As I Embrace My Unwavering Pessimism

This week I read "We Run Races With Goblin Troopers," from As I Embrace My Jagged Edges (And Other Thorns) by Lee Thompson.

(Link)

Here's a description of the book, although it doesn't say much:

"A diverse collection of Dark Fantasy stories focused on the horror's of family, loss, tragedy and failed beauty.

Toc:
1. We Run Races with Goblin Troopers
2. Beneath the Weeping Willow (A Division Mythos Story)
3. Daddy Screamed with Us (A Division Mythos Story)
4. Crooked Stick Figures (A Division Mythos Story)
5. When Crows Sing Sweetly Bitter Music
6. Crawl
7. A Bell Ringing in the Empty Sky
8. Sorrow's Breast
9. The Weight of All These Years (A Division Mythos Story)
10. Boys without Faces
11. As I Embrace My Jagged Edges (A Division Mythos Story)"

Yeah that's right, I read the very first story and it wasn't even the title story. I will probably never know what the Division Mythos is. All I can say about it is it's probably really depressing. Actually I got this book not knowing if it would be a real indie author or not, and it turns out all of these short stories appear to be published, so for once we are venturing into the realm of the LITERATE! Except in the above description, horrors should not have an apostrophe. HA! BITCH!

Okay so I just started reading, wanting to know if it would be fun to review and I got a little hooked by the first story and decided, hey, why not review something worth the e-paper it's printed on? "Except maybe it's not," the voice in my head said, and oh how I hoped it was true.

The best summary of this crazy shit I can provide is that, well, A) It isn't meant to be taken literally, so B) I think it's a metaphor for how terrible the Iraq war has been on some families. But disclaimer: I might be giving this shit WAY too much credit. Other than that, C) Cannibal, soldier, guns, other cannibal, prostitute, crazy. That's basically like as clear as I can make it without just telling this story to you.

Fine, it makes no sense, does that mean it's bad? Well, according to my last post, yes. But this guy is all deep and war brings out the best in pessimistic, artful critiques of the futility of senseless killing, like Hemingway, right?

Well, two things: First, Hemingway didn't write Noir Fantasy (although this story is only "Fantasy" because of the word goblins). I'm sorry, I have no respect for angsty shit set in a spooky, overly violent, elven forest. PROVE ME WRONG. Second, Hemingway didn't just pile horrible shit on top of shocking shit to sound cool while he was drunk. He wrote honestly terrible shit that really happened and had a poignant message to it...while he was drunk.

What I mean is this guy tried to walk the line of writing a dark world to (I hope) make you think but then crossed that line and then took off all his clothes and started running away from the line wildly screaming. I just imagine this guy's brainstorming sessions consisting of making a list of the most shocking shit he can think of like, "People eating the intestines of other people, hacksawed limbs...hmm... taking out womens' eyes, oh, prostitution, that's a good one. Um, keeping a head in the fridge always works. And insanely shooting at hallucinations, yeah. Putting a bomb up someone's ass, no, no, wait a big spike. Using a dead mom's blood to paint unicorns on a little boy's chest." Too far? Well guess what, all of that was actually in the story except the bomb/spike up someone's ass (I added it for the lols). Yes, you read right, the end of the story is his memory of the guy painting unicorns in blood on his son's chest.

Now, this is arguably still not the recipe for my eyes rolling all the way back into my head and down my throat until you add the ingredient of just listing this shit off pointlessly, almost like I did above. There are no visceral descriptions of this stuff to make it horrifying like Saw, and I think that's actually the very reason why he does it. He doesn't know how to use just a splash of horrifying things in chilling detail, and the things he does use don't have much of a point so he just stacks them on like the fucked up limbs of hookers which his characters lobbed off until his shockers reach their word limit. Not quite Hemingway.

Ratings.

Fluency: 5 out of 5. This is a very well-written story in terms of me being able to read all of the sentences and not wonder what the hell he's talking about. This is more a criticism of virtually every other story I've read than anything else.

Using the Tired Example of Sex Work to Show How Grim the World Is: 5 out of 5. He had the most unnecessary and pitiful hooker ever. I wouldn't be surprised if this shows up in his other stories; I'm pretty sure this is his idea of Noir. He probably thinks he's edgy and deep when his co-workers say, "I got a great parking spot today!" and he responds, "Some women don't even have cars. They have to suck a dick just to get a ride to the ABORTION CLINIC."

Making me Think About the Irony of it All: 0 out of 5. For all his dark brutality, it seemed tactless and fake. I did think about the Iraq War, but that's mostly likely just me giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I immediately thought about how I wish someone would do a better job of it.

Overall: 2 out of 5. It didn't make sense, but it sounded professional not making sense rather than completely incoherent. For that, I have to give it something.


If you think coherency is overrated, read my stories at amazon.com/author/a.c.blackhall