"Kind of Like Life" by Christina McMullen

BOOK TITLE: Kind of Like Life

AUTHOR: Christina McMullen

YEAR: 2014

GENRE: Fiction

SUBGENRE: Psychological Fantasy

GRADE: Extra Credit

When you put The Matrix and fantasy elements in a milkshake blender and mix them together, you get a delicious treat from Christina McMullen called “Kind of Like Life”. You start the book thinking it’s going to be a utopian love story. Everything that can go right for Renee Ward does go right. And then the world around her is revealed to be a lie. The reality of it all is horrifying as hell. Can she wake up from her nightmare long enough to make things right in the real world? That’s a question you’ll be asking yourself throughout your entire reading adventure. You don’t know what the solution to these problems will be, so nothing is predictable. Hell, you’re not even sure if a happy ending was meant to exist. I love surprises and I love plot twists. Christina McMullen delivers on both of those fronts, which is part of the reason her book is getting five out of five stars.

Another reason why she gets that grade is because the entire book is a celebration of creativity and imagination, a break from the ordinary. Genres can bend at the drop of a hat. One minute you’re in a lush faerie forest full of magic, phoenixes and wonder. Another minute you’re in a Wild West desert being chased by a sheriff and his posse. And then you’re flying through space unleashing pew-pew lasers upon other spaceships that want to gun you down and watch you burn. You know how people say that imagination has no limits? Neither does this book. Crossing genres is creative in and of itself, but telling a cohesive story with compelling characters to keep it from being shallow? That takes a lot of skill and Christina McMullen has that in spades.

Speaking of compelling characters, how can you not like the chemistry between Renee Ward and the man who rescues her from the cracking utopia, Blake Carter. They start off being suspicious of each other and sometimes annoyed at their presences. But the more they learn about each other, the closer they become. Blake’s past of being abused by his parents isn’t just an empty attempt to make him appear sympathetic. It’s a trust builder and it ties into the story in a way that sensitively deals with such a traumatic topic. The descriptions of the abuse he went through and how his parents got away with it Scot free are heartbreaking to read about. I came within a hair of shedding some tears for this scene. Renee Ward doesn’t necessarily have to heal Blake through her relationship with him, but she does understand his pain and she does handle his trauma in a delicate way. Does he want to talk about it? Does he want to avoid the subject? Renee is there for him either way. These two characters don’t complete each other; they complement each other. That’s the stuff healthy relationships are built on. We need more of this in fiction today.

This book has an uncanny ability to play with your brain like silly putty as you try to piece together the puzzle of the plot or wrestle with your emotions through all of the heartache. I like being surprised. I like having my darkest emotions triggered. I also like having my lighthearted emotions triggered as well. There’s something for everyone in this novel. You want a thriller? You’ve got one. You want fantasy? It’s all yours. You want a psychological rollercoaster? Have at it. As I’ve said before, “Kind of Like Life” deserves a five out of five star rating for being everything I wanted it to be and more. I know full well that anybody else who picks up this book will have the same glowing opinion. Christina McMullen is awesome like that. It makes me look forward to reading other novels in her catalog as well.

The Happy Slasher

Three months of murders and rapes had passed in the wild west town of Tombstone and Sheriff Lisa Roberts was no closer to solving these crimes. The public was beginning to lose faith in her. Hell, they didn’t have much faith in her to begin with seeing as how she was Tombstone’s first female sheriff. At this point, all she wanted to do was get a cold glass of frosty beer at the saloon and forget her failures ever happened. Getting the icy treat was no problem. In fact, it tasted delicious. Passing out afterwards was a little creepier to think about.

She had every right in the world to be creeped out, especially after waking up with a monster hangover and actually having the capacity to think. She didn’t, however, have the capacity to move or talk. Her wrists and ankles were bound by leather straps to what felt like a rickety wooden torture table. Her mouth was stuffed with a red rubber ball with a strap that was nailed to the table. She tried to squirm and muscle her way out of this insidious device, but she was stuck whether she liked it or not. All she could do was listen to her own heart beat in the back of her throat while icy sweat poured down from her long auburn hair.

The room she was in was illuminated only by wall torches. There were no windows to the outside and even if there were, Lisa Roberts wasn’t going anywhere for a while. Her permanent stay in this death dungeon that reeked of mice corpses and horse shit was further cemented when she heard a familiar raspy voice in the background. “I bet you’re wondering why I’ve got you down here, Lisa!”

