Friday, July 25, 2014

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.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

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.

Monday, July 7, 2014

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!