The Crushing Guilt of the Internet

This week I read The Elder God of the Internet by Janice Light, and let me just say right now that she can actually fucking write. That's like one for 25 by my count. How do I stumble upon such utter crap?

(Link)

Here's wot 'sall about:

"Tessa only joined the cultists to get away from her own crazy life, but they seem pretty serious about calling up Cthulhu from the depths of the Atlantic sea. Tessa's given up drinking, stuck with nothing to go back to and nothing to look forward to, so she doesn't much care if they really do manage to bring on the end of the world. But then Auntie Beatrice arrives to give poor Tessa a piece of her mind. This is a fun short story for those who don't take their Lovecraft too seriously."

I tried to look up more about her to see if she was really British. Sometimes she writes like it, sometimes not. She has no profile, so we'll never know, but she does have a story called Milk of Human Kindness, which I assume is a lactation fetish erotica (look it up, it's a HUGE category on Amazon).

Uh yeah, so I said she could write before but for what it is, this story is way too long. It has like five chapters, the last of which has no point at all, just more talking. It's like if Kafka wrote a story about going to the store to buy some milk. Really well written, really long, really pointless.

It's about an alcoholic girl (if I really wanted to drink while reading this is it because I'm an alcoholic or because I was bored?) who joins a cult of Cthulu in order to stop drinking and on the day they will raise the Old One from his slumber, her great aunt comes and embarrasses her.

Turns out though, while she is trying to get her to leave the great aunt reveals she's familiar with her Cthulu chants and wants to see these young new internet cultists fail. Horrible transition later and we're suddenly outside. This is the only part that was badly written because, for as loooong as the rest of the story is, I don't know if there's a single sentence to describe what is going on before Cthulu randomly pops out of the ocean. It's unfortunate, because this is literally the only important part of the story. It's like that Seinfeld. You know the one, yadda yadda-ing through sex. I was going to make a similar analogy until the 90's beat me to the punch.

Anyway, Cthulu shows his plan to wreck the world which is- *gasp* -already in progress. He shows the cult members a vision and the alcoholic girl's is posting comments on Facebook drunkenly. You heard me. Cthulu's plan is to end the world through Drunkbook. INTERNEEEEEEET! DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUS!

Heh? That was anticlimactic. No, actually, that was more like reverse-climactic, negative-climactic, I have a huge climax vacuum in my pants (like space, not a special device that I'm running to the patent office to trademark RIGHT NOW).

I'm back. Anyway that's pretty much the story. I am tempted to say she saves it by having the cult leader quit his cult job in disgust at Cthulu's lameness, but that doesn't save me. I still had to read the damn thing!

Rathulings:

Ten Dollar Words: Millionaire out of 5. I'm going to admit, I didn't know what the hell ob·strep·er·ous  was until I looked it up just now, and why the hell can't you just say "noisy" or "annoying" (you're welcome)? And I used the internet to find that. You know, the thing this story says is evil?

And what the hell is "nutters," or a "lift," and how can you stand in a "flat"? Isn't it flat?

Lovecraft: Sleeping out of 5 (although she did warn us). I would say rolling in his grave but I don't think he really cares. He would probably laugh at the internet. It has nothing on the crazy shit he saw before brain drugs came along and numbed the scary out of us like the shit out of a fevered alcoholic on a bender involving heavy experimentation with laxatives. Have I already used that simile before? Anyway, just be careful with laxatives.

Cyber-Bullying: 5 out of 5. This girl's real problem isn't alcohol, it's fucking cyber-bullying. I really just brought it up to post this:

Love it. If some things I say seem similar to him, it's totally because he stole from me and not the other way around.

Overall: Umm... hmmm... whatever, 3 out of 5. Plotwise it was lacking, but like I said it was pretty good writing. I'm not going to be obstreperous about my criticism. Did I use that right? No?

If you want to read some totally obstreperous shit, like really, really obstreperous, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Madlibs on a Blank Page

This week I read Caterpillars on a Pink Moon by Edward Lange.

(Link)

Here's the description:
"Edgar Wilson’s world has gone completely and utterly bonkers. Giant rabid squirrels prowl the sidewalks, dead presidents are coming back from the dead, and people are spontaneously turning into giraffes. And it’s all Edgar's fault."

Alright, I don't know about the word bonkers, but maybe he's British or something. The rest isn't a bad hook. I want to know why it's all his fault.

The story got off to a kind of rough start though, when Eddy had problems spelling compound words and being funny. His Chinese mail     man begins arguing with a Pepsi can in an alley      way. That's when I said to myself "This guy wrote a bunch of nouns, adjectives, and verbs onto slips of paper, pulled them out of a hat, and tried to write a story." But no, that's not giving him enough credit. He obviously chose a Chinese mail        man because it's hilarious. I mean, he's CHINESE! Bwahahahahahgagagaa!

Get it? Chinese?

So, you want to know why it's all his fault, right? Fine, I'll tell you.

But I mean, seriously, when you think "mailman" you're all like "white guy," right? Right? Alright fine, you'll probably get it later and laugh to yourself.

So all kinds of crazy stuff happens that is not very "laugh out loud in Barnes and Noble" but it's interesting for a story. The guy finally manages to get home and talks to an angel which actually turns out to be real. The angel tells him that his sarcastic New Year's Eve resolution to "never kill anyone" is ruining the universe because he was always supposed to be real shitty at keeping New Year's resolutions, according to God. Fair enough, so far this is the most original story I have ever reviewed.

