Wikipedia page, which is actually probably the same method History Channel uses. On the upside he could probably submit this story to them and they'd pick it up immediately. This post seems to be veering in a certain direction, so let's just bring it back to how the story feels like a fucking awful, half-assed, fictional, shitty network tells history. It's just pretty dry and flavorless overall; it's like the scones of stories (take that British! HA! Your cooking is bad too and I forced a joke about it!) I mean, there's a war going on, but all the action is just referenced coldly like a bunch of old East India Company generals playing snooker and chatting about how to put down those Indian dogs. Alright, again there seems to be an agenda happening, let's get back to the story. Sorry.

This guy did a pretty good job at writing in American English, but the first time he said "realise" or "theatre" or whatever, I definitely noticed. And yeah, if you're British and writing a story set in America it definitely needs to be combed and put in American English. The same goes for knowing the history of the Civil War in order to write an alternate history. YES, it's tedious, especially if you're British, that's why I have no clue why this guy tried it. What's the point, man? But if you're gonna half-ass it also, that's like telling me you will tell me how many jelly beans are in that jar then counting like half of them and doubling your number for a stupidly educated guess. Now I'm pissed at you for making me wait while you counted all those damn beans.

That brings me to the actual story. It's an alternate history about a technology that killed civilians as well as armies. First, dude, that's not very original, you just got the time wrong, it's called World War II and the atom bomb. Second, you put all this effort in trying to make Lincoln look like he was noble and shit not knowing that civilians would die. But in the real history if you would have looked shit up beyond "union losses civil war" there was a guy called Sherman, and he like fucking invented killing civilians as a means to winning.

Rateses:

Badassery: 1.5 out of 5. Throbbing red vines didn't do it for me, but I'm not gonna judge. The part where people clawed at their throats until they bled was cool. Everything else was boring.

Points of View: 1 out of 5. So many POV changes. Damn, dude. And this will inevitably lead to slip-ups. Like when he thought of a cool description of a fat man walking in a funny way and put it in during the same man's point of view. What, is he having an out of body experience or something?

Ending: 5 out of 5. I knew he was gonna pull the "I'm going to Ford's Theater!" mindfuck or whatever you want to call it, but it was hilarious that his dramatic ending somehow made it though with Lincoln's wife calling him a woman. Literally: 'Mary, where can we be reached?' 'Fords' Theatre, Miss.' Oh yeah, and dude, quotation marks look like THIS: ""

Overall: 2 out of 5. I didn't hate reading actually, it was just almost completely a waste of time. I do appreciate him trying to put in the effort to not misrepresent my country though.

Submit your complaints to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Apology Post

I just want to tell all my super loyal followers that I'm sorry for not posting last week. It's Nanowrimo and that apparently means replace blogging with procrastination over writing a novel. But, I am going to post this week. Does that make up for it?

This week I read "A Good Clean, A Harsh Clean" by Brian Martinez.

(Link)

Here's a descripty:

"A man walks into a bar, his hands smelling of bleach. All he wants is a drink and an alibi, but what he gets is an encounter with a loud, old man. As they talk he realizes they share a very personal and very dangerous link.

A short story for fans of Dark, edgy and Noir fiction."

I don't know why he capitalized Dark but other than that it sounds like an okay hook. I have to admit though, I have read like zero Noir fiction. That's why I liked this story. You read right: I liked this story.

The Noir thing might be too cliche for fans of the genre, but then again if you're a fan of the genre you are into that sort of thing. For me it read exactly like Noir sounds like it would. Everything is grungy, the dude has drinking and women problems, and everything is in black and white (except the blood).

This dude used a lot of stuff that sounds like it might be overused (again, if I read any Noir) but that I have personally never seen before. For example: "I grabbed a swig, phrased it like a question." That sounds so utterly Noir that it has to be stolen, right? Or how 'bout this: "I nodded to him because it was all I could think to say." Yeah, he's definitely walking the line between clever and forcing it, but I don't think he crosses that line too much.

Except with this line: "...putting blood in his spittle, which, by the way, is a word I hate. Probably why I use it so much." No, now you have broken the fourth wall, sir. That isn't Noir, that is just something you don't do unless it's that kind of story.

