Edward Lorn's Blog, page 78

Animal Farm Review

Review:

I am a self-proclaimed Cynical Optimist. I damn-well expect the worst out of my fellow human beings, but I hope like hell they’ll prove me wrong. That is why I appreciate this book.

You will learn more about human nature by reading about these animals than you’re likely to be privy to in a thousand other books. Classism, racism, sexism… it’s all here. War, famine, disease… yup, present and accounted for.

Oh, and if you’re a dark bastard like me, there’s plenty of humor mixed in for good measure. The kind of humor where the laughter dies after a moment because you realize it’s only funny because you can relate. And you can only relate because you’ve seen this shit happen time and time again. But we laugh because laughing helps ease the pain.

This kinda/sorta review is for the Audible edition, so I will make note of the quality. It’s good. I truly enjoyed the narrator’s performance of Boxer.

In summation: One of those classics that deserves its spot in the history books.

Final Judgment: Some animals are more equal than others.

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1153727/animal-farm-review

���This is how we go on: one day at a time, one meal at a...

���This is how we go on: one day at a time, one meal at a time, one pain at a time, one breath at a time. Dentists go on one root-canal at a time; boat-builders go on one hull at a time. If you write books, you go on one page at a time. We turn from all we know and all we fear. We study catalogues, watch football games, choose Sprint over AT&T. We count the birds in the sky and will not turn from the window when we hear the footsteps behind us as something comes up the hall; we say yes, I agree that clouds often look like other things – fish and unicorns and men on horseback – but they are really only clouds. Even when the lightening flashes inside them we say they are only clouds and turn our attention to the next meal, the next pain, the next breath, the next page. This is how we go on.���

~ Bag of Bones, by Stephen King

 

 

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1153707/post

Attention: Looking for Beta Readers for Future Literary Projects

What I’m looking for: I’m looking for beta readers for non-Horror projects. These new books are literary/general fiction with a strong emphasis on character, language, and style over plot. They are bleak stories, so be prepared for unhappy endings. There will be language and, depending on the book you receive, possible sexual situations. There is no gore or monsters.

 

If I had to compare them to other authors, I would go with Gillian Flynn, Caroline Kepnes, and Marisha Pessl.

 

What is Beta Reading: You read an uncorrected manuscript (you might find a typo here and there, we’re not talking about unedited garbage) and give feedback on the story. Nothing else. No grammar or spelling corrections. I’m not paying you to edit my book. I’m asking for your opinion. Would you buy this story? Do you feel the characters were fully realized? I’m branching off into new territory and I don’t want to make a fool of myself. If you ever feel like you are reading for work instead of pleasure, I expect you to stop reading. 

 

What you get in return: Complementary copies of the book(s) upon publication and your name in the acknowledgment section. I’ll be completely candid with you. These books may never see the light of day. I plan to submit them to major publishers over the course of the next six to ten months. If they are never accepted, you may never receive anything more than my sincerest appreciation. 

 

What will never happen: You will never be berated or attacked for your opinion of the book. If at any point you decide the read is not for you, you are under no obligation to finish it and I will not press you for why. If you feel the need to tell me, that’s fine also. I understand that my work will not always be suited for everyone, and sometimes I’m just plain offensive. 

 

Who I don’t want: FANS. I must be perfectly clear with this one. If you are already a fan of my work, I cannot use you. Every fan is biased to an extent. I’m looking for people who have either had zero exposure to my writing or feel that, upon reading something else of mine, I wasn’t for them. You are more apt to point out the subtle flaws if you’re not a fan. I’m looking for brutal honesty. Being nice to me because you like me or my work does me absolutely no good. 

 

If you feel you’d be the right person to read these new projects, let me know in the comment section below or email me at edwardlorn@gmail.com

 

Thank you in advance,

 

E.

 

 

 

 

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1153650/attention-looking-for-beta-readers-for-future-literary-projects

Original post: edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/115...

Original post:

edwardlorn.booklikes.com/post/1153589/post

Starry Eyes Movie Review

This will more than likely make some kind of Best of 2015 list, at least where I’m concerned. I love stories about the seedy side of Hollywood. I fucking adore films that do not give up all their secrets within the first ten minutes. And I dig the shit out of slow burns��that go from zero to sixty in the blink of an eye.��Starry Eyes is all this and more.

Hot damn, but I had a load of fun with this film. First, it will make you dreadfully uncomfortable. I’m not talking about��Bad Grampa/Jackass-awkward kind of uncomfortable, but that kind of uncomfortable where you grope for��your significant other while chomping the nails of your other hand.��Starry Eyes has atmosphere, it has a story, it has a wide variety of believable, three-dimensional characters, even if some are cliches. It has one of the fiercest, goriest, cringe-inducing denouements in recent memory. And when shit starts going wrong, it goes horribly, terribly wrong.

I didn’t quite understand the very last death scene. Not sure what happened or how a certain person died, but oh well. The rest of the film makes up for any small problems I might have had.

In summation: The only word of warning I’d give you I have already stated. This is a slow burn. Hang in there. It all pays off.

Final Judgment:��A star is born.

Preservation Movie Mini-Review

The mo-cap actor from 2011’s Game of the Year��L.A. Noire, his Lucille Ball-impersonator wife, and some guy doing a cosplay of Shane from��The Walking Dead go into the woods where they are hunted down. The film then turns into a piss-poor revenge flick that takes a big sturdy turd on logic. Probably the stupidest well-shot��movie I’ve seen this year. I don’t understand how shit like this gets a budget, or how��obviously talented filmmakers and actors come together over such a clusterfuck of a script.

In summation: The only way out is to climb over a crumbling rock face, but somehow the killers make it there no problem on their mountain bikes. Fuck you, Movie.

Final Judgment: R. Kelly wouldn’t piss on this.

Today in GREAT SHIT! #3

If you’re anything like me, you hate BAD SHIT. Nowadays, loads of BAD SHIT is searchable on the internet and plastered all over the news. These are you’re empty-headed-egotist celebs and your infomercials for products that make straining spaghetti in a colander look like bloody rocket science. BAD SHIT – Ain’t nobody got time for that!

Do you like animals and SHIT? Conservation is GREAT SHIT. Poaching and hunting for sport is BAD SHIT. Gotta feed your family? Kill a deer and eat for a year. Need a trophy? Take up hockey!

We haven’t seen a new baby bison in almost two hundred years. That is UNTIL NOW!��Chi-town is in the news today because they be birthing bison, yo! (Translation: The Nature Conservatory in Chicago has confirmed the birth of the first baby bison since 1830.) That’s some GREAT SHIT, lemme tell ya.

Hugs and high fives!

E.

Today in GREAT SHIT! #2

If you’re anything like me, you hate BAD SHIT. Nowadays, loads of BAD SHIT is searchable on the internet and plastered all over the news. These are you’re empty-headed-egotist celebs and your infomercials for products that make straining spaghetti in a colander look like bloody rocket science. BAD SHIT – Ain’t nobody got time for that!

When I’m down in the dumps, I read about GREAT SHIT. GREAT SHIT reminds me that little shit is only that. Little shit. Today’s GREAT SHIT is inspired by great people doing great things.

Chris Pratt has helped to raise $90,000 for a boy with brain cancer. Cancer is some HORRIBLE��SHIT, and I don’t like it. You don’t like it. People that have that HORRIBLE SHIT certainly don’t like��it. So read the article and maybe buy a T-shirt. Spread that GREAT SHIT around.

Hugs and high fives!

E.

Fuck Facebook

All throughout my school years, from elementary to high school, I had to deal with gossip and public shaming. I’d walk by a group of girls and they would snicker and point because EGADS! I’M FAT!!! I’d walk by a group of guys and they’d holler “Tubby!” and “Wankenstein!” (I was once caught pissing behind the gym because the bathrooms were locked, and the guy who caught me told everyone��I was jacking off; however, I never did get the Frankenstein reference). I actually thought those days were over.

That’s how Facebook makes me feel. I see other people talking about me, and there’s nothing I can do about it, lest I’m labeled a bully or a BBA or whatever the fuck. I’m not the bad guy because I refused to sit around and watch someone lie about me. This shit happened last year when Spare Ammo and her crew threatened me because I outed Gavin’s Twitter bullshit. Oh, you forgot about that, didn’t you? Spare Ammo’s been liking my posts and commenting and being as friendly as she wants to be, but she threatened me with the BBA Blacklist for exposing the same stuff she she claims to expose everyday. She called my posts self-congratulatory and other nonsense. Now look. She likes my shit! I survived that onslaught, and I’ll survive this shit.

I’m a grown up with a wife and kids and I still have to deal with this shit? Nope. I don’t. Fuck that place, man. It makes me feel like shit and I don’t want to be there anymore. Fuck my author page. Fuck immature children and their opinions. Fuck sociopaths and author spam and vaguebooking and kitten pics (okay, kittens pics are awesome, my bad). But mostly, fuck Facebook overall. That place is a literal detriment to society, where friendships are like playing Jenga with a Parkinson’s patient and the points don’t fucking matter.

This isn’t an attention grab. I don’t give a single fuck if you comment with “Awww, E. you not a wankenstein!” That’s not what this is about. It’s about not feeling fucking worthless��based on the goddamn speculation of others. This is not high school. I can choose not to go. I can choose not to participate.��And that’s what I’m doing. I’m taking my motherfucking ball and going home. Laugh at someone else, you bunch of stooges.

Mostly this tirade/meltdown/bit of career suicide is about letting people know I’m no longer on Facebook. So yeah, I’m not there anymore. Stop messaging me with what other people are saying about me. I know how cruel and ignorant little kids can be. This is not my first rodeo.

And I cannot stress this enough.��I don’t want the pats on the back and the well wishes and the comments about how you know what I’m going through. I only want people to stop asking me why the fuck I left. So here’s your public service announcement.

Now, can I please be left alone?

Now, can I please be left alone?

Today in GREAT SHIT!

If you’re anything like me, you hate BAD SHIT. Nowadays, loads of BAD SHIT is searchable on the internet and plastered all over the news. These are you’re empty-headed-egotist celebs and your infomercials for products that make straining spaghetti in a colander look like bloody rocket science. BAD SHIT – Ain’t nobody got time for that!

As of this day, Tax Day, April 15th, Year of Our Lord Tom Cruise Two Thousand One and Five, a day notorious for BAD SHIT, I give you lovely beshitted shittlings��some GREAT��SHIT to dish upon.

SAFE PASSAGE��is some GREAT��SHIT where veterans ensure that children who have to walk through Chicago’s roughest neighborhoods just to get to school do so in safety. Keep up that GREAT��SHIT, vets. You rock!

This has been some GREAT SHIT.

Hugs and high fives,

E.