This Little Pi-Wait. What the hell? No!

Today I read This Little Piggy by Craig McGray.

(Link)

Description:

"THIS LITTLE PIGGY

James wakes up with no recollection of how he ended up shoved into a culvert full of corpses in the backwoods. He struggles to escape the confines of the pipe and quickly realizes he should have stayed home that night. Here, Piggy, Piggy!

**Warning: This Little Piggy is a short HORROR story not intended for anyone who may be offended by graphic language or scenes of violence. Please, don't read this story if you are squeamish. Really, there's some nasty stuff in here."

I was like, "Yeah, right, it probably has what you think is some nasty stuff." I was kind of wrong. This guy wakes up in a culvert filled with bodies, as the description says, and his limbs are all broken and stuff so he painfully drags himself out and remembers why he ended up in there in the first place.

It turns out he is a murderer and a rapist, and some guy catches him trying to rape and kill his sister. He beats the shit out of him and rapes him with a mop handle then puts him in the culvert.

Then when he crawls out, the guy finds him again, more beating, et cetera, and then he feeds him to some pigs.

So yeah, the description doesn't lie. There is some "nasty stuff." In fact, the "nasty stuff" accounts for basically 100% of the story.


Ratings:

Wait, Why in the Hell was this Written?: 5 out of 5. This was literally just descriptions of all the sickest shit this guy could think of. There is technically a story, but why do I need to read it, and why the hell was it written? It is interesting to introduce a character and get us thinking he is a victim and leave the reason he is in this situation a mystery until Act 2. But the answer to that mystery was kind of a fucking story killer (pun? I guess?). Yeah it's unique to get us in the point of view of a rapist and killer, but the fact of him being a rapist and killer doesn't serve much of a purpose in this story other than letting us know it's okay to watch him get tortured to death in medically defying horrible ways. Personally I was okay with it until he got his teeth smashed out and some went down his throat. So...I guess... good job on the descriptions?

The Ending: Totally Unnecessary out of 5. So in the end the huge guy that kills the "protagonist" goes back and tells his sister that he's dead. Then they fuck. I'm not kidding, it's like a redneck guy with all the cliches of speech and mannerisms and the incest. What literary or entertainment purpose does that serve? I mean, you could really dig for reasons to include this and be like, "Rednecks. Incest. ...HA!" That stereotype being funny is the only thing this ending does. Fine, I make poop jokes all the time, this guy can have his cheap laughs too. But not to fucking end a story. A story fucking chock full of murder, especially. All them murders need answering for.

Actually, Technically all the Murders Have Been Solved, from the Point of View of the Reader: Countless out of Bodies. This story really had so little going on other than torture that I'm just going to keep talking about that. Seriously, what am I going to review all the torture scenes and critique their value as a form of art? I'm sure to someone it is art, and it has to have been written for a reason. That sounds really critical, but I'm not being ironic. It is literally a sadistic story, and it seemed to want to be cathartic or something. All I can really do when faced with this information is just assume that this Craig McGray author guy is actually a rapist murderer and this story is a fantasy of how he wants to punish himself. Or he thought guts are cool.

Overall: 2 out of 5. I don't really want to give it that high of a score, I really didn't enjoy reading this, but technically it doesn't break any of the rules I'm always bitching about, so... Yeah.




On a lighter note, if you would like to check out my snuff series, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

All My Errands

Because reading this was sort of a chore. This week I read All My Demons by Frederic Ayers.

(Link)

Description:
"It was another day in my life that was simply unlike anybody else’s. I have been on the run since I was a kid. Running from demons, not my demons, but demons. When I got on yet another bus to try and keep the demons at bay, I expected it to be like any other bus ride, a safe haven from these demons that everyone says are just in my mind.

 
Now, on a hot and crowded summer holiday weekend I am on a bus full of screaming kids and broken air-conditioning. If I don't shake this feeling of being watched, I am sure I will have to resort to something to finally end this suffering and the demons forever. The question really is, will I be able to control the demons. Find out in this new science fiction horror short story by Frederic Ayers."

That description is actually probably more detailed than the actual story. The guy is haunted by demons that only attack him when he is alone, but he gets on a bus and for the first time ever they attack everyone on the bus. The guy sitting behind him holds his hand, then fires a strange weapon and the demons go away.

The man then explains that the demons are beings from another dimension, attracted to a few humans like magnets, but when normal humans are around the pull is not strong enough. He also explains that he was firing the gun at our protagonist and not the demons, to reverse his polarity. Then, he gets into a black car that pulls up out of nowhere.

But before he goes, the protagonist grabs his arm and sees that he has the same cherry branch tattoo as himself. Why do these guys have a cherry branch tattoo? Isn't that like a patently female tattoo? Whatever, maybe they just want to look like sexy drifters, it's not for me to judge. Oh yeah, and obviously the older dude is the protagonist from the future. Spooky!

The End.

AND then the old guy gives him a package and inside is his treasured pocket watch. Why is it always a pocket watch? Then the guy is like, "Wait, is that me from the future?" Uh, yeah, we're all one step ahead of you dude what the fuck.

The End.

Ratings:

Least Exciting Slaughter Ever: 5 out of 5. Not only does this guy do that annoying shit I always bitch about where half the story is just telling us about his backstory and nothing is happening, but when the action does get started it is some of the most disconnected and boring shit ever. My summary above might as well be the original story. In fact, I might get sued for plagiarism for that little synopsis. In this story, demons wrench open the top of a bus like a tin can and start systematically slaughtering people as they get closer and closer to the protagonist. But again, what I just said right there had more action and adjectives than the actual events. This shit reads like, "Then they tore open the bus and started killing people. There was some screaming and blood. I didn't know what was happening." Fuck! MAN! Give us some blow-by-blow action here! Who was screaming? What did it sound like? Where was the blood coming from? What did any of this look like? What did it sound like when the top of the bus was yanked off? Describe anything!

Nothing is Explained: 5 out of 5. I can understand that like science fiction and time travel are mysterious and there are reasons you can't tell your past self shit or something blah blah whatever. But you can at least tell us why you can't tell us something. There is no explanation for why the demons attacked a crowded bus once and only once. There is no explanation for how his future self got this technology or where he is going or...anything! And if you want us to come to the conclusion on our own, that you don't want to fuck up time by telling everything, then why the fuck did the old man not say anything to the protagonist all mysterious-like and then ruin it all by giving him a fucking clever little package with his watch inside all like "Maybe Santa is real!" If anything, that's what would fuck things up the most. Just couldn't help himself? No, I'll tell you why it all played out this way. The author doesn't know or give a fuck about the details. It is clear by how few details were actually included throughout the story. He just wanted demons and a clever ending and was too lazy to fill in the rest properly.

