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July 2017

Review for “The Lady and the Prince” Author Jan Suchomel

Now, I have to say this is the last type of story I would read, I’m english so period dramas are played incessantly here and bore me to tears but even I liked this. The characters are likeable and believable and the world is effortlessly constructed, I can almost smell the wood and the food. I thought the writing was very high quality, this is something I would expect to read in print.

The plot and the backstory is delivered very very well, I was expecting this to drag a little and be a slow burn but we get the plot rolling right after we set the scene with the house and their affairs. So right off the bat after the first chapter you have a great reason to turn the page because you want to find out what’s wrong with the prince. It’s a great way to start a story, you’ve met and like the characters and now are sprinkled with a little mystery and intrigue.

I didn’t notice any problems grammar and spelling wise, I don’t really have much more to say about it, I pretty much made my mind up about it halfway through the first chapter, excellent work.

The Lady and the Prince

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ToTCB Chapter ten ‘All Tomorrows Parties

Hey there folks,

Gonna keep it brief, throw out another chapter of something juicy and bale. Not much to update on, been pretty dark recently inside and out. Day job has been a little annoying and I’ve just been engrossed in this latest project up to a point where I almost see nothing past it. I got lost a little a long the way, I lost myself in it, had some more shitty developments in my personal life my house falling apart not withstanding. Water is shut off right now because the guy we had do out kitchen was a shit plumber and it all needs to be redone, what a ball ache.

So far sales of GS are pretty shitty but its a first book and the publisher has his shit to sell too and honestly I mean did I really think I was going to making boat loads of cash off a book about a zombie gameshow? Nah.

I’m just gonna keep doing what I do, maybe work on the zombie stuff if my publisher wants them other than that gonna keep writing real shit and trying to get an agent so I go on to a bigger publisher, tv, movies, t-shirts the whole bit haha.

As I said, short.

See you…

All tomorrows parties

–

Within a week Con arranged for the boy to flown out to Houston to have a forensic interview. Johnny was taken alone by a consort of FBI agents from the San Antonio field office. He was put on a plane and sent to meet a psychologist at the Texas childrens hospital in Houston. One of the biggest hospitals in the state.

They waited in an airconditioned waiting room with a black leather couch. His handler was a stuffy man that didn’t talk and just sat and read magazines. He had the demeanor of pampered night watchman, always checking the time he could clock off. Johnny people watched and bobbed his knees up and down. He couldn’t sit still. Struck by a sort of nervous energy, half way between fear and excitement.

Within a couple of minutes Johnny was called into an office. Blue walls and dark maroon leather chairs, grey steel filing cabinets against the walls.

He was greeted by a soft looking middle age man with glasses and light curly hair sitting behind a teak desk. He was dressed casually in a white shirt and sweater vest with no tie and brown pants.

He stood to shake the boys hand and sat down.

“Johnny, its nice to meet you, I’m doctor Banner. I’m just going to ask you a few questions, it’ll be very relaxed, nothing to worry about”. He smiled earnestly. There was something calming about his voice. He put Johnny at ease within a few moments and he was rattling off the story he’d told so many others already.

It was all over in a few hours and Johnny was taken back to a hotel room they got him to spend the night before his flight home.

–

“This is doctor Jules Banner for Agent Nancy Jaeger”

“Speaking” Her voice carried the vague disinterest of a sceptic.

“Oh, well I have some unsettling news”

“Go on.”

“Erm, well concerning his trauma.”

“Yes”

“Well to be frank, there doesn’t appear to be any.” He sounded incredulous.

“What do you mean” Nancy was hanging on the edge of the phone now.

“Well I didn’t see the same physiological change that you get in most people who suffer trauma. His body posture, his pupil size, his heart rate. There wasn’t the usual changes you’d associate with someone reliving trauma”

“So you’re telling me he’s not traumatized?”

“Yes but what’s more, what I find troubling is he can’t seem to speak English without an accent.”

“He claims to have been held in Europe for a number of years.”

“You’re not following me, he speaks with an accent, and accent can be picked up but he can’t speak without it. This is supposed to be a boy who was raised in an English speaking household until he was thirteen”.