The ending of this thing wasn't great, but that's not really the point of reading something like this. It's more the ride along the way. The guy pretty much tells you what is going to happen in the description, it's how he gets there that's interesting.

And thus without a single joke in this post so far, let's go to ratings.

Noir: 5 out of 5. If I can know this story hits the Noir mark without any reference to the genre other than Prairie Home Companion, it's good enough for me. (That isn't to say PHC isn't a genius work of satire for our times. And that man's voice is SO smooth!)

Plot: 2 out of 5. "What!? But I thought you said you liked it." Shut up! I already told you the plot doesn't really matter since the voice was so good.

Depressing Events Having an Ironically Sort of Not Depressing Outcome: 3 out of 5. Of course it still had to be depressing and grungy and all Sin City and shit, but I can appreciate when there is a sort of blessing in disguise message or end result. But he did come close to breaking the fourth wall again pointing out that's what he had just done, so minus points there. See what I did though? Now you have to read it to find out what I'm talking about.

Overall: 4 out of 5. Yeah, like I said, I liked it. Sorry, I'll try to read something shittier next time so my post will be more entertaining.

Read something shitty right now at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Death by Fiction

This week I read "DEATH BY LOVE" (caps included) by Bon Rose. I'm not sure if that's a man or a woman, but I'll say woman because "LOVE" is in the title.

(Link)

Now, the description confused me. Mostly because it is all bolded (to compliment the all-caps title?) and makes no fucking sense:
"Grabbing her arm I dragged her over to the edge of Lover's Leap.

So you think you met the love of your life? Hopefully he's not the death of you! A short story about a relationship that ends up for better (or for worse)."

Oh, now that I read it again it makes more sense. I guess I wasn't paying attention. Still, that quote is pretty damn out of context. The "Hopefully he's not the death of you!" part is pretty unambiguous though.
Out of context and unambiguous is an oddly fitting juxtaposition to describe this story. It's got the same air of disoriented nonsense mixed with cliche that I felt when I saw a fat guy at Rainbow Family Gathering (if you don't know, think the most hippies ever in one place) who was completely nude with the exception of the rainbow umbrella he was holding. (I have to give myself credit for recovering from the image with the kneejerk reaction, "It's ironic, because I'm not holding an umbrella.") This story had the same confusing feeling by being a boring love thriller with the added benefit of being completely chronologically screwed up. There are flashbacks, flash forwards, confusions of tenses, and sudden switches to the present without any warning. After reading it, I had no idea what day it was. Just look at this: "Of course Kobe was the player they always go to when they needed a last second shot, and he didn't let them down tonight." What tense is this in? Where the hell am I and why aren't I wearing any pants?

The writing style just gets worse. For instance, the author talks about sex, but uses the word "bosom." Instead of anywhere, she actually said, "any where"--that's not even a mistake I've seen before. And her descriptions top out at "I felt sick to my stomach". It's like I'm living the story! I wouldn't bitch so much, but this story is rated 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon and has dozens of likes. WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? Maybe teenage girls.

I say that because this story has a Twilight level of misogyny. As the story progresses we find out that the narrator, a guy who is on his way to propose to his lover among a goddamn deluge of flashbacks, is a bit of a psycho. He gets in a fight with his girlfriend and it is revealed he's a bit possessive, because he doesn't want her to hang out with her friends ever. But that's all fine, it's part of the plot. It's what he says to resolve the fight and (successfully) calm her down that I have an issue with: "'When we get married you won't be out running around with friends, you'll be home taking care of the house and our kids. Except for the ring and ceremony we're practically husband and wife now.' I reached out and pulled her to me. 'Now, what are we having for dinner, I'm starved...'" Damn. And again I realize he is supposed to be an asshole, but that was the end of the discussion and I really suspect this author thinks  it's not abnormal to say horrible woman hating shit like, "Hey, none of this matters in the context of you fulfilling your role of a house slave. Now, make me a sammich, bitch!"

