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.