Then, the angel tells him to kill someone to make it all better and gives him a gun. It is slightly amusing when he goes through all the people he tried to kill that day and why it didn't happen, I just wish it wasn't literally a list. It had me on the verge of a "heh" when he said he contemplated killing a suicidal woman but she beat him to the punch. But then he shattered my dreams by following that sentence with "He'd wanted to kill an escaped serial killer and tax dodger who was hiding in his building, when a deranged sentient stop sign whacked him to death." Hey, you already did the "beat him to the punch" thing! And P.S. How did he know the serial killer was also a tax dodger (or an escaped serial kiler, for that matter), unless he knew the guy because he had just been living in the apartment building, in which case why the hell wouldn't he call the cops or move or something?

Anyway the guy runs out of time and- did you predict it? I did. He thinks of the clever loophole of killing himself.

But, thankfully, it's not over! He then meets the angel in heaven and he says something like, "You dick! Suicide isn't murder!" and they watch the universe collapse. HA! I'm not being sarcastic, I liked this twist. "Holy shit, did he actually like it?" You'll see.

Ratings:

Creativity: 3 out of 5. Like I said, the stuff he came up with took as much work as choosing random marbles from a sack, but I like Madlibs, dammit! I'm just kidding, I hated riding on the bus and not being able to run the fuck away from the annoying kid that was like, "Let's do some Madlibs!" But aside from all that, the plot was pretty creative, especially the ending.

Conflict: 1.5 out of 5. Don't ask why it's so specific. I have a system, and it involves far too many shades of grey. Let's just say he summarized the predicament of having to kill someone into a single paragraph and I feel cheated.

Humor: More than expected. I don't ever read fiction for comedy. I think anyone that does is probably hiding a man-sized costume of a fox in their closet or something, but when things are amusing I'm not opposed to it. Again, this wasn't laugh out loud (or "lol" as I hear you kids call it these days) but it wasn't painfully trying to be funny and just failing either.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5. Probably my highest rating ever. Time to retire.

If you would like to read something that will make you retire (from your job or from hope or faith or whatever) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

When is Horror Ever Scary?

I couldn't think of a crappy pun for a post title this week, deal with it. This week, and for the past two weeks in which I totally didn't forget I have a blog in favor of studying, I read Crawl Space by F. Poj (don't ask me).

(Link)

Here's a little description to wet your curious little whistle. That sounded dirty for some reason... anywayss:

"A Short Story. Horror. Frankie, an architect downgraded to building surveyor by the downturn after 9/11, finds himself on a job in downtown Buffalo. He must prepare updated floor plans for a huge abandoned building. The old school building seems to come alive, as the sounds of the cold wind howling through broken windows keep Frankie thinking he is not alone. Approaching the end of his task, he suddenly finds himself trapped deep in the guts of a dark, desolate maze. Frankie will have to crawl through mud, and fight against some unexpected enemies, to find his way out of this trap and cheat death."

Mud? He has to CRAWL through MUD!? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Alright, this story is a little more exciting than that, let me tell you. In fact, nothing is more exciting than a good story about an architect. Nothing, that is, except a story about an architect that can't find a job so he has to survey buildings. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole first half of this story as he took measurements and wrote down notes. Enthralling!

Other than a few editing errors every other sentence, I was really able to connect with this character's heterosexual interest in women and slight tendency towards laziness when it comes to crawl spaces. Real original stuff!

But it gets even more intense when he is mysteriously locked in the crawl space he is surveying. I actually did feel a little panic at this part, but our protagonist Frankie took it to the extreme by knocking himself out on a pipe and breaking his fist on the door to the crawlspace. He tries to find another way out as cockroaches crawl on him (not so scary for me, but I can see it, sure). He comes to a point where he has to dig with the bugs all over him and tears off his fingernails in panic. This is the point where I really winced. More on that later though. He emerges and is set upon by flesh-eating rats.

Well, spoilers, my friends, spoilers, because I have to call BULLSHIT on the description. "Unexpected enemies" means cockroaches, rats, and paralysis? Not ghosts? I thought this was horror, where are the fucking ghosts!? Not even a single serial killer? Fine, that still passes, barely. But the whole "cheat death" thing? No, he didn't cheat death, he did exactly the opposite of that. He fucking falls down a hole and abruptly dies (well, not so abruptly; the paralysis makes him good and immobile for the rats to eat him to death). Nothing is better than a story that was as fucking pointless as the surprise death endings of a Goosebumps "choose your own adventure"...!


Ratings:

Horror: 2 out of 5. Technically horror, but I would call it "thriller" or "psychological thriller" or some other genre that hearkens to the days when nobody ever fucking watched Fear Factor. Or maybe you did, in which case you are really fucking horrified of cockroaches and this story is for you.

Boooring: 5 out of 5. Pick a random sentence. It reads like this: "Once he reached the northwest corner, Frankie shot the laser back south to locate the southwest corner and determine the width of the tunnel: 42 feet and change." This is so interesting. Please do a story about a dude that uses a slide rule next.

Physical Discomfort Masquerading as Scary: 5 out of 5. I know, this is like a repeat of the first one. Well, you can just open your OWN fucking account and write your OWN fucking blog if you don't like it! Yeah I just remembered that the points where I "jumped" were the times when the idiot main character injured himself. Time, after time, after time. At a certain point it is no longer callus to say things like "survival of the fittest" and "pathetic" and no longer appropriate to say things like "scary".

Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe this story would be exciting for someone (until the dude just dies and all that worry for our totally inept hero goes to waste). But that someone is afraid of cockroaches and rats, so why the hell aren't there any snakes? Why_the hell_not?

For stories that are exclusively about snakes (really, it's nothing but fucking snakes!) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall