I wonder if Amazon will ever get pissed at me for hotlinking like every picture in their store...
Description:
"Kate is at the station waiting fro [sic] Mike, her best friend's husband, to arrive. He never does. Instead she receives a phone call she cannot believe; she doesn't want to believe. Will she meet the demands of the caller or will she let her friends down?
From the author of A Shadow in the Flames."
Obviously she gets the call that is like, "I have a British accent and I've kidnapped your friend. Now don't drive below 55 miles per hour or I'll find your wife among these hostages and kill her." But that's fine, I actually figured out this author is British because an American would definitely not be waiting for a train, and he spelled color like coulourue or something.
Plus these action plots are the "in" thing right now, I wouldn't be so quick to say that every plot possible has been- what!? Speed was 20 YEARS AGO!?
That's fine, at least the villain doesn't speak all overly-sophisticated and make cringe-worthy puns. Oh wait. There are all too many lines like this: "'Eight minutes Kate. I hope you are almost there because I can tell you Mike is desperate to speak to his family before he departs this world.' The voice continued with a chuckle, 'One could say he's dying to speak to them.'" Oh god, no, get me out of this story! I'm so scared that I will have to finish reading this!
Actually that's alright, I needed a good laugh today, and it's been YEARS since I was reminded of the terrible puns of Mr. Freeze.
Actually that's alright, I needed a good laugh today, and it's been YEARS since I was reminded of the terrible puns of Mr. Freeze.
Peter Mann also needs to be forgiven once you find out the ending to his story, so if you are being quick to judge, then you can just CHILL OUT!
It turns out that when our protagonist, Kate, reaches Mike's wife and hands her the phone she calmly answers it, says a few things, and hangs up. Then she explains that Mike is always up to some practical joke or another.
WAKKA WAKKA!
Seriously though Mike, Kate almost got arrested and then almost died in a car accident because you couldn't find another way to contact your wife?
Seriously though Mike, Kate almost got arrested and then almost died in a car accident because you couldn't find another way to contact your wife?
Ratings:
Suspense: 1 or 2 out of 5. The tension of this story just didn't add up. There was just a feeling in the back of my head the whole time like, "He isn't in any real danger." Turns out I was right, but in the case that I was wrong and the guy ended up dead or whatever, it still wouldn't have done it for me. I hate to beat a dead horse here, but I really think it was the puns. From when he said, "'You can hear Mike's fine.' There was a child-like chuckle. 'Or should I say confined,'" I basically wanted to throw my computer monitor rather than find out what was happening.
Visceral Sound Effects: 1 out of 5. Now, calm down, I know you can't hear words on a screen, but this story is called Tell Me What You Hear. The villain lets her hear the sound of him lighting a cigarette and supposedly putting it out on Mike's cheek and breaking two of his fingers, but it just misses the mark. Not that those things are pleasant, or that you have to go full Saw to make me feel it. The descriptions are just so short, like, "She heard two popping sounds and some screaming." Come on, Mann, you can do better than that.
Visceral Sound Effects: 1 out of 5. Now, calm down, I know you can't hear words on a screen, but this story is called Tell Me What You Hear. The villain lets her hear the sound of him lighting a cigarette and supposedly putting it out on Mike's cheek and breaking two of his fingers, but it just misses the mark. Not that those things are pleasant, or that you have to go full Saw to make me feel it. The descriptions are just so short, like, "She heard two popping sounds and some screaming." Come on, Mann, you can do better than that.
Ending: 0 out of 5. At one point the protagonist wonders if she is dreaming and if she'll wake up and have to tell her friends how ridiculous it is that she got so scared because of nothing. I think at that point our author's instincts set in and he decided it would be and always is (no matter what) an awful idea to end a story with "And it was all just a dream." If it's all just a joke, however... NO! That just destroys the whole story. It forgives the author for not writing a believable scenario, because it's just Mike the whole time, but it also makes the story completely fucking pointless. It also ruins the believability of the entire scenario, because if Mike had repeatedly played practical jokes like this, he would have been arrested for causing public panic, or false emergency calls, or something long ago. There are only two possible reasons to make it all a joke: 1) You realize the whole thing seems phony (which it did) or 2) You can't think of an ending.
Overall: 2 out of 5. The story didn't have any glaring mistakes or anything, it just wasn't worth reading because it barely qualified as a story. The only reason it had a beginning, middle, and end was because the end was stuck on there like a dick pic on a politician's text message. BOOM Anthony Wiener SLAM. Cheap. Anyway the point is it just didn't belong, and it made me all too eager to stop reading. You might even say I was dying for the story to be over!
If you want to see the text equivalent of a dick pic, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall
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