Monday, May 19, 2014

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

Monday, May 12, 2014

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

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

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