Game Over - Part Four (Last Part)

Note: All excerpts are posted in accordance with U.S copyright law, which allows such excerpts to be used for the purposes of, amongst other things, commentary and critique.

I don't think I mentioned it before, but the person behind IN THE DEPTHS magazine who is supposedly dead is a schmuck named Zorn Hritz. Anyway... when we left Eugine, and his boyfriend co-editor Jerry, then were just entering the Borderlands diner.

The diner has a gray and black color scheme, and has pictures of the "grim reaper" and a poster of the Tarot death card on the walls. Some song by Cathedral -- which I assume is a heavy metal/doom metal/industrial metal/whatever-Nicky-is-into-today band -- is playing and:

"The staff looked like they could be a character of old Gothic horror short stories from the early 20th Century. The proprietor was tall and muscular, looked like he could pass off as a roadie for Type O Negative."

All the staff could be *one* character. Grammar-fail...again and often. Eugine makes a further observation:

"He and Jerry felt like the diner was similar to something breathing within the pages of the stories written by Zorn Hritz."

Yikes, creepy. Not. It gets better:

"It was if they were in over their head because this was the hangout of many of the writers from IN THE DEPTHS. The kind of place that plays in the minds of those who come from a Blue Collar angle with the Gothic. Some in there would come in with their Windows laptops and type up the true paranormal accounts to chilling evil horror yarns would come out of drinking a cup of Joe within these blasphemous walls."

Like another review of this heap o' crap said, the reader is now in one of Nicky's wet dreams. I feel icky just reading this.

After this bit of description, there's more of Eugine feeling dread, etc, just from the atmosphere. Come on, Eugine, suck it up. You're here to kick some Zorn ass!

"He started to think this place was too horrifying even for him, and he collects macabre medical oddities. The atmosphere within the diner seems like something spiritualist D.D. Home would dream up. That vibe gave both Jerry and Eugine the chills. Almost if someone was covering them with their own funeral dirt, they each felt the wind get knocked out them."

And this from the decor and the music. Eugine is starting to sound like as much of a drama queen as Nicky is. Remember Nicky had a psychological breakdown because one of former roommates made a joke about him needing a lobotomy. Nicky gets freaked out by pictures, hears voices when doped up and thinks they're ghosts, etc. Jeez. Eugine deserves so much better.

"Loud heavy metal music blasting from the speakers while she took their order. They weren't prepared for a heavy metal diner..."

Yeah, because diners with a heavy metal theme are so rare and so scary. Not.

Blah, blah, blah. More ungrammatical rambling. Nothing happening.

I'm starting to skim now because even after another couple of pages, we're still getting Eugine ruminating on the diner and on the deaths of his contributors. In fact, they arrive at the diner at about 13,600 words and at the end of my incomplete ARC at 23,200 words, they ARE STILL SITTING THE FUCKING DINER waiting for the mysterious Zorn to arrive. Ack.

Well, I suppose we can disuss the deaths of Eugine's contributors. Take this hilarious egomanical Gary-Stu passage:

It was if God himself actually gave them the middle finger because He saw something wrong in his eyes, the death was a touch of his wrath – not since he sent Sodom and Gomorrah in the depths of brimstone that the wrath had been fully unleashed to the contributors of SINNERS DANCE and judgment was in the pens of IN THE DEPTHS. The contributors of SINNERS DANCE had pawned their souls to be in the magazine...

I'm laughing so hard I can barely type. OK, back to the contributors' deaths. We have the following:

--Someone falling into the Fox River

--Lisa Carglio hanging herself

--Karen Lynn Moseley "impaled to the top of the fence like the way Vlad The Impaler would impale his victims" (Karen? Wonder who that is supposed to be?)

--Hanna Yellin getting hit by a car. Of this death, Nicky writes: "God really saw something wrong in his eyes when it came to her, pretty much gave the female abomination the middle finger as the bitch died." Nicky has a very warped sense of the Bible and Christianity..but we already knew that didn't we.

--"Stephen Nicolas Marshall getting impaled in the forehead with a two inch wide and a eight foot rod flying through the windshield of his 1973 Olds."

(I should interrupt to add that, interspersed with mentions of God, there are also references to Hades and "the ferryman". Religion-fail. Nicky, you should pick a religion and stick to it. 'kay? Good.)

(I also need to interrupt for the following: "The burials became fodder for Nickolaus Allan Cicerone's short story “The Burial Of The Young.” In the story, he would be describing how they would be scratching at the inner walls of the closed caskets if they were buried prematurely." Probably another story WHERE NOTHING FUCKING HAPPENS.)

--"Janis Beresford who ran a venomous gossip blogzine that took a shit upon people who wrote within the pages of In The Depths. They later found chatty little bitch beheaded from a shard of steel." Her sin: "Beresford often stalked the author, Zorn Hritz in his life because she didn't like what he did..."

(Sorry, more interruptions for sheer lulz: "The kind of thing that would be coming from the pages of Nickolaus Cicerone... Cicerone and Hritz often traded ideas back and forth for stories, sometimes using each other's stories as backdrops for eerie tales of the afterlife. Cicerone actually revised some of Zorn's works that were finished, but still on the word processor as his best friend passed away. They even collaborated on one which the subject matter was about retribution from the afterlife called “Pacione's Laugher.”)

--"a Madison, Wisconsin, based industrial performer screaming about being liquored up. Found him beheaded with a thick sheet of metal while driving drunk down the highway."

--Jessica Wagner (LOL!) and Joe Capote drown in the Atlantic Ocean. According to Nicky, they both plagiarized from Nickolaus Cicerone. Hahaha.

And there my e-ARC ends. Regardless, I think we all know how it ends: Zorn shows up, and Eugine and Jerry kick his scrawny, greasy, dwarf ass back to wherever he came from.

At least that's how I picture it.

Game Over - Part Three

Note: All excerpts are posted in accordance with U.S copyright law, which allows such excerpts to be used for the purposes of, amongst other things, commentary and critique.

After Eugine opens the envelope and finds the invitation to meet at a diner, Eugine and Jerry talk for (quite!) a while, mostly about the heroic contributors to SINNERS DANCE who have been murdered in various ways.

“…[Jerry] knew exactly who died, two of them were his best friends for nearly fourteen years -- now their souls are in the inferno.”

Um, why does he think they are in hell? We’ve been given no reason for them to be in hell rather than heaven…except that they sent a story to a magazine that the villain didn’t like.

Eugine moans about how seeing pictures or reading obituaries give him nightmares. Now he’s starting to sound like Nicky, who freaks out over things that normal people have no problem with. Note that we also have mention of figures from Greek mythology as well as Christianity. Religion-fail for Nicky. And I want to tell Eugine to suck it up and do something about the harassment.

“It was if he was stepping in the territory of the 815 nation they always penned things like that instead of the whole alternative angle…”

Sound familiar. Like from one of Nicky’s blogs. Lather, rinse, repeat.

“The blackened horror displayed on the screen of a person wearing a black “Lord's Gym” hooded sweatshirt”

Nicky = villain = Gary Stu.

Then Eugine makes a decision:

“but I am going to take this mysterious stranger up on their invitation.”

Yay, he’s finally going to *do* something, even if it strikes me as a TSTL move – particularly because:

“My girlfriend would call these kind of letters divine appointments, or something of that nature…”

Bwhahaha. Nicky as a divine anything? *snort* Then there’s more blah, blah, blah where Eugine thinks more the contributors who died and about the contributors to the villain’s magazine, IN THE DEPTHS. Jeez, he made a decision, so let’s get on with it. Although this is LOL:

“some of the writers could pass for members of The Hells Angels”

Nicky only wishes he were this tough. If confronted with a real Hell’s Angel, he’d probably giggle and run away like a little…I hate to say girl, because I know little girls with more brains and courage than he has. Good fucking grief, we are 9300 words into this brain-frying epic o’ fail, and all that’s happened is back story and the opening of an envelope. This kind of reminds of PASSENGER where the characters talk, talk, talk the entire time and don’t do anything. Seth Miles is still pretty pissed about that. He’ll be stopping by this blog to share his story of surviving Nicky in the coming month.

Then there’s an abrupt scene change to a club – at least I think the scene changed and it wasn’t just more ruminating; sometimes, it’s hard to tell with Nicky’s writing – and we’re treated to ruminating by another character and another repetitive description of:

“one of the stories, the one called GAME OVER --- the one where the author is photographed wearing a black Lord's Gym hooded sweatshirt”

Nicky has mentioned a Lord’s Gym sweatshirt so many times, I just have to ask…what is Lord’s Gym? Does it have anything to do with religion or is it just the name of the person who started the gym (franchise)?

This club scene – where nothing happens – lasts about 1300 words. The Eugine goes back to his office and….wait for it…ruminates further on the letter.

“[Eugine’s contributors] didn't survive to see the deadline – the first to die just as they got their works published within the pages of SINNERS DANCE, but they had their epitaph printed upon the page. As that epitaph was written a tarot card was staring right back at them – The Death Card.”

Grammar-fail. New-Age-fail. Anyone with even the slightest knowledge of the Tarot knows that the Death Card does not signify death, but a major change or transformation in one’s life.

“[Eugine] kept imagining the blood of the dead upon his hands and living out the plot of a story from the magazine IN THE DEPTHS.”

Eugine must have had a lot drink – or smoke, if he’s a pot head like Nicky used to be – at the club because it’s pretty clear the villain, the editor of IN THE DEPTHS, is the one responsible for the horrible murders. I hope Eugine kicks his ass at the diner. Or better yet, Eugine should call the cops and have them meet the villain at the diner.

Then there’s yet more (make it stop! make it stop!) ruminating about the letter, about the deaths of his writers, and about the writers for IN THE DEPTHS:

“…by the entry from IN THE DEPTHS written by Judas Orion Cicerone (pictured wearing a PANTERA shirt – the author is a cousin of Nickolaus Allan Cicerone,)…”

And finally we have another abrupt scene change to:

“The meeting at the diner was a few days later…”

Finally, at 13,600 words, the next bit of action after opening the envelope. Arrgh. And I thought Nicky’s blog entries were tl;dr. This “master work” of his is eye-glazingly, brain-numbingly tl;dr. Fortunately, my tomorrow night does not include writing Part 4 of this review (look for it on Saturday); tomorrow is Zumba and margaritas – not at the same time, although that might do wonders for my dance skills.

Game Over - Part Two

Note: All excerpts are posted in accordance with U.S copyright law, which allows such excerpts to be used for the purposes of, amongst other things, commentary and critique.

So after about 1800 words of backstory (can you say "infodump"), the plot *finally* kicks in. The hero, Eugine Verner, editor of SINNERS DANCE magazine, receives a mysterious note:

The note was folded into a small envelope, and didn't seem like it was from someone in this area.

WTF? Either the envelope had a return address--in which case he would be able to read where it was from--or it didn't--in which case he would have no way of knowing where it was from. Eugine doesn't want to open the note because:

There was a sense of dread in the air when he saw the letter, so he refrained from opening it because he's seen many of these and one of them was the picture of him on the dart board as a voodoo doll...

OK, so a picture like that might be kind of spooky. More descriptions of the envelope:

...just that the envelope was staring right at his face. Almost if the fucking thing was staring right at his soul. Just something about that small envelope gets to him, if it wasn't from this world in itself.

..the envelope appeared if it had a pair eyes. It was staring at him for good two hours, almost if the thing had a life of its own

Now he's just being melodramatic. But wait...

The return address on the envelope read Wheaton, Illinois, not just Wheaton but Wheaton College.

Look at that. The envelope did have a return address. Nicky and consistency must be feuding more than usual these days. Eugine ruminates further on the villains (and uses his heroic powers of clairvoyance to know things about them that he would have no other way of knowing:

...[Eugine and his co-editor, Jerry] were haunted by the Southlands Blue Collar Horror Movement. A bunch of bastards who openly crank Stranglehold by Ted Nugent, Disposable Heroes by Metallica, Sober by TOOL, or Empire by Queensryche – some of them were photographed wearing a Master of Puppets shirt and some drawn sitting with Edgar Allan Poe and Rod Serling in a diner.

Bwahahaha. Gary Stu. Eugine then ruminates on the deaths of some of his also-heroic contributors. Some have died in car or motorcycle accidents, by suicide, and drug overdose. Eugine does a lot of ruminating on things. Nicky isn't very good at plotting, and he leaves poor Eugine sitting around a lot. I'm pretty sure Lewis will treat Eugine better. Finally Eugine expresses his frustration with the villains trying to force him to print stuff he doesn't want to print (it's Eugine's magazine after all, so it should be his choice):

I hate these blue collar types trying to take over. Just something about them really bother me – ...Damn them all to hell, fucking bastards.