 Actually There Were a lot of Details About All the Wrong Things: 5 out of 5. The backstory was boring, but this author was clearly really into it. He spun quite a tale about how he is so special because he sees demons and nobody understands him so he became a hardened drifter. Again, all of this was removed a step by a healthy tell and don't show buffer of reflecting on the past and summarizing events, but there was still quite a bit of detail wasted on this telling and not showing. He also really wanted everyone to know what the city and the bus smelled like. He went to massive efforts to describe it, although he eventually failed because he broke down into saying that it was a smell he just couldn't quite place. But it was a bad smell. Oh, I assure you, it was the stinkiest of stinks. Now, after all that effort, maybe a reader could expect that the smell plays a part in the story? Nope. Not important. Doesn't come up again at all. Instead, you just have the really predictable transition from the subtle but cliche, "There was something familiar about this old man," to, "Something REALLY familiar," to, "REALLY REALLY FAMILIAR LIKE FAMILY BUT EVEN CLOSER," to beating you over the head with, "And he had the same tattoo, but why would he have the same tattoo as me unless he is me but that's impossible because I am me," to the final addition for mentally impaired readers, "and then he gave me my own watch but I have my own watch so he HAD to be me!" Maybe, and this is just a suggestion, maybe it would have been more subtle if the effort wasted on describing the smell was used later in the story where it really would have counted.

Overall: 2 out of 5. Back to the drawing board, dude. Actually someone could probably make this idea into an alright story, although not a very clever one.



If you want to see some more ideas that someone else could make into a good story, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Something Racist, Something Free

This week I read Something Safe, Something Free by Janice Daugharty.

(Link)

Description:

"In time, Willie will drop from his high on alcohol and self-pity. In time, he will adapt to working for the black man who used to work for him. Bear now owns Willie's hard-earned heavy-construction business because of a glitch in government regulations. But what Wille will never adapt to is his x-wife's conning him out of his twin girls."

That set off a bit of a red flag, eh? He will adapt to working for the black man who used to work for him? Because of a glitch in government regulations? Is this story going to be a sermon about affirmative action?

Thankfully, not really, but we'll get to that later. This story reads like a piece by a creative writing student in college who has been reading experimental fiction and wants to emulate it. Sure enough, from her author page: "Janice Daugharty, writer in residence at Abraham Baldwin Agriculture College, in Tifton, Georgia."

She is all about the creative writing classes. And, it would be sort of ironically prejudiced for me to point out that "Georgia" and "Agriculture College" don't bode well for not being a racist, but... well, come on. Misspelling ex-wife doesn't help her case either, as long as we're making sweeping generalizations.

The thing is these pieces that are a product of college classes can be good, but it is damn hard to be as good as the famous, post-modern short story authors you are studying. This particular story is about a depressed redneck who you expect to commit suicide by the end. There is actually far, far more effort put into the story than the description lets on, but like I said, her goal is essentially on-par with me sleeping with Jennifer Aniston without a rape charge- creative writing teacher or no.

The thing is, there has to be a reason for this story in order for it to be good, and I was fully expecting it to end in suicide, which would have been a stupid, pointless story. Luckily, she adds a twist at the end--the guy takes his rope, loops it, and uses it to steal a sign on the road as a small consolation prize.

NOW, that would be a good story, IF I liked the main character. But I didn't. He sucked, and I found myself wanting him to die at the end of the story. The result? A story that was not predictable, but which was actually slightly disappointing because of that fact. Don't get all meta on me and say that maybe that was her intention, that the guy stealing the useless sign at the end was him symbolically stealing something from me as a reader and this was all self-conscious. That is giving way too much credit.


Ratings:
WAY Too Much Flowery Language: 5 out of 5. This was actually a really short story, but it seemed to go on twice as long as the stuff I usually review because every fucking minor detail had over-the-top descriptive language. It didn't always benefit the story, either. Here is the first paragraph:

"A scooched owl in the live oaks swoops low over the lanes. Willie slows his pickup and turns left off the highway. Yellow lights blinker on the white mailbox, on rags of Spanish moss where katydids stash their summer shrieks. A tired country song on the radio loads the dusk, textured of winter's nothingness hum. Sounds borrowed from yesterday, on loan from tomorrow."

You know that doesn't make any fucking sense, right? I am impressed with the amount of bullshit that was jammed into one paragraph while telling me essentially nothing. "There is a guy driving a truck," you say? Great. I give a fuck, I really do. First, the internet says there is a colloquialism for "scooch owl," not "scooched," but I'll let that slide. But here- oh! You forgot an adjective for lanes! What kind of lanes are they? You're not being exhaustively fucking descriptive enough! Since when is "blinker" a verb? You know how I can tell "where katydids stash their summer shrieks" is a fucking useless thing to say? Because I can't tell if it's winter or summer from this paragraph now. You have failed at the thing you are trying to do hardest--set the scene. "Sounds borrowed from yesterday, on loan from tomorrow." What the fuck does that mean? Does it make any fucking sense at all? Tell me. TELL ME. Being very liberal here, I am going to give the benefit of the doubt and say it's a really fucking dumb way to say every day has the same soundtrack. "Winter's nothingness hum." Please. Get the fuck out of my house.

Is This Racist? 5 out of 5. Yeah it really leaves you wondering. That's not a good sign, is it? Now, the main character is definitely racist. He is all down because he is "the new nigger." It's not the use of the word nigger that bothers me, hell, I used it for a purpose just now. It's the fact that he is upset about a black man being his boss. There's more though. He reflects that the "city folk" will kill you if you use the word nigger, but they turn right around and call you redneck. Yeah, well, deal with it, you racist fuck. He also thinks that all white people are the new niggers. Thanks, OBAMA! Don't even fucking start with bringing up affirmative action and saying bullshit like that. You will end up dead by my hands, DEAD. Anyway, all of that does not necessarily mean that the author is a racist. He is a character in a story, not her journal. But then there's the fact that he steals a sign at the end instead of committing suicide, and the message is basically: sometimes life is a bitch, you are a born loser, and you just gotta take your consolation prizes. Like I said before, that's only an effective message if I like the main character. And I don't like him. He's a racist. So there's that. You meditate on that for a while.

A for Effort: 5 out of 5. This story is well-polished, previously published, and a lot of thought went into it. Like, a fuck-load of thought. You read the first paragraph for yourself; you think she spent less than a month trying to think of all those little embellishments? No, she definitely fucking strained her brain for this one, and for that I will give her credit. Thank you, lady who I already forgot the name of, for putting one hundred and ten percent into an Amazon story, and making all of us fellow self-published authors look a little less like teenagers stranded on a desert island without clothes just rabidly jacking off after we beat up the kid with glasses. Just...next time, and don't get mad when I say this, but next time, can you put all that effort into a story that has, you know, a really solid direction and message? Thanks.

Overall: 3 out of 5. Yeah, higher than you thought, right? I think this one is worth a read for anyone who hasn't taken a university-level writing class. You will seriously get the full experience.



If you want to find out what winter's nothingness hum is, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

You Thought You Knew Everything About Global Warming, But This Story Will Blow Your Mind!

I couldn't think of a stupid pun, even though it shouldn't be that hard, so I just went with a clickbait title.

This week I read The Cold Pools by Chris Ward.

(Link)

Description:

"Meet me at the end of the world ...
As civilization comes to an end, Lewis and Karen take their last vacation to the only cold place left on Earth, the remote resort town of Cold Pools. There, they will say goodbye ...

The Cold Pools - a short story of 3,000 words, is taken from the author's collection Ms Ito's Bird & Other Stories.

Chris Ward is the author of more than 80 short stories (33 of them published) and the novel The Tube Riders, available now on Amazon."

The Tube Riders, eh? Amazon really has way too much erotica these days. Well, anyway, this one isn't an erotica (unless you're into really weird stuff I guess). It's about global warming and the consequences of it, including, of course, skin cancer and the only inhabitable continent being Antarctica.