By the way, I'm going to spoil the ending this week because it is so weird. After smashing our heads in with the metaphorical rocks of tense and timeline confusion, the guy takes his girl out to propose to her in order to preempt her breaking it off. When she rejects him, he suddenly and without emotion threatens to throw her over the fucking cliff if she does not accept. Well, that came out of nowhere, I guess that's what the title was all about. But there's more. He then scares the shit out of her by leaving a hook on the outside of the car a la the Hookman legend, but he also slips a hook onto his hand. When she doesn't think that shit is funny, he fucking slits her throat with the hook, the end. Good thing the Hook Man always carries an extra helping "hand".

No, that wasn't me making a horrible joke, that is actually the weird-ass pun she ends the story with.

Ratings?

Chronology: 1 out of ? I had trouble following. Maybe I wasn't paying as much attention as a pubescent nerd who is confused about sex and its connection to violence. I hope this story doesn't make that nerd a violent serial rapist. Nah, it's probably not that damaging.

Then again,
Misogyny: 3 out of 5. Like I said, I do realize the dude is the bad guy and stuff but the casual way he treats her like shit just seems too accepted. It isn't quite apparent enough that we should hate this guy in all that he does, because his lover sees few problems with him. This is a double-edged sword though. The fact that he is a psychotic murderer is very much helped by him being an extremely possessive asshole. I did believe a lot of his irrationality and thought it was consistent and well-written in parts.

Thrill: 0 out of 5. Is this the second time I've had this category? Anyway, this wasn't thrilling or scary at all. It was more like, "I see, this guy is frustrated about a common experience we as humans- Oh. He just killed her."

Overall: 2 out of 5. I think I'm the wrong audience, but the author's mastery of English alone is hard to get past. The horrible pun at the end definitely loses points too. I have mixed feelings about the narrator/murderer, I can't tell how well he really was written. Anyway, maybe I'll read it as a 12-year-old girl next time.


Channel your own inner pre-teen girl with my stories at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Dafuq Did I Just Read?

It's apparently called "Blue Jackson, A Science Fiction Thriller" by Elizabeth Brown.

(Link)

Hold on, wait, I'm gonna stop you right there. Let me just say, I hope you know that by calling this a science fiction thriller it has to both be science fiction and thrilling. Maybe the answer to those questions will be revealed in the description:

"What happens when a ten-year old girl is abused but also endowed with special powers?"

Wait. Stop. What? FAIL on the science fiction, by the way, and also: What? I don't know what happens when... alright, whatever, keep going. 

"Blue Jackson knows more than most people, but she will never tell. The only one who knows she can talk is her brother, Tory, who is developmentally disabled. Tory agrees to keep her secret, until Blue starts conversing with the squirrels."

I'm sorry, could you repeat that? I must have misread. No? No, I didn't? Okay, keep it coming I guess...

"Blue Jackson is a story told as a flashback, through the perspective of Tory. It ends tragically in a macabre slaughter instigated by one small girl and her army of  rodents."

Uh SPOILERS. Damn. Word of advice: Don't put the ending to your story in the freaking description. Also, What? Well, at least upon reading that there is no way I won't read the story. Good job, I guess.

My first impression of the story is that telling it through the eyes of a retarded- my apologies, developmentally challenged individual- why can't she say like mentally impaired, slow, stupid, or I don't know, I can't find a good word right now but there has to be something more natural an colloquial- sorry, I got off track. Let's just restart. Telling this story through the eyes of what reads as a really thick southern accent, or at least what someone from Canada would think is a southern accent, seems like a gimmick that will get old really quick.

It turns out I was right. The accent definitely seems like something the author only used so that people would be like, "Damn, look how authentic and cool and awesome you are at writing, this is like Flowers for Algernon and a Tony Morrison novel all in one and you are probably better than both of them combined lolz." Yeah, except it and all the other gimmicks came off as well as a vice presidential candidate trying to appeal to young people (and religious housewives in a weird, creepy sort of paradigm-of-what-my-son-should-be-like kind of way) by lifting weights and wearing a backwards red cap. BOOM, DOUBLE ZING! Also, on a  side note Tony Morrison is also gimmicky but nobody can say it because she's all edgy and deals with race and rape and stuff which you can't attack or you look like an asshole. Well, I'm attacking it, so EAT IT, Morrison and everyone else.

