Search

Darkly Dreaming Demographic.

Where weird shit hits bizarre fans.

Open Search
Tag

review

The Butcher of Barclay’s Hollow by Nick R B Tingley – A review

Well written but underwhelming.

I first chapter just didn’t really grab me. I moan about this constantly on inkitt. People just plonk a first chapter down and then move on to the next one, but the first chapter is really the most important. It’s like a summary of everything to follow. It has to be linked to the overall plot somehow and it’s the first step into this greater world, so stuff, a significant amount of stuff needs to happen or if it’s even very little it has to be pretty powerful. I mean what really happens in the first chapter? A butcher saves a little girl from being maimed and then gets criticized by passers-by. And although I expect their distaste for him to be a theme I doubt it ties to the main plot at all. So really this incident is irrelevant as a starting point.
I get you probably want to ease into it and I usually like pieces like this and reading this encouraged me to get out my copy of Hound of the Baskervilles. And even in that, a flowery period piece published over a hundred years ago the first chapter gets to the point. They’re not talking about the Hound but they’re talking around it, building up to it. but it’s clear that its building to something and then the next chapter is called ‘The curse of the Baskervilles’. We have none of that here, it’s just one scene with no foreshadowing or hints of an overarching plot at all.
I think this entire chapter could have served better as just a flashback or a story relayed by the girl at a later date and you could have started further on in the story to start at a more relevant point. Giving the main character a little more mystery. You hinted vaguely at a tragedy backstory, so I expect he had a wife and child that died and thus builds a connection with the little girl over the course of the book. As it stands now it’s sort of throw away.
It’s well written, I like the period style although there are some typos and errors. It needs a good proof read because these obviously slipped through spellcheck. I have to say I cringed at some of it because it just seems like it’s trying too hard to be period even in the non-diegetic stuff and it’s kind of unnecessary when it could be done better. When I read a modern period piece I expect to be hit in the face with the research involved rather than just flowery language and period accents. I want to be shown more than I’m told. It was easier for Conan-Doyle because he was obviously immersed in it. But it’s not really an excuse, what in this story really justifies a period setting? You could take that entire chapter and just change the carriage to a car and it would be no different.
Overall, it’s very serviceable if a little cliché, I save my harshest criticism for the work I think has potential. I like the title, I like the premise, the style is good but frankly your first chapter is boring. The skill is there but the hook is not.
I hoped this helped, I wish you the best of luck with it.

The Butcher of Barclay’s Hollow

0

The Eyes of Goldfinches by June – A review

Let me start on the wrong foot, this is never something I’d ever really read unless there was a massive messed up twist halfway through or something. Which I wouldn’t know because I probably wouldn’t read that far and it would take it being made into a movie for me ever to know haha.
But if it is like that I don’t really expect there to be much foreshadowing in the first chapter. I think the dialogue is good and it’s always nice to see a first person narrative that isn’t entirely stale and annoying. But it gives way to a habit of telling instead of showing. You had the main character just telling us how he felt about people when it would have been more effective to show it somehow that was relevant to the plot. Because to be honest not a lot really happens in the first chapter and this is the chapter publishers and agents will read and unless your hook/summary/blurb is really amazing then they probably won’t read any further.
It may not be your style but you may want to start at your inciting incident and work back, think of it like a film that starts with the character hanging from the edge of a cliff or something then you find out how that happens while he goes about his average day of being painfully average haha. It’s a little cliché’ but it’s cliché’ for a reason, it works.
I mean what really happens in the first chapter? He goes to school, he does some school stuff, gets a detention then meets a girl. It’s not a lot to work with but saying that the title is great and it’s what initially what brought me to this story. So if you paired the catchy title with an even catchier blurb/pitch that would nail it.
Because the writing style is there, it obviously needs an edit because it’s a bit sticky in places but it shows talent, it flows. The characters of the little we saw in the first chapter are distinctive and likeable and the main character has a good voice, very fun, very self-aware and smart. I like it, it works and I can see someone who isn’t me enjoying this a great deal haha.