I'm actually NOT going to spoil this one, because it's decent for once. What I will say is this guy and his wife go to the last glacier on Earth which is also the only place where the temperature is below 80 degrees fahrenheit. It is, sadly, their last big, expensive trip because his wife is dying of a rare form of skin cancer that leaves her body covered in pussy sores. That's kind of scary... maybe I  have cancer because- no, wait, WebMD says it's just herpes. Thank god.

So I was like, "where is this going?" thinking the author had just thought of a unique scenario for a story and was screwed for an ending. I was pleasantly surprised, though, that it turned out to be a little poignant commentary on our human need for the artificial, lies, and self-deception. Even though we know the truth, sometimes it is better for us not to say so out loud and use the therapy of illusion as best we can.


Ratings:

A Little Too Far: 3 out of 5. Of course, this story is about global warming and is a speculation on how terrible it is all going to turn out. That's fine, but there were some parts where I was like, "OKAY, I get it!" There's not really a need to explain stuff like the couple doesn't have kids because they would have a terrible life and humanity will probably find a way to survive for a couple hundred more years but they will eventually all die. That could all be worked in, but it's shit we kind of already know without going into so much detail. These things should be used as flavor instead of preaching. And that is a fine line, because some of the stuff just adds more to the reader's imagination of this planet, but other stuff is kind of like, "And this is all because the people in the PAST drove their CARS too much! Maybe if they had read more cautionary tales about the future!"

Research: Shaky out of 5. I'm not a scientist or a doctor, but there are a few things about this story that I kind of doubt were researched. The world seems to be one constant temperature except Antarctica and the Himalayan Steppe. It seems logical that those two places would be more habitable, but the details are a little cloudy. It would have added to the story if the author had researched predictions of what it will actually be like a little more and included them, because I didn't get a really great image of this planet. That's all fine, but another thing that got me was his wife's cancer. I think he described it as "a rare form of skin cancer" or something, which is sort of a red flag in itself. Again, I could be wrong, but I have never heard of any skin cancer that gives you puss-filled sores all over your body. I sort of doubt that this isn't just made up. That's fine though, because it becomes a metaphor for things which were once beautiful and still are under all the scars but which you cannot touch without causing more harm. There is therefore a painful distance and desire between the narrator and his wife that does add to the story. It's also a work of fiction, so I'll leave it at that.

The Ending: 3 out of 5. This also goes into the same category as the "a little too far" one above, but in a different way. The ending isn't preachy, it's just a little too caught up in trying to convince the reader. There is a lot of explanation which I don't really think is necessary. Some of it adds to the overall message of the benefit of self-deception, but at the same time some of it is caught up in explaining logistics and that very explanation ruins a bit of the self-deception message. If the narrator is explaining all this shit to us, he is obviously thinking about it and explaining it to himself, which means he's not doing a very good job of accepting the illusion. This is all really hard to do without spoiling the fucking story for you, so just bear with me. It's like if you said to a girl, "You want to come up and see my collection of vegetables shaped like things?" and if she actually accepted, you wouldn't then be like, "Awesome, because we both know you aren't actually interested in that and I don't actually have such a collection and we're just going to have sex."

By the way, works every time.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5. This was by no means a kick-you-in-the-balls type of great story, but it was decently written. It had plenty of flaws, which I told you all about, but aside from those it was well written, and most importantly, fucking well-edited. Amazon needs more stuff like this, so please don't rely solely on your sales of "The Tube Riders," Mr. Ward.



If, however, after reading this, you are still interested in stories about tubes, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Something About KILLypso...get it? Like kill?

This week I read Something About Calypso by Ian W. Port.

Nice cover.

(Link)

Description:

"'A lean, intriguing story that packs a real surprising wallop. Ian W. Port builds suspense and delivers with startling results.' – Ralph Pezzullo, best-selling author of Jawbreaker"

Well, that's not really a description now is it? And I don't really trust this review. I am going to ask Ralph if he really said that. Not that I've actually read Jawbreaker.

Well, this story starts out with some guy and his new wife on their honeymoon. I think her name is Calypso or something.

The story rapidly escalates into the territory of the author telling us to be scared (I wouldn't have known otherwise) when Calypso asks what the worst thing he has ever done is and she pins him down and says she killed the hostess he was looking at and her corpse is in the bathroom.

Then she says it is just research on trust and fear for her PhD dissertation. Got to say, I am a doctoral candidate and that is not how you fucking do research. But that doesn't really matter.

Anyway, the guy doesn't check the bathroom, he just goes to the bar and gets drunk, then when he gets back his wife is gone. He calls the desk clerk and there is one of those cliche "I would like to stay for another week." "But sir, you have already reserved for the rest of your life," moments when they are like, "You checked in alone, I show no record of a Mrs. Whateverthefuckyournameis." WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

So then he goes into the bathroom and finds the dead corpse, freaks out a bit (because he obviously killed her) and then decides to get to know the new corpse girl better, maybe even marry her.

Yeah, yeah psychological thriller blah blah.

Ratings:

If Ralph Pezzullo Endorsed This, I am not Reading Any Ralph Pezzullo: 5 out of 5. Again, he said, "A lean, intriguing story that packs a real surprising wallop." Well, lean just means short. Pretty much too short to be any good, because there is no character development to tell us this guy isn't crazy (or is, in case he didn't want it to be a HUGE twist but instead wanted us to believe it). Actually there was a little bit of that, but I'm not really convinced that was intentional so much as bad writing. Anyway, it doesn't so much pack a real surprising wallop because of that, intentional or no. Let me explain in the next two points. See you below.

I Know There is Tension Because You Said There is Tension: 5 out of 5. So here are some examples of  the intentionally crazy or bad writing question. His wife pins him down and says she has done real bad things, and he gets all freaked out. Like abnormally freaked out, and instantly. There is no doubt in his mind that she is not joking and has done something terrible and he should fear for his life and try to escape and call the police as soon as possible. This all happens in about a sentence. I had to read back over it to make sure I didn't miss anything, because it was literally something like, "She straddled him and said, 'I have done some really bad things.'" No tone of voice, no descriptions of the way she moved or held him down or anything, just that sentence then, "OH FUCK SHE'S GOING TO KILL ME." Then when she says it's research he just believes her and gets grumpy and goes to the bar. At the bar, some strange lady repeats the same thing his wife said before: "Is it true that men are always cheating on their wives, even if it's just in their minds?" Oh, SPOOKY. Actually, who the fuck cares. I'm not mortally afraid of being accused of adultery, nor should anyone else be, especially mind adultery which is just fucking nonexistent (sorry Christians).

SO, my point is these things make him look crazy, but that's also because the author is like, "I need to raise the tension of this psychological thriller. I KNOW! I'll just tell the reader stuff is tense and psychologically thrilling!"

Repeating and Repeating and Repeating and Repeating: 5 out of 5. So this guy clearly has a really small vocabulary. That's fine, you don't need a large vocabulary to write, but you do need to be creative with that vocabulary. Just look at how many different ways I use the word fuck on this blog. What this guy does instead is just repeat the same words and even full sentences word for word literally right after you read them. This is another failed attempt to raise the tension. I feel like the first time he wrote a lot of these sentences he was like, "This isn't tense enough," because he had written something like, "I have done some really bad things. I am super serious." That's very true--it isn't tense enough--but for his solution he settled on, "I have done some really bad things," she said again. Great work, you just wasted a ton of words in this already too-short story.