“Ok”

“Well it tells me about the development of his brain and the development of language. It’s impossible for someone raised in an English speaking home to not be able to speak without an accent. Regardless of spending, five, ten, twenty years in a foreign country”.

“What exactly are you telling me?”

Con was watching from his desk on the otherside of the room but he wasn’t saying anything. His face was still and expressionless as he watched Nancy talk.

“I can guarantee you within the best of my abilities.” He paused for effect. “This child was not raised in an English speaking home”.

“Once more please”

“This child cannot be Johnnation Bartlett because this child is not an American”.

“Thank you Doctor.” She said as she hung up the phone.

–

“Peggy, this is Special Agent Nancy Jaeger”

“Yes” Peggy’s voice was strained, anxious.

“I’ve spoken with the forensic psychologist and we have some troubling news.”

“What is it, is Johnny ok?”

“Dr Banner has informed me that the person claiming to be Johnny Bartlett cannot be your brother. Because he is not in fact an American”

“What do you mean he’s not an American, he’s my brother”. Her voice got higher and she took on a comic incredulity like she was waiting for a punchline.

“The psychologist has confirmed he was not raised in an English speaking house. Due to the development of language in his brain”

Peggy got quiet, she started breathing heavy over the phone. “Oh my god!” She said through her hand cupped over her mouth.

“Now you don’t have to worry I will-“

“OH MY GOD!” Peggy started crying and shrieking over the phone. “WHAT DO I DO, WHAT DO I DO?”

“Don’t panic, me and my partner will meet him at the airport. We will take him into custody for the mean time until we can figure out who he is. You don’t need to meet him, you don’t need to take him home, we’ll handle everything.”

“Ok”.

–

 

0

I Dream

Caralee I dream,

Your sweet smile beams up at me,

I kiss your forehead.

 

It’s raining outside,

Across the ocean I wait,

Til I can hold you.

 

And until that day,

It will always be raining,

It’ll never stop.

0

Review for “Rigorous MORT” by Author Zak Standridge

Straight off the bat I’m feeling tarantino, a little guy ritchie in my head too. You have a quick and self aware hook at the start and then it leads off into this funny tarantino style conversation akin to the one in reservoir dogs about Like a virgin, It works really well. Honestly though I don’t see why you couldn’t just turn it into a novel, I mean the screenplay works fine but it wouldn’t take too much effort to turn it into a novel. It has a nice flow. The characters are interesting and you splice the scenes together really seamlessly.
I don’t know when you wrote it but I was reading the part when they’re talking about ghostbusters two wishing they were talking about the new ghostbusters haha. Also I don’t get the hate for ghostbusters two haha.
I’m not gonna say the story is some masterpiece but with Tarantino style stories, it’s more about the characters and the style. He’s not trying to tell this epic story. I think you have the characters and the atmosphere down pat.

Overall, I think it’s fun and cool and has a nice vibe, not too pretentious. Well written quirky characters. Doesn’t take itself too seriously, a lot of fun all round I’d say.

Rigorous Mort

0

Mad Max: Thot Patrol

Ok so I just watched this fucking movie for the first time because it was on amazon prime, so I did not pay money specifically to watch this movie and I didn’t see a need to bother to pirate it or anything. So here’s sort of a review of it, I dunno. I don’t expect anyone to give a shit about my take on it especially this late in the game. I just watched it and I had to get my thoughts out about it or I’d go mad getting triggered over this movie.

So first off I knew this movie was steeped in controversy because of the Eve Ensler thing. If you don’t know who that is, it’s the nutty bitch that wrote the vagina monologues and she gives these near incomprehensible speeches as Ted talks, seriously google it. And you maybe asking yourself ‘why is the woman who wrote the vagina monologues consulting on a reboot of Mad Max?’ and my answer is; “Fuck if I know”.

But honestly there isn’t a lot of crazy feministy propaganda in it, because there isn’t a lot of anything in the movie other than action. It’s basically one big action set piece. The story is literally; “We’re escaping to this place, oh no that place isn’t there anymore, well let’s go back now”. That’s literally the whole plot. I mean they try to add back story for Max but it’s not really well done, it’s sort of just tossed in there and you expect them to build on it and they never do. Also Furiosa’s backstory is literally one small conversation between action sequences and it doesn’t really tell you anything about her other than she’s from the place they’re going and that’s how she knows where it is.