My sympathy goes out to Eugine at this point, although I do wish he would stop whining and do something. Like call the police and report the villain for harrassment via the U.S. Mail system. Not only has the villain (whose name we have yet to learn, but I'll find it for Part 3) been sending notes and videos to Eugine, but the contributors to his magazine have been writing stories threatening the contributors to Eugine's magazine.

Then Eugine finally opens the note:

...the letter says meet [the author of the note] out to a diner along North Avenue in Lombard on Saturday. They were being very cryptic with the letter but the person is a contributor to In The Depths.... The letter said for me the meet them at a diner on Saturday during the afternoon. The person behind the letter will reveal themselves then. They drew out a map of the area for me to find the place, I am familiar with Lombard.

No, Eugine, don't fall for it! And major grammar-fail in those quotes. And finally for today, Eugine uses his powers of clairvoyance again and makes a gruesome discovery:

Then the author's signature was signed in lamb's blood.

Not just blood, mind you, but lamb's blood.

Coming in Part 3, Eugine ruminates for another couple thousand words or so, then makes a decision.

Game Over - Part One

Note: All excerpts are posted in accordance with U.S copyright law, which allows such excerpts to be used for the purposes of, amongst other things, commentary and critique.

Since Nicky has been whining a lot lately about GAME OVER, I thought it might be fun to take a further look at this supposed masterpiece. Here are the opening two sentences (which should actually be three sentences):

Magazine deadline comes soon and not enough submissions, Eugine Verner ran a magazine which publishes everything and anything under the sun. He often shunned the idea from doing a genre mag, but he geared to the Gothic just not the blue collar kind though .

What a stunning example of grammatical beauty. Not. And who spells Eugene as Eugine? Nicky, apparently. I'm surprised that he manages to spell his own name correctly. Oh wait.... "Ablert". Anyway, the story continues:

He tends to like the elegant side but something ate at him, the deadline was ticking as a dark beast brooding in. The day was coming that he had to get it done. He had blue collar writers asking to be featured in the magazine but he usually ignored their requests. One blue collar writer actually invited him to contribute to a publication he ran, the response was one that was rather cold.

Someday Nicky is going to figure out how to keep one verb tense through an entire story, and it will shock the hell out of me.

The above passage is also where it becomes apparent that this is going to be another Gary Stu story where someone resembling Nicky takes revenge on someone resembling a conglomeration of several people that Nicky hates.

It continues:

Eugine was DJ on the north side of Chicago that spun EBM and refused to read Stephen King or Robert Bloch. The writers he turned down were the ones that were trying to kick down the doors were just those kind of writers.

Gary Stu for sure. This is Eugine talking about the writers he doesn't like:

“Some of these writers are just sick, but they refuse to touch the stuff I publish. I want PVC not denim clad, someone who spells alternative. Not these damned blue collar takes of Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits – Rod Serlings with long hair and listen to Metallica,”

Does that sound like the real-life rangtings anyone we know? Yep. As the story continues, we learn that the hero - the previously mentioned Eugine Verner - has a girlfriend who reads the magazine, In the Depths, which put out by the villain. The villain is described thusly:

...the editor is often hospitalized for some physical condition. They would say he drinks blood twice a year to keep himself healthy. He's always pictured wearing a black Lord's Gym hooded sweatshirt because he's a Christian....

...The editor amassed a controversial reputation because he's driven by his faith in the direction of the magazine he went from publishing blasphemous yarns to being more faith based with Gothic Horror yarns...

...the magazine is helmed by some god-mother-fucking-damned religious fanatic! No wonder why it's so disturbing. He doesn't publish erotic yarns in the mag, but in some way it's more disturbing than anything out there today...

Hahahahaha. Does Nicky write any stories these days that don't feature him as one of the characters? Although in this story, the Nicky character is the villain. Do you suppose that is a sign Nicky is becoming aware of what a jackass he really is?

Finally - for today's post - here is Eugine's co-editor Jerry talking about contributors to the villain's magazine:

“Many of the writers of In The Depths are well versed with heavy metal music and one of them read the book The Great God Pan while another was well versed with The King In Yellow. They did a story which made references to Victim Of A Higher Space. ”

Well, tomorrow we'll continue with the critique. More excerpts will follow. Maybe I'll even let Todd Hollins and Seth Miles have a go at it...when they're done with "Apt #2W" that is.