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Review of Chapter one of Slayers by Waywardknight3 on inkitt

Slayers: To kill an undead is a fairly light hearted monster killer story, I would put it in the same vein in tone alone just from the first chapter as something like Hellboy. Not doom and gloomb but fun and a little funny, a very fun read. Something very similar to something I would write, just not taking yourself too seriously and just having fun writing something you want to write.

I really enjoyed this first chapter, the start is really good, I loved the restrained style. I enjoy slow starts, I enjoy when people promise intense action from the title and the description but then take their time building up to it so I thought that was great.
But there is very little going on in the story so far and some of it is a little cliché’ despite that I realise that that obviously was the intended goal.

Plot I have to give props to just for the pay off of the chapter, this slowly building frame work for what they’re talking about. Dealing with this stereotypical condescending new age douchey guru passive aggressive psychiatrist trying to use your brain as a chew toy. I liked the line about the government, that sort of classic almost bitchy innuendo that if anyone says anything bad about the government you infer that they’re the next Oklahoma bomber haha. That annoying way of talking to someone who picks up on unintentional things in what you’re saying and uses them against you to get you riled up.
I thought the main character hammed it up with the tough guy/petulant child routine, maybe you could tone it down, maybe not, it was a little cliché’ but the whole scene for me centres around that comedy pay-off at the end so it still works.
The dialogue is very good, flows well, makes you want to punch the psychiatrist in the face too and it keeps it’s card very close to it’s chest and I really respect that in a first chapter.
I utterly loathe when a first chapter just sort of ham fists you right into the action with no thought or pause, I think you handled it delicately and in fact the exact same way I probably would have done.
I actually think we have a similar writing style, very pithy and sarcastic, I thought some of your description was great, overall I found it very easy and enjoyable to read despite nothing really happening.
The pay off at the end makes you want to read more and get more information, the subtlety surrounding them talking about his job and you having no idea what they’re talking about because you’re just this fly on the wall and you want to know more and then the pay off I thought was pretty funny, it worked well.
It sucks that grammar and technical writing comes last because I have to give it to you, there was a spelling mistake in the first paragraph, that’s not a great start haha. It’s ‘were’ not ‘where’, so quick go change that before someone reads it haha.
Also you commit my own personal pet peeve of grammar errors, this fucking drives me nuts, it’s ‘then’ not ‘than’, makes my skin crawl haha.
Other than that, I thought it was a lot of fun, it was well written, very interesting and I would recommend it.

If this sounds up your alley, give it a read on inkitt Slayers: To Kill an Undead.

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Review of E W Hemmings ‘Talking To Gravestones’

I read over the first chapter because really I feel like first impressions are the most reliable when it comes to inkitt. The first chapter is where you decide to read on or not.
I like the start, it’s nice and steady with a great deal of emotion and it really pushed that feeling of lose and melancholy onto me. That feeling of wishing that nothing was real and I really enjoyed that.
Other than that, not a lot happens in the first chapter, it’s quite short so I didn’t expect any great developments and the first person narrative is notorious for focusing on emotions and subjective interpretations over actual substantive events.
The writing style is very emotive, I liked it a great deal, very easy to read and not a cringe so far. A lot of the time stories like this get lost in the angst and become very cringe worthy but this kept a level timbre of it’s cringe.
The reason I called it a morbid fairytale is because of the description of the body bag swallowing her boyfriend up, I really liked that imagery. Put me in her mind for a minute, made it all feel dreamlike, as if he wasn’t really dead and this was just the start of a really messed up fairytale. Kind of makes you think whether anything she’s experiencing from then on is really real or if her mind is so shattered from the loss that she’s creating a world where she can see her boyfriend again in a fantasy.
There were a few errors and sentences that sort of tripped me up but overall I thought it was very competent and I would recommend it.

You can check this story out on inkitt by following this link Talking to gravestones.

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Review of Black Gold by R A Sewell

Just got a lovely if a bit cunty haha review for Green Sunday so I thought, what with being a nepotistic shitlord I’d fire back and write a lovely review for the talented author and fellow traveller R A Sewell.

So thar she blows (that has literally nothing to do with the plot nor the quality of the work, I don’t know why I wrote that, probably because it’s a sort of nautical story but I can’t remove it now because I’ve written out this explanation, fuck it here’s the review).

I’m so sorry, I guess this rates my overall maturity level, as soon as I saw the captains name was James Woods, I instantly cast him as the actor James Woods and couldn’t stop thinking about videodrome (hence the odd title of my review).

Just had to get that out the way ha.

Now to the review.

I just read the first chapter so far and I thought the story was pretty good, I don’t usually like when stories get right into the action but this really actually catches you off guard. You almost feel exactly as I imagine the crew of the boat feel, caught completely with their trousers down.
It’s very pulp, with the femme fatal and the visceral violence, I really enjoyed the description of the gun fire and the use of sensory information. You could literally smell the bullets as they were fired and it added a whole new level to the description and put me right in the room.
Instantly it reminded me of a classic action movie from the mid-nineties like Die Hard three or something and that I really enjoyed, I loved that period of gritty, yet slightly campy/pulpy action movies.
The plot I found a little trouble with, not a lot is given to why this happening, I know right, der money but there are hints there that it’s something more with the mysterious tattoo. But I had to mark this a little lower just because I thought the plot was a little contrived, I liked what was happening but how could these terrorists/thieves/nebulous bad guys sneak up on this giant super tanker and take it over in a matter of moments?
Surely they have armed guards on a super tanker or radar or something they could use to detect pirates, it’s not like you really sneak up on someone in the indian ocean, least of all a giant super tanker named the ‘Goliath’, probably crewed by hundred of people, all not watching the horizon or any device that might tell them a ship full of heavily armed dudes is coming to rob them.
I do have faith though that this is probably elucidated on later in the plot but I was a little annoyed that it wasn’t made clear that it was night time at the start of the chapter or listed on the date stamp. I’m sitting here imagining this is all happening mid-morning while they still have croissant crumbs on their shirts you know. Just a time stamp or just a little description of the night would go a long way to setting the scene and adding more plausibility to them being boarded like that without them having a clue.
I loved all the technical language in regard to the boat ‘stuff’, I didn’t understand any of it, but I’m sure somebody who knew anything about boats would, and that’s the point, it’s add something.
Frankly I don’t have much to say about the writing style and the grammar and punctuation, it’s very professional and very competent and it shows what I’m guessing is a lot of experience, so I can’t fault it in the slightest.
The only thing I feel like sticking to you for is fact you didn’t delete the ‘start writing here…’ bit. Schoolboy error mate haha.
I was reading the end thinking ‘Start writing here? they just got on a lifeboat, why are they writing, what?’ then I realised.
It’s not big deal, takes two seconds to fix, I just thought my being confounded at it for a few minutes was slightly amusing.

Overall I really liked it and I would read on and recommend it.

If you wanna read it you can check it out on inkitt by following this glowing title Black Gold.

Cheers.

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Dexter vs Dexter

As usual I have nothing more than a topic in my head to start this semi-literate ramble brainfart type endeavour and the longer I stay away from fallout 4 the harder it gets to breath. But I really enjoyed the dexter books hence the name of the blog. I also really liked the show and I wanted a somewhat side by side comparison, keeping the spoilers to a minimum.

The first book is called ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’ and it’s essentially the basis for the first season of the tv show. Which I shamefully admit I watched before I started reading the books because I’m a pleb, there you go, happy now?

I do this a lot in fact, I watched the walking dead before I read the comics and then I read the novels but the comics came first so that doesn’t count. I watched the silent hill film before I even knew they were games, the same with the resident evil series. So all around I’m a big media pleb, ain’t life grand?

After the first season of the show it gets a little squiffy. In the first book it wraps up nicely, ok I lied there are gonna be some spoilers. But in the show it wraps up a little skew because in the show, he kills the ice truck killer but in the book he lets him live and he recurs later on in the fourth and fifth book and becomes somewhat of a pivotal character.

The book is a lot more morally grey since he doesn’t actually have inner conversations with his dead adoptive father Harry and instead communes with a supernatural entity inside himself which he calls the ‘Dark Passenger’. He alludes somewhat to this in the show but it’s done a little cack-handedly in my opinion because it’s brushed off as if it’s an addiction whereas the book goes full fahrenheit/indigo prophecy syndrome with fucking demons and voodoo and ancient Babylonian gods.

… Which I actually rather liked but someone obviously conked that on the head because it never really goes back to that in the book and the show gives it a wide berth for probably good reason, it begs beliefs I guess. Too tinfoil hat, Alex Jonesy I guess, I thought it was fun but I guess that was a rabbit hole that might have taken the books up the garden path and since I really liked the following books and I’m still reading them into book seven tells me it wasn’t all that bad.

The first things you notice between the books and the show, in the show he’s this bad ass judo serial killer who kicks the entire ass all the time for some reason. It was cool but in the books he is less John Wayne and more John Cusack… in con air, the film where he didn’t do much.
It’s not that I don’t like him being more vulnerable but I feel like a lot of the time he doesn’t get to be the hero of his own story and after like the tenth time he’s faced death but been saved at the last minute it gets a little annoying.
I mean I don’t begrudge it for using a device like that, I try my fucking damnedest to avoid that ‘ooh he’s about to be killed but then someone saves him at the last minute’ thing, but it’s like literally an unavoidable tension building device. I can’t really think of one of the books from the series where it doesn’t happen except the first now I strain my brain.

Another massive difference is the scope of the book, in the show we follow all these other characters like Batista and his sister Deborah as they have their own arcs but in the book it’s a first person narrative from Dexter’s perspective so these characters become window decoration. And this may sound like a criticism but when you’ve got a TV show about a blood spatter expert by day serial killer by night, I don’t really give a shit about how his friend’s love life is going unless it somehow connects to the serial killy stuff you know, it’s just fluff, useless TV show filler nonsense and the book cuts through it like crate paper to get to the good shit.

That being said the structure of a TV show meant that he had to kill someone per episode and the show handled that quite nicely, a little like the freak of the week supernatural/Buffy style. But in this case the monster was human. But even supernatural couldn’t keep that up and the books don’t even really try to have a murder per however many chapters. On average he’ll killer around one or two people a book, which is perfect because it really allows for a lot of emotion and tension and it really gets into the right frame of mind, it’s deliciously descriptive without making you want to gag like American Psycho levels of gore. It’s subtly macabre, casually sick and twisted, I love it ha-ha.

I think the biggest difference is that Dexter’s kids are fully fleshed out characters… somewhat in the book, whereas in the show they’re just flaccid annoying extras, in the book they have inner workings of their own. And spoiler alert, although there evil father isn’t in the books, what he left behind inside them is enough to make them interesting as they turn out to be just like Dexter. That being said, Lindsay hasn’t really gone into that aspect of their characters yet. Dexter has promised to ‘show them the ropes’ but he never seems to get around to it. He’s always so wrapped up in himself and his work and his ‘other work’ to really take the time and I can’t help empathising with that I guess.
Dexter is an animal and he deals with things as they come I guess, his own self interest and self preservation will always trump training his foster kids how to murder people.
In terms of where the story is going I think that’s going to be a big future problem because spoilers, his brother, the ice truck killer seems to take a keen interest in the kids and there may be a clash of who’s wings they’ll be taken under, Dexter being discernibly the lesser evil.

I genuinely love and get swept up in these books, I suppose in a scary way I and Dexter (Jeff Lindsay the author) have a similar inner voice and I love his style and his wit and the more and more I read the more influenced I get by his dark wit.

That’s fangirling enough for one blog haha, thanks or reading/.

 

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First review for Green Sunday chapter one

In a bit of a shameless quid pro quo back scratching, Florian has done a lovely review in thanks for the review I did of his story Wayward Salvation. So you know it’s completely unbiased and subjective haha.
It’s a nice review, I think he did a great job and captured it nicely but take it with a grain of salt because he’s a friend.

Thanks again Flo, don’t forget to check out his story Wayward Salvation and of course Green Sunday.

Katanas and Cheese Graters

Green Sunday chapter one reviewed by Florian Maier
Let's be honest, whether we like it or not, the Zombie Apocalypse has been done to death. From films like the legendary 'RomeroTrilogy' and TV-shows like 'The Walking Dead' to books like 'World War Z' and video games franchises like 'Dead Rising', there have been so many incarnations, they could fill the coffers of any zombiephile to last them several lifetimes.

Let me take you aside for a second, and let's look at the bigger picture: a fresh take is needed.

Yes, we've had self aware zombie comedies in forms of our 'Shaun of the Deads' and 'Zombielands', and not to forget a hammy teeny love-story/comedy called 'Warm Bodies', but none have been particularly daring, at least for modern standards, when it comes to the setting or story department. 

The gist always is: 'Zombies happen (for whatever reason), modern society as we know it crumbles and someone (or many) must step up to do stuff, or just survive, or keep their humanity intact, or all things at once..' 

Sound familiar? No? Well, then you've probably never seen 'Dawn of the Dead', or the remake.

'Green Sunday' is not only a fresh take on the whole Zombie Apocalypse shebang, it also  dares to abandon the gritty seriousness of more recent incarnations for a return to Romero-style satire and humour.

Now I know you probably think this is going to be about the Zombie Apocalypse, but to be precise, the Apocalypse has happened, and passed. Turns out our shambling friends were no match for the Military  leaving a lot of disappointed teenagers and zombie themed web-shows in the wake of the disaster. 

TJ, our protagonist, is one of those disappointed teens, a tubby neckbeard with an affinity for cutting up plastic water bottles  in his Mom's backyard with a mall katana. 
His loud mouthed neighbour, Zed, runs one of the aforementioned web-shows and brings his audience (and us as the readers) up to speed on how things are now, of course hinting (or rather hoping) the Apocalypse will return so he can finally show off his automated killer cheese graters some more (yes, you read correctly, cheese graters) instead of having them tested on toothless zombie 'stumps' in his backyard. 