The feminist propaganda that I saw was fairly cut and dry basic bitch shit; Men are evil, men killed the world, men think children are their property, men think women are their property, yada yada yada. Same old shit, nothing ground breaking there, and it all happens in like one or two lines of dialogue you could just not hear.

Overall I think the biggest weakness is just the way the movie is directed. I mean I can’t tell if this is a Mad Max movie or some like Mad Max themed cuck bdsm tribute. Because Max gets like one or two lines that aren’t just grunting and he spends the first half of the movie tied up with a gimpy mask on riding around as a hood ornament for some bald nu male who predictably dies *spoilers*.

And don’t get me fucking started on the whole he gives her the gun and she shoots off his shoulder thing, I almost cringed my food out of my mouth while I was watching. It was so fucking cringe, Mad Max literally cucked on screen by this random character with about as much personality as a paint can in a home alone movie.

The action was pretty decent but the original Mad Max movies have a lot of variety with their action sequences, this felt like a rehashing of every other action sequence each time. I didn’t feel a lot of progression it got to about half way into the movie and I felt like the movie was still treading water and it’s a fairly long movie. It just lacks any real substance, it’s not filling.

But honestly what pissed me off most of all is the Immorten Joe character, the movie takes absolutely no time to make us hate this character enough for him to be a good villain. I mean they didn’t even bother like giving him place holder villainy like making him a nazi or something, making him eat a baby. Nope, he’s just a dun dun dun man! Who at one point is shown to be sort of physically repulsive in some way and he has a harem of beautiful women who he feeds and clothes and pampers while everyone else is slowly dying outside. But they then for some reason decide to leave a place where they’re safe and fed in a post apocalyptic world where literally everyone and everything is trying to kill them to chase some place which turns out to be already destroyed. So the movie is kind of pointless, I can’t really root for anyone because none of them really have any character or are doing anything truly remarkable.

I mean like Immortens son Rictus he’s just a big guy (for you!) who is pissed because his baby brother is killed during this really stupid escape attempt. Like there’s no point where he grabs and rapes a woman or burns some innocent person alive. It’s like the director has these villains and forgets to make them do villain shit. They’re just there chasing the good guys because reasons. The movie is just a clusterfuck honestly, a big set piece movie that really goes nowhere. It’s really safe, the acting was ok but I couldn’t really buy Charlize Theron as an action hero namely because they weren’t trying to sell her as one. You don’t even fucking find out how she lost her arm and got a new one. Like I feel like I’m missing half a movie here.

Like they made this big action sequence then just trimmed and trimmed until that was all that was left. Like Max is constantly having these flashback of people he couldn’t save but you literally never learn who these people are and it’s never addressed. There’s no flashback where this sub-narrative took place they’re just random and honestly add nothing so they might as well not even be there.

On a whole, if you switch your brain off its a good watch, lots of cool car chases and big explosions, it’s ok, its fun, it’s mental chewing gum but calling it Mad Max is a little on the nose because it’s anything but. It’s tame Max, slightly perturbed Max haha.

Just had to get that out haha.
See you…

0

Review for “We Were Swans” by Author GJ Freeman

Very nice package.

Great hook at the start, the blurb, the mini blurb, the chapter titles, the title of the story. It’s a very neat well presented package, it makes a very good first impression. I like the way the stories unravelling, short snippets of information, we’re getting it just as the main character gets it. You don’t dwell too long on his grief which I like, a lot of stories like this lay it on way too thick at the start when you’d more than likely be too in shock to feel grief at that point. It wouldn’t be totally real at that point. I liked the case, sort of a take on the Venibles murder but with a twist. The prologue makes you think there’s more too it as well the fact it seems open and shut from the start. Obviously there’s some kind of mystery unravelling and it does pull you in, makes you want to know more. Which is exactly what it should be doing. The writing style is very confident, not trying to hard, flows well, very relaxed. The only criticisms I have are that you have these big block paragraphs, just huge blocks of texts. It would be a lot easier to read if you broke them up a little. Other than that I can’t fault it, it’s a solid story.

