Search

Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Where weird shit hits bizarre fans.

Open Search
Tag

Dexter

LCYE Chapter 12 ‘Silent Circus’

Bonjour, you know the drill now ladies and gentlefolk. I rambled on for a bit and then dish out another chapter of one of my many and diverse brainfarts.

Honestly not much has happened between the last time I did this except oh yeah I have a child now. Surprise. I have a child with a woman that doesn’t like me, on the otherside of the globe that I’ll most likely never see and she’ll grow up resenting me and calling someone else daddy.

Enough of that drama.

The wheels are still turning, I kicked the people who need kicks in the asses and it should be working it’s way up now. The cover sketches are on the way and I’ve sent the lcye manuscript off for editing, we’re just working out payment now.

So here it is as promised, soon to be edited and available for free when you join my mailing list. As usual this is just a snippet, the full chapter and the rest of the book can be found on inkitt with the hyperlink below.

LCYE Chapter 12

Silent Circus
~
Con drove this time.

“Right over there” Harri said.

“I see it”.

Con pulled the Lincoln into the Riverside County Sheriff’s department parking lot.

The department had its own street sectioned off with the court house on one side and the Robert Presley detention centre on the other.

They parked in the small east side parking lot in between a couple of shiny pickup trucks.

The building itself was located in downtown riverside. A built up area that made a change from the open spaces they’d become accustomed to out here.

The courthouse, the detention centre and the sheriff’s department building were all concrete buildings. Elegant but with a hint of noble authoritarianism.

The building they’d parked in the shadow of was a tall rectangular concrete edifice. The windows of which were narrow strips high across the top, well above the average person’s height. Around eight or nine feet off the ground hooded by concrete awnings. Evidently it was some sort of holding facility not connected to the actual detention centre.

Despite the serious tone the buildings evoked, this was still California and of course there were palm trees everywhere. But even they were regulated in a strict spacing along the sidewalks. More serious plants stood guard in grey concrete planters along the edge of the rectangular holding facility. Some sort of fern or bush that had been trimmed into a phallic point.

On the other side of the parking lot was what looked like a multi-storey car park. They’d come the opposite way so hadn’t passed it. In between that and the temporary holding cells was a small red building with a comms tower poking out of the top. That must have been some kind of small office building for admin personnel.

Con hopped out of the car and quick stepped around the front not quite sure what to expect. Harri bundled herself out of her side almost visibly shaking. The thought of standing seemed to throw her. She sat for a moment turned out in her seat leaning on the open door taking in as much air as she could before could stand without feeling sick.

Con stood like a child watching his mother recover from a car crash. He was a good foot away standing with his hands out of his pocket not sure whether he should try and help her.

His mind was made up when she steadied herself against central column of the Lincoln and her Glock fell out of hip holster. He quickly stepped in and stooped to pick up the small plastic gun, which now looked like a cap gun on the parking lot floor.

He lifted it up like a glass slipper and presented it to her on one knee. She scowled at him and made a chupse sound. “Thanks” She put the Glock back in the holster and steadied herself.

His eyes searched her for a moment and she chupsed again “It’s nothing sordid ok?”

“I didn’t say anything”

“I know but I can feel your smirk.” She closed her eyes and lowered the pitch of her voice “It’s not a big deal, I don’t want you to go building it up in your mind”

“I wouldn’t dream of it” A little smirk leaked out, his fears of her unknown past seemed to melt away just a little.

She sighed and chewed on her lip a little almost for show.

“You know I used to be a cop”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“Really, I thought everybody knew. Well regardless, I used to be a cop back in St Louis and when I was such a thing I worked in narcotics.” She paused to watch his cogs spin a little. “I know what you’re thinking and it’s not that. I didn’t steal drugs from the taskforce, you think someone with a history like that could make it into the FBI?”

Con shrugged.

~

0

Dexter is Dead… again.

Ok been letting my blogging slip for a while because of this and that excuse, work, travel, romance, all that shit. But that’s all gone now, back to business as usual.
I recently finished the last of the Dexter series, if you don’t know already the blog is a play on the title of the first book ‘Darkly Dreaming Dexter’. And although the series isn’t what inspired me to become a writer myself it has influenced a lot of thematic choices I later came to love.
So needless to say I’m a big fan of the show and then I just got done reading all eight of the books and it’s fair to say I really liked them since I read them back to back, which is pretty is pretty rare for me. I think the last time I did that was when I first discovered pulp and read all the Philip Marlowe books by Raymond Chandler one if not THE godfather of literary pulp/noir, whatever you wanna call it. I personally think he beats the pants off of Dashiell Hammet although I love me some Sam Spade and I really enjoyed the first Parker novel I read by Richard Stark I think it was. I was actually thinking of filling the hole left by Dexter with some Parker.