I did find out that the rules of formatting were intentionally thrown out because of the narrator, but it only brought up two more problems. First is that if you throw away commas because your narrator is stupid you have to do it so the reader knows what you're doing. In other words you definitely can't use semicolons (although there was one part with a semicolon like directly after another one, which was pretty stupid). Second, the way I found out was the sudden shift in point-of-view midway through the story. Meet me in the next paragraph and we'll talk about why that didn't work out for you, Lizzy.

By suddenly putting a sane person behind your narration you threw your gimmick out the window. Not only that, you also revealed that you were using said gimmick as a crutch because your writing isn't that stellar, but once that crutch became too slow to walk on you threw it away because you got lazy. I still would have gone with it though, I was getting really tired of trudging through the horrible mire of repetitive, thick accent (dem po' readers dey jus' gots to take a rest) and the way you described the nasty backwoods rednecks was more clear without it, but you screwed it all by going BACK to the ret- developmentally challenged point-of-view at the end.

Oh god, the end. I had no idea what was going on there. A social worker and a detective inside the house get attacked by a squirrel then suddenly we're outside the house with two officers that came out of nowhere (and with the laziest names ever. Really? Officer Braxton and Officer White? Braxton? and White?) then the squirrels swarm one officer and the other one gets shot with the specifically-mentioned-as-unloaded-for-the-plot shotgun, the end. Really, dafuq did I just read?

Ratings.

Science Fiction: 0 out of 5. This wasn't science fiction. At all. There was no science anywhere in this story. At the most it was sort of fantasy, but it's debatable whether the girl had any sway over squirrels or not. It's just a weird and stupid thing that happened to some gimmickally abused children.

Unnecessary Rape: 5 out of 5. Oh yeah, did I mention the rape? That was a gimmick too. There was no point for it in the plot. I guess it gave her reason to, like, kill a guy with squirrels, but she was abused by her mom and grandpa anyway, so... anyway this story was all over the place, stakes-wise.

Thrill level: 0 out of 5. I thought the attack-squirrels would at least be funny rather than thrilling, but the description really was the most laughing I got done today and the story was brilliantly spoiled as a result.

Overall: 1.5 out of 5. This story was barely coherent. I wish I had more funny things to say about it, but it just wasn't even half as fun to read as I thought it would be. Pretty much ruined my Christmas.


Have your own Christmas ruined by my stories at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Hell Devil!

This week we get all philosophical and religious. The story is called Shepherd of the Wolves (clever, right?) by Julius St. Clair. I don't think that's a real name.

(Link)

And let's go straight to the description: 

"William Markin is both an world renown pastor, and an atheist. Having taught people about the ways of God for years, he is now retired and ready to live in peace. But when a mysterious angel appears to test his merits, he finds that he will have to answer for the actions of his past, and fight, for the future of his soul."

The descriptions of these things always seem to be the most interesting part. From this I made a lot of assumptions. 1: This guy doesn't know English. "An world renown pastor"? And I really feel like I'm beating the comma horse dead with these authors. 2: This is going to be a story where the guy comes to Jesus. To my relief, both of these assumptions actually turned out to be wrong.

My first impression was a powerful one. The very first sentence sort of punched me in the face, so I'll throw it down right hmeah: "'I said you're going to Hell!' the modestly appareled neo-hippie screamed at me as her self-righteous saliva fell onto my coincidentally exposed forearm." Damn, that's a lot of adjectives and adverbs. It's immediately apparent that whoever wrote the description from before was either a hired immigrant, the author has a well-paid editor, or he was drunk when he wrote it. I had to read this sentence like three or four times to really get it, and I'm sure that wasn't the dude's intention, but let's deconstruct it anyway, it's fun!

"Modestly appareled." Just think about it, you get the oxymoron in there? It's a weird thing to say. This lady has some "meek glamour" about her, some "muted pizzazz." Let's just give him the benefit of the doubt and say he used a thesaurus to complicate some words, I guess. "Neo-hippie." Fine. Whatever that is, I'm sure it exists, but would you be able to spot one if they were "modestly appareled"? Alright, I'll accept that I'm just being an asshole until this: "Self-righteous saliva." Her saliva is self-righteous? And it fell on your "coincidentally exposed arm"? Come on, you don't fucking need that adverb. That's like saying, "I flipped the switch, and the light coincidentally went out."

