Hunting the Verb

Oh yeah, I have been working on a blog post. I know it didn't seem like it. This time it's Hunting the Vampire by Tim Morrell. Check out that COVER:

(Link)

I think you know why I chose this. It kinda kills it that it was probably his kid that made the cover art, not him. I'm not about to make fun of a kid. I wouldn't actually put it past him to have put this together though, having read the story. I just say the kid thing because it's dedicated to his wife and kids. Oh, and then he says, "AND MY WONDERFUL GIRLS FROM DELTA GAMMA Sorority at KU who are my biggest fans (Yes, this includes you, Kandy)" The bolded part is in like 50 font size.

An open letter to Tim Morrell's wife:

Dear Tim Morrell's wife,
Your husband is cheating on you. Actually he probably isn't, but he's trying his damndest and freaking the shit out of a bunch of sorority girls (especially Kandy). At the very least you should be offended he "dedicated" his story to you, not just because it was super shitty, but also because he then had a giant "AND TO THE PEOPLE I'M ACTUALLY ATTRACTED TO" after the dedication.

Sincerely,
A.C. Blackhall

Seriously though I imagine this guy trying to hit on sorority girls and them just sort of politely entertaining his fancy and later talking about how creepy he is--you know the type--and he's all like, "I'm an author," and they're stupid enough to believe him and they're like, "Really!?" "Yeah. I'll write a story for you. But you gotta tell me what to write it about." "Oh, I don't know." "Heh heh, come on, Kandy, what do you like?" "Hehe. Umm...I like Twilight... and Dexter."

You get the idea. And then we get this story. Here's the description:

"Zaden is not your typical vampire hunter. Where others may find and kill the demons, Zaden captures them to torture them for information. It all comes to a head in this story where Zaden catches up with his ultimate prize, a vampire with a soul."

But there's not really a reason to give you that description because it doesn't describe the story at all. He literally doesn't torture the vampire he finds, nor does he somehow determine it has a soul. He does explain a bunch of facts about vampires to himself in a long and confused mess of words for pages and fucking PAGES in order to set up the two lines of dialogue, which go something like,

"I'm gonna kill you and take your powers."
"Nooooooooo-" *Dead*

But it's more complicated than that. According to him, (actual quote>)"There seems to be only two surefire ways to kill a vampire: burning them completely in a fire or by exposing them to the sun, or by taking the head." Or a stake through the heart or a bullet or garlic or a cross or running water or allergies or pushing them off a cliff or presenting them with an unsolvable paradox or breaking their heart or making them fight a werewolf or AIDS, but those are the only TWO ways.

That's pretty much it. Vampire dies, guy takes his powers, finds a random prostitute and asks her something like "Wanna be the general of my undead minions?" to which she says, "I'll do whatever you want, as long as it's on the clock, honey." The end. Not much else to say.




Oh yeah, and WHAT THE FUCK WAS WITH THE VERB AGREEMENT!? He used tenses I didn't even know existed. Some of his sentences had so much past/present/future changeup that I think spacetime fucking tore a little. I hope this story got you fucking laid man, because it did almost as much damage to my mental health with its total disregard for grammar as Twilight (Zing).

Ratings:

Sexy Vampires: 0 out of 5. You missed the mark, bro. The vampires didn't do anything broody or artistic. You just don't understand the type of vamps Kandy digs, man. Try again. Don't try again. Please.

3rd Grade English: 0 out of 5. Holy shit this was seriously one of the least literate things I have ever read. And if you know me, you know I have read some fucking illiterate shit. Hell, I teach English as a second language and that shit is more legible than this.

Plot: 1 out of 5. I can't give it zero. Something did happen. But I literally had to go back to see if I missed something only to find out that I didn't. Mindblowing.

Overall: 1 out of 5. This is one of those stories that has it together so little that it isn't even that entertaining to make fun of it. It's like being proud of reading faster than a dyslexic kid. Oh well, at least it's over (although it did take a long time because I only just barely beat that kid).


If you are dyslexic, you might enjoy the simple tales of a very simple author at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.