Overall: 2 out of 5. I don't know, I like the concept of psychological thrillers, but they never seem to catch me off guard and all the ideas seem overdone. Oh, except Solaris. God damn was that a creepy book. Go read Solaris.

If you liked Solaris, you should check out my completely unrelated writing at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN "THEY"

Today I read THEY  by Vincent Hobbes.

(Link)

Description:
"'THEY' is a short story by Vincent Hobbes. It was first released in January, 2010 in the anthology, The Endlands. 

A relaxing road-trip becomes madness as two couples find themselves trapped in a blizzard."

So the whole time I was reading this, I was like, "I have totally been trapped in a blizzard in Colorado and it made me want to write a snow zombies story." And then guess what, at the end it turns out this story is a zombie story set in a blizzard in Colorado.

Stole my idea.

But mine was better, of course. In this white-out, I was creeping along when I saw the silhouette of a cop materialize and he got out of his car and started screaming, "Go back! Go baaaaack!" That was creepy on its own. I feel like I could do much better with the shadows of figures slowly appearing only for the main character to gradually realize something is not right about the slow, stumbling gait of the creatures.

Still, this story did pretty good as far as suspense goes. The group slowly runs out of gas and they are not sure if they see lights ahead in the distance and none of it is rushed. I liked that part. But the end was kind of abrupt. Like, I won't give it away entirely, but the part that was supposed to be the most tense was the least tense, and instead of using the blizzard to obscure the zombies and make them more terrifying, he just constantly used the words they and them. Anyway, it wasn't bad, but it was nothing surprising or exceptional. And I wouldn't bitch about that except for the guy's author page saying: "Mr. Hobbes writes with elegant prose, has unique plot-lines and great character development. His work is mind-boggling, his characters life-like, his ideas fresh in a dull market."

How I wish it were true.

Ratings:

Mastery of English: Shaky at best. Some sentences just didn't make any sense. Others used the wrong verb--"And then he bleeding to death." Shit like that. That's just fucking lazy, especially considering this was supposedly already published in an anthology. At times when I reading this I crying.

Pick a Character: 5 out of 5. He switched between the thoughts of the four people so much I started to hear voices. This, too, is a lazy tactic. Instead of describing peoples' facial expressions or giving them interesting dialogue, he just cheated and immediately said what they were thinking. I think it would have been much more interesting if we could feel the tension from the way the characters acted rather than him constantly being like, "'Yes,' she said, but really she was all like, Fuck, I'm so fucking nervous! What if I have to do a shit on the side of the road?" All of this was pretty unnecessary too, because by the end of the story he actually ended up with a single protagonist that was more competent and exciting than the rest of the dumbasses who all immediately got themselves killed.

Overuse of THEY: 5 out of 5. I was pretty pissed off at him substituting they and them for any actual descriptions of the zombies or emotions or tension or, well, anything entertaining. He probably used those two words 1,000 times in a 4,000 word story, and I'm sorry to say it was NOT as cool as he thought it was. Maybe use it once, then the reader can be all like, "Oooh shit, that's the title. Neat," and move on to reading the parts where there was actually effort put in. And the most disappointing thing, as I mentioned earlier, is the fact that there actually was effort put into the first three quarters of the story. I felt the tension, I wanted to know what happened next. Then, it was just over. All foreplay and no payoff, and now I have to change my sheets. Well, the sheets thing is kind of unrelated to me reading this story.

Overall: 3 out of 5. It was okay. I want this guy to try harder, for the sake of everyone who bought a kindle and doesn't necessarily feel like reading erotica EVERY time they turn the damn thing on. And, also, this doesn't have much to do with anything, but here is his picture. Enjoy.

If you want to find out what happened to my sheets, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Shallow Over Impotence

Today I read Shadows Over Innocence by Lindsay Buroker.

(Link)

Description:

"Sicarius, the emperor’s personal assassin, returns from a successful mission only to discover that the enemy is retaliating by sending an assassin of their own. The target? Five-year-old Prince Sespian. 

Shadows over Innocence is a 4,500-word short story set fourteen years before the first Emperor’s Edge novel."

Let me just start by reminding everyone that I hate fantasy. Especially these "A short story from The KingSword Bollucks Castrilfriligantor universe" shits that plague Amazon are just unappealing to me.

That being said, this story was really solid. Maybe it's because there was none of that requisite mystical bullshit. I don't at all understand why if you want to have magic, you also must have swords and British accents and use words that went out of style in the 16th century and elves. Fucking elves. This story didn't have any of that, just had all the stupid long names for no reason. No, nobody can ever be named Charles even though it's like the most common medieval name ever.

But, since this story didn't have all the magic shit and just had like some swords, I'm just going to call it historical fiction. Much more comfortable for me.

Alright, so this historical fiction is about an assassin who is not supposed to have feelings, but when the emperor chastises his son for drawing, the assassin feels sympathy.

After that, he goes around generally being a badass until he uncovers a plot to assassinate someone in the palace. He runs around, interrupting the emperor's orgy and stuff, trying to find the rival assassin until he realizes the target must be the sissy son of the emperor that nobody likes or cares about.

He is right, and of course he stops the murder just in time, not even waking the boy in his bed he's so skillful at silently fighting. In the aftermath he finds some drawing utensils on the rival assassin he was using to make maps, and he leaves them in the boy's room.

Heartwarming.

Ratings:

Getting Bogged Down in Fantasy Politics: 0 out of 5. This story naturally dealt with politics. The assassin arrived back from another kingdom with a sackful of nobles' heads, and that kingdom sent a rival assassin. What's more, the story's other characters are all in politics--the emperor, his son, the head of war, etc. Despite all that, there wasn't the usual fucking awful boring shitload of politics. This was a human story. Instead of explaining to the boy that instead of drawing he should be learning how to fill out form W-I in order to file a formal complaint against the misappropriation of gherkins, the emperor opts to give the boy a lesson in what politics are like by having the assassin empty out his sack of heads in front of him.

The only downside is we'll never find out what those gherkins were used for.

Giving the Assassin Superpowers in Order to Make Him Badass: 0 out of 5. The assassin simply trained and trained and then after eating bland food in order to try to keep emotionless, he trained a hell of a lot more. He was good at his job, but he still fucked up letting a rival assassin get far enough to almost kill the emperor's son. He didn't have magic eyes or the ability to turn into mist or a pet falcon who could shit acid on his foes or any other fruity shit you may have read in your shitty dark elves book. He was human, and that was the point of the story, and any totally wicked fantasy powers would have taken away from that.

Having an Actual Point: 5 out of 5. And ANOTHER thing I hate about FANTASY--shut up, shut up, just lissen, no YOU'RE drunk! If this was the average teenage authored fantasy, it would exist just for the sake of...well, fucking ASSASSIN, that's why! Assassins are totally awesome, and everyone knows it. Why do you think Assassin's Creed has sold so many fucking copies? It's not because it's a good game, because the story and gameplay and basically everything are shit. No, it's because it has the word Assassin in the title. And yeah, fine, this story played on that quite a bit, but what it also did is instead of showcasing how heartless this stealthy killer was, it showcased how heartless he tried to be out of duty but how he still failed and ended up acting from his heart. And that's what the world really needs--contract killers with love in their hearts.