And wait until you find out why she is yelling at him. He A: went on an asshole athiest rant when she said, "Bless you," when he sneezed (dude, the appropriate response is thank you, not "FUCK YOUR GOD!") and B: he ordered a caramel latte without caramel and she put caramel in it. I have mixed feelings about this. It does display the dude's weird character pretty well, and it makes me as the reader hate him--he is a douche. It just sort of feels like this situation actually happened to the author, and we're supposed to sympathize with him and think he's cool for being an outspoken athiest. If that's the case then really dude go to hell, but if my dislike for the character is intentional, which does theoretically add to the story, then good job. But on the other hand I also hate the narrator. Actually, the narrator is the main character so that's pretty obvious, but I don't just hate him, I hate the narration. It comes off as really arrogant. And this entire situation is so pitifully summed up by the words: First World problems.

After the intro, the author stops using so many unnecessary descriptors and actually falls into a good pace. A demon/angel character is introduced and says he will give him three wishes and it takes on the feeling of a 1001 Arabian Nights type story. I can dig that, there are only a few things that I didn't like about it. First is that I immediately knew there would be a "be careful what you wish for" sort of moral or lesson, and it's up for interpretation (a plus) but nothing surprising really happened.

Second, angel/demon characters always come with a certain level of cheesiness. You have to really do it right to pull it off. It can so easily take on the feel of a Brendan Fraser movie (you know the one). It might work if you add in comedy, like Dogma, but even then the shit monster was just like, "Whaaat?" The believability just didn't come through for me, especially when the dude who is such a skeptic that he tears a knew asshole into the hippie coffee shop girl for reflexively being polite starts wondering if the angel is telling the truth. Like immediately. For example, the angel has to set up the rules of his being there real quick for the reader, which sort of crushes the disbelief, and says nobody else can see him. Then when the angel stands up and he's freakishly tall the guy suddenly thinks about the fact that if he is invisible he will look like he's talking to the sky, but that's normal because he's a former pastor blah blah. It's out of character (the guy has been established to not believe that shit), irrelevant, and pretty much just cheesy. It was a cool thought, but authorman, sometimes you just have to axe the "novel" stuff that don't work.

Ratings:

Onto-theology: 1 out of 5. This made me think about the nature of god and whether he exists like zero percent. The "clever" ending could have been in a story about a literal shepherd and his totally normal, non-religious flock. No souls were searched today.

Surprisingly Good Writing: 4 out of 5. The dude knew English pretty damn well after all AND his voice was pretty good, even though I hated the narrator. I will give him the benefit of the doubt and say that was completely on purpose and that he did an effective job. I am not speaking to the plot, just the writing style, minus the weird adjectives.

Plot: 3 out of 5. Yeah, not a very exciting category, but this story was good enough I don't really feel the need to shit all over it... much. The plot was coherent, and the dude gets a lot of points for not having the expected come to Jesus ending I thought it would. It sort of does a little bit, but it's ambiguous. The angel/demon and the ending, however, were just sort of played and cheesy. I so want to spoil it for the sake of humor, but I'll just find a substantially unrelated but relevant analogy instead... It's like if I made a movie where Leonardo DiCaprio goes deep into his dreams to investigate a bunch of dead inmates on an island prison and in the end he's really... Fuck, what am I talking about, that would make TONS of money.

Overall: 2.5 out of 5. Middle of the road. It wasn't bad, it wasn't great, what more can I say?

Read and laugh at my stories at www.amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

This week was weird. You ever read something about insanity and suddenly feel a little insane? It's happened to me with Philip K. Dick way too many times, I think his material should be a controlled substance. Anyway, this story Bug by James Pollard sort of did that, but maybe it's because I've been playing Deus Ex for hours.

(Link)

Weird is right. I'm not sure where this dude was going with this one. Here's the description:

"Imagine living with a bug that clings to the back of your skull. Only you can feel it. Is it really there? Are you insane? Join Blake on his journey in 'BUG' and decide for yourself. A weird short story by James Pollard."

Heh, what the hell did I just read? I think this guy is British too, which makes it even stranger, because he uses words like "rear vision mirror" and "Celsius." What the hell is he talking about!?

