The Disgusting Storyteller

This week I read The Disgusting Christian by Paul Ladamens.

(Linkel!)

Descripty:

"... only God knows what is in your heart and you can not lie to him

The Disgusting Christian is an uplifting short story (approx 1800 words) that touches on many themes of daily Christian life.

Follow the unamed narrarator as he solves the mystery of The Disgusting Christian and why he should strive to live like him.


The tone of the story is humorous and self deprecating however the message of God's love and salvation for us all rings clear."


Huh? Why did you begin your description with "..."? What happened right before that? Or you just couldn't decide where to start?


Anyway, if you're like me you're like, "How can you have an uplifting story that is character focused like this in 1800 words?" I mean, sure, it's possible. This guy's answer was to say, "Show, don't tell? Fuck that!" Seriously this reminds me of when I just describe an episode of a funny TV show to my friend and I can just see them like, "When is this guy gonna stop!?" but I CAN'T stop because I can see I'm failing to convey just how funny the episode was, so I have to give more details and just push it further and further until I have spent literally longer than the episode telling him/her what happened in the episode while there is a laptop sitting right next to us.


Soo.... this is a story about a crappy Christian judging another crappy Christian, basically. Oh, I almost forgot, there is this strange thing that he introduces right in the first line of the story, but it isn't the focus at all:

"I was a teenager when I first heard the Voice of God in my head."

You would think that would be important, but it doesn't really come up. Instead the important part is what he says a few lines later:

"The last thing I wanted was to hear what God had to say. I was too busy with my teenager life. I wanted to drink, chase girls, smoke, and play cards with my friends."

I bolded the teenager life thing because it's just hilariously phrased. But the point of this was that this guy is obsessed with the fact that smoking, playing cards, and drinking make him a horrible Christian. He's always like, "My mom was always telling me to stop drinking, smoking, and playing cards in the house." "Church was okay but I liked smoking, drinking, and playing cards." Seriously dude, NONE of the ten commandments has anything to do with those things. Yes, it's a good idea to stay away from drinking, smoking, and gambling (although with this story he might be talking about Uno), and it's kind of shitty to just like smoke and gamble in your mom's living room, but if you think these things make you a horrible Christian you might not be fully getting it. Maybe I just live the life of a sinner though.


So anyway the church assigns this kid with a mentor (churches have mentor programs that pair you with some old guy now?), Patrick (you guessed it, he's an Irish guy), who "had a way with young people." Patrick is basically there to tell this kid it's good he hears voices in his head and not answer questions: "I asked my mentor Patrick what he thought but he only shrugged his shoulders." Good job, Patrick.


There's also another old guy that goes to their church that stands in front praising Jesus and weeping and the kid wants to know what his deal is. Of course, Patrick doesn't know or can't be fucking bothered, so he asks the assistant pastor, Tim, who "was selfless in his good works," etc. Tim promptly explains the dude is an asshole, saying, quote, "He's not Christian at all, he is a liar! He disgusts me!" Dude what church do you go to where playing rummy is not cool but the assistant pastor violently talking shit about the congregation is just fine?


Apparently the old guy is an asshole at work, so the main character confronts him. The guy says he is praying for strength to change every Sunday, then, Lo! It's a miracle! The dude changes after a year of "trying," inspiring the main character to change and not judge people yadda yadda.

I just had to explain that far because I love how he wraps it all up: "If we love God and wish to honor him and keep his laws, then he will know."


So the moral of the story is try not to rape and murder people, and if you mess up, God will know your intentions were good! (Just don't drink, smoke, or play cards.)



Ratings:
Use of Commas: Hilarious out of 5. There are too many places to list, but I'll give you a little taste:
"How can I do good Lord?" 
...I think you mean, "How can I do Lord well."

Choice of Role Models: 0 out of 5. First he choses a guy who gave no other advice than "listen to the voices," then a guy that contradicts his entire life path as a holy man, then the guy that wails in church in the hopes that it will help him stop being a dick. Nice job.

Engaging Storytelling: 0 out of 5. This wasn't a story, it was a terrible personal essay. This was the only time I've ever read something that could almost qualify as flash fiction, yet I was still thinking, "How many pages are  left on this bitch? When is it going to end!?"