TJ, meanwhile seems content swinging about his swords and imagining himself as a samurai in feudal Japan. So, why is he our main character again? Well, who doesn't like a lovable loser and underdog? I sure do. 

Right from the title of the chapter you will notice that 'Green Sunday' relies on its humour, and it's far from toothless packing a real bite (obvious pun intended). I must honestly confess however that the humour may not be for everyone, since it does not shirk away from being vulgar and upfront. Don't get me wrong, it's funny, and I Iaughed and smiled all the way through. 

Besides its off-beat humour, its writing is visual, the opening being a prime example for this. I'm a huge fan of visual and descriptive writing and found it to be one of the things that lifted it up from seeming like your run-of-the-mill piece of fiction published on the web. There was one point when the tense seemed to change abruptly but that is easily forgiven since the story flows off the page like a zombie oozes pus.

Overall, I found it to be an entertaining and not to forget refreshing read. To some TJ may seem a bit passive as a main character, but we're so spoiled nowadays by our quirky hyperactive and not to mention whiny emotional main characters that we have expected these to be the norm making it no surprise whatsoever when the protagonist does something badass or brave. 

Needless to say, the story shows off its potential right off the bat and the author definitely knows what he is doing and how to tinge his universe in satirical comedy. To quote John Hurt here:

"We can expect great things from you."
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Wayward Salvation review

Some shameless friend promotion here, you’ve seen Florian’s art pretty much all over my blog, he’s the artist for Jeffrey Dahmer and Greg and Bat Country. His quirky style and dark, dismal themes are definitely up my alley.
He’s been a mate since uni but now the uppity twat thinks like every other twat on the planet that he can write too ha-ha. Well let’s just see about that as I review his preview chapter for a sort of offbeat sci-fi drama called Wayward Salvation… CUNT! 😉

Straight out of the gate you can tell this is his first attempt at writing something like this and like all newborn’s the first steps are the trickiest and result in a few bumps and bruises. But there’s an obvious natural aptitude as these wrinkles are quickly ironed out and the tension and the atmosphere is built quite easily even for something that was quite benign. I thought it worked really well, putting you in India’s perspective and her heightened sense of emotional vulnerability.

The first thing that threw me because Florian literally told me nothing about this and he only confessed to writing anything a couple of days ago was the sci-fi theme. And to be honest it seems a little off as I’m reading this and it seems to be a drama and then it turns out Lora, the love interest, is like an alien cat person.

And I literally messaged him and was like ‘Dude is this furry porn?’ to which he told me it wasn’t so I was like ‘Ok then’ and continued reading.

I really found it, I hate to say it; ‘Tantalizing’ the description is really great, some of the similes suck but that’s what a good editor is for but the atmosphere is great and I found myself getting really swept up in the sci-fi romance aspects.

It reminded me a little bit of Mass Effect and romancing Tali Zora, this exotic alien woman, of which the captain isn’t even sure if her body is compatible with his for sex or whatever ha-ha. So you not only have this dynamic tension of the standard ‘Will they won’t they’ love romance scenario, it’s almost like ‘is it even feasible’ because you love who you love but as Fry found out in Futurama; you can’t fuck a mermaid.

Overall I think the tension is built nicely and he really captured the awkwardness that surrounds forming a new relationship, just telling someone how you feel about them. My only criticisms despite what I mentioned about Mass Effect, is that I don’t really get the relevance of the sci-fi back drop. You could literally replace this with any other back drop, steampunk/cyberpunk/fantasy/zombies. I realise I’m being over-critical and this is just a preview/introduction and the initiation of probably a pivotal relationship in the story.
Regardless not a lot happened or was hinted at but again just a preview.

The romance was very believable and frankly fucking hot ha-ha. I’m a little reluctant to say I wish it had gone further ha-ha, baka hentai right?

Fuck you Florian, fuck you! Blue ballin’ motherfucker! She could have at least fingered her ha-ha!

It fumbled a little with perspective which is a bit of a no-no, we go from India’s perspective then it switches mid-paragraph to Lora, which editor’s usually pitch a fit over but could easily be corrected.

I really got into the chased romantic elements and I can see how it could really be exacerbated in a sci-fi setting. Some of the exposition was a little blunt and hackneyed, it could have been a little smoother but it worked for the scene overall in terms of setting the parameters of their relationship and individual back stories.

Overall I really liked the emotional aspects, the description put me in the room enough to feel the sexual tension and want to push further and the sci-fi back drop makes me want to read more to see how it ties in with the overall story.

All in all I’d recommend it as one to watch unfold, a great first attempt Flo you pervy old sauerkraut muncher.

If you want to check it out and drop it a review on inkitt, the three people that read this blog, have at it haha! http://www.inkitt.com/stories/34780

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