Stranger still is the way he does his dialogue, all in a row and without tags and punctuation thrown wherever. Like if I started talking about that time a couple of my buddies and one of their dads made a realization about a girl we all knew and I just launched into it like, "Hey, you know Lydia"? "Yeah, of course." "She went down on me". "Lydia is my sister "!" She's a good sister" "Yeah good at blowjobs." You see how punctuation and dialogue tags are really important?

Well it's fine, I'll just try to plow through that part, but the rest of your story better make sense, Pollard! Sadly, it doesn't. Maybe I'm just too stupid to get the metaphor. Maybe the bug on his head is an analogy for his alcoholism. If it is to be taken literally I don't know why this guy never went to a psychiatrist. Even the most deranged among us would suggest he seek mental help because he A: melted down in public while all of his friends were there, B: apparently drives around just chugging beers (I don't know, maybe that's normal in Britain), and C: oh yeah, he has a fucking invisible bug on his head that nobody else can see and he can't feel with his hands, despite ripping out his own hair, yet he still thinks is real! But I guess that's not the point of the story. I guess I'll stop being a spoil sport.

Speaking of spoiling though, there are two things that bother me here. First, while I was reading it I got that distinct feeling you get when you're watching The Others or something and you're like, "This better not fucking end with them realizing they're actually dead or I will throw this popcorn right through your plasma screen, Dave!" (Yeah, you remember plasmas.) I hate when I get that feeling because I'm either driving on an interstate and freaked the fuck out that I'm actually dead or I'm absolutely right about the movie/story/pantomime and I can no longer enjoy it.

Second, is his head made of beer bottles? Somebody explain this damn ending to me, because it seems like his head is made of beer bottles.

Ratings.

Bugs On My Skin Feeling: 3 out of 5. It worked alright, I could definitely imagine a bug on my head, and it's definitely annoying. It's also an interesting premise to start with. I liked that part. Could have gone further.

Use of Quotation Marks: "5" out of 5. "Good job," dude...

Confusing the Hell Out of Me: 5 out of 5, but not due to any skill.

Total: 3 out of 5. The major advantage to this story was that it was short, which meant it was an interesting little look into the life of a dude with a bug on his head. It was weird and attention-grabbing, but wouldn't be for too long. Plus, I didn't have to write a long-ass review. It really is interesting enough that for the first time so far, I actually do recommend you read it if you have a minute. And tell me what the hell it means.

Until next time.


If you want to point out what a convoluted pile of shit my stories are, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Midweek Cowboy

You might get from the obscure reference in my title that I am posting late this week (Yeah, I'm sure somebody both noticed and cared) and that I'm rolling out something sexy.

This week is all steamy and NSFW, you excited? You will be. Honestly I was browsing through stuff I could review when this title caught my eye and, while not so traditional, I just have to do it. I mean, come on, check out the title:
Hot xxx Erotic Sex Stories(Bundle 1) (10 Erotic Short Stories/Erotika/Hot sex/ Gangbang/Anal/Oral/Orgy/Lesbian)

and the cover art:

(Link)

Thank you, Ethan Taylor. Thank you so much for your literary genius. I mean, how on earth you managed to combine anal, orgy, and lesbian all into the same title is... well, it's just beautiful. No other word for it.

So what are we getting ourselves into? In the sake of tradition, I'll let him explain for himself first:

"WARNING: These are erotic short stories for ADULTS ONLY! All characters are over the age of eighteen and the story contains scenes of oral sex and penetration

Featuring erotic juicy scenes, these stories are guaranteed to keep you glued to your Kindle like nothing else!
43,418 words

10 erotic sex stories including:
Addicted To Cum
Cowboy on Heat
Finally Free In The Caribbean
My First Time Lesbian Sex
Mystery Woman
Sexual Symbiosis
The Gift That Keeps On Giving
The Startup GangBang
The Trade Off
To Rise From The Ashes"

Oh them titles. "The Startup GangBang"? I can only imagine a young entrepreneur venturing into the sex industry for the first time—conflict and/or hilarity ensues. "To Rise From The Ashes" is a little more ominous. But, I'm going with "Cowboy on Heat," because, well, on heat, not in heat? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I have to find out, and the answer will obviously be high quality literature.