She knew she heard the voice somewhere before, but it wasn’t until the madman stepped into the light did she realize who this disgusting prick was. He had puffy white hair, a dreadlocked beard, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and a blood-covered lab coat with little more than a black thong underneath. He also carried a machete that looked sharp enough to cut through steel. Lisa had seen this man before and started panicking through the ball gag once she realized who he was: Cletus Jung aka The Happy Slasher.

Cletus twirled his machete around nonchalantly as he stared into Lisa’s fearful eyes and explained himself. “You’re a tough woman to get a hold of, Miss Roberts. You’re an even tougher woman to ask on a date. It didn’t have to be this way, Lisa. You could have said yes and all would have been right with the world. But instead, you chose the path of a snooty, stuck-up mega whore. You labeled me, Lisa. You labeled me a creep! You labeled me a psychopath! And when all I wanted was a goodbye hug, you threw a beer in my face!”

The madman’s heavy breathing made Lisa perspire and tremble even more. He said, “Well, my darling. My lovely, beautiful, sexy darling. You have every right in the world to say goodbye to me. In fact, it’s your last goodbye. After tonight, you’re not going to be known as the first female sheriff of Tombstone. You’re going to be known as victim number fifty. That’s a lot of bodies to leave behind. I’ve built quite the legacy for myself, haven’t I? I thought that would have been enough to impress you.”

Tears formed in both Lisa and Cletus’ eyes, but for much different reasons. The machete-swinger said, “And this is how you repay me? By turning me down and leaving me a depressed mess? Well, I’m tired of being single, my dear. I’m tired of feeling lonely. With you strapped to that table, I don’t have to be lonely anymore. And goddamn, do you look sexy strapped to that table. I love a girl with a ball in her mouth. Now…let’s get started!”

Cletus raised his bloody blade and slowly stalked Lisa as she rocked the table back and forth with all of her desperate strength. The closer her got, the harder she rocked. The serial killer shook his head at her and said, “Bitch, please, you’re not getting away that easily.” With that said, Mr. Jung raised his machete in the air and brought it down with a powerful force. This would have been the end of many months of sexual frustration for him.

But just as the blade came down, so did the table. The wooden table crashed over on its side and Cletus ended up slashing the leather restraint on Lisa’s left hand. Once she tasted that small bit of freedom, she wasted no time in punching Cletus right in his nut sack, doubling him over in extreme pain.

That bought the sheriff a little bit of time to use her free arm to undo her restraints and ball gag as quickly as she could. The adrenaline rush caused her to fumble with the straps as she tried to untie herself and she screamed through her gag in frustration. She was quickly losing precious time since Cletus was slowly standing back up and raising his blade for yet another slash. “You goddamn bitch!” screamed the murderer when he brought down his blade for what was sure to be the final time.

Lisa had undone her restraints and gag with only microseconds to spare and rolled over on her stomach to avoid the slash. She rolled on her back and went for another low blow, but this time Cletus was ready. He caught her cowgirl booted foot and brought it to his face for a deep sniff.

“You sick pervert!” yelled Lisa before she hauled her foot back and planted a big kick right across the bridge of Cletus’ nose. The killer stumbled backward against the wall clutching his bloodied nose and screaming like a hunted animal. While Lisa used the knocked over table to try and lift herself off the ground, Cletus saw another opportunity to bring down the fierce blade.

This time the torturous weapon found its mark. Lisa’s left hand was cut off at the wrist and the cowgirl rolled around on the ground clutching her wound and crying in agony. She held the front of her shirt against the stump to try and suppress the bleeding. Cletus was bleeding too, but it was the result of a fractured nose and he didn’t care.

Instead the creepy machete warrior picked Lisa’s detached hand off the ground and fondled the fingers lovingly. “Yes…yes, this is indeed a beautiful hand, my dear. Now I won’t have to use my own anymore. You gave me a piece of your body.” Happy tears formed in Cletus’ eyes when he said, “And for that I thank you so much! You’re such an angel! At least you’re going to be by the time I’m finished with you!”

The agonized Lisa Roberts was on one knee still trying to stop the bleeding when her attacker raised his weapon and charged at her full force. The lawwoman only had seconds to react, so she decided to be just as disgusting as her opponent when she unwrapped her shirt from her stump and sprayed a stream of blood in Cletus’ eyes, blinding him and causing him to swing wildly at thin air.

“You bitch! You crazy bitch!” screamed Cletus as he was swinging and missing. “Who does that to another human being?!”

Lisa got to her feet with her stump rewrapped and answered that question with, “The same person who cuts off a woman’s hand just because she broke his damn heart. I don’t give two shits about your broken heart, Cletus. I care a lot more about your broken head!”

In the midst of Cletus’ blind slashing, he had his back turned to Lisa for only a few short moments. That was all she needed to make her move, she ran up to him and threw a flying kick to the back of his head, causing him to wobble forward and drop his weapon. He was so dizzy that he dropped to the ground on one knee reaching around for anything to support him. In case he was thinking of getting his weapon back, Lisa kicked it away from him.

She unforgiving sheriff then stepped on his spine and held him there while allowing him to bellow in agony and scream as many curse words as he could think of before the inevitable happened. While one boot was on Cletus’ back, the other boot came down multiple times on the back of his head, effectively curb stomping him out of existence. His brains and broken skull decorated the already pungent floor of the murder dungeon. Then again, so did Lisa’s stump, which was still bleeding heavily and soaking her shirt.

Escaping the dungeon and finding a doctor in time was a cakewalk compared to the battle she had with Cletus Jung. Not only did the doctor stop the bleeding, but he also attached a hook to her left arm so that she wouldn’t be completely disabled. After the injury, Lisa Roberts began to question the validity of returning to work with most of the town despising her anyways.

But after hearing about Cletus Jung’s violent death, the town didn’t feel too hostile toward her anymore. In fact, they could have voted for Lisa over and over again if they wanted to. But was she really ready to return to work with a hook on her hand and a gun in the other? Decisions, decisions.

Lisa Roberts

I’ve never been much of a John Wayne guy. I also never condoned the idea of cowboys shooting at Indians for no particular reason other than to be dicks. So why then would the western genre interest me enough to almost write a story about called Tombstone Technique? Because everything, and I do mean everything, can be made better…with magic! Cowboys shooting magic bullets at each other and Indians firing lightning arrows at their attackers. Bank robberies being done with shadowy skull staves and ten-pace shootouts being done with bone wands. My idea of a western story would be a sick hybrid of A Million Ways to Die in the West, Diablo II: Lord of Destruction, and Harry Potter.

That’s where Deputy Lisa Roberts comes in. You want to know where I got the name Lisa Roberts from? I stole it from NCIS: Los Angeles. It was a cover name used by Kensi Blye when she was going undercover as a warehouse thief. Actually, that’s an episode I’d rather forget, because it ends with Kensi getting punched in the jaw to the point where she can’t chew her food.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or patience to expand Tombstone Technique beyond a genre hodgepodge and a roster of names. That means of course we have a lot of work to do when it comes to developing Lisa Roberts. And no, the word “development” has nothing to do with her breasts, you sick freak. It simply means we know nothing about her. She’s a clean slate and we need a piece of chalk to create art.

First and foremost, I want Lisa Roberts to be tough and sexy at the same time. I want her to rock a pair of jean shorts and to kick the balls of any man perverted enough to stare at her legs. I want her to have a revolver in one hand and a skull wand in the other. Whenever she has assholes on both sides of her, she can pump some lead into one side and shoot lightning bolts, bone spears, poison daggers, and fireballs on the other. But what if she got the crazy idea of imbuing her bullets with magical powers? Fireball bullets. Lightning bullets. Ice bullets. How about bullets that contain all three of those mystic elements? I have to fan myself off for a minute and it has nothing to do with the summer weather.

But of course, if I made Lisa Roberts into a male fantasy sex machine, she wouldn’t do well with the female members of my audience (unless they were lesbians, but chances are, they’re not). What kind of likeable qualities could we give this woman to make her stand out as a super heroine of the wild west? Toughness, as I’ve said earlier, will go a long way in giving her popularity. A silver tongue might also do wonders for her. A take-no-shit attitude will sure as hell give her some staying power. I’m liking Lisa already! She reminds me of Wonder Woman!

It’s funny, because just a few weeks ago at the WSS Contest and Company group on Good Reads, I confessed to everybody that I didn’t know how to make likeable characters, that I just threw everything together willy-nilly. I’m still doing that with Lisa Roberts. The difference is, if I want Lisa to become the fully-developed badass she’s destined to be, I can’t put her in a short story contest entry. She has to go through a whole journey that can only be told within a full-length novel. And unlike most characters in my novels, Lisa Roberts will live to see the next novel, should she be a popular hit with my audience. She’s a survivor, damn it! Put her in the move “The Purge” and she’ll still come out smelling like roses and gunpowder!

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“My wife Stacy is good at getting heel heat with the crowd at wrestling shows. Hell, she gets heat with me around the house.”

-Jim Cornette-

Time Cruisers and Time Twisters

I’ll be the first to admit that history wasn’t always my favorite subject in school. I always thought literature from the middle ages was supposed to be like a Dungeons & Dragons adventure. I also thought the 1800’s were supposed to be a wild west adventure complete with gun slinging and steam punk paraphernalia. I was sorely disappointed when I found out these things were false. I have the C’s on my report card to prove it. With the Time Cruisers and Time Twisters Lego sets and a big imagination, I didn’t have to conform to the history books. The middle ages didn’t have Bat Knights you say? The future doesn’t have Insectoid robots? Fuck that shit! If Dr. Cyber and Tim are a part of my playtime, I say make it so. No teacher screaming in my ear is going to tell me otherwise. This was all back in 1996 and 1997 when these particular Lego sets were popular. Dr. Cyber and Tim, better known as the Time Cruisers, had these creative-looking vehicles with dragon wings, fire engines, and hypnotic disks. Tony Twister and Professor Millennium, better known as the villainous Time Twisters, also had fun-looking vehicles, but this time the hypnotic disks were black and blue and each set came with bat wings, skeletons, chains, god knows what else. The Time Cruisers and Time Twisters would always butt heads in the magical Dark Forest, the mysterious reaches of the moon, the gun slinging bloodbath of the Wild West, or anywhere else my imagination could take me. But as I said, this was during the sixth grade, which was between 1996 and 1997. After those wonderful years of badass time travel, Lego decided to pull the plug on those two series. Ever since then, Dr. Cyber, Tim, Tony Twister, and Professor Millennium have been without work and were only remembered by a select few Generation Y members who actually wanted to bring their creativity to life. I say it’s time we resurrect their legacy from the bowels of forgotten Lego lore. But how are we going to do that other than buy their sets on eBay (the only place they can be found these days)? Could we write fan fiction about them? Maybe the Lego corporation has enough amnesia they wouldn’t notice if somebody breached their copyright clause. Are you willing to take that risk? Is there anybody out there who would gladly take this chance? Yes, fan fiction is an accepted art form on various websites, but what about the real world? Could we actually see a paperback novel about the Time Cruisers and Time Twisters on Barnes & Noble’s bookshelves? It seems to me that’s the best way to bring attention back to these underrated chronomancers. If not, then I guess we’ll just have to keep them alive in our hearts and memories. But you have to admit, hearts and memories can be lonely places at times, not at all unlike solitary confinement.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“When I was a kid and I got sick, I would go to a doctor who would take me to the hospital to be treated by other doctors. Now I go to a family practitioner who’s part of a health maintenance organization which sends me to a wellness center to be treated by healthcare delivery professionals.”

-George Carlin-

"American Vampire" by Stephen King and Scott Snyder

Somewhere in the 2000’s, this world became obsessed with the creature horror genre. Vampires, werewolves, zombies, if it was a hideous creature, you, the author, could do anything you wanted with it. What’s noteworthy about this particular 2000’s deadline is that after the Twilight series was published, there was an entire sprawl of authors who decided that putting terrifying creatures in romantic situations was an automatic goldmine. Scott Snyder and Stephen King could have taken that route with “American Vampire”. But guess what? They didn’t! In the “American Vampire” graphic novel, the two authors’ main character, Skinner Sweet, despite his last name is the antithesis of everything sparkly and fruity about the creature horror genre. Skinner Sweet is a savage. A monster. A wild west barbarian. He thinks that murder is more fun than a barrel of monkeys. He’d probably murder those too if he thought it would give him the adrenaline rush from hell. And I know what everybody reading a piece of vampire fiction is thinking. They’re thinking that if the sun comes out, the vampire in question is going to burst into flames and become nothing more than a desert of ashes. Right? Wrong, pacho! Being out in burning hot sunlight only makes Skinner Sweet stronger. Strong enough to make his favorite hobby of relentless murder a practical form of genocide. But don’t go thinking that Skinner is all about blood and guts. He actually helps a woman fight off a bunch of backstabbing coworkers. Granted, she too becomes a bloodthirsty neck nibbler, but you know what they say: a little bit goes a long way. After reading this literal “Bloodbath & Beyond” tale from front to back, I started to have slightly more respect for Stephen King as a novelist. His concepts are violently fucked up and look very cathartic on the pages of a graphic novel. I still have a hard time dragging my tired eyes along the quicksand path of his traditional novel pages. But if he decides to put out more comic books with the assistance of Scott Snyder, you’re damn right I’m going to snatch them off the shelves of my local Barnes & Noble.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I’ll slap you so fucking hard it’ll feel like you kissed a freight train!”

-Five Finger Death Punch singing “War Is the Answer”-