Overall: 4 out of 5. POP THE CHAMPAGNE! This is probably the best story I've reviewed so far. Fucking solid work. Every single word was spelled correctly and everything! And I fucking remind you: I hate fantasy. It's not my job to review something based on the genre, but it definitely doesn't help when I go in with a huge bias. Oh, and my for reals apologies, for once, for spoiling it, because it would have been worth a read. But now it might not be. It's nothing mindblowing, but it's good writing.




If you want to find out what I did with the gherkins, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Sadeline

This week I read Madeline by Craig McGray.

(Link)

Description:
"A shed full of macabre secrets... A wife gone crazy...A nine-year-old girl that must die!


Jonah fights for his life while trying to stop his deranged wife from killing their daughter.


Sometimes, the Devil truly is in the details."

Is there really a need for fourteen fucking spaces between each line? Actually, it's kind of clever, because the description is a metaphor for how he tries to build a suspenseful story with no material- BOOM.

So in this story, the guy's wife is always out doing stuff in the shed but he never cares what the fuck it is until one day he goes out there looking for his daughter. Turns out, his wife has been doing creepy ritual shit and has his daughter tied down about to sacrifice her with a sharpened crucifix.

The rest of the story reads like the guy is imagining a horror movie, which doesn't really translate well to the written form. Also, if it was a movie, it would be a shitty one.

For no reason, his dog teams up with his wife and attacks him. His wife for some reason has a deformed face and a sickle, and also for some reason squirrels help him out at various points.

That is sort of(?) explained by his wife sacrificing woodland creatures in her shed all the time, but why the squirrels gain sentience is not explained.

His wife just keeps saying Madeline is the one and she needs to kill her. If it is so important, why the fuck don't you explain yourself, lady?

It turns out, as the guy is cleaning up his daughter after squirrels hilariously tear his wife to shreds, that he finds a 666 brand on his daughter's neck. OMIGAAAAA. Also at that point she becomes a zombie or something, the end.

Ratings:

You Have all the Stupid Imagery that Hollywood Thinks is Scary, I'll Give You That: 5 out of 5. Well, at least he tries to. At several points he describes the breath billowing out of his wife's mouth, and I just had to assume he meant steam because it was cold. He never describes it as steam or the fact that it is cold though, so way to go I guess. Also there is a shed and they apparently live in the woods, and deformed faces are creepy in movies I guess and he describes the scene where her face gets all close to his and his eyes are darting around like in a film and little girls are creepy sometimes and there is a ton of gore. I guess if you mash all those things together it is supposed to be scary. To me, it just seemed fuuuuucking laaaazy.

Plus, This Story was Too Hilarious to be Scary: 5 out of 5. Having squirrels help you out is just hilarious. Having them tear someone apart is also hilarious, and highly improbable. I mean, how are their little claws supposed to tear human skin? I guess they break nuts with their teeth, but there would have to be a hell of a lot of them, and where did they all come from? Why did they wait until she slit his Achilles to start attacking? Also, according to the ending, squirrels are agents of the devil. Really they weren't helping him out, but simply going with the theory that an enemy of God is my friend and untying his binds and stuff. Another funny thing: Why did this lady tie them up and leave them alone only to lay in wait for them to escape so she could creep up behind them for a scare? Is she having a laugh? And WHY THE FUCK DIDN'T SHE JUST SAY THE GIRL HAD THE MARK OF THE DEVIL?

Despite Having a Massive Load of Plot-hole Shit, This Story was too Short and Rushed: 5 out of 5. This story was written in an hour, I swear to god. It's basically a deluge of poorly thought-out, unedited shit on an e-page. It's too short to build any tension, something which I constantly bitch about with horror stories, and nothing really makes sense. The horror genre isn't exactly filled with brilliant shit, but this takes the cake as far as being a mishmash of images pulled from low-budget films.

Overall: 1.5 out of 5. It was semi-coherent. Saw the twist coming a mile away, but not all of us can be super fucking amazing demigods like M. Night. Not all of us can be as fucking insane as him either, but this author, at least, can say that he has tried.

If you want to read something that will put The Last Airbender to shame, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Story Check

This week I read Reality Check by David Brin.

(Link)

Description:
"Do you ever get that sense of deja vu...a feeling that you've experienced something before? As computers get more and more complex, they are able to replicate the nature of reality in ever finer detail. How would we recognize if we were living in a computer simulation – a highly accurate world of virtual reality? Perhaps this isn't your first time..."

I am having deja vu, because this is the plot of The Matrix. Even the deja vu part is from The Matrix. So, I'm just going to skip the middle-man and review The Matrix.

Neo is a lonely computer hacker in the year- HOLY SHIT 1999 WAS A LONG TIME AGO! Now THAT will make you shit a brick.

Alright, so this story isn't really that much like The Matrix. It's basically just musings about why we haven't found extraterrestrial life and why that might mean we're all in a dream we have constructed out of the boredom of being eternals.

Basically mortals died out in the year 21-fill-in-future-numbers-here, and humans passed into immortality et cetera et cetera.

That's about it. Sooooo........

Ratings:

Was This a Story?: 5 out of 5. This "story" has no real beginning, middle, or end, no characters, not much of a plot, no emotions, no climax--basically nothing that any other stories have. That being said, it was supposedly published in Nature, and it is a piece of short fiction. OR IS IT!? As I said above, it's basically some guy's musings written down. They are mildly interesting, and there are some big words, so I use the word musings instead of rantings. Still, it's not a huge step from this to publishing the ravings of that guy who ran for governor of Idaho Harley Brown.

Harley Brown, and his beautiful teeth.

Two Dashes Does Not Actually Make an Emdash: 5 out of 5. Now I know what you're thinking. "You just fucking used two dashes in the paragraph above this." Yes, that's true, but I'm fucking lazy. If you are publishing something on Amazon, especially if it has been published before, you should change those bitches to emdashes. I wouldn't be such a hypocrite about this, but seriously this is a great example of what's wrong with independent publishing. If you constantly publish unedited shit, we have to wade through that shit to find anything good. I think this blog illustrates how not worth the effort it is to try to find that gold nugget among an eternity of turds. Please, PLEASE polish your turd!

Actually, that's not the only problem. 50% of it is also that the only thing you can find on Amazon is niche fetish erotica. Come on, is there REALLY that big of a market for 50 Shades of BDSM? That's a REAL title I see EVERY time I look for something to review.

Muse if You Must, But at Least Muse Originally: 5 out of 5. There was literally nothing said in this story that hasn't already been thought of by like every single person on the internet. It was kind of weird though, because the author seemed to realize that and start using it as a reason that you should doubt your fictional reality. "Only so many combinations of notes exist" he repeats as if it's deep, then tells you to ask why. Yes, why INDEED, sir? The answer didn't really make me shit my brain out into my pants as was intended.

Overall: 3 out of 5. This story wasn't bad. It wasn't great, but it was short and it reminded me of some philosophy I pondered fucking 15 years ago. SERIOUSLY 1999 WAS A SCARY AMOUNT OF YEARS IN THE PAST! Sorry. It's pretty obvious from this post what generation I am from. But still, if one thing blows your mind today, let it be that.