My first impression of this story about Luke, a small town cowboy looking for help on his ranch, is, well, I can only express it by quoting this line: "There was more than enough work to keep him occupied for the rest of his life, and frankly, he preferred the company of horses to the company of people." Uh-oh. Shit just got real.

Luckily the story quickly turns away from the topic of horses, actually creating some atmosphere in its misspelled and bumbling way, using authentic cowboy language like "belly up" and "handling lariats" in the local feed store (no, not in reference to sex—yet!). And then she walked in. Thank god. Wait, is she a horse? Is she a metaphor for a horse? Is a horse going to be involved in this erotica in any way? I hope so.

Well our protagonist and his newly found help, Jessie (who conveniently brought all of her belongings just in case she would be offered a job at a ranch today), get to know each other and the ranch work is explained and the housing situation and- hey, wait, isn't this story supposed to be erotic? I don't give a shit about what ranchers do or what their houses look like. I mean, here I am, pants unzipped, ready for some action, and all I get is boring bullshit (Get it? 'Cause they're ranchers? HA!).

Well, I'm not going to spoil the rest. Time for ratings.



See how boring things are when you don't talk about the sex? Yes, of course they have sex, much later, after a boring documentary style rundown of cowboy life. But once he gets to the sex, there are (to my delight) some freaking weird word choices. Like "glans." Glans? Really? Is this a sex ed class? And when he cums in her mouth "her tongue and throat muscles sucked the scalding fluid down her throat." What? Excuse me, obviously there is a problem here because this is supposed to be in Luke's point of view, you can't just switch POV to her feeling his scalding semen. And it's kind of unrealistic to have a woman swallow, that never happens.

Oh, oh yeah, and if your semen is SCALDING then you have SERIOUS PROBLEMS. Go to a doctor!

There are of course further scenes of sex filled with awkward imagery. For instance, "He followed close behind her, his erection bobbing in front of him as he ran." I'm so turned on by that picture being scarred into my brain. At least it's hilarious. Then there is some spewing and some crowing sounds and some other stuff, it all gets a little hazy.

Whatever happens is a little overshadowed by the total downer sandwiched between sexings. It gets pretty dark when it switches POV to her again then goes into her past. Her parents died and she started having sex with random guys, whoring herself out for meals and places to stay, and falling asleep with dicks in her mouth (I'm not joking). Then it's revealed that Luke was a cop who got shot a bunch and his wife died and now apparently they're going to heal each other with sex.

What the hell? I thought this was supposed to be an erotic story, not some depressing sad cowboy shit with glans thrown all over the place. I mean, look at the cover of the book—it's a woman's ass! Nobody said it was deeper than that! Well, they did, but you know what I mean. Shit, I'm glad I wasn't using this story as material or I would have a serious cognitive dissonance right now. Like, a sadness boner or something.

And maybe that's what the author was trying to do. To cause us to think about happiness and love and realize that maybe it is just all about sex. Maybe instead of (10 Erotic Short Stories/Erotika/Hot sex/ Gangbang/Anal/Oral/Orgy/Lesbian) he should change his title to (10 Erotic Short Stories/Love/Love/Love/Buttlove/Love/Love/True Love). Maybe this little anthology is even deeper (I'm on fire with these puns) than we all thought.

Ratings time.

For Mastery of English: 1.5 out of 5 stars. If the descriptions of cowboy life weren't so extensive I would think this author is Albanian or something. Maybe he was writing one handed.

For Eroticism: 0 out of 5 boners. I was going to go negative with this one, but I figured maybe it's just not my cup of tea. Maybe wondering what the hell the point of living is and feeling sadness and despair and trying to fill your holes with penis, literally and figuratively, really gets you off. I'm not going to judge.

For The Meaning of Life: 5 out of 5. He has it figured out. Happiness=sex, and who the hell are you to say otherwise?

Overall Score: 1 out of 5. I was so disappoint. It was kinda funny, mostly sad, and not sexy. Honestly I didn't even finish reading it. It really came up short (BOOM!).

See you next week.



If you would like to criticize, shit-talk, and otherwise defame my own fiction, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.