We were swans

0

The Following season 3 review – sorta

Ok, this is not really a review. It’s more of a rant, but when do I write anything but half assed rants?

So I the Following, I watched the first two seasons and honestly it’s kind of an ‘eh’ show for me. It’s the kind of show I watch while I workout or I cook to, its not some cerebral show that eye fucks me on the regular it’s just kind of a chewing gum show I watch to fill time while I do other stuff.
It has fun themes and decent actors but is otherwise unremarkable. It’s sort of normie-tier Dexter. Well Dexter is sort of normie-tier Dexter if you read the books which are much better but I digress.
It was ok, it was a little sloppily written, the plot was sort of jumbled and all over the place and it struggled with characters. Because it has so many and Kevin Bacon and all his cohorts are sort of generic as fuck, like seriously they could swap them all out and it makes no difference and none of the main ones die so there tension is sort of lost but you don’t really care about them either.

But it was a great show for knives, lots of cool microtechs and cold steel knives on show. And in season 3 I actually saw my favourite killer using a knife I actually own which just touched my heart haha.

I dunno, I mean the main characters are sort of unlikeable and the bad guys are sort of between being too angsty and cunty to being too likeable. Like it gets to a point in season two where Joe Carroll the main killer cult leader played by James Purefoy who is awesome see Solomon Kane and Ironclad. He is so likeable to a point where it’s bad, it gets to a point where he’s almost a foil, he stops being scary, you forget he’s a serial killer. He’s just fun ol’ uncle Joe. So you have a real clusterfuck in terms of characterisation going on and the plot is sort of middling and predictable for the most part but its watchable.

Now here comes season 3 and it’s actually very different and its apparent from the start, it’s handled really well, written really well and it fools you, it takes a completely different path from the other two seasons. It sort of builds slowly to this midpoint where a new killer is revealed and at first I wasn’t that impressed because this show sort of throws out killers like hot dinners. In a way not dissimilar from Hannibal but in lots of ways I think this show is so much better than Hannibal because it has a lot more substance, Hannibal is all style, just freak of the week killerfest. It’s dull honestly and the following has a few throw away killers too but then this guy starts getting more and interesting.

It started to make feel like I was watching the first season of Mr Robot, the guy is like a serial killer version of Elliot from that show without all the shit show psychodrama of season two. But I won’t get into that emperors new clothes bullshit again. He even almost looks like him actually, although he’s a mulatto I think, not egyptian like I think Rami Malik is. But this dude could play a Kang if pressed haha.

I really liked his character, he had a lot of depth and was genuinely scary as well as likeable in a Dexter kind of way. The concept was great. But the show sort of fumbles him a little bit because it’s a bit one sided, the killers don’t really get away with much honestly, the fbi is a bit too good. Like they kill them all and not too many of the main characters are even scratched so it gets to be you’re rooting for the bad guys because they’re like the underdogs.

Because this guy is this awesome killer, like a total badass but he’s foiled constantly by these stumblefuck fbi agents and it can’t help but take the sting out a little.

But the season ended in a really nice open way because you have this awesome killer Theo, the hacker hacker haha. But it also leads into this rich kid serial killer social club a lot like Hostel and I think that could have been even better. Also Joe the serial killer from the first two seasons is executed but lives on in like a yoda ghost sort of way but creepy haha.

Sadly, just typing season 4 into google while I was looking for header images and it turns out they cancelled it which really sucks. Because although I wasn’t really invested, it was like Lucifer I just sort of watched it and took whatever I could from it. I had through the third seasons seen something really great blossoming and to see it cut short like this just when it was getting good is a little disappointing but eh there’s more fish on amazon prime haha.

Maybe I’ll do a black sails review just to talk about gay pirate kiss endings haha. Maybe not, might get kicked off the internet.

 

0

DDD Chapter 3 ‘Come into my head’

Hey there dudes and dudettes, back again to let me shovel more interesting tripe into your noodle. well good. Got some doozies for you today.