Parker is like a more amoral version of Philip Marlowe I guess, like half way between Dexter and Sam Spade maybe. He’s just a straight up, hard edge career criminal. I was almost shocked when I read the hunter. There’s a scene where he kills this innocent woman by mistake and that wasn’t really the problem it was the way he just brushes it off, like ‘oops’ and I thought even Dexter would have had a moment of contemplation over that. And that’s why that character is really memorable, someone so focused on what they want that they burn everyone and anything in their way and feel nothing for them. A really powerful character I thought. It’s like you’re reading this like “Am I the baddie?”

Ok so I really enjoyed the Dexter series, I felt it flagged towards the end a little, like Lindsay was just in no mood to continue it so just ended it. I was a little disappointed by the prison sequence (Oh yeah spoilers Dexter goes to prison ha-ha), because I expected him to shank a fool or whatever but it was pretty boring monotonous, nothing really happens.

I liked the change of pace, overall I thought the books were weird because they became less about serial killing and more about Dexter’s life getting in the way of his serial killing but I guess that’s realistic and a great parralel for real life getting in the way of the things you love.
I’m not sure if this actually is the last book because the ending was very and obviously intentionally open ended. And the show also played around with an open ending although mercifully they thought better of that because that show really started to drag. Looking back having read the books I can see it was dragging its heels as soon as it left the starting block of the first season. They really really really shouldn’t have killed off the ice truck killer. He’s a pivotal character in the books, well sort of, but I think that was a mistake. They could have dragged out that familial conflict into later seasons allowing them to not have to rely on really over used tropes and shameless filler.

I liked the show for what it was, it was almost an expanded universe, exploring things around his dad and his mom, they took the books and ran with them and it was very entertaining. it got me through a lot of stressful shit at uni when the new Dexter ep came out. I could sit and watch it and talk to my friends about it

Anyway, enough of that bullshit, what I really wanted to talk about was that I really do feel like there’s a Dexter size hole in my life. So I was thinking of doing a fanfic of sorts, a continuation surrounding Dexter’s grown up daughter Lily-Anne. Essentially I want to get deep in the shit and explore some of the stuff I think Lindsay shied away from and fill in the blanks myself.

Because I think I mentioned in the past that the Dexter lore has some supernatural elements, he essentially #spoiler alert# squares off with a demon or old god or whatever in the third book and then after that it was just dropped like an old guy’s jock strap in the men’s locker room at the gym. I think it must have got panned or received a lot of criticism for taking what was essentially a mystery/crime thriller book into the Dan Brown illuminati/Alex Jones territory. And honestly I have nothing against that sort of shit. I really liked that book, it was such a jarring change of pace I was a little disappointed it wasn’t gone into in more detail or at the very least touched upon at least one more time. It was just sort of side-lined. Just like how in the books he’s promised to train the fledgling killer kids he’s raising. He never gets around to it, so I want my story take on that to be the result of his inaction.

I was thinking of having the ancient society from book three come back and hunt down Dexter’s progeny to harvest their dark passengers. Structure it the same way as the other books, have her as like a crime blogger who investigates murders and gets tangled up in this web of intrigue because of her innate morbid curiosity. Then out of nowhere the murders seem to be spelling out a message to her. I essentially want to make almost a copy of the first book, almost an ‘homage’ force awakens that bitch. That’s about all the spoilers I want to give away. I may turn this into like a fun side project of short novellas or full blown novels maybe if I can get in contact with Jeff Lindsay, I’ve exchanged a total of three words with him on twitter so I’m in like flin motherfucker ;).
I dunno it just seems like there’s so much that could have come from the Dexter mythos, it just feels unfinished, unloved, like Lindsay was just tired of that headspace, which I can totally understand. I think Dexter was a character I related to in a scary way and I was very invested in his struggles and I just think it didn’t end quite right. I mean I never expected him to live happily ever after, but why not? Yeah it’s fiction and bad guys always have to pay but do they? Do they in real life? Not really, so why should fiction have to conform to that standard?

I just thought it would be interesting to keep the series going with a woman at the helm, especially in this current political climate. I could see myself having a lot of fun with that. I’m not sure if I should do it for nanowrimo because I already had some lovecraftian thrillery type stuff lined up for that or maybe something odd and lynchian, completely surreal and off the wall. But we’ll see if I can come up with a synopsis in time. I might just start those other things as soon as I’ve released every chapter of gs.
Anyway my facebook ban should be lifted soon and I’ll be posting more shit on there and on twitter, I have to get my thumb out of my ass and reignite my social media platform, reanimate that sucker.

Peace out my african brothers and have a killer day ;).

 

0

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/.

 

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