Here’s a link to the story so you can read it for yourself.

The Eyes of Goldfinches

0

Archangel by Alexander Skel – A review

Not a huge fan f sci-fi or fantasy for that matter, I just find myself sifting through too much bullshit that doesn’t need to be there. I just read all this stuff that’s completely irrelevant to the plot about thrusters or some kind of magic barriers or something and I’m just like ‘Why? Get to the point!’ I just don’t have the kind of patience for either genre and taken seriously I find them really hammy.
Never-the-less I found this entertaining and engaging and it reminded me a lot of some decent anime but that being said I think it would be better as a comic or an anime. Because as a novel without any art it’s sort of generic, there’s nothing that really stands out about it. I’m reading the first chapter and I’m thinking about how similar it is to some other comic/game rather than what was different. The whole time I pictured it as a mission in armoured core or some anime more than I saw it as its own thing.
The action is great but its contextless, nebulous and sort of self-indulgent. It doesn’t have a point, it’s like a ten-year-old wrote down what he wants to see in a cartoon and then a really great writer took those ideas and brought them to life.
I really think this has potential and you are a really good writer, there are a few errors here and there and some sentences that had me like ‘Did Dan Brown do this?’, an example of that would be ‘The grenade exploded’ well no shit, it’s a grenade. But overall it’s well written and isn’t overly verbose like a lot of my work is.
But there’s no real story and in the first chapter it’s tempting to just gallop past it but you have to have some hook to make me keep reading, you can’t just have one fight scene and call it a day. Who is archangel? Why should I care if he lives or dies? This is why I say the action is contextless. Action is tense because we care about what happens to the character, you’ve given us no real reason to care about Archangel yet.
And what’s worse is this chapter I think has no real room for story that wouldn’t just be painful exposition, but that would still be better than no story in the first chapter.
I found the transition from Archangel to Rachel to be a little jarring but I like how you skimmed over the whole ‘Casualties of war feels’ generic bullshit in every anime ever haha.

Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it, it was enjoyable to read and it really made me want to play a decent Armoured Core game, pity there hasn’t been one of those in a while haha.

If you wanna read his story you can reserve a copy here.
Archangel

0

Review of The Ballad of Reston Riggs By Diane April

I really liked the tone, not much happens in the first chapter and it’s fairly typical of a zombie apocalypse story, it’s not so much a story as a framing device for a bunch of stuff happening, this coming from someone who’s written a zombie story before and am just as guilty of this.
But I really liked the perspective, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a zombie story told through the perspective of a mentally handicapped person. At the start it almost read like noir. Very terse and direct and detail orientated and I really enjoyed that but I felt it wasn’t always consistent.
It’s almost like there are parts where it breaks character, certain words or phrases seem to break the illusion you’re seeing it from Reston’s perspective. Like the analogy to the Jackson Pollack painting and I’m thinking ‘Does Reston know who Jackson Pollack is?’. Sure he could know but it seemed out of place. It was a good analogy don’t get me wrong. I know what a Jackson Pollack painting looks like but it took me out of it a little bit and I became very aware I was reading a story as opposed to the third person recitiation of a mentally challenged person’s thoughts.
I think maybe even this story could have benefitted from a first person narrative as opposed to the third to help keep the story in character per se. It could be like a zombie version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night, which is this neo-noire mystery told from the perspective of a boy with learning difficulties.
The description was great, not over the top just clean, the grammar and punctuation is strong and the writing style is competent.
Overall I liked it, it definitely has potential and I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.

Read it for yourself here.

0

Jessica Jones and the death of gamergate?

Provocative title eh? Such clickbait, much attention whoring.

Ok well I was sort of taking the piss, bit of a satire on how this show was heralded as the coming of hipster Jesus by lots of feminist and ‘progressive’ sites just because… baginabaginabagina!

Yeah the main character has a, as noted professional feminist Clementine Ford likes to say “Shame cave”. But luckily this review won’t really dwell on that too long because there’s actually a lot wrong with it that has nothing to do with misogyny and a lot right with it that has nothing to do with feminism. So with that little bullshit footnote out of the way, we can actually talk about Jessica Jones.

I know I’m a little late to the party on this one, but what’s new? And with the news of a second season on the horizon I thought it was better late than never to review the first season.
My girlfriend sort of forced this on me for some reason, not that I don’t love watching stuff with her, but she seemed oddly forceful with this and being the contrarian cunt I am. I always make things difficult and when someone wants me to do something, I first try and get out of it, I don’t why, I’m just an asshole.
So this started a little fight and of course I gave in and we watched it, I like a petulant child trying to pick apart everything from the ‘edgy’ intro where Jessica is all ‘kewl’ doing a monologue from the weird porn music this show has for a title sequence. Which of course turned into another mini spat and after much apologizing from me, we tried to watch it again and shock horror I actually started to enjoy it. It was a painful experience.
I didn’t like the character of Jessica, I just think the person who played her (can’t be arsed to google her name) was too waify (No waify, not waifu, it means like thin or slender) and elflike and too much of a ‘pretty girl’ to be believable as this bad ass detective semi-superhero who answers the phone on the toilet and drinks all the booze, such edge, much noir.
So instantly I was put off because it just seemed to be trying too hard to push the noir buttons and it felt a little forced and none of the characters really seemed to resonate with me. I found Jessica bitchy and annoying, Trish I found insanely consistently annoying, her neighbours are a scale of annoying all on their own. I was surprised Simpson even stayed as a character because he was hollow as a character in my opinion and annoying. Her boss is also bitchy and annoying but probably also one of the most interesting characters. Luke Cage is kind of boring and it’s annoying he doesn’t get more screen time.

But…
Throughout, as I find myself desperately trying to give a shit about any of these characters, a purple spectre looms over them and it’s almost too delicious to ignore.
The show starts off a little lame, Jessica just drinking herself to death for reasons… that become clearer later on. She is trying to get over some traumatic event kept hidden from the audience and trying to assuage a guilty conscience by using her super powers to help people in need and make enough money to buy cheap booze I guess and fix her fucking door!
Seriously, her door is broken at the start and there’s this running gag that drives me nuts where she keeps trying to get it fixed and she either fucks it up while it’s being fixed or breaks it again. And to my girlfriends delight, I found this niggling and incredibly ANNOYING just to have it fixed off screen and the running gag dropped like it never happened. Way to stick it in and break it off Jessica Jones, from me and every other person with tinges of OCD; fuck you!

Ok now that I got that out of the way, I thought the cases and the premise were a little thin, because rather than following the sort of ‘freak of the week’ style made popular by Buffy and supernatural, where something new happens or a new character is introduced every episode. It’s instead almost like an episodic film with the story told more like the wire or a TV show of that nature, which I’m definitely glad they went with because the actual villain had the strength to carry the whole show.

Now finally, getting to the best part, been twisting my legs in fangirlish expectation trying not to squirt all over my laptop. Let’s just say the main villain is boss, like I haven’t loved a villain this much since Sylar from the once great but now utterly shit heroes.
I sneer at your Loki, I laugh at your Ultron and I will without a doubt piss myself when I finally see Ivan Ooze the remake haha.
Purpleman, or Kilgrave in the show because he’s not actually purple in the show because… well that would silly and I doubt David Tennant would want to be painted purple just to stay true to a fucking comic, this isn’t Buffy, no one cares, it would have been dumb. If David Tennant had come out covered in purple paint the whole dark brooding ‘take me serious daddy’ noir elements they were gently coaxing up to that point would have been smashed into a million pieces.
So no he’s not purple and I haven’t read the comics, but I actually might just for Kilgrave, he’s that awesome. If just for Tennant’s performance, you can really tell he’s enjoying every minute of this roll and it adds so much to that playful devilish smile he has.

Kilgrave has the power to control people’s minds, any order he gives, you have to carry out, it’s a little like professor x but he can’t read minds. Which adds this odd dichotomy where he can control people but he never really knows whether they want to do what they’re doing or not. And to add an extra level of fuckery, the people he controls are completely aware when he’s controlling them. So it has this added trauma of feeling completely powerless, having no control over your actions but being completely aware of how powerless you are at the same time. Like a night terror or sleep apnoea. Oh fuck this is already too long.maxresdefault

Needless to say Tennant made the show for me, his boyish charm mixed with the amoral sadism of Kilgrave just appealed to my inner shitlord. All the other characters I could have taken or left and even my girlfriend who is much more easy going than me, was incredibly annoyed by the irrelevance of some of the side characters. Literally almost shaking her fist at some of the scenes like; ‘why is this happening? Why is this important?’. It’s a great show but it has a lot of fluff and Kilgrave is a great villain but he could have been used a little sparingly. And *SPOILERS START* He could have been killed off in a much more interesting way or not at all if they had intended to make a second series from the get go, which I’m not sure was the case. I felt that the writing was kind of poor, not so much the dialogue but just, how some of the characters were dumb for reasons at some points like Kilgrave at his death, when up til that point he’d proved himself very competent at not dying. I just don’t see much of a case for a season two now the main character is killed in such a non-ambiguous way. It’s like these people have never read a fucking comic book, if you’re gonna kill your best main villain and possibly make a second season you might want to make his death a little more ambiguous, maybe blow him up or have him fall off a waterfall, not break his fucking neck with your bare hands, come on. *SPOILERS CEASE*.

Ok now to the gamergate stuff;

IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH GAMERGATE!

It’s just amazing that they let people make such spurious bullshit claims and call it journalism. Just injecting your own bullshit narrative into your favourite show and calling it an article and not a sad attempt at propaganda is…sad. I refuse to link people to anything written by a social justice wanker, no more clicks for them, they’re on a low click diet. But whether you agree with gamergate or not (Which I do, so fuck you if you don’t) trying to project your own narrative into something that literally makes no assertions one way or the other is ridiculous. I mean are these people so immune to fun that they have to make everything about their agenda? They can’t just watch a fucking tv show without wanting to push their bullshit into it?
To say Jessica Jones someone who is essentially fighting a war against her rapist who can also control minds is anything to do with a consumer movement about ethics in games journalism (of which the  article I’m talking about is written by one of the journalists brought into question) is ludicrous.

But people love simple explanations to complex issues, they always have and they always will; “Gamergate is just an evil white cis het misogynist man child that wears purple and just wants to get it’s way and rape all d wimmens hurhurhur horkhorkhork!” – Fuck off.Kilgrave_Promotional

 

0

Green Sunday review by Waywardknight3

Got a nice review from a really nice guy on Inkitt I did a review or, a little nepotism never hurt anyone haha. I mean it’s not great getting these back scratching reviews but it’s better than nothing.
So check it out and if you want to read Green Sunday you know where to go. http://www.inkitt.com/stories/25507

I don't want to put too many spoilers in this but here it goes.
I love the story so far. You have done an excellent job at building tension and mystery pertaining to what is going on in the story. True its a zombie story but its light years beyond an average one. Its obvious that something dark and sinister is taking place behind the scenes that seems far worse than your average toxic chemical spill or passing meteor. Its so nice to get a refreshing taste of the zombie genre. The relationship between Tj and Sunday is perfectly written so far. Him with that bumbling never touched a woman quality, and her with a brooding level of confidence that would shake the most steady of men. You have been able to convey the tough girl in a believe none heartless @#&% sort of way. I also like how you where able to capture the essence of the pseudo-zombie apocalypse experts in Zed and his gang. I loved that to my very core. I have to agree with you that we do write very similar to one another. I admire it when someone does what I do and throws their passions into their writing despite who might find it offensive, But I also have a feeling that we could have quite a long rant together about things that piss us off in the world. Now I guess I will tell you what you already know, as you are working on getting your chapters professionally edited, the later chapters are simply longer than the should be by an editors standards. Let me be clear I still love them... They are great... But often times editors often strip things down quite a bit. Good writing and please keep it up I can't wait to read the rest.
0

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.

0

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.

3

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

0

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