Ok well not much to report on, got my first royalty report for GS and I’m too afraid to open it and admit I suck at marketing haha. Yeah, a fair few copies sold but probably not enough to warrant a release of a sequel which is depressing but you know if someone actually went right for me I’d have to eat my fucking hat, now wouldn’t I?
I sound saltier than I actually am, I know people like the book, what’s not to like, not tooting my own horn, its just a fun book. But I never really looked at it as my magnum opus or anything like that. It was never the book to save me from the poor house but nevertheless I want it to do well and hopefully with some time and elbow grease it can and then I can release the sequels.

I can’t really get down about it, because a) I have a lot better more traditional things to depress me a la life in general haha and b) I have two more serious book franchises in the works that have a lot more potential to do well and hopefully get me a fucking agent which is what I really need. I can’t be doing with this indie shit anymore.
I’m obviously talking about this and maybe the one who came back, after extensive work, actually now I think about it it might not even be long enough after the editing and DDD is a Dexter clone so I’m pretty fucked either way, but I have to dream because otherwise what do I have? What reason do I have to go on if I don’t keep the hope alive that this is all worth something? And what is that something? Money? Fame? Love? Immortality?

Who knows?

Come into my head

~

The steady metronome of waves gently beating the shore, the smell of the spray. I open my eyes but it’s just blackness and then a light comes on but it’s not a light, it’s a moon rising out of the sea. The sea, am I on a boat? I ask myself stupidly.

Then I can feel it, the cold cloying embrace of the ocean in answer.

I kick my legs but I don’t feel I need to, I’m bobbing, cold and wet, just with my head floating above the surface of the water.

I can’t see the shore, the ocean seems endless and the only noise I hear are the waves parting and my heart beating. A rising anxiety sets my teeth on edge and I can feel it all around me. Is this what it’s like inside? Is this it’s world? A cold endless black ocean. I can’t feel the bottom, why would it have a bottom?

I can feel something, something moving, circling, rising. Waves and bubbles rising to a crescendo peaked by an anticlimactic blub blub and something bobbing on the surface of the water.

It floats towards me and I know what it is before it the moon can cast it’s bright bitter smile down on it.

It’s a head.

A perfectly lopped head of a woman. It floats towards me and in the glare of the moon it rolls open and it’s wet hair parts like a flower and it’s my dear old aunt Mary Beth. I should feel things, I should feel earth shaking, bone clattering terror and cold sweat but I feel nothing, nothing but a joyful wonder. A question answered, a life revealed, a lie told and taken away just as swiftly and my heart races and in an instant. I’m surrounded by more perfectly lopped heads, floating and bobbing like rubber ducks floating in crude.

I wake up in the same cold sweat, no maybe even colder, as colder as that black ocean, or maybe I just left the fan on, yeah it’s the fan. I slop the sheets off my damp body and walk on over and turn it off.

I need a shower and maybe a ritualistic burning of my sheets.

The water washes over me and I’m expecting revelations, a brief aside into Jungian psychology. Did I even care what the dream meant, if it meant a thing?

The sea, the darkness, fear of the unknown, the oldest fear, pretty standard. If you’re not afraid of the unknown you don’t have a very good imagination. The moon, well that was easy. I felt my teeth clicking thinking about it, getting responses up my legs and back as I just let the water flow over me.

The heads were a gift from my new and anonymous friend, but why did I recognise them, why her? I often thought about my aunt, about how I would feel if she would die. To tell the truth, if I could love anyone it would be her. Her absence in my life would be the most notable. A sapping noticeable emptiness that could be called loneliness or sadness. Something close to that but sadness was a foreign concept to someone completely bereft of any feeling whatsoever. A blessing and a curse, a crisp clear almost chipper emptiness. Like a smile with no teeth.

Where did that come from? I turned off the water and towelled off, it was a Saturday so much less care was taken in regards to time and form. As I towelled my head I heard something like the door opening and whispering.

I opened the door and looked down the hall but all I could see was my aunt holding tight to the door and looking at whomever was there. I tried looking past her but all I could see were their feet, well one foot, the other seemed to be, well not there. The stump was pressed against the stirrup of a wheelchair. The other foot not looking much more useful next to it.

She whispered harshly and shut the door latching it with the chain and the deadbolt and scurrying into the kitchen.

It took me a few minutes to get ready. I ran a comb through my hair, when I found it and put on a loose t-shirt. Then a pair of jeans more hole than denim and walked down the hall of the minimalist bungalow we shared.

She was waiting for me in the kitchen nursing a mug of gourmet instant coffee and mumbling to herself as she was one to do when something was taxing her.

I’d ask her what was wrong but she’d usually outright tell me as I was the only one she could tell her in insular little world. She really needed to get out more, like me, at least in my dreams. She owned some kind of crystal hoodoo voodoo shop in town that was run by a couple of kids. She came in to visit occasionally but most of the time she didn’t have to. Especially not on weekends. The shop did well, that kind of crap always does in California.

I came in and leaned on the the sparkly faux marble breakfast bar, none of it was new. It had all come with the house and I didn’t need her to tell me that. It has a sort of flat pack feel, like everything could be folded up and carried away at a moments notice.

I put some bread in the toaster and pressed the plunger down imagining it was some sort of small flat animal.

“What did I say about carbs?”

“That they’re delicious?” I said.

She scoffed and went back to her coffee and nothing.

“Who was that at the door?”

“Oh just the mail man, you know how chatty I can get” She took a sip waiting for my reaction “Poor guy couldn’t wait to get away.”

Now I was no expert on the hiring process of the postal service. But I was reasonably sure someone wheelchair bound and missing vital appendages couldn’t make up the required walking speed. So that was either the result of liberal diversity policies running amok or a sweet little lie rolling off my aunts lips to my ears.

“What were you talking about?” I prodded catlike, fighting a smile at the corner of my mouth.

“Oh you know, the usual stuff” She said tossing her long hair around in my face. She had it tied back with one of those seventies bands things that gave it a little lift on the top and a floral loose fitting dress. “So what are you doing today?” She asked, skilfully changing the subject as she sipped her coffee, the smell of which was driving me nuts.

“I was planning to go to the library and catch up on some studying” Of what was a need to know basis of course.

We lived in a nice but relatively secluded part of orange county. Turtle rock was a picturesque little hamlet made up of cute little match stick houses. Street names that sounded like they came straight out of fairytales. Sweetwater and rainbow falls, morning dew, sandpebble, gumdrop lane, I made that last one up. It was a good area but in comparison to the homes around us we lived in a shack. It had privacy but was incredibly secluded. You couldn’t get anywhere without a car and that was something I was sorely lacking.

“Ok”

“So I was wondering if you could drive me there and I could maybe get a ride back?”

She seemed to not be listening to what I was saying and took another sip, her head bobbing and then caught like she skipped a beat. “Sure” She said giving me a laboured smile. “Wait the library? As in at your school?”

“Uh huh?”

“It’s fifteen minute walk versus a two minute car journey” She said pausing trying to register how much I cared about carbon emissions.

“Didn’t you hear? There’s a serial killer on the loose” I said trying my best not to glow as I said it.

“I heard” she said with a ringing tone in her voice like it jumped and fell down a well. “You sure you don’t want to go the mall or something, all that work on the prom and you haven’t bugged me for a dress or shoes.”

“I still have time” I shrugged.

“Ok” She said. She picked up her unwieldly keybang off the kitchen counter with a clattering noise. Various useless keyrings like peace symbols and weed leafs. Cool aunt persona mastered. “Shouldn’t you be out with your friends? It’s a weekend.” She said clapping the keys in her hands. She almost sounded hurt, like I wasn’t fitting into the fantasy she had for a kid my age. Frolicking through piles of maple leaves and having water fights with the local kids. Taking breaks in between licking giant circular lollipops and braiding my hair. Maybe her childhood was on rainbow falls but mine fell somewhere a lot darker on the map and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Who says my friends won’t all be in the library?” They weren’t, Paul was at basketball practice and Wendy was probably at a salon somewhere getting her nails ‘did’.

“Ok sure, I can get some stuff done in town and pick you up around six?”