Overall: 1 out of 5. It had a beginning, middle, and end. :)


If you would like to read something that has at least two of those qualities, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

The End of Fiction...Again

This week I read The End of Days...Again by Joseph Coley.

(Link)

Here's the description:

"Andrew Wyatt and his friend Brian King just wanted to take a relaxing day down by the creek when they were pulled under...and emerged in a world that was familiar and terrifying at the same time.

A 6,000 word short story that evokes a "Twilight Zone" feel and makes you wonder...could you deal with the end of days...twice?"

Well, that says it all. Time for ratings.

Okay, fine, I'll explain. This story was pretty "meh," if I don't say so myself. It didn't evoke a "Twilight Zone" feel because there was no ironic ending or anything. And it didn't really make me wonder about anything. Actually it did make me wonder about one thing. The story begins with him repairing his friend's 1911 .45 and this gun, which is called by its full name like this each time, becomes the center of the entire story. At first I thought we had a gun nut on our hand, but then the writing started to sound like the informal, crack-jokes-under-stress writing style of Mark Tufo's Zombie Fallout series. This made me wonder if the guy is a military guy, and surprise! he is (there is basically no fucking way this guy hasn't been reading those books). So, I don't feel so good about making fun of the more military aspects of this story. See me supporting the troops, bitches!?

That being said (Curb Your Enthusiasm, anyone?), this guy's style at its best is pretty much a copy of Mark Tufo, so you might as well just read his books (pretty entertaining, actually). Also, I feel like everything is needlessly limited to this military point of view.

It doesn't add anything, except the thing that defines this guy from Tufo: A super long exposition that I don't give a shit about. If it's not important to the story, I don't care how much you know about guns, what medals you won, what unit you were in, what unit your friend was in, what unit your wife was in, how long you served, etc. etc. unless you can integrate it smoothly to add flavor. (Again, no disrespect to those who have served us). It's just like, maybe your character has been a cabinet maker all his life, that's all fine and good to have his profession defined, but I don't want to hear about what tools he uses to carefully carve the dovetails and why he chooses them over housed joints blah blah unless the guy fucking saves his family from a river by making a raft using dovetail joints, or traps the zombies in a big ass cabinet and becomes a hero.

So after like 3000 words he ends up in a post-apocalypse world where nobody is alive (except his friend who promptly commits suicide WITH aforementioned 1911 .45 pistol). But that's it. The next 3000 goddamn words are just repetitive descriptions of the blood-red moon. YES! It's RED! Like BLOOD! I GET IT! There is no explanation ever given of how he got there, why the world is like that, or even what comes of him. You realize what you did to me, guy!? That's like if I gave a huge description of getting ready for a party and all the friends I went with for 3000 goddamn words, going into the specifics of my profession let's not forget, and then gave a lengthy explanation of each drink I drank, what it tasted like, and how long it took to drink it, one after another, then just stopped and said, "That's it." Nothing else, just wasting your fucking time. Not even a single handjob in the whole fucking story.

Ratings.

Writing Style: 0 out of 5. I already mentioned that at best this guys style will eventually just be the same as that other guy, but there is also the fact that he has huge, awkward, clunky sentences. My second guess after military guy was very young writer, because this guy just hasn't figured out how to write yet. But when I clicked on his author profile and it was a guy in fatigues I lost a little hope for him someday falling into his own. Could still happen.

Editing: 0 out of 5. EDIT YOUR FUCKING STORY. I don't want to be reading and then

     suddenly there's a paragraph break for no reason! Just read through it like_once!

P.S. It's called "present perfect tense," look it up. Not to be a bitch about grammar OR editing cause god knows I have typos all over the place.

Descriptions of the Post-Apocalypse: 5 out of 5. Nah, I'm just fucking with you, they were pretty dull. "The sky was red, but the ground was black, and the red didn't reflect on the black, and the moon was even MORE red." Yeah good job, buddy. Oh, also I went on and on about this in another post, but I really want someone to write a story that's a well-thought-out metaphor for the Iraq or Afghanistan war. I mean, what other reason would there be for going on and on about your military background?

Overall: 2 out of 5. Not unreadable, but I think given my record it's pretty clear I would read a story about cardboard boxes. And I think this guy might actually keep with it and someday be good at this. Maybe.


If you want to read the works of an author that will never ever be good at this, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Write Knight

This week I read White Night pun? YES! LOLOLOL! By Ryan S. Fortney.

Here's the pics:

(Link)

And here's how he describes it:
"Another one of my extremely short stories, fabricated by the dawn of alcohol inebriation and the early morning star.

Sex so good, it kills."

Haha okay dude, let me just give a couple marketing pointers (cause I obviously rock at selling shit). First, "extremely short": actually....keep that, it's one of the main reasons I decided to read this. Okay, but telling everyone one, "I was totally fucked up when I thought of this idea when I stayed up until like morning," is maybe not such a good idea. And then just the line, "Sex so good, it kills." Huh? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Haha okay fine, it's your space to describe your product, not mine.

So actually I realized from the first line of this book that this guy was a much better writer than ALL clues led me to believe so far. He is actually really good at descriptions. I especially liked "My hips smack upward with the sound of flesh packing like an audience of one applauding slowly with gradual increase." That image, at least, will make my sex life much more hilarious.

But where this guy is good at descriptions he really is lacking in ideas. I'll just go 'head and spoil it for you because I just warned you fair and square and it's my THING! Haven't you been READING this blog!? Alright so slitting someone's throat at the point of climax is not original--neither in fiction nor in real life. And then, Ryan, after you blew your load way too early on killing the lady right at the beginning, you had a mess on your hands. Yeah, it's kind of interesting to see how he will try to get rid of the body, but he just instantly is like "yeah I'll just dump it in the river." Fine, throw away a perfectly good conflict. But then the cops come! Okay here we go! But no wait, they just immediately catch him. But then he bites his false molar and, uh, magic, escapes. Alright, fine, now we got a chase! But then he is hit in the back of the head and dies, the end. I- wai-whu-huh?

See, Ryan, like your main character, you habitually kill the thing that gets the reader off. That's why your story is too short! Then what do I got to review? I just have to go like straight to ratings.

Ratings:

Unnecessary Deus Ex: 3 out of 5. Yeah it was fully in there, and what I mean by this is he magically escaped the cops only to immediately die. But why this gets downgraded is I have no fucking clue what happened. I'll read it to you: "My teeth clench together and a capsule buried within my furthest back molar erupts and at the same time metal twists and transforms into a ball of orange, throwing back my captor and most likely killing his comrades." What? Did his face fucking explode and leave him completely unphased? I don't get it! Someone explain to me what happened and where I can get one of those fucking awesome molar implants!

Descriptions: 4 out of 5. Like I said, they were just pretty damn good. I also like how the dude describes himself at the end with his contact info and everything like a true indie pro (oxymorons, YEAH!). I'm cheating a little when part of his downgrade is for the bewildering molar thing, but also for his cheesy line in his bio where he says, "My name is Ryan, but you can call me Batman." Ha, does your mom just die at that joke!?

Disappointment: 5 out of 5. The plot was disappointing, the lack of conflict was disappointing, the fact that the title just came from a line in the story about the moon being his only witness, his "cratered White Knight in the sky" or something just nearly shattered my skull with disappointment, but above all the "and then he died because I couldn't think of anything" fucking ending. I am just... beyond words at that shit.

Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe less, but let's be fair, if I give him less than some of these other stories on here, well, why even HAVE a rating system!? Maybe I should think of another scale...

If you would like to read some stories that on a scale of one to ten are...not horrible, visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

As I Embrace My Unwavering Pessimism

This week I read "We Run Races With Goblin Troopers," from As I Embrace My Jagged Edges (And Other Thorns) by Lee Thompson.

(Link)

Here's a description of the book, although it doesn't say much:

"A diverse collection of Dark Fantasy stories focused on the horror's of family, loss, tragedy and failed beauty.

Toc:
1. We Run Races with Goblin Troopers
2. Beneath the Weeping Willow (A Division Mythos Story)
3. Daddy Screamed with Us (A Division Mythos Story)
4. Crooked Stick Figures (A Division Mythos Story)
5. When Crows Sing Sweetly Bitter Music
6. Crawl
7. A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky
8. Sorrow's Breast
9. The Weight of All These Years (A Division Mythos Story)
10. Boys without Faces
11. As I Embrace My Jagged Edges (A Division Mythos Story)"

Yeah that's right, I read the very first story and it wasn't even the title story. I will probably never know what the Division Mythos is. All I can say about it is it's probably really depressing. Actually I got this book not knowing if it would be a real indie author or not, and it turns out all of these short stories appear to be published, so for once we are venturing into the realm of the LITERATE! Except in the above description, horrors should not have an apostrophe. HA! BITCH!

Okay so I just started reading, wanting to know if it would be fun to review and I got a little hooked by the first story and decided, hey, why not review something worth the e-paper it's printed on? "Except maybe it's not," the voice in my head said, and oh how I hoped it was true.

The best summary of this crazy shit I can provide is that, well, A) It isn't meant to be taken literally, so B) I think it's a metaphor for how terrible the Iraq war has been on some families. But disclaimer: I might be giving this shit WAY too much credit. Other than that, C) Cannibal, soldier, guns, other cannibal, prostitute, crazy. That's basically like as clear as I can make it without just telling this story to you.

Fine, it makes no sense, does that mean it's bad? Well, according to my last post, yes. But this guy is all deep and war brings out the best in pessimistic, artful critiques of the futility of senseless killing, like Hemingway, right?

Well, two things: First, Hemingway didn't write Noir Fantasy (although this story is only "Fantasy" because of the word goblins). I'm sorry, I have no respect for angsty shit set in a spooky, overly violent, elven forest. PROVE ME WRONG. Second, Hemingway didn't just pile horrible shit on top of shocking shit to sound cool while he was drunk. He wrote honestly terrible shit that really happened and had a poignant message to it...while he was drunk.

What I mean is this guy tried to walk the line of writing a dark world to (I hope) make you think but then crossed that line and then took off all his clothes and started running away from the line wildly screaming. I just imagine this guy's brainstorming sessions consisting of making a list of the most shocking shit he can think of like, "People eating the intestines of other people, hacksawed limbs...hmm... taking out womens' eyes, oh, prostitution, that's a good one. Um, keeping a head in the fridge always works. And insanely shooting at hallucinations, yeah. Putting a bomb up someone's ass, no, no, wait a big spike. Using a dead mom's blood to paint unicorns on a little boy's chest." Too far? Well guess what, all of that was actually in the story except the bomb/spike up someone's ass (I added it for the lols). Yes, you read right, the end of the story is his memory of the guy painting unicorns in blood on his son's chest.

Now, this is arguably still not the recipe for my eyes rolling all the way back into my head and down my throat until you add the ingredient of just listing this shit off pointlessly, almost like I did above. There are no visceral descriptions of this stuff to make it horrifying like Saw, and I think that's actually the very reason why he does it. He doesn't know how to use just a splash of horrifying things in chilling detail, and the things he does use don't have much of a point so he just stacks them on like the fucked up limbs of hookers which his characters lobbed off until his shockers reach their word limit. Not quite Hemingway.

Ratings.

Fluency: 5 out of 5. This is a very well-written story in terms of me being able to read all of the sentences and not wonder what the hell he's talking about. This is more a criticism of virtually every other story I've read than anything else.

Using the Tired Example of Sex Work to Show How Grim the World Is: 5 out of 5. He had the most unnecessary and pitiful hooker ever. I wouldn't be surprised if this shows up in his other stories; I'm pretty sure this is his idea of Noir. He probably thinks he's edgy and deep when his co-workers say, "I got a great parking spot today!" and he responds, "Some women don't even have cars. They have to suck a dick just to get a ride to the ABORTION CLINIC."

Making me Think About the Irony of it All: 0 out of 5. For all his dark brutality, it seemed tactless and fake. I did think about the Iraq War, but that's mostly likely just me giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I immediately thought about how I wish someone would do a better job of it.

Overall: 2 out of 5. It didn't make sense, but it sounded professional not making sense rather than completely incoherent. For that, I have to give it something.


If you think coherency is overrated, read my stories at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Story Precautions

I read a story by an English teacher, Erin Ritch, called Snow Precautions for Your Safety.

(Link)

I know, you're like, "An English teacher? Must be an all right read." Well, you are right that the spelling and punctuation is better than most of the crap I read, but just because you have subject-verb agreement doesn't mean you know what the fuck a plot is, apparently. Here's a description:

"To any passerby, this sleepy town is one of many. Nestled in a quiet place with a quiet name, it's a flash in a huge forest of flickering light. When a young girl moves there amidst a circumstance of ghosts and curses, she attempts to find normalcy in a very obscure world. Instead, she will discover that maybe she fits in after all."

I'll let you guess. Just take a minute and try to figure out what that means. Try it out, predict what you think the ending might be and write it down. I'll wait.

If you're like me you wrote something like, "It turns out SHE'S the dead one," or some other cliche bullshit. Well, let me tell you, that shitty and overdone ending would have been WAY better than the actual story. "Is it a horror story?" you ask. No. It isn't. "Then why does the description make it sound like it's spooky?" Because you are trying to make sense out of nonsense. You are seeing shapes in the clouds. You are on acid and all of your synapses are firing at once and your brain is telling you there are faces in the wood grain. Because this story makes NO_FUCKING_SENSE.

Sorry to spoil it, but oh wait, you can't spoil NOTHING. You think I'm exaggerating. You think I'm going to tell you the plot now and it will be at least half a story. IT ISN'T. There is no reason to read this. You might as well look at a random collection of letters for TEN GODDAMN PAGEAAAGHWKJhekwhekw!

Sorry. Alright, I'll summarize it as best I can. From what I glean from the description the narrator moves to a new town (yeah, it's not so apparent just reading it). She moves into her grandparents house (that part I read all by myself!) because they died of a double heart attack while reading (seriously this is in here for some reason, and P.S. it never comes up again and has absolutely no significance to the story) Irish Faerie Almanac and it's suspected some Irish faerie took them to the afterlife or something. Okay, I know, you're like, "I follow," but seriously I am helping you a lot right now. After that a year passes. It rains a lot. Summer comes and they miss the rain a little. The end. Really. No, no, I'm not fucking with you, that's it.

I'm not kidding. No conflict, just a weird like personal essay that had every indication of going paranormal and it just ends. It's like a month-by-month account of random pictures—seriously, like if I just showed you my year in images and it was like a mailbox, then some trees, then a cat, and a tire swing. No, actually, that probably makes more sense than this story.

My theory is that this is some sort of free-form poem that just got out of hand so she labelled it as a short story. Fuck, I can't even explain how insane this shit is, just look for yourself:

"Halloween was the first time I ever stopped to look around. All the moments before that were filled with unpacked moving boxes, thoughts of thoughts of what to wear to school and the obsession with the avoidance of an ever-present drizzle of rain. So I got on with life once the moving boxes had been buried at the dump and I realized the rain was just a few hydrogen atoms and some oxygen mixed together. I can remember that one shining moment that we all look back on for inspiration while we sit on our toilets and feel depressed. I had eaten breakfast on a regular Saturday and went to get the mail from our tin box on the other side of the road. As I stepped across the gravel street, I heard a rooster crowing." Paragraph complete!

The first time I read that I was like, "Huh!?" Now that I've written it down here I get it, and despite every indication, it is actually one continuous thread. She is simply trying to jam some artsy shit into each and every sentence. To the point where it comes out like, "Halloween boxes on the toilet. Then there was a rooster!" Yeeeees. I like roosters too. Tell me more. (By the way, if you did follow, this huge moment she is talking about is just like looking at a house she never noticed before. WTF!?)

Ratings:

Hipster Use of Feminist-Inspired "Shocking" Language: 5 out of 5. Well, it wasn't all feminist-inspired, but at one point she was like, "At the time when I was just barely learning to spell 'uterus...'" I get what you're saying, but only because I am also a hipster, and that just makes me understand you are trying too hard to sound cool. Instead of thinking some "Are You There God?" reference shit, I'm like, "You specifically remember when you were learning to spell uterus?" Que comments about how I'm an insensitive prick.

Choice of Title: 1 out of 5. When I saw this story I got stuck on trying to figure out the title for much longer than I'm proud of. Finally it's revealed that every winter they put up that sign, even though it never really snows, it just rains some more... Heh.

Knowing What a Story Is: 0 out of 5. No conflict? No characters? No dialogue? Nothing happens... at all? Time passes, in chronological order. That is the only connection the end has to the beginning. Fail.

Overall: 0 out of 5. That's right. I hope your students at least learn from you by realizing what not to do, because this is it. I almost put "N/A" because I can't give a rating to something that just isn't even a story. And this "story" is the promotion for her book. I just imagine 50,000 words of shitty, hipster, too much pot, fucking coffeehouse beatnik-would-spit-on-you-for-it "poetry".

If you want to read something before anyone else even heard of it, check out amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Hunting the Verb

Oh yeah, I have been working on a blog post. I know it didn't seem like it. This time it's Hunting the Vampire by Tim Morrell. Check out that COVER:

(Link)

I think you know why I chose this. It kinda kills it that it was probably his kid that made the cover art, not him. I'm not about to make fun of a kid. I wouldn't actually put it past him to have put this together though, having read the story. I just say the kid thing because it's dedicated to his wife and kids. Oh, and then he says, "AND MY WONDERFUL GIRLS FROM DELTA GAMMA Sorority at KU who are my biggest fans (Yes, this includes you, Kandy)" The bolded part is in like 50 font size.

An open letter to Tim Morrell's wife:

Dear Tim Morrell's wife,
Your husband is cheating on you. Actually he probably isn't, but he's trying his damndest and freaking the shit out of a bunch of sorority girls (especially Kandy). At the very least you should be offended he "dedicated" his story to you, not just because it was super shitty, but also because he then had a giant "AND TO THE PEOPLE I'M ACTUALLY ATTRACTED TO" after the dedication.

Sincerely,
A.C. Blackhall

Seriously though I imagine this guy trying to hit on sorority girls and them just sort of politely entertaining his fancy and later talking about how creepy he is--you know the type--and he's all like, "I'm an author," and they're stupid enough to believe him and they're like, "Really!?" "Yeah. I'll write a story for you. But you gotta tell me what to write it about." "Oh, I don't know." "Heh heh, come on, Kandy, what do you like?" "Hehe. Umm...I like Twilight... and Dexter."

You get the idea. And then we get this story. Here's the description:

"Zaden is not your typical vampire hunter. Where others may find and kill the demons, Zaden captures them to torture them for information. It all comes to a head in this story where Zaden catches up with his ultimate prize, a vampire with a soul."

But there's not really a reason to give you that description because it doesn't describe the story at all. He literally doesn't torture the vampire he finds, nor does he somehow determine it has a soul. He does explain a bunch of facts about vampires to himself in a long and confused mess of words for pages and fucking PAGES in order to set up the two lines of dialogue, which go something like,

"I'm gonna kill you and take your powers."
"Nooooooooo-" *Dead*

But it's more complicated than that. According to him, (actual quote>)"There seems to be only two surefire ways to kill a vampire: burning them completely in a fire or by exposing them to the sun, or by taking the head." Or a stake through the heart or a bullet or garlic or a cross or running water or allergies or pushing them off a cliff or presenting them with an unsolvable paradox or breaking their heart or making them fight a werewolf or AIDS, but those are the only TWO ways.

That's pretty much it. Vampire dies, guy takes his powers, finds a random prostitute and asks her something like "Wanna be the general of my undead minions?" to which she says, "I'll do whatever you want, as long as it's on the clock, honey." The end. Not much else to say.




Oh yeah, and WHAT THE FUCK WAS WITH THE VERB AGREEMENT!? He used tenses I didn't even know existed. Some of his sentences had so much past/present/future changeup that I think spacetime fucking tore a little. I hope this story got you fucking laid man, because it did almost as much damage to my mental health with its total disregard for grammar as Twilight (Zing).

Ratings:

Sexy Vampires: 0 out of 5. You missed the mark, bro. The vampires didn't do anything broody or artistic. You just don't understand the type of vamps Kandy digs, man. Try again. Don't try again. Please.

3rd Grade English: 0 out of 5. Holy shit this was seriously one of the least literate things I have ever read. And if you know me, you know I have read some fucking illiterate shit. Hell, I teach English as a second language and that shit is more legible than this.

