Movie Night: I'm not crying, YOU'RE crying!

I had to write an analysis of a movie anyway and I thought, "Hey, why not be lazy and kill two birds with one stone?" and the movie turned out to be ABOUT birds. Fate. It's called Stilt (horrible translation) by director Yin-chuan Tsai.

I have to apologize in advance if this post isn't very funny. I picked out a movie with a couple on the front hoping it would be a horrible love story and I could point and laugh, but if there's anything I've noticed about Taiwanese movies that look like they will be an amateur mangling of love, it's that they always seem to be the opposite.

Is it a love story? No, not in the sense you're thinking. It is about love and sexuality, but again, not in the way you're thinking you fucking facebook relationship status-looking high school girl! (My largest group of readers by far). This movie attacks what it is to be a man in Taiwan, and what it is to be a woman in Taiwan without the plot really being about either of those things.

The main character (never caught his name, I'm terrible at Chinese names, but he's played by Sheng-hao Wen so we'll call him Wen) and his brother Xiong represent two ideal tropes of manhood in Taiwan that fall short. Wen is the sensitive artist type with a wife and he provides for his family but he is shown to be impotent when it comes to actually caring for them or conceiving a child with his wife. The dots are fully (and skillfully) connected when he goes to the sperm bank and fails to produce more than a few drops, apologizing to the nurse when he hands it over. She clinically replies, "That will do" (fucking brilliant). His job is bird watching and that metaphor turns out to be clever in several ways because he cares more about the fucking birds and their families in order to avoid his own inability to have a child. He only confronts it when his bird family epic fails at not killing their chicks with a dash of "nature will figure itself out" commentary.

Xiong is the rough Taiwanese guy that doesn't use Mandarin and lives with his mother to support her while drinking and smoking and generally being manly. He drinks too much though because it turns out their dad died of liver disease and he has handled it by giving it to himself as well. He is impotent because he is too uneducated and can't manage to make money for his family. Wen pays for his doctor bills, his mother, and even his marriage to a Vietnamese girl. His wife also represents his impotency because as hopeless as her chances of success are, she becomes their source of income through busing tables.

Their mother is the complaining Taiwanese mother trope that highlights all of their inadequacies. She points out in one dinner conversation that Wen doesn't give a shit about them, his wife can't bear a child, Xiong can't make any money, and his own wife is worthless because she can't even speak Chinese. BOOM. She does it more subtly of course, but she highlights the struggle of the two types of Taiwanese women: The wife that can't have a child (because of infertility or work) and the wife that is a mail order bride.

The Vietnamese wife is a great character too because she doesn't even have any dialogue (portraying the submissive but utterly useless other than to look at import wife [the mother also rails about her not being able to cook because they didn't have electricity in her village]) until she reads aloud the letter from her unresolved ex-lover in Vietnam after half the movie.

I won't spoil it but lets just say shit hits the fan. I was a little scared because Asian drama tends to be over the top. "Your wife has cancer. And your daughter got hit by a car. But she's alive. But she's a paraplegic. And the bus was full of AIDS. And the AIDS vaporized into the air and your father breathed it in while he was trying to rescue her." OR it tends to end too perfectly "But luckily the oncoming car she was sandwiched between had a doctor who was going to commit suicide but he feels so guilty that he couldn't do it until he did everything he could for your daughter and he's immune to AIDS so he used his spinal fluid to cure her which also cured her paralysis unexpectedly and cancer ended yesterday."

But this movie struck a balance between bad things happening and things working out. It demonstrated the problem with your standard love story that's sad because cancer/memory loss (Yes, fuck you Notebook and whatever the cancer one was called. Thinking of the saddest thing to make money off of has got to be somehow immoral). These problems were realistic and, more importantly, the solutions were too. When it comes to sexuality and love, sometimes there ISN'T A FUCKING CLEAR ANSWER BUT YOU DEAL WITH IT ANYWAY. Fucking romcoms.

Ratings:

Unanswered Questions: 5 out of 5. I didn't even mention that the two brothers hadn't talked for years and you're waiting to find out why for the whole movie. The "solution" is way better than the tactless flashback your shit-conditioned mind is expecting. It turns out nobody really knows when they lost touch; it's revealed Xiong actually paid Wen's tuition because their father got ill, then took care of their father while Wen served military, then sat at his death bed when Wen went off to Taipei, and finally just got pissed at Wen being the successful one that didn't give a shit about anyone else. There is no "oh it was just a misunderstanding" or shocking "we stabbed that hooker together" scene. And Xiong sometimes props houses up on stilts because their town is sinking into the sea. The birds' names are stilts. THE METAPHORS ARE FUCKING ENDLESS.

I Fucked Up and Learned My Lesson and Became a Real Man Romance Movie Inevitable Speech: 0 out of 0. There wasn't one, which is a good thing. Again, this isn't a romcom but Wen still kisses the sexy birdwatching girl and his wife leaves for a while, but their solution is one of the most realistic I have ever seen in a movie. Xiong's solution with his foreign wife who would rather be with another guy is also not bad.

Crying: 5 out of 5. I have to admit, I cried alone in the dark in front of my laptop in my underwear like a little girl watching the Notebook. But again, FUCK THE NOTEBOOK.

Overall: 4.25 out of 5. I liked it, but I don't really enjoy straight drama and I wouldn't watch it again, but it was good. There were also just a few tiny things I had problems with, but this is the longest post ever so END.

If you want to cry like a little girl--out of disgust--check out amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

(P.S. the your father still has AIDS and the doctor did commit suicide after your sister showed signs of recovery.)

The Crushing Guilt of the Internet

This week I read The Elder God of the Internet by Janice Light, and let me just say right now that she can actually fucking write. That's like one for 25 by my count. How do I stumble upon such utter crap?

(Link)

Here's wot 'sall about:

"Tessa only joined the cultists to get away from her own crazy life, but they seem pretty serious about calling up Cthulhu from the depths of the Atlantic sea. Tessa's given up drinking, stuck with nothing to go back to and nothing to look forward to, so she doesn't much care if they really do manage to bring on the end of the world. But then Auntie Beatrice arrives to give poor Tessa a piece of her mind. This is a fun short story for those who don't take their Lovecraft too seriously."

I tried to look up more about her to see if she was really British. Sometimes she writes like it, sometimes not. She has no profile, so we'll never know, but she does have a story called Milk of Human Kindness, which I assume is a lactation fetish erotica (look it up, it's a HUGE category on Amazon).

Uh yeah, so I said she could write before but for what it is, this story is way too long. It has like five chapters, the last of which has no point at all, just more talking. It's like if Kafka wrote a story about going to the store to buy some milk. Really well written, really long, really pointless.

It's about an alcoholic girl (if I really wanted to drink while reading this is it because I'm an alcoholic or because I was bored?) who joins a cult of Cthulu in order to stop drinking and on the day they will raise the Old One from his slumber, her great aunt comes and embarrasses her.

Turns out though, while she is trying to get her to leave the great aunt reveals she's familiar with her Cthulu chants and wants to see these young new internet cultists fail. Horrible transition later and we're suddenly outside. This is the only part that was badly written because, for as loooong as the rest of the story is, I don't know if there's a single sentence to describe what is going on before Cthulu randomly pops out of the ocean. It's unfortunate, because this is literally the only important part of the story. It's like that Seinfeld. You know the one, yadda yadda-ing through sex. I was going to make a similar analogy until the 90's beat me to the punch.

Anyway, Cthulu shows his plan to wreck the world which is- *gasp* -already in progress. He shows the cult members a vision and the alcoholic girl's is posting comments on Facebook drunkenly. You heard me. Cthulu's plan is to end the world through Drunkbook. INTERNEEEEEEET! DAMN YOUUUUUUUUUUUUS!

Heh? That was anticlimactic. No, actually, that was more like reverse-climactic, negative-climactic, I have a huge climax vacuum in my pants (like space, not a special device that I'm running to the patent office to trademark RIGHT NOW).

I'm back. Anyway that's pretty much the story. I am tempted to say she saves it by having the cult leader quit his cult job in disgust at Cthulu's lameness, but that doesn't save me. I still had to read the damn thing!

Rathulings:

Ten Dollar Words: Millionaire out of 5. I'm going to admit, I didn't know what the hell ob·strep·er·ous  was until I looked it up just now, and why the hell can't you just say "noisy" or "annoying" (you're welcome)? And I used the internet to find that. You know, the thing this story says is evil?

And what the hell is "nutters," or a "lift," and how can you stand in a "flat"? Isn't it flat?

Lovecraft: Sleeping out of 5 (although she did warn us). I would say rolling in his grave but I don't think he really cares. He would probably laugh at the internet. It has nothing on the crazy shit he saw before brain drugs came along and numbed the scary out of us like the shit out of a fevered alcoholic on a bender involving heavy experimentation with laxatives. Have I already used that simile before? Anyway, just be careful with laxatives.

Cyber-Bullying: 5 out of 5. This girl's real problem isn't alcohol, it's fucking cyber-bullying. I really just brought it up to post this:

Love it. If some things I say seem similar to him, it's totally because he stole from me and not the other way around.

Overall: Umm... hmmm... whatever, 3 out of 5. Plotwise it was lacking, but like I said it was pretty good writing. I'm not going to be obstreperous about my criticism. Did I use that right? No?

If you want to read some totally obstreperous shit, like really, really obstreperous, go to amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

Madlibs on a Blank Page

This week I read Caterpillars on a Pink Moon by Edward Lange.

(Link)

Here's the description:
"Edgar Wilson’s world has gone completely and utterly bonkers. Giant rabid squirrels prowl the sidewalks, dead presidents are coming back from the dead, and people are spontaneously turning into giraffes. And it’s all Edgar's fault."

Alright, I don't know about the word bonkers, but maybe he's British or something. The rest isn't a bad hook. I want to know why it's all his fault.

The story got off to a kind of rough start though, when Eddy had problems spelling compound words and being funny. His Chinese mail     man begins arguing with a Pepsi can in an alley      way. That's when I said to myself "This guy wrote a bunch of nouns, adjectives, and verbs onto slips of paper, pulled them out of a hat, and tried to write a story." But no, that's not giving him enough credit. He obviously chose a Chinese mail        man because it's hilarious. I mean, he's CHINESE! Bwahahahahahgagagaa!

Get it? Chinese?

So, you want to know why it's all his fault, right? Fine, I'll tell you.

But I mean, seriously, when you think "mailman" you're all like "white guy," right? Right? Alright fine, you'll probably get it later and laugh to yourself.

So all kinds of crazy stuff happens that is not very "laugh out loud in Barnes and Noble" but it's interesting for a story. The guy finally manages to get home and talks to an angel which actually turns out to be real. The angel tells him that his sarcastic New Year's Eve resolution to "never kill anyone" is ruining the universe because he was always supposed to be real shitty at keeping New Year's resolutions, according to God. Fair enough, so far this is the most original story I have ever reviewed.

Then, the angel tells him to kill someone to make it all better and gives him a gun. It is slightly amusing when he goes through all the people he tried to kill that day and why it didn't happen, I just wish it wasn't literally a list. It had me on the verge of a "heh" when he said he contemplated killing a suicidal woman but she beat him to the punch. But then he shattered my dreams by following that sentence with "He'd wanted to kill an escaped serial killer and tax dodger who was hiding in his building, when a deranged sentient stop sign whacked him to death." Hey, you already did the "beat him to the punch" thing! And P.S. How did he know the serial killer was also a tax dodger (or an escaped serial kiler, for that matter), unless he knew the guy because he had just been living in the apartment building, in which case why the hell wouldn't he call the cops or move or something?

Anyway the guy runs out of time and- did you predict it? I did. He thinks of the clever loophole of killing himself.

But, thankfully, it's not over! He then meets the angel in heaven and he says something like, "You dick! Suicide isn't murder!" and they watch the universe collapse. HA! I'm not being sarcastic, I liked this twist. "Holy shit, did he actually like it?" You'll see.

Ratings:

Creativity: 3 out of 5. Like I said, the stuff he came up with took as much work as choosing random marbles from a sack, but I like Madlibs, dammit! I'm just kidding, I hated riding on the bus and not being able to run the fuck away from the annoying kid that was like, "Let's do some Madlibs!" But aside from all that, the plot was pretty creative, especially the ending.

Conflict: 1.5 out of 5. Don't ask why it's so specific. I have a system, and it involves far too many shades of grey. Let's just say he summarized the predicament of having to kill someone into a single paragraph and I feel cheated.