“I was planning on staying late, I’ll just get a ride or catch a cab or something”

“How late?”

“As long as it takes, I don’t know, are you gonna take me or not?”

“Ok fine”

“Thanks” I said in my most chipper getting my way voice.

We left the house, it was still early afternoon, I slept til about twelve which was odd. I never usually needed much sleep but these dreams seemed to leave me feeling drained. The sun was hanging lazily in the sky and the birds saw fit to fill the silence of turtle rock with their incessant happy chirping.

Most people here didn’t stay on the weekends so the place was deserted apart from the sound of sprinklers hissing. They were probably all out on the beach with their jetskies making lots of noise.

We lived on the tip of a little culdesac called whitewater, probably the least fairytale sounding name in the area. It had a mini garden in the centre of what was supposed to be a roundabout but was a tad too small. But it left more than enough to allow whatever bike or hybrid car the neighbours were packing. The place was a little too metropolitan to have front lawns opting more for the shallay feel. Little neatly formed shrubberies and trees sticking out of perfectly shaped garden strips hemmed in by the bricked driveways. Their mail boxes all nicely shaded by god knows what trees, do I look like a tree surgeon?

The houses all looked the same or similar. The same matchstick wood with sandy coloured tiles matching the tone almost perfectly. They looked almost like unpainted monopoly houses in their uniformity.

Little balconies on top for relaxing two car garages that seemed to take up most of the space in the house.

She opened the garage and drove her little rollerskate car out of the needlessly huge garage. She saw fit to fill it with useless nicknacks, a fooseball table we never used and some piece of ethnic art she picked up in a flea market. Anything to fill the void left by the tiny car in the huge garage.

The car was so small it was basically a motorized rickshaw but complaining would be pointless and eat up too much air in the car. I was getting a free ride after all. A chance I sorely needed to get a leg up on whomever was in the shadows of the internet so interested in little old me.

I opened the car door careful not to break it. I eat all my green vegetables after all. And settled in the front passenger seat, sans legroom. No complaints uttered. She started the engine and the dull hum of the electric motor made my fillings ache.

It puttered along like a milk float down the end of the drive turning right on Sweetwater. A left onto Sycamore creek and then it was another left and a straight shot onto Turtle rock drive. Only coming out of the neighbourhood noticing how much it looked like a cult compound from the outside. Trees planted there like it was a model of some Swedish fishing village and the grass cut so fine it looked like it was just paper mache painted green.

We drove for what felt like miles of an endless stream of near identical houses. Neatly topiared bushes pointing up at the bright clear pale blue sky. Were there any clouds in Orange County?

I couldn’t bare to look at their near perfection anymore. Choosing to just follow the bumps of the dry dusty hills on the otherside, reminding us all that in fact we live in a giant desert.

I opened my window because of course AC was broken in the boxy car, I was lucky the window still worked. I poked my head out for some fresh air, taking in the smell of chlorine as we passed a walled off little compound. The tops of a slide poking over the high walls. Probably owned by some cartel money man that liked quiet swedish fishing villages and indoor pools.

After about a minute of watching shadows slide over the almost non-existant crumple zone of the car. We were pulling into the flat patch of concrete that was the campas parking lot. Which was nice and empty with it not actually being a school day.

Despite all the space my aunt parked at a jaunty angle trying to take up three spaces. I got out and rounded the car to peck her on her cheek narrowly missing her pair of fake DG sunglasess. Planting a bird like poke of hard dry lips on her freckled sunkissed cheek.

“Don’t work too hard” She called at my back as I walked into the shade of the foyer.

“I wont, thanks for the ride” I called back waving at the glare of the sun, covering my eyes with my forearm.

Now onto business.

~

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Possibly the most savage review I’ve ever done. Paragon By Benjamin Peck

Piggy back rides?

Sorry what? I just read that and it just caught me off guard, why are people giving each other piggy back rides at the hospital? You’ve said ‘Crows peak’ twice now and I don’t know if you mean widows peak, I have no idea what a crows peak is, there are crows feet and there are widows peaks I had no idea there was such a thing called a crows peak.
Ok I just had to get that out, so first impressions are kind of cringeworthy, the names. It’s like trying to be a serious gritty story, stepping away from comic books but you still have all these cheesy comic books names, ‘Slayt’ ,’Zeke Blackwell’, ‘Glacier city’. It just took me out of it, it made me aware I was reading a story as opposed to being in an actual world.
I think it would have been better to just set it in a real world town because it seems a little pointless to create a fictional city but do little to no world building around it. You might as well just set it in new york and then people know what new york is like.

The fight scenes are ok, they’re not too self-indulgent but they’re not really jaw dropping either. I was about to drop this down for plot because there didn’t really seem to be one but then you have the thread of the cops taking people to that tower, so you have a nice hook to get people to want to read further to see what they’re doing to them at the tower.

Now honestly I hate the way Zeke is immune to the nullifiers, it’s just too tropey, ‘the main character is immune to the thing that’s holding everyone back’. It’s just been done to death and it completely drained all tension away from that scene with the cops. There was this great tension you’d created because here was this guy facing down people who could permanently wreck his powers and he does it anyway but no two seconds later he’s immune and all the tension is gone.
I like the premise of the nullifiers, I like the idea of superheroes being sort of second class citizens but it’s also been done. I mean this entire plot line is ripped almost entirely from the marvel civil war and to some extent incredibles and I just cant say this competes with those.
The writing is a little sloppy, there’s so much telling when you should be showing, just block paragraphs of exposition dumps, it’s tedious to read and it really weighs down the story. If you can’t deliver your exposition in an interesting way that isn’t just directly telling the reader, don’t bother, it’s a waste of time.
The prologue seemed kind of pointless to be honest. I don’t see why it was relevant to see that his father dies (also really tropey) right at the start and not just have him mention it later or come up in a flashback or a dream. Why is it so relevant that it has to be right at the start?
Honestly the whole thing is too wet, it feels like it was written by a thirteen year old. This is an edgy teens idea of gritty realism. The mohawk and tribal tattoos on the main character just had me cringing so hard, 3edgy5me dude haha.
Don’t get me wrong, if a thirteen year old wrote this I would think he was talented as fuck. There’s a lot of potential here it’s just weighed down with some bad storytelling, some place holder cardboard cut out characters and tired tropes. I’m not saying it’s bad or shitting on it to be mean, it has a lot of potential its just not there yet.

*Update*

Ok this review might have been a little too savage haha. This guy was so butthurt he left me the saltiest three line review for DDD just taking some lame jabs at it that make no sense haha. Like he mocks it for her saying shit like ‘Leet’ hacker. Like he doesn’t get the joke, she’s using it ironically, she’s making fun of herself, it’s self-deprecating humour. But evidently if this guy knew what irony was or had a sense of humour he wouldn’t be this butthurt haha.
Just saying I went out of my way to tear him down and the usual shit like ‘you didn’t read enough of my story man’. Dude I don’t need to get through a whole shit sandwich to know what it tastes like. And why would I randomly want to tear down someone’s story on inkitt a place where reviews don’t even really matter. Like if this was on amazon it would be a completely different thing but inkitt is just a place to basically beta your work. But most of the time it’s just fucking pussies licking eachother’s assholes and just wanted the same in return so when someone like me comes along with the real honest biting criticism they need to hear they need a safe space haha.
Because that’s all I did, I just told the truth, I didn’t go out of my way to attack this guy. I just gave him the full unvarnished truth he needed to hear, one man to another but this little bitch couldn’t take it I guess and that’s really the death nail for a writer, if you can’t take the savage criticism you’re done honestly. If getting one not even really bad review, just critical review sends you into this much of a hissy fit how do you think you’re gonna take that long slog of rejection when you actually are looking to get it published.
Why the fuck do you think so many people self publish? Because they’re terrified of rejection. Just to chime in with a sexist note haha, it’s probably why more men in history are writers because men are more used to rejection than women.
Anyway I could have spent hours arguing with this dipshit for fun but I decided just to side step it, arguing on the internet is just too fucking time consuming and utterly pointless.

If you wanna check it out the drama for yourself, head on over to inkitt with the link provided.

Paragon

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