Plot: 1 out of 5. I can't give it zero. Something did happen. But I literally had to go back to see if I missed something only to find out that I didn't. Mindblowing.

Overall: 1 out of 5. This is one of those stories that has it together so little that it isn't even that entertaining to make fun of it. It's like being proud of reading faster than a dyslexic kid. Oh well, at least it's over (although it did take a long time because I only just barely beat that kid).


If you are dyslexic, you might enjoy the simple tales of a very simple author at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall.

Zombie Christmas

You'd be surprised at how many Christmas horror stories I had to wade through before I settled on this. It's The Dead of Winter by William T. Tripp.

(Link)

Description:

"It's winter in the zombie apocalypse, and three men see a light in the east. What could it mean?"

Eh? Get it? Three wise men? Jesus? Dead of Winter? Get it? No? Then I'll tell you. This is a story about Melcher, Jaspar, and Ballard, three dudes that see a search light in the zombie apocalypse. Just in case you didn't know, the three Magis' names were Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. There's no freaking way you would notice that, though, unless you read the description and the title and then the story and then made a blog post about Zombie Christmas and read the title and description again and said to yourself, "Oh. Huh."

Well the three wise men go toward the light, encountering no zombies on the way. Once there, Melcher runs ahead when he hears an infant crying and startles a man, who they promptly kill. Turns out the dude's name was Joey. Eh? Get it? Joseph? Baby Jesus? Get it?

So the kid's cries attract Herod, or the zombies or whatever, and the light stays on just long enough for a man named Red to come with his helicopter, piloted by a man named Donnor, and shoot all the zombies. Get it? Like when Santa Claus came and visited the manger?

The End.

Other than the weird Christmas Easter egg thing, this story was spectacularly uneventful. It is a really good example of zombie fiction that fails at even using the zombie gimmick to prop itself up. Let's analyze for a sec.

First, Melcher is a former "squad leader" for the National Guard. This means that the author probably hasn't been anywhere near the military, but that's not a huge issue. It is incredibly cliche to have a former military guy leading a small band in zombie fiction, and it also ruins the Magi metaphor. What, now he's like the equivalent of a Roman soldier? I know you looked up the three magis' names, you could have just read the rest of the page. I don't think it's too highbrowed of me to expect that. Although the names are pretty damned half-assed.

And the zombies are named Zed. Man, that seems clever, almost like you ripped it off, dude. Maybe you can give me some advice, I am writing a story about really short people that don't wear shoes and have curly hair and hang out with wizards. I'm thinking of calling them fucking Hobbits, what do you think?

The names I can overlook, but there was absolutely nothing original about this story. He described the zombies in their cars, unable to get out as if it hadn't been in every zombie fiction ever, and went on for like half his story about how they still performed useless, muscle-memory tasks. What next, will you describe that they smell like rotting flesh and amble slowly? Or that they eat human flesh? Good thing there is something else to this story.

Oh wait, there fucking isn't. It wasn't even original in its shittiness, like the other stories I review; it was an utter waste of time. I would have learned more if I had used that time to find out how many times I can blink in a minute--over and OVER.

Ratings:

Christmas Allusions: Fail out of 5. What the hell, dude? I hope you really think Santa Claus saved Jesus from the Romans and that the three wise men fucking brutally murdered Joseph. The only creative part was the last paragraph being a parody of The Night Before Christmas, and I'm pretty sure the author copied that down from his sixth grade science notebook from the time he showed it to all his friends and they laughed sooo hard!

Emotion: 0 out of 5. You can have an unoriginal story and it's fine as long as you have emotions, but the most we got out of this guy was Mary being teary-eyed. And even at that, these dudes stormed in and killed her husband and she was just like, "What did you do that for? Now he won't be alive anymore." Then the wise men got on the chopper with Santa and everything was right...

Zombies: The point of them is to be scary. They are literally like the worst thing we can think of. But no, let's just write a story where the only danger is Melchior being too jumpy and slaughtering Jesus's dad. Sorry if that seems sacrilegious, don't blame me, blame the guy that wrote it. 0 out of 5.

Overall: 2 out of 5. I'm not worse off having read this. Still, it was pointless. But don't take my word for it!


Just take a look, it's in a book, at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall