DREAD Reviews 16
Dad Reads and Examines Authors While Distracted
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It only took 5 months of hard work, 100 subscribers, 275 followers, and hitting #15 rising in fiction (for two hours).
But I did it, folks! Mom finally subscribed to me!
If I were to hate this essay and write about it, would that be hate-writing about hate-writing? Or would it be hating hating writing about writing? Hating writing about hating writing?
Wait, I forgot reading - hate writing about writing about hate reading? Wait, did she hate read any writing about writing, and did they hate what they read, and did she hate that? Hate writing about writing about hate reading writing about writing they hated?
In any case, remember to hate with all your heart:
No matter how hard you think you have it, it’s not as bad as being dead. You make dead people feel jealous. So, be alive. It’s a thin but important line of separation:
(Author) (Publication)
When’s the last time you saw anything like a planet with an atmospheric emo layer that’s both psychological torture chamber and execution method? Maddie Rune’s “The Weight of the Chute” is the only story I’ve come across with this exact combination. The Griefmist spikes the air with regret-flavored psychoactive gas. It’s interesting how Goths, the most suicide-obsessed subculture I know of, somehow made it alive all the way through the 90’s and even managed to reach adulthood and reproduce (I saw two yesterday in the wild! I think they were a rare mating pair!). Turns out they make it even into the far future on Terminus, where heavy-mascara-painting, inverted-cross-wearing teens pull off heists in a neon-choked dystopia. It’s as if the world’s misery only fuels their aesthetic! Of course goth thieves thrive on the mind-shredding atmospheric anomaly - instead of killing them it just empowers their emo aesthetic:
Oh, “Once upon a bread…” you sneaky little tale, you spend such a long time noticing the nice things this glum character (literally named Mr. Briefcase) can’t see that I almost forgot to keep noticing the words on the page. This short story frolics through New York’s glitzy avenues and into the rose-scented embrace of a fancy-named cafe I can’t remember or pronounce with a charm that oozes out of its buttery croissants. But holy baguette does it love to repeat itself! It’s as if the author decided every detail deserves an encore, yet somehow, this repetitive riff remained so darned enchanting I just kept dipping and double-dipping and triple-dipping and toasting the bagel and and sprinkling the marshmallows and layering jelly and spreading the butter and thin-slicing the bread and soaking the donut and frosting the -
Anyway, the sweetness peaks with the flirty banter between Mr. Briefcase and the redheaded cafe owner, Miss Rouge, who’s got more sparkle in her personality than the chandeliers. The smile count might be higher than a toothpaste ad, but this reads like a silly self-aware romcom that knows it’s cheesy and just leans in:
Why is fantasy allergic to guns?
This article had me cackling like a goblin lighting a matchlock. I don’t see a right-wing connection here (this phenomenon just seems like regular Luddite wistfulness to me) but don’t worry about that - Clarke’s on the money criticizing pre-industrial idealism - and did it without even mentioning yon older days’ lack of electricity, wifi, medicine, or always-underrated comprehensive sewage disposal infrastructures!
Fiction’s got a weird hang-up about guns being an ultimate fantasy vibe-killer. Picture a wizard’s spell failing so they fall back on a trusty hand cannon - that would be ridiculous, right? I’m pretty sure I read an action scene like this written by a peer in 5th grade. But then we have someone wearing fully articulated plate armor while simultaneously wielding a sword and shield - this amounts to the same thing! For starters they might as well fight with pillows and tickles if their foe wears similar protection - two warriors so armed are better off tossing their useless boards and blades and wrestling with some narrower daggers that might find a joint or eye socket (actually the shield tip might work well delivering a timely concussion). Oh, but no guns, even though the technology for this kind of armor is centuries more advanced than the earliest battle-worthy firearms - the gap depicted here is analogous to adding tanks and machine guns to the US Civil War. This nonsense is accepted in fantasy for some reason - just slap lordly armor on a Gondorian and call it knightly chic! Or maybe knightly-mâché, since swords will cut through steel plate like paper in most movies and literature. Maybe 4,000 years from now as history gets further muddled, writers and movie makers will have knights in shining armor commanding tanks that get blown up by crossbows and shuriken-armed Navy SEALs will perform HALO drops into cities via trebuchet!
I get it. People are allergic to bullets - somehow they just get under your skin! But come on, I need some realism in my escape or my immersion will be ruined! Imagine reading what you thought was another ho-hum fantasy only to be introduced to the protagonist’s peanut allergy. Your interest spikes when, like superman’s kryptonite, bandits throw peanuts at them, assassins sneak poisonous roasted shell dust into their food, magicians conjure deadly peanut elementals, and tyrannical lords of evil surround their fortresses with moats of peanut butter. Their companions could call our hero’s troop “The Peanut Gallery” and an unlikely romance might bloom between our champion and a peanut farmer.
No? Okay, okay - sticking to guns, then. Just picture it - dwarves dual-wielding blunderbusses, elves sniping orcs from treetops with rifled muskets, and a Chosen One who’s really good at reloading a harquebus from horseback killing orcs at an astonishing rate of one every 15-30 seconds (they might need to bring extra mounts as they tire out from all their galloping away to rearm). We’ll revolutionize the genre - call it Flintlock and Fireballs! Keep preaching, Clarke - you’ve got me ready to storm a castle with a historically accurate wheelock pistol, a grenado, and a dream.
In all seriousness, I agree guns have a bad rap that is entirely undeserved. My current series Bellageist: Chains of a Demigod proves this by mixing era-accurate pike and shot with surreal fantasy in parts 4, 5 and 6. Or, you know, you could also read one of 150+ Warhammer Fantasy books (how do they never get any mentions or credit?). The Black Library is full of amazing fantasy authors who aren’t shy about guns sharing space with knights, elves, orcs, and wizards in fantastical takes on olden times:
You know me folks - I’m a chump for champions rocking heavy metal - whether it be a knight’s regalia or a shiny futuristic powersuit, and this one’s got steel aplenty (with a heaping serving of magic on the side). The Black Knight’s given us another medieval meat grinder, and it’s a tale so vivid you’ll swear you smell the blood. This chapter is like a gritty D&D campaign where the dice keep rolling critical fails, but the Paladins - oh, those shiny, sword-swinging temple warriors - are the MVPs, strutting through the chaos like they just walked off a heavy metal album cover. It’s a gore-soaked spectacle with cinematic swagger.
Our boy Keryln, a plucky elf carpenter with a knack for fixing creaky wardrobes, kicks things off waking from a nightmare, clutching at a hazy memory of… a wooden spoon? A cup? Who knows, I’m known for getting distracted and am guilty of not having read the previous 13 chapters - but it’s instilling me with “I forgot my lines in the school play” kinds of dread. He’s all set to chat with his foster dad and play handyman, but plot twist: the Temple’s crawling with Paladins who aren’t here for brunch. These holy warriors are the visual jackpot - think gleaming armor, gauntlets gripping swords like they’re about to arm-wrestle a dragon, and squires trailing like groupies getting high just sniffing all the testosterone wafting off these fellows. The image of these beefy knights posted at every door, eyes scanning for trouble, is like a Renaissance fair full of Arnold Schwarzeneggers.
You can woo me with knights, but if you want to put a ring on it then you need to give me accompanying carnage and chaos. Consider me betrothed - over the stomp of armored boots and clangor of weapons shattering shields, Temple Square becomes a blood-soaked mosh pit. Paladins and militiamen face “ensorcelled” townsfolk who’ve gone full zombie-mode thanks to some magical weirdness. The Paladins are the rock stars here, their shield lines buckling but not breaking under a swarm of flaming, mind-controlled neighbors - imagine a BBQ gone horribly wrong, greenlit with strobing rave lights and lit up druggies who unfortunately happen to be your cousins and your mom. Then a priest with a glowing gonfalon (fancy flag, folks) charges in, haloed in golden light, tanking hits like a divine pinata while bellowing, “Oaths of fire, soul, and blood - die but fulfill them now!” (Yeah, not sure what that means either, but it’s perfect). I’m imagining a fantasy oil painting of a wizened, fearless greybeard mid-battle, cape billowing, while the squires and pallys fanboy in the background.
Keryln and his squire Lem haul the wounded through a stretcher so caked in gore the patients slip off through a stench-fest of blood, molten metal, and magical ichor. Granny Folst’s appearance is heartbreaking, bleeding out while muttering about pickles - it hits me in a soft place, but the Paladins keep the mood from tanking (heh heh get it). It’s grim and heroic and I couldn’t help but chuckle with delight:
Grayson D. Sullivan’s love letter to Sword and Sorcery has me grinning like I just snagged a double cheeseburger at a drive-thru. He preaches the gospel of high adventure and now I’m about to compare this holy genre to fast food - because let’s be real, Sword and Sorcery is the literary equivalent of a Coke and french fries (with a side of barbarian swagger).
Epic Fantasy might be like sitting down at a fancy, five-course banquet. It’s rich, it’s detailed, and you’ll probably love the crab crème brûlée even if you normally hate seafood (you won’t like the automatic gratuity fee, though). Thing is, you’re also gonna need a nap and a PhD to digest all the Tolkeinian lore, languages, and prophecies you just devoured. Meanwhile, Sword and Sorcery is a greasy and glorious fast food run that’s over in minutes. Sometimes I want to spend hours wining and dining with bespectacled, fizzy-haired, nasally old geeks who have some poignant prose to share… But other times I just want roll up and see what kind of spicy adventure burger Conan’s flipping today, you feel? “Hey man, the usual! Hold the chosen-sauce and add extra swashpickles please!”
Health enthusiasts are going to shake their heads at me the same way high-minded, lit-majoring hipsters will criticize such low-brow entertainment as this, but let me tell you, there’s nothing wrong with Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser tossing you the occasional crispy no-nonsense plot in a to-go bag that’s inhalable in one sitting. No need to ponder the geopolitics of Middle-earth, its trade alliances or the effects of the Elven diaspora on the kingdoms of men; just chomp on a tale of revenge, a shady priest, a howling tower, and you’re back to reality before you finish your afternoon commute.
Sometimes I like big steaks, if you know what I mean. And sometimes I like smaller, more personal “stakes” - like a parking lot fight over who gets the last McNugget. Forget saving the world! Sometimes I want to binge on palace loot, or action scenes centered on glory, gold, or a tale that simply centers on not getting shanked for the day.
Here’s to Sword and Sorcery, the fantasy fast food that hits just the right spot. It’s cheap, it’s thrilling, and it leaves you pumped to face Monday like you just slew a vampire queen and stole her fries. Grayson, you’ve got me craving these tasty tales - so upgrade that milkshake to sorcerer-size and pass me the next Conan story:
Elliot Kessler’s Ruins Chapter 1 preview features Fleet Admiral Fynn Harper - the galaxy’s favorite punching bag. This sci-fi snippet is like Star Trek meets The Office with a dash of first contact. Harper, not your usual MC, gets hauled into a meeting with seven Fleet Admirals who’ve mastered the art of the expressionless stare; their faces have become the human equivalent of a PowerPoint slide. These guys are so stiff I half-expected them to start discussing quarterly budgets instead of, you know, potential intergalactic disaster. “It’s Aliens!” they say, and Fynn squints at them like he’s trying to read the fine print on a cereal box, saying, “Or maybe pirates with a flair for DIY starships?” Oh Fynn, are you really going to argue with irrefutable holographic evidence? Realize here that these admirals know they’re too scared to handle what’s coming - you’re not taking the fall, you’re taking the lead:
(Author) (Publication)
Andy has a dire warning about burnout, so I instantly turned to my old friend Sergeant Imagino Fakerson for this dictated response:
“I rate this note five out of five bullets for nailing my old coping mechanism with a steel-toed boot in the ass.
“Listen up boys and girls, this piece may save your lives and hits as hard as that tomahawk I laser guided into Saddam’s favorite palace. Back in my soldiering days, I was the poster boy for ‘hard work’ – if by ‘hard work’ you mean throwing myself into combat like it was a bottomless bottle of whiskey to drown out the noise of my civilian life. It’s like Andy rolled the hummer into the Helmand river, cracked open my skull, then finished my war-torn diary with the ink of my blood.
“‘Hard work is a given.’ Yeah, no kidding. ‘Nam doesn’t give participation trophies for showing up. You hump your gear, you dodge bullets, you keep your ass moving. But this bit about the human vessel having limits - it’s a nut-puncher. I try to outrun my problems; the divorce papers, the bank notices, the nightmares - I volunteer for extra patrols and take point on every mission. Why? Because the chaos of combat is cleaner than the mess of my life back home. Rest? Respite? Leisure? Sounds like something for cushy civilians who don’t know the rush of adrenaline when the bullets sing.
“But the part about blowing past limits is avoidance? I spat out my cup of joe and saluted the screen. Avoidance is my middle name. Every firefight I’ve been in since that fateful day at the Chosin Reservoir is a vacation from internal calamity for me – the kind that makes me stare at a bottle or a fist and wonder which one’s gonna win tonight. I tell myself I’m tough, not broken. Dedicated, not running. My soul screams for a ceasefire but I’m too busy reloading to listen.
“‘You can’t outwork your emotions.’ Ain’t that the truth. I tried, lord knows I tried. I push my body to the brink, swimming like it’s the Rapido River assault all over again, diving deep to avoid responsibility as if it were the rake of machine gun fire - if I can just keep moving, keep fighting, the feelings won’t catch up.
“Spoiler alert: they do. Like Tagalogs hiding in the canopy, they wait you out and hit when you’re tired. Now you’re cut off from your platoon crying in a revetment over a letter you should’ve unsealed years ago.
“Andy’s insight is short, sharp, and hurts more than watching a private try to salute with his left hand. It’s a mirror for any soldier who’s ever used ‘duty’ as a dodge, and a warning for the newbies who think they can outmarch their demons. Take it from a guy who saw the tide turn at Gettysburg: read this, laugh at yourself, then take a knee like they did back at Valley Forge. Deal with your baggage, and don’t be afraid to ask for help - even if the only help you get is from the French. Otherwise, you’re fighting a war you’ve already lost.”
– Sergeant Imagino Fakerson
If you ever wondered what would happen if a toxic, bridge-burning SoundCloud rapper with a Substack account and a grudge against literary maximalism stepped into a studio, The Wayback Machine’s “Nice Bandanna, Bro (David Foster Wallace Diss)” is your unhinged answer. This rap-style takedown of David Foster Wallace is so absurd and over-the-top that I felt compelled to check if it had first been posted to 4Chan. Nope, it’s pure, original substack content - what becomes us?
It’s a riot even at the parts where it trips over its own hoodie strings. From the jump, the stage directions set the tone: our unnamed MC “jumps out of red Bugatti, hits blunt, checks Substack subscriber count.” It’s got self-aware swagger and screams zero chill. The beat (imaginary, but you can feel it) drops, and what follows is a lyrical onslaught skewering Wallace’s footnote fetish and iconic white bandanna. Calling The Pale King a “screed” with “more ****** footnotes than your Emerson Advanced Ethics class” is the kind of niche jab that’ll make lit majors spit kombucha all over their China-made macbooks (some in laughter, some in anger). The claim that only 22 people finished Infinite Jest - and they were all “sad and confused” - is comedy gold, especially for anyone who’s pretended to love that 1,000-page doorstop to impress a date. And the vivid uncharitability of Wallace as a “dollar store Axl Rose drowning in the cold November Rain” deserves a Grammy for Metaphorical Murder.
The track doesn’t shy away from darker territory, tossing in jabs about Wallace’s personal controversies - and, uh, audaciously suggests Wallace timed his 2008 “exit” to dodge a Wikipedia scandal. It’s delivered with a smirk you can practically hear. I can’t fault this relentless commitment to the bit? Call me morally corrupt, but I will never unsee Pulitzer prizes as “dead writer hall passes” from hereon out.
A few lines feel like low-hanging fruit. Also, the track’s feverish pace occasionally sacrifices coherence for shock value. And if you don’t know who Wallace is you’ll be as lost as a freshman assigned to read one of the late man’s 10,000-page novels. Still, it’s is a masterclass in literary shade and blends enough meme culture and book-nerd street cred to keep it from feeling like a cheap shot.
It’s not high art, maybe not even high comedy. But consider me signed up for more hate on literary pretension. Shucks, there goes any chance of my invite to the next DFW fan club meeting:
Imagine you’re at the dig site squinting at gladiator bones with lion bite marks and someone shouts: “Well I’ll be, the old Roman scrolls weren’t just fan fiction.” This kind of irony is thicker than an ancient Colosseum crowd - anthropologists scribbling down their “eyewitness” findings for a world that’ll instantly dismiss their notes as fake news. Professor Tim Thompson? Doesn’t look or sound like a bloke whose ever arm-wrestled a lion to me.
“Reshaping our perception”? Nah, it’s more like, “Yup, Romans were wild, just like whoever painted that ancient erotic graffiti all over the place on that one Mediterranean peninsula what-was-it-called.” I can see it now - Thompson out in the cold English rain, sweating bullets, hoping his BBC interview will finally prove he’s not just a figment of our collective imaginations. Nice try, Doc - you know as well as I do that video can be faked; you’ve proven nothing. Speaking for myself - I only trust experts who have passed the “swimming test” with my own bare eyeballs as witness:
Dr. McFillin’s about had it up to here with everyone blaming their inner jerk on fancy diagnoses. Then, one day, a client waltzes into McFillin’s office, admits to being a selfish, tantrum-throwing “asshole,” and - gasp - wants to fix it without waving a bipolar or ADHD flag. McFillin nearly topples out of his rolling stool like he’s just seen a unicorn in a lab coat!
Then he goes home and pens this takedown of how we’ve turned every human flaw into a billable disorder. Forgot to call your mom back? ADHD. Cheated on your spouse? Mania’s fault, baby! Can’t stop doom-scrolling TikTok for eight hours a day? Congrats, you’ve got a neurodevelopmental defect. The man’s got one point sharper than a pharmacist’s needle: the DSM ballooned from 106 disorders to 300 in 73 short years. Big Pharma’s gotta hit those Q4 earnings, amirite?
His case studies are pure gold. There’s “Sarah,” blaming her affair on “hypersexuality” like she’s auditioning for a soap opera, and “Jacob,” whose parents think his slacker vibes are depression, not the fact they raised him via nanny while chasing law firm glory. Check the link below for more.
Is it flawless? Well, if you like your news blunt, this read might make you wince like you stepped on a Lego then banged your shin on the coffee table. And the “divine nature” bit at the end feels like McFillin’s channeling a yoga guru after one too many espressos… Okay, I’m not fooling anyone with these criticisms - I actually dig it, but I didn’t want to sound like I’ve been tripping out on Lunesta - not that I am… or ever would…
This article’s a wake-up call urging you to own your screw-ups. It’s like getting life advice from that one uncle at Thanksgiving who’s done with everyone’s excuses. McFillin - you will say no, of course, but you can borrow my ADHD pills anytime. Otherwise I imagine you might need a nap after this epic rant:
You think you know what a bible thumping is, then you read this and you have that concept redefined. It’s short, absurd, and so packed with zany visuals it’ll have you snorting holy water through your nose regardless of your position on political or religious spectrums. This version of JD Vance is so evil he’s practically wearing a clown nose and twirling his mustache! I only wish someone would make another meme of this photogenic man and base it on this:
Top spot. On the bottom. Horror. Horrifying.
Gonna shut up and quote things from it. Stop and click the link when you’re convinced to go read it in full:
“Its contorted fleshy body heaved into the hallway on a swarm of misshapen legs… shaped in all the wrong ways, almost cylindrical with a quivering, teeth-lined orifice… Tendrils bloomed from the yawning trap, swaying and reaching around it methodically like a blind man’s cane… sunken eyes that chaotically adorned the creature, like the receptacle of a lotus flower, its eyes, all different sizes and colors, all focused perfectly on him… skin… translucent pale, with something writhing underneath like veins under skin, fish behind drowned cloth… The air around it felt thick and glowed as if something in the air was giving off a bioluminescence, swirling like ink in water, spreading like light in fog… With a decisive push he heard an audible pop as his thumb found a soft doorway to push into, spilling crimson red across his hand and face like a burst tomato… Its head dangled like some vestigial appendage atop that unholy mass of limbs that once belonged to someone the Crewmen might have known, might have laughed with.”
What, you made it down to here without clicking? Were you too scared to follow the link?
Lastly, my self promotion.
The galaxy’s burning, ringworlds are crumbling, and teens are partying like it’s the end of the world - because, well, it is! This prologue, set in a future where humanity’s split into squishy humans and shiny posthumans is a bit like watching Titanic if the iceberg was a flaming meteor and the passengers were all Gen Z kids throwing a rave. In the midst of it all, 17-year-old blonde bombshell Kee grapples with secrets that could save or doom her friends - can she outrun the end times, or will she just get nabbed by four dudes with totally subtle names like War, Death, Famine, and Hatred? And will they drag her kicking and screaming into hard military sci-fi? (yes they will)
Ch.00 Bellageist: Burning Angels
This opening of my as-yet unpublished book happens near-simultaneous to one of my popular short stories. If you enjoyed this, also check out “When Angels Sleep”
Thanks for reading!
DREAD Reviews Table of Contents (Searchable)
DREAD 14 DREAD 15 DREAD 16 DREAD 17 DREAD 18
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Thanks for the shoutout! And I love The Black Knight's stuff. He's good at what he does!
Holy business, that was fantastic! I loved the humor and enthusiasm, it was wonderful to see that a simple short story could bring about all of that. Thank you so much for the review! I wholeheartedly appreciate it. I also enjoyed reading about the other authors and their work, can't wait to read what they wrote!