Inverarity is not a Scottish village

Holy crap.

Self-published author M. R. Mathias is not happy about being called a self-published author.

This guy is crazier than... a certain other crazy person infamous for his batshit meltdowns.

From the product description for Superhero, by M. R. Mathias:

This is a Short Story about the realities of modern heroism. There is alot of ironic comedy and a deep message about the state of man here.

With a name like the Valiant Defender and a huge logo that says V.D. across his chest, you can imagine how Marvin Smithers is recieved when he foils a crime and becomes a national media hero.

o...O

nihilistic_kid's Let us put an end to Geek Pride is making me chuckle with glee, as are the responses. But I saw this episode when it originally aired...

'Cause he asked for it.

An NSA spy thriller written by the editors of National Review who thought Jack Bauer is a pansy.

Code named Devlin, he exists in the blackest shadows of the United States government--operating off the grid as the NSA's top agent. He's their most lethal weapon-and their most secret. But someone is trying to draw him out into the open by putting America's citizens in the crosshairs--and they will continue the slaughter until they get what they want.

( A subtle, nuanced depiction of how liberals are weak, stupid, worthless, weasely, cowardly, treacherous pansies, and have I mentioned that liberals suck? Oh, by the way, liberals are bad. And also? Lib-uh-rulz are loooosers, Lib-uh-rulz are loooosers... I wouldn't want to accuse the author of grinding an axe, but if you read closely between the lines, you just might be able to detect a slightly negative opinion of liberals. And by subtle and nuanced, I mean visible from orbit. )

Verdict: BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh gads this was awful. And yet apparently this series is a best-seller. Reading the 5-star reviews for this book is an exercise in WTFery, like, even if you agree with the author's political views, doesn't anyone care about a book that just exhibits basic writing and plotting skills and some thin pretense of verisimilitude? No, don't answer that.

Don't you love Contemptible Covers? What is up with paranormal romance covers? They're worse than those bodice-ripper romances with the Highlander Spice Guy flexing his abs at Victorian strippers. It's all Photoshopped bubble-butts and fuck-me tattoos. I actually saw this on the shelf at Borders and thought they'd forgotten to put one of their stroke bookserotica in a black plastic wrapper.

Although I have yet to see a book cover that beat this one for the Exalted RPG (warning: probably NSFW) in sheer "WTF? ONTD!" tastelessness.

( Second draft of the AQATSA cover )

One-line summary: A Massive Swelling: Celebrity Re-Examined as a Grotesque Crippling Disease is a hilarious flaming jeremiad against the culture of fame, but so last decade.



Reviews:

Goodreads: Average: 3.85. Mode: 4 stars.
Amazon: Average: 4.2. Mode: 5 stars.

Whether you lust after it, loathe it, or feign apathy toward it, fame is in your face. Cintra Wilson gets to the heart of our humiliating fascination with celebrity and all its preposterous trappings in these hilarious, whip-smart, and subversive essays. Often radical and always a scream, Wilson takes on every sacred cow, toppling icons as diverse as Barbra Streisand, Ike Turner, Michael Jackson, and-for obvious reasons-Bruce Willis. She exposes events like the Oscars and even athletic jamborees as having grown a "tumescent aura of Otherness." Wilson's scathing and irresistible dissections of Las Vegas as "the Death Star of Entertainment," and Los Angeles as "a giant peach of a dream crawling with centipedes" pulse with her enlightened rejection of all things false and vain and egotistical. Written with her trademark zeal and intelligence, A Massive Swelling is the antidote for the fame virus that infects us all.

( Read it now while most of the people she mocks are still alive )

Verdict: If you see this in the dollar bin, it's worth picking up. Someday all the names in this book will be trivia questions, but the savage snark is timeless.

We all know the ancient wisdom of the internet: "Do not feed the troll." I.e., don't respond to trolls, don't let them bait you, don't give them the attention they so desperately want. If everyone just ignored a troll, it would eventually get bored and go away disappointed.

And this never, ever works.

In all my years on the internet, I've never seen a dedicated and persistent troll actually fade away by being ignored. Why? Because there will always be someone who just can't ignore it. It's just not realistic to think that on a newsgroup or email list or forum with dozens if not hundreds of people, every single one of them will be able to refrain from responding.

I withdraw increasingly from online interactions because the urge to want to punch people through the internet is too strong.

This is some funny shit, yo.

Top 25 WORST CHILDREN’S BOOKS…EVER

My favorite: All Alone with the Internet: A Choose Your Own Adventure Story

And One-star Amazon reviews of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

I do believe some people miss the point of what they are reading:

“In the first 20 pages, Alex and his lackies beat a guy senseless and rob him; they steal a car and trash it, they get into a vicious gang fight; they attack a couple at their home, destroy the husband’s life work (his book, A Clockwork Orange), beat him and his wife senseless, and rape the wife. This really ticked me off.”

“I bought these books to have something nice to read to my grandkids. I had to stop, however, because the books are nothing more than advertisements for “Turkish Delight,” a candy popular in the U.K. The whole point of buying books for my grandkids was to give them a break from advertising, and here (throughout) are ads for this “Turkish Delight”! How much money is this Mr. Lewis getting from the Cadbury’s chocolate company anyway? This man must be laughing to the bank.”

“I am obsessed with Survivor, so I thought it would be fun. WRONG!!! It is incredibly boring and disgusting. I was very much disturbed when I found young children killing each other. I think that anyone with a conscience would agree with me.”

(No, that was not a review for The Hunger Games, it's a review for Lord of the Flies.)

Then, of course, there are those who simply Have Issues:

“Well, it’s a girl’s world. The world of Gloria Steinem and the popular feminism, as distilled on TV (including CBC shows, not all fundamentalist Hollywood garbage) of my youth is GONE. Now the girls run the show. You’re not allowed to call them sluts. And it’s impossible to call them virgins. They’re all doing Rhett Butler. So what are they? Idiots… Hope you like the Gangstas. It’s what you deserve.”