Humor: More than expected. I don't ever read fiction for comedy. I think anyone that does is probably hiding a man-sized costume of a fox in their closet or something, but when things are amusing I'm not opposed to it. Again, this wasn't laugh out loud (or "lol" as I hear you kids call it these days) but it wasn't painfully trying to be funny and just failing either.

Overall: 3.5 out of 5. Probably my highest rating ever. Time to retire.

If you would like to read something that will make you retire (from your job or from hope or faith or whatever) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

When is Horror Ever Scary?

I couldn't think of a crappy pun for a post title this week, deal with it. This week, and for the past two weeks in which I totally didn't forget I have a blog in favor of studying, I read Crawl Space by F. Poj (don't ask me).

(Link)

Here's a little description to wet your curious little whistle. That sounded dirty for some reason... anywayss:

"A Short Story. Horror. Frankie, an architect downgraded to building surveyor by the downturn after 9/11, finds himself on a job in downtown Buffalo. He must prepare updated floor plans for a huge abandoned building. The old school building seems to come alive, as the sounds of the cold wind howling through broken windows keep Frankie thinking he is not alone. Approaching the end of his task, he suddenly finds himself trapped deep in the guts of a dark, desolate maze. Frankie will have to crawl through mud, and fight against some unexpected enemies, to find his way out of this trap and cheat death."

Mud? He has to CRAWL through MUD!? Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

Alright, this story is a little more exciting than that, let me tell you. In fact, nothing is more exciting than a good story about an architect. Nothing, that is, except a story about an architect that can't find a job so he has to survey buildings. I was on the edge of my seat for the whole first half of this story as he took measurements and wrote down notes. Enthralling!

Other than a few editing errors every other sentence, I was really able to connect with this character's heterosexual interest in women and slight tendency towards laziness when it comes to crawl spaces. Real original stuff!

But it gets even more intense when he is mysteriously locked in the crawl space he is surveying. I actually did feel a little panic at this part, but our protagonist Frankie took it to the extreme by knocking himself out on a pipe and breaking his fist on the door to the crawlspace. He tries to find another way out as cockroaches crawl on him (not so scary for me, but I can see it, sure). He comes to a point where he has to dig with the bugs all over him and tears off his fingernails in panic. This is the point where I really winced. More on that later though. He emerges and is set upon by flesh-eating rats.

Well, spoilers, my friends, spoilers, because I have to call BULLSHIT on the description. "Unexpected enemies" means cockroaches, rats, and paralysis? Not ghosts? I thought this was horror, where are the fucking ghosts!? Not even a single serial killer? Fine, that still passes, barely. But the whole "cheat death" thing? No, he didn't cheat death, he did exactly the opposite of that. He fucking falls down a hole and abruptly dies (well, not so abruptly; the paralysis makes him good and immobile for the rats to eat him to death). Nothing is better than a story that was as fucking pointless as the surprise death endings of a Goosebumps "choose your own adventure"...!


Ratings:

Horror: 2 out of 5. Technically horror, but I would call it "thriller" or "psychological thriller" or some other genre that hearkens to the days when nobody ever fucking watched Fear Factor. Or maybe you did, in which case you are really fucking horrified of cockroaches and this story is for you.

Boooring: 5 out of 5. Pick a random sentence. It reads like this: "Once he reached the northwest corner, Frankie shot the laser back south to locate the southwest corner and determine the width of the tunnel: 42 feet and change." This is so interesting. Please do a story about a dude that uses a slide rule next.

Physical Discomfort Masquerading as Scary: 5 out of 5. I know, this is like a repeat of the first one. Well, you can just open your OWN fucking account and write your OWN fucking blog if you don't like it! Yeah I just remembered that the points where I "jumped" were the times when the idiot main character injured himself. Time, after time, after time. At a certain point it is no longer callus to say things like "survival of the fittest" and "pathetic" and no longer appropriate to say things like "scary".

Overall: 2 out of 5. Maybe this story would be exciting for someone (until the dude just dies and all that worry for our totally inept hero goes to waste). But that someone is afraid of cockroaches and rats, so why the hell aren't there any snakes? Why_the hell_not?

For stories that are exclusively about snakes (really, it's nothing but fucking snakes!) visit amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall

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