If you want to have other parts of your body blown, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.







Wait! No! That's not what I meant! Please don't solicit me for sex!

The Difficult One

This week I read The Lucky One by Ray Kingfisher.

(Link)

Description:

"A short story taken from the collection: Tales of Loss and Guilt - 16 short stories.
Story details:

An elderly woman is haunted by memories of her escape from the holocaust.

But how reliable are painful memories that have been kept at bay for over sixty years?

And at her time of life, what exactly is she searching for?"

First of all, what's with all the spaces? Shit, man, that's super annoying when I have to press the "see more" button on Amazon to see the rest of the four fucking sentences you wrote.

Also, "Tales of Loss and Guilt"? That sounds like an amazing read. "It's summer break, so I'm gonna kick back with a glass of lemonade and an anthology about loss and guilt. You know, just really relax."

And an elderly woman escaping from the holocau- Wait, what? No. No no no no no. Shit. No, I am not about to write a humour review of a holocaust story, am I?

Am I?

Okay, fuck it, here goes. Put on your holocaust joke hat, because we're fucking doing this.

But first, a joke about ovens.

What did one baked potato in the oven say to the other baked potato in the oven?

"HOLOCAUST JOKES AREN'T FUNNY, YOU TASTELESS FUCK!"

Alright, moving on. Actually to sum up, this story starts with an old lady landing in Hamburg. There is some background done in flashback about how her children are baffled with why she would want to go back and visit the death camp she was in years before, but she feels it is something she needs to do because she is dying of cancer.

There are some emotional scenes that were a bit difficult to get through, like the museum guide struggling to explain that women were raped at the camp when a young girl asks all the wrong questions, etc.

In the end, the woman has a vivid flashback of the camp, and an employee comforts her knowingly as she cries. That's all there is to it. It's short and, well, I'll meet you below for the ratings.

(Insert Holocaust joke here)

Ratings:

Should it Have Been Written?: Turmoil out of 5. I think this may be my only category for today, because it has me so confused, and I can't really separate it out into three separate, snarky categories like I usually do. I guess one could be: Writing Style: 4 out of 5. But there is no joke there. It was pretty damn well written. You know how I always bitch that the background of the story is set up in like some weird triple past tense telling instead of showing format? Yeah, this guy didn't do that. He actually showed everything that happened in the story, and that was great. The emotions didn't fall flat, they were, well, emotional. And the characters were dynamic and each had their own clear personality as well.

The only thing is the set up and the ending. As the description and the beginning of the story quickly establish, this old lady is going back to find some sort of meaning or the answer to the question of why she was spared while so many others died, juxtaposed with the irony of her having cancer now and of course the misfortune of being sent to a death camp in the first place. I feel like that is a good set up, but I'm not sure this story delivers. I'm not sure it doesn't, either. It is one of those questions that doesn't have an answer, and to try to provide some neatly wrapped up ending would come across as incredibly trite. Still, this story just kind of ends. On the other hand, it did make me reflect on all of this just now, so maybe it worked?

And then there is the question of why this man wrote this story. His anthology is fucking called Tales of Loss and Guilt, as I have already poked fun at, and there is obviously a questionable motive behind writing that. I am against guilt porn. I think Upworthy-style exaggerations comparing first world problems to- well, to the fucking Holocaust are almost as immoral as the Holocaust itself. "How Many Women Are Ruthlessly Raped in YOUR Workplace? The Answer Will Make You Shit Blood!" Thanks, Upworthy, for hyperbolizing problems and making any sort of actual issues in the world seem like meaningless noise. You can click "like" and feel like you have done something great and move on to alternating between Farmville and masturbating. At least, that's how I spend my days.

Oh, oh yeah, I was talking about something serious. So, there's that, but there's also the question of whether it matters that this guy wrote this story to make guilt dollars. Isn't it good anyway if it makes us remember the pain and senselessness of genocide so we never again repeat that mistake? Is there ever such a thing as too many reminders of the Holocaust, no matter what the motive is? Isn't the most important thing the reader's reaction, rather than the author's intent? Or is authorial intent much more important than I'm giving it credit for right now? So that's my rating for this story. You can write your response down and leave it on your own blog where I will never, ever read it because I don't care what you think.

One last thing. If you are disappointed with how serious this post is, you probably missed the entire point just now.



If you want more hilarious Holocaust jokes, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Predictable Delivery

Wow, time flies. I didn't realize it has been over a month since I wrote a post, even though I normally do one per week. I was busy writing a giant thesis, so my apologies.

For my triumphant return I read Special Delivery by Lia Fairchild.

(Link)

Description:

"From Amazon Bestselling Author, Lia Fairchild
Free flowers every month for a year! Recently widowed Amy was delighted to find that she had won. Flowers had always been a big part of her life. But delivery driver Dave brings more than just bouquets. Can he help Amy find happiness again? Will Amy get even more than she bargained for? Find out in this short story about love, loss, friendship and flowers.

If you're looking for a quick read (only 5k words) with a sweet romantic feel, this is for you."

Wow, a best-selling author. Yes, this is the same author as Vigil Annie and A Hint of Murder. Her titles are almost as clever as my blog titles, and I obviously spend hours straining to find a brilliant pun each week.

Actually I'll be straight with you. From the description, this story is pretty predictable, but for what it is it's really not in the same league as the fucking awful shit that I normally review. For one thing, reading this didn't make my eyes sting--except with overwhelming emotion! But no seriously that was a joke just now about the emotion thing. I don't want to mislead you, I felt basically nothing when I read this. But that's nothing out of the ordinary. Sometimes I cut myself, while I watch videos of puppies getting killed, while listening to Nickelback, just to see if I can still feel.

Anyways, we have drifted from the point. The point is for the first time ever, I am giving the No Fine Print Actual Fucking Author Award to Lia Fairchild! She clearly works on, edits, and markets her material. Like, as if it is a job she actually takes seriously, and that is something I can not say about virtually any other person I have ever reviewed.

Plus, she is obviously a milf, so that is basically 70% of winning me over right there:

Oh yeah, I also read her story, so I should talk about that. Well, obviously this widow lady falls in love with the guy that delivers her flowers each month as part of a contest. On the last delivery she is all confused about her feelings (Yes! This character actually has feelings!) because the dude won't come to give her flowers anymore.

As you probably already guessed, there was actually no contest that she won to get all these flowers. The guy was just trying to make her feel better about her dead husband and slowly they fell in love with each other.

"But wait," you're saying, "isn't that really fucking creepy?" Well... yes! And with 99 point fucking 9 percent of shitty romance authors, this would be totally ignored. Not this author. She actually has the lady freak out about the weirdness of the flower guy doing this.

Of course, eventually it is all explained away and they end up fucking into the sunset, but there was a legitimate fucking conflict rooted in her guilt over moving on from her dead husband and the conflict between her feelings for the mustachioed (yeah he has a mustache, gross) flower guy and her traditional stance about being stalked.

Overall, I didn't really like the story, because it was predictable and kind of makes me paranoid about how many girlfriends have wished I would die so they could romantically be wrapped up in some totally well-meaning man's arms for a clean, guilt-free mustache ride, but I am also not a middle-aged housewife. I am just saying that logistically, this story was okay. Congratulations!

Ratings:

That Thing I Always Complain About When People Tell and Don't Show: 3 out of 5. The beginning of this story, like most short stories, is all telling about the past. It's a fucking epidemic! There are a number of pages filling us in on the fact that her husband died and this guy has been bringing her flowers for the past 12 months. Technically this happens all in a morning daydream, but I still say it's boring and fucking alienating. In fact, if you are not a super well-known author, I think it is fair to say you maybe shouldn't even use past perfect tense. Like if you're saying "At that party she hadn't even seen the dick-shaped cake or the penis ice sculpture, and thus hadn't realized both the bride and groom would be men," for a few pages, it is separating us from the story because it's not just in the past, it's in the fucking past's past!

Talking to Herself: 0 out of 5. This lady has some pretty unrealistic dialogue with herself. I don't know, maybe people talk to themselves more than I do, but at one point out of the blue she says, "And what about our texting? I wondered aloud." Well, first of all if you wonder something aloud it goes in quote marks. That's just fucking lazy, because I know she knows that because she does it properly later. But really my issue here is who is ever just sitting there silently thinking and then suddenly says out loud without any conversational prompt, "And what about our texting?" What? You're a fucking psycho. If I caught myself saying something like that when I was alone, I would be obliged to burst out laughing at how ridiculous I look to myself.

Stepping Outside the Box: 0 out of 5. This story really is too neat. I know it's supposed to be, but it pisses me off that there are housewives out there that identify with this main character--a woman who blatantly mentions that she gets through a lot of her life using her looks, who is motivated by getting married before she "runs out of hotness," who thinks of herself as independent yet doesn't actually do a hell of a lot by herself because she likes the idea of "being taken care of by someone." I am mad that there are actually people out there that really have as few problems as this. I mean, yes, her husband died, but like I said that is an obvious fantasy of a lot of people--to get out of a relationship with zero blame and it's soooo tragic. But fuck it who cares because there's instantly a perfect man waiting. It's too much. And don't fucking pretend to me you have never wished your partner was dead so you could get all the sympathy and none of the blame. Admit it.

Admit it, or I won't move on.

Overall: 3 out of 5. Like I said, this story had more realistic emotions and reactions than almost anything else I have ever reviewed. I know it looks like I contradict that like right above this, but actually no. I really believe there are people that identify with this, and I can't blame the author for writing for them. But despite this weird brand of realism, this story was also not entertaining. Like at all. But...it was written by a hard-working lady.

If you want advice on how to let your partner conveniently and romantically pass away, leaving you free and blameless, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Just admit it.

The Mighty Peculiar Incident in My Pants

This week I read The Might Peculiar Incident at Muddy Creek by Ian Thomas Healy.

(Link)
Description: "When the train doesn't stop in the Old West town of Muddy Creek, Sheriff Jesse Hawkins goes to investigate. What he finds is a mystery that goes far beyond anything in his experience: a car full of people frozen in time."

Well this story begins with all the cliches of a Western movie. The sheriff is the main character, and he walks into the office where the deputy greets him then wakes up the town drunk with water then goes out to find some whores. If you like reading the same story you have heard a thousand times, this is for you.

Oh, but wait! The sheriff deputizes a reluctant sidekick... yeah I guess that's still expected. B-but they chase down a train on horseback! ...uh...

Well once they stop the train, things are a bit different. Everyone is frozen solid inside the train car. They have no idea what's going on because, in the sheriff's words, "I ain't got no book learnin'." Oh sheriff, you cliche bastard.

Anyway, the Scotsman who was deputized presses a button on a strange device and the moment in time continues where it left off. Turns out there are criminals from the future trying to rob the train to invest the money and get interest.

Just one question. These future people are all ragged and lower-class sounding criminals. If time traveling devices are common enough for them to get hold of one, why isn't the past just filled with tons of people robbing trains for money and going back to the future to live off the interest?

No, okay, I know what you're thinking. "They could have stolen the time machine." Then why didn't they sell it, since it is obviously rare? "Maybe they invented it?" Then, again, why didn't they just sell it and become rich?

Sorry, I know, it's just a story. So, the sheriff asks how she can come back in time and rob a train without fucking up her own time, and she explains that a group of injuns is supposed to raid the train five miles before Muddy Creek and kill everyone anyway. The sheriff informs her the pinkerton man that shot her time machine and froze time fucked that plan because now they are already past Muddy Creek.

But fuck that lady's timeline, she's under arrest.

The End.

Ratings:

Consistent Sheriff: 0 out of 5. This one is quite simple. When he says, "I ain't got no book learnin'" when the Scotsman asks if the shiny future looking device could have frozen time, why in the fucking fuck did the sheriff immediately catch on and point out the contradiction in the criminals' plan that they would change their own timeline? "This's the Wild West. We slang guns, spit tabbaky, and ponder thought expuriments."

Speaking of that Timeline...: 0 out of 5. This story ended way too abruptly. Nothing was resolved. Except a lady was arrested, I guess, but it really seems to me like the real interesting story begins there. I guess this author just wanted to describe a bullet frozen in midair instead of the ramifications of this time criminal's actions, where she came from, or the way the town reacted to her.

Speaking of Reactions...: 0 out of 5. For unlearned country bumpkins, these people take future wizardry in fucking stride. I guess it sort of adds to the sheriff's character if he just gives not a single fuck about all the fancy shit the future people do, but it seems like he would be a little more interested. Or anyone on the train. They all just sort of bail as soon as possible without a word, and nobody is like, "Damn, we should find out what this lady has to say about the future." Well Muddy Creek don't roll that way. They gots mud, and that's the way they like it.

Overall: 3 out of 5. This story was okay, it just wasn't very good. It wasn't bad either, it was just a story. Time travel seems almost like cheating when people put it in stories, but at the same time it brings up so many contradictions that it almost cancels the gimmick out. Except for Looper. Looper totally made sense.



If you want to see my stories about time travel (which includes every single one of my stories) go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

The Effacement

This week I read The Basement by Chad P. Brown. Pffhehehe. Chad. Alright, I shouldn't judge him by his name. Actually, I really like the name Chad. It's great. Just say it to yourself right now. Chad.

(Link)

Description:

"On a dare from her best friends, Heather goes inside the town's haunted house, where Frank Blackwell killed his wife and then hung himself in the basement. But while in the house, Heather is confronted by a ghost from her past, her mother who died accidentally one year ago. Now, Heather must not only escape from the evil lurking inside the house, but from the demons of her own past."

Oh my god this sounds soooo original! I mean, this is a topic I can't even make fun of because of how creative it is. I especially would never have made fun of how common this exact scenario is. Definitely not two posts ago.

So this girl's friends dare her to go into a haunted house, and she does it because she doesn't want to be a chicken. I am not making this up, those are the exact words she uses.

The door slams shut behind her and won't open. So far, so expected. Then she decides to complete the bet, which is to go into the basement. She counts the steps on the way down for some reason and ends up with 33 or something, but looks back up and counts them again and there are only 12. Uh... spoooooky. The real horror story here is the failings of the American educational system.

Then, she has a flashback where she is fighting with her mom and her mom falls down the stairs and dies. She decides that this repressed memory is too fucked up and she should get the fuck out, but then her zombie mother appears at the top of the stairs.

Her mom says she is going to eat her, and she starts approaching. This stupid girl closes her eyes--totally self-aware that it's a stupid reaction because she mentions that it is like hiding under the covers when you are a kid.

Well, anyway, minutes pass and nothing happens, so she opens her eyes. The zombie mom is gone, she got off scott free!

In fact, she was able to process that repressed memory for once in a totally...uh... healthy way and she is actually glad she came to this haunted house. Plus she doesn't look like a chicken.

BUT JUMP SCARE OMIGOD HER MOM ATTACKS HER FROM BEHIND THE END.

Ratings:

Use of the Word House: 5 out of 5. This story had so fucking many instances of the word "house" that I almost went insane. Like we fucking get it! You're in a fucking house! Jesus. Seriously, the sentences read like, "She went up to the haunted house and put her hand on the knob of the house and opened the house's door and stepped into the house and it definitely looked like a haunted house and out of the walls of the house suddenly appeared the ghost of Doctor House." Stop. Enough house. And the shitty thing was for all the uses of the word house, it never came along with a fucking description. A HAUNTED HOUSE IS SUPPOSED TO BE SCARY BECAUSE OF HOW IT LOOKS, SOUNDS, AND SMELLS SO YOU SHOULD MENTION THOSE THINGS.

Speaking of Which, Descriptions: 2.5 out of 5. Now, I have been bitching a lot about descriptions lately I know, but this is an example where some descriptions are good and it allows for the horrible gaps to be pointed out. First, it would have been great to have even one fucking description of the house. What color was it? Nobody will ever know. But, it did start to go right when the zombie mother was described in detail. She looked all decaying and whatnot, and that's good. She's supposedly the scary part of the story, so the time spent there is not wasted. I think one area authors really fuck the pudding, though, is moving past visual descriptions. There aren't a lot of sounds, smells, tastes, or feelings in a lot of stories, and this one is no exception. It SHOULD be an exception though, because it is a horror story. Not only that, there was nothing visceral. Since it's horror I should know what the chill damp darkness feels like on your back, or what exactly your bowels are doing at any given moment. None of that in this story.

Mind-blowingly Self-Aware Cliches: 5 out of 5. This author has some insane talent for pointing out how overdone his own ideas are, immediately after he types them. He has lines saying that haunted houses are "a staple of American society," and he comments on things like, "her horror movie entrance." I really think if you are noticing how stupid this shit sounds even to the narrator who is experiencing them, you should cut it the fuck out.

Overall: 2 out of 5. Horror should be judged by how scary it is, right? Well this wasn't scary at all. It was a weird paradoxical mix of not describing enough and being way too obvious. For instance, lines like: "she started crying as her mind confronted its own assailant: the guilt over her mother's death," and, "She didn't know if the house was haunted or not, but she knew without a doubt that she'd dragged her own ghost inside with her -- a ghost which she'd finally put to rest," are WAY too obvious. Fuck, we KNOW she is haunted by her mother's death, that's what the fucking story is ABOUT, so why do you have to tell us again and again!? Like it's some fucking revelation that the ghost is a metaphor for her guilt or something!? GOD!

If you want to know what I am haunted by (hint: it's monkeys laughing at me after they steal my ice cream at the zoo) check out amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall. 

The Lol Owl

This week I read The Snow Owl by Jon Hartling.

(Link)

Description:

"Ben thinks his son’s talk of the magical kingdom of Lukana is just typical childhood imagination. But one winter day, when seven year-old Eric sculpts a snow owl in his backyard, he seems to set in motion events that cannot be anything but magical. Now Ben faces the terrifying prospect of losing his only child to a wintry spirit… a spirit that just might be the boy’s true father."

Well, Jon, you basically just spoiled the whole story there. What am I even going to say for the review? Uh... so this kid Eric sculpts a snow owl in his backyard, which seems to set in motion events that cannot be anything but magical...

Okay actually the story begins with this guy's wife dying during childbirth and her last words being something like, "I cheated on youuuuuuuu *death gasp.*" Well, not literally, but the kid is born with blonde hair and both of them are brunettes so obviously that never happens if you ignore biology class. Q.E.D.

The kid really likes winter and makes a snow owl, then an owl comes and the kid says it is a messenger from Narnia. The father just ignores it, but then every morning the owl's features are more defined and realistic. The kid says owls did it, so the dad stays up during the night, and sure enough some creepy owls come and sculpt the snow owl.

Now the father is super creeped out because the kid says once it is finished, the owl will carry him away to Narnia to be their prince. The dad, who thought about suicide and adoption as ways to get out of raising the kid before, is totally pissed off because he doesn't want his son to have an awesome prince life.

But luckily, the weather gets unseasonably hot because the story needs to end somehow and the owl tries to come to life prematurely while it's melting and falls apart screeching "Kiiiiill meeeee."

Then the kid grows brown hair and becomes normal. I guess no being a prince for him because... because the story has to end somehow. Chalk one up for the best dad in the world.

Oh and we never find out who banged his wife. Probably Big Foot. Kinky.

Ratings:

HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY SHOW DON'T TELL!?: 3 out of 5. Most of this story happens completely disconnected from the actual story. It's all in the past. By which I mean of course it's all in past tense, but pages and pages before the story even happens there's a bunch of back story. "Eric was always a white kid..." sort of stuff. If you're telling a story then tell it, don't tell me about it. If most of the interesting stuff happens before the story, start the story earlier, or don't tell it in a linear way, or just write better. You know how in Harry Potter, all this stuff happened where Harry was given to his aunt and uncle when he was a baby? Remember how J.K. Rowling just told us that scene and about his troubled times growing up? No? Because she fucking wrote the scenes and SHOWED US like it was her job to make her book interesting. It's almost as if she's some sort of writer. I swear, this shit where authors start a story by saying "X was always basically flaming gay," is a fucking epidemic on Amazon. Cut it out!

Totally Calm About Fucking Crazy Shit Dad: 5 out of 5. For someone who contemplated suicide over his wife cheating on him once, this guy seriously takes the news of his son being the prince of Narnia in stride. He's just like, "Well, I'll be. That sucks." He hardly tries to do anything about it, and he just immediately shrugs it off when he sees owls carving a snow sculpture. Well, he doesn't literally, according to what the author tells us, but what he describes is nothing. No emotion, no thought process, just, "He couldn't believe it," in what I imagine was the deadpan, monotone voice of the narrator.

Deus Ex Machina Saving the Author, Not the Characters: 5 out of 5. Jon, this was only ten pages, and you just got tired of it like half way through? Was it about the time you had to start telling the story instead of summarizing past events? Maybe you should find an easier hobby. Masturbating works for me, although it does get harder the more often you do it. I can appreciate a little mystery about what would have happened if a heat wave hadn't saved your ass, but then just having the kid become normal is a little much. I guess if you had the guy nervously wait for next winter and wonder about how he was going to discourage his son from making any snow men it would cause you to think about his emotions a little too much, and then you would have to describe them and- I'm just getting tired thinking about all that work!

Overall: Meh out of 5. If you're too lazy to write a story, then I'm too lazy to rate it. What I can say is that while I was reading it I was thinking about how Neil Gaiman would have written it, and how that would have been way more enjoyable to read.

If you would like to read some other stories that Neil Gaiman would do a way better job writing, visit: amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall