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Bookshelf Battle
The only site where new bestsellers are forced to do battle for space on a nerd's bookshelf.
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Top Ten Warning Signs Your Girlfriend Might Be Melisandre
Lady Melisandre.
The Red Woman.
Skillfully played by Carice van Houten, the Red Woman may be Stannis’ other woman but let’s face it…she’s the only woman if she has anything to say about it.
From the home office in BQB HQ and just in time for the Season 6 Premiere of Game of Thrones, here are the Top Ten Warning Signs Your Girlfriend Might Be Melisandre:
10. She’s very supportive of your work and career goals…to the point that she’s willing to push a shadow assassin out of her vagina to murder your enemies.
Hey. Be disgusted all you want but that’s true commitment right there. My entire life I’ve never even been able to get a woman to make a damn sandwich for me, let alone push a shadow assassin out of her vagina to use in the assassination of my enemies.
9. Cares enough about you that she’s always warning you that everything is “dark and full of terrors.”
- The night is dark and full of terrors.
- Your closet is dark and full of terrors.
- Don’t get a popsicle because the freezer and dark and full of terrors…and popsicles.
8. May or may not be able to bring your dead friends to life as we may or may not find out in Season 6. (Warning: if she does bring your deceased friend back to life, it is because she wants to bang him.)
7. Doesn’t always have the best advice. Burn your daughter at the stake. Sacrifice your illegitimate nephew. None of it ever really gets you anywhere.
6. She’s kind of a religious fanatic, almost to the point where you can picture her knocking on your door while you’re in the shower and you come out in your bathrobe and have to listen to her, “Have you accepted the Lord of Light as your personal savior?” routine.
5. Redheads = feisty in the boudoir. It is also a scientific fact that they are crazy. Studies show that craziness turns hair red.
4. Doesn’t want any baby mama drama. Doesn’t even go after you for child support for the shadow assassin she pushed out of her magic snootch to dispatch your enemies.
3. She is literally a character that pushed out a shadow assassin out of her magic snootch which means, if you are a writer, you need to stop doubting yourself because as long as your idea is as equally farfetched as “woman pushes shadow assassin out of her magic snootch” then the worst that can happen to your book is that it is turned into a highly profitable HBO series.
2. Isn’t really about tying you down. Willing to give you the magic snootch without any promises that you will dump your crazy wife for her.
- Could possibly be a fraud who just throws chemicals into fires in order to give the illusion of magical power. Then again, she did push a shadow assassin out of her magic snootch so, she’s definitely studied a magic book or two.
TV Review – Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
Hey 3.5 Readers.
I talk about TV a lot on this site but I’ve never reviewed a show before.
But over the past week I have discovered Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and I have been binge watching the crap out of it.
It’s original. It’s hilarious. Great writing plus a great cast = lightning trapped in a bottle.
The setup? Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper formerly of The Office) was kidnapped as a teenager in the late 1990’s by an evil reverend/cult leader (Jon Hamm) and held with three other women in an underground bunker.
When the police free the “Indiana Mole Women” in 2015, Kimmy and fellow victims travel to New York City for an interview and against all odds, Kimmy decides to stay and make a go of it in the big city.
Not the wisest move because Kimmy is naive, gullible, childlike and, to hilarious effect, still mentally living in the 1990’s.
So many wonderful 1990’s references. As a Generation X’er I appreciate them so much. Jokes that only people born in the 1970’s or early 1980’s would get. (Sam Goody music stores, Hanson, scrunchies, walk-men, Hulk Hogan, Friends, Babysitter’s Club books, Jansport backpacks, Choose Your Own Adventure Novels, Dawson’s Creek, Titanic, Columbia House tapes…the list goes on but those are the ones I can remember in one sitting.)
My hat goes off to Netflix for allowing that. So many Hollywood suits probably would have just been all like, “if it didn’t happen after 2010 then the show can’t talk about it.
Admittedly, that all of these 1990’s references are so old now makes me feel a little sad and old myself, but at the same time, it has been fun to watch them get dusted off and made fun of again.
Kimmy finds a roommate/fellow dreamer Titus Andromedon (Titus Burgess), flamboyantly gay performer who came to New York in the late 1990’s to audition for the Lion King musical on broadway and after being rejected multiple times is having a hard time keeping his hopes of becoming famous alive.
Together Kimmy and Titus are a dynamic duo who help each other out. Titus educates Kimmy on the cold, cruel world she’s stepped into while Kimmy reminds Titus that laziness and wallowing in self pity won’t get his acting/musical career anywhere.
The duo also finds a mother figure in their landlady, Lillian Kaushtupper (Carol Kane) an old lady who holds herself out as a real New Yorker’s New Yorker, lamenting that the city has gone too soft and taking it upon herself to chase hipsters and yuppies out of the neighborhood.
I have to say, Carol Kane really put this show over the top for me. The way she delivers all of these lines suggesting that Lillian has an awful past (shot her ex-husband, dated Robert Durst) in a deadpan style is uproariously funny.
Kimmy gets a job as a nanny/housekeeper/gopher for Jacqueline White (Jane Krakowski), a vapid trophy wife to a billionaire. She doesn’t really care about much of anything other than money and her social standing, thus giving the show’s producers the ability to lampoon New York’s upper crust elite. (Her husband takes business calls with Walt Disney’s head.)
Throughout it all, Kimmy has to deal with a world that is strange and new to her (the comedic effect being sometimes we’re forced to laugh when things that are commonplace are explained to a newcomer, i.e. on Kim Kardashian’s fame, Kimmy notes that she’s a butt celebrity married to a man that hates college.)
Kimmy goes back to school for her GED, goes to work, helps her friends, and though she has a past that would have broken most people down, her positive, polly anna-ish demeanor leaves her “unbreakable.”
And though we, the viewers, don’t know what it is like to be “Mole women” many of us do have problems from our past that have kept us down, made us feel less than, unworthy, like life is unfair and the overall lesson is if Kimmy can get up every day and stay unbreakable, then we can do.
Although it would be a lot easier if we all had Kimmy/Ellie Kemper’s permanent smile on our faces.
Love the show. Go watch it on Netflix. Tell me what you thought about it in the comments.
On a personal note, I have often lamented on this site that Generation X’ers have gotten the short end of the stick. Sometimes it feels like the Baby Boomers are just going to hold onto that torch forever (thanks improved health care j/k) and sometimes it feels like the millennials are dancing around us to grab that torch early before we get our grubby mitts on it.
It’s just good to see a show that is breathing a little bit of life into our long forgotten Gen X ways.
Sam Goody forever!
Stop Sucking With Vinny Baggadouchio, Motivational Speaker – Why Does My Marriage Suck?
World Renowned Motivational Speaker, Anti-Suck Book Author and Bookshelf Battle Blog Columnist, Vinny Baggadouchio
Hello 3.5 Suckers.
I’m Vinny Baggadouchio and I am on a mission to rid the world of suck. Every night before I go to bed, I imagine the planet as one great big orange in the palm of my hand that I am squeezing and squeezing until every last drop of suck has been wrung out of it.
That’s how much I hate it when things suck.
If you didn’t suck at reading so much, you could learn how to not suck with one of my self-help anti-suck books:
- Sucking Suckers and the Suckfaces Who Love Them
- Journey to the Center of Your Inner Suck
- Stop Sucking in Thirty Days
- Five Things You Can Do Right Now to Reduce Your Suck Levels By Ten Percent
- Whoosh Goes the Sound of Your Released Suck
Of course, if you suck so much that you can’t even afford one of my anti-suck books, then you can get some free advice on how to not suck right here on the Bookshelf Battle Blog.
(Although let’s face it, if you’re reading this mess, you probably suck.)
Sucky people from all over the world are constantly sending me letters, begging me to solve their sucky problems.
People trapped in a marriage that sucks is a common issue faced by suckers. In fact, here’s one letter I received in my bag of fan suck mail just the other day:
Dear Vinny B,
My marriage sucks. Is it because I suck? Is it because my husband sucks? Do we both suck? Do we just suck together?
Please explain why my marriage sucks so bad and what I can do to make it so that it does not suck anymore.
Sincerely,
A Lady Whose Marriage Sucks
I’m sorry to hear that your marriage sucks, Lade Whose Marriage Sucks, but despite being an obvious sucker, you have inadvertently identified the top four explanations as to why a marriage sucks:
- You suck.
- Your spouse sucks.
- Both of you suck.
- Together, you suck.
Let’s go through each one.
Marriage Suck Question # 1 – Do You Suck?
As I always say, if you actually have to ask if you suck, then you suck. And if you suck, then you could very well be the sucky monkey wrench that’s stopping up the gears of your marriage machine.
Here is a non-exhaustive list of some things that you, as a person who sucks, could be doing to suckify your marriage:
- Farting – No one likes to be reminded that their mate has bowels. Stop sucking all the good air in the room up your butt and let it rip outside for a change.
- Cheating – Your word is your bond and only people who suck go back on a promise. If you’re getting a little something something on the side, then you suck. Sure, an affair may seem like fun, but it is really just you putting a temporary patch on the gaping hole of your inner suck. Sooner or later your sucky flood gates will open and you’ll spill your suck all over the place and the world will finally know just how much you suck.
- Gambling – It sucks when you put your spouse in the position of having to pawn his/her possessions because you can’t stop playing poker, betting on the ponies, or getting taken in by that dude with the three card monty table. People who suck at everything should never gamble as this is a surefire way to lose money due to your sucky abilities.
- Letting Yourself Go – Do your looks suck? Sure, you may think that you have landed a honey so you might as well put some extra cheese on your taco, but all that cheese adds up…to a big pile of butt suck. True, time does a number on our ability to not physically suck, but you don’t need to help the process along.
- Depression – You suck so badly that you’ve lost the ability to get joy out of life. That is completely normal for a person who sucks. Frankly, you suck so much I’d almost worry there was something wrong with you if you weren’t depressed about it. But keep in mind that second hand suck is real and that your suck particles can fly through the air and latch onto your spouse like so many invisible suck barnacles. Please don’t hurt yourself or others just because you suck. You’d just be letting the suck in. Instead, seek the advice of a trained medical professional on how to cope with and overcome your depression. You’re not the first person to suck and you won’t be the last. So look yourself in the mirror, forgive yourself for sucking, and learn to move on. If your spouse doesn’t suck, he or she will be there for you to lean on as you make the journey to a suck free life.
Marriage Suck Reason #2 – Does My Spouse Suck?
So you’re absolutely sure that you don’t suck and in fact, it is your spouse who sucks.
This is quite possible and here is a non-exhaustive list of things that you, as a person who does not suck, should not have to put up with from a spouse who sucks:
- Cheating, farting, gambling (as discussed above) – But seriously, be a spouse who doesn’t suck and help your spouse overcome his/her depression.
- Alcoholism/Substance Abuse – Addictions suck, not just for the addicted but they can also drag a non-sucking person down into the depths of sucky depravity. Perhaps as a person who does not suck, you can be a good role model for your spouse and help them get on the path to quitting an addiction that sucks. Alas, if your spouse is too far gone, you may have to make a sucky decision to move on.
- Abusive Behavior – Even the greatest, least sucky marriages, fights in which unkind sucky words are exchanged are bound to happen. But if they’re happening daily and your spouse is using you as a verbal punching bag, you shouldn’t have to put up with that. Heck, even a person who sucks shouldn’t have to be told constantly by their spouse that they suck. That’s what reputable anti-suck coaches like me are for. Needless to say, whether you suck or not, you should never have to be a spouse’s physical punching bag either.
- Being Sold to Foreign Businessmen – I don’t care how flattered you are by the high price you fetched in the underground sex slave auction your spouse signed you up for against your will, you should never have to put up with being sold as an international sex slave. That just plain sucks.
Marriage Suck Reason #3 – Are We Both Sucky People?
This is entirely possible. One of you could be an alcoholic farter while the other is a fat abusive gambler. Perhaps you are both no-good cheaters who are constantly trying to sell the other into a life of international sex slavery.
In this case, you both suck. Could you both make a pact to help each other mend your sucky ways? Perhaps…but as long as you both keep making excuses for your sucky behaviors, you’ll continue to drag your marriage down the suck hole. If you’re both determined to suck things up forever, then you may have to consider going your separate ways so at least you can only suck up your own lives.
Marriage Suck Reason # 4 – Are We Non-Sucking People Who Just Suck Together?
Ahh, this is perhaps the saddest scenario in which a marriage sucks.
On your own, neither of you suck, but together, you suck like a Roomba stuck on autopilot.
Here’s an example:
You’re both alcoholics who have kicked your addiction long ago. On your own, neither of you sucks at not drinking anymore. Alas, when you’re together, you become drinking buddies who party hearty. It is a lot of fun at first, but without one non-sucker to flip the party switch off, things will eventually start to suck.
Yes, it is possible that the two of you suffer from any kind of addiction (from shopping to ice cream) and without one person to say enough is enough, then the two of you could end up in a suck spiral.
There’s also the potential of personality clash. You’re a nerd who likes comic books. She’s a supermodel who likes purse dogs. On your own, you both have your good, non-sucky qualities, but together, you have nothing to talk about or bond over and therefore, your conversations will suck.
Conclusion
ATTORNEY DONNELLY DISCLAIMER:
Vinny B. has no official credentials of any kind and therefore is not qualified in any way, shape or form to advise you about your marriage, your problems with depression or any problems you have whatsoever. If you suffer from these or any other problems, seek the advice of a real, trained professional and DO NOT rely on statements made by a dumb blog like this one.
Yes. That disclaimer is true. Obviously, if you honestly believe that your marriage sucks, then only you can help you figure out what is the best thing to do. Don’t rely on me. Seek professional help. Don’t be a dumb sucker who relies on dumb blogs.
Also, and I can’t stress this enough, please stop trying to sell your spouse into a life of international sex slavery. Liam Neeson is only an actor and he won’t be able to save your spouse the way he did his fictional daughter in Taken.
How the West Was Zombed – Part 7 – Doc’s Secret Shame
After Miles gives the survivors a crash course regarding the Legion Corporation’s evil plans, Doc must acknowledge his tarnished past in order to come to grips with a terrible mistake he’s made in the present.
Chapter 66 Chapter 67 Chapter 68
Literary Classics with Professor Nannerpants – When I Was Fair and Young – The Poetry of Queen Elizabeth I
Professor Horatio J. Nannerpants – Esteemed Literary Scholar/Poop Flinger
Good Day, 3.5 Readers.
Class is in session so take out your notebooks and start flinging your poop.
In my very first lecture, I should like very much to discuss one author of the Elizabethan era – Queen Elizabeth I herself.
When she wasn’t busy running an empire, she was quite a wordsmith I’ll have you know.
Take a gander at one of her finest poems:
When I Was Fair and Young
By: Queen Elizabeth I
When I was fair and young, then favor graced me.
Of many was I sought their mistress for to be.
But I did scorn them all and answered them therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where; importune me no more.How many weeping eyes I made to pine in woe,
How many sighing hearts I have not skill to show,
But I the prouder grew and still this spake therefore:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.Then spake fair Venus’ son, that proud victorious boy,
Saying: You dainty dame, for that you be so coy,
I will so pluck your plumes as you shall say no more:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.As soon as he had said, such change grew in my breast
That neither night nor day I could take any rest.
Wherefore I did repent that I had said before:
Go, go, go, seek some other where, importune me no more.
:::Sniff Sniff:::
:::Blows my nose in a hanky:::
Oh Elizabeth. I know your pain, girlfriend.
When we’re young and beautiful, the world feels like it belongs to us and we’re convinced this feeling will last forever.
For the young, there is always plenty of time.
Plenty of time to tell a potential mate to take a hike in the hopes that a better mate is on the horizon.
Even your humble professor is guilty of this. I once told Miss Tiddlywinks, a fellow lab chimp who had the hots for me, to hit the bricks.
Sure, she had a luxurious coat and was eager to please but I convinced myself that I could find a woman capable of throwing larger piles of poop.
Alas, in my middle age, as I cry myself to sleep with a pint of Ben and Jerry’s in one paw, the remote in the other while watching old reruns of Gilmore Girls and wondering where the time went, I wish Miss Tiddlywinks would burst threw the door and throw her small, pathetic piles of poop at my head.
You never know what you have until it’s gone.
Yes, students. That is a sentiment felt not just by the lowly masses but even by people as high and mighty as Queen Elizabeth I.
Of course, who can blame her? Her father, Henry VIII chopped off so many of his wives’ heads in search of a son to be his heir and in the end, Elizabeth was left to the job of keeping the throne in the Tudor family.
Like anyone, she surely desired love and romance but she knew that marriage would have led to a man coming in, taking over, becoming the King, and acting like he owns the entire country she’d inherited just because of his insipid penis.
Oh penile domination, how many countries will you tear asunder until your demonic hunger for power is satiated?
Close your eyes, 3.5 students.
Picture a young, hot Queen Elizabeth.
She’s in one of those gigantic dresses rigged up with a series of iron bars, ropes and pulleys to make her ass look scrumptiously fat.
Her hair is done up so high it touches the ceiling.
Her face is coated with a thick slathering of milky white, lead based paint.
She’s hip. She’s cool. She makes all the hearts of men at court go pitter patter.
But she sends them packing. She bides her time. She’s not going to give up that royal booty to just anyone. She’s waiting for a true love she can trust not to take her throne from away from her.
It was the late 1500’s people. Men just weren’t as cool with working women as they are today.
Alas, time moved on for Queenie. She got old. “Her plumes were plucked.” She lost her looks.
Men are such visual beasts so ruler or not, few men were willing to get busy with an old broad with plucked plumes.
And so, Queen Lizzy poured her heart out into this poem, lamenting the loss of men she’d told to get lost back in the days when all the men of the realm wanted to get their grubby mitts all over her royal badonka donk.
Moral of the story, 3.5 students?
If you’ve got it, flaunt it…then use your bait to hook a tasty fish before they start swimming out to sea.
Because you never know when your bait will shrivel up, dry out and leave you with an empty hook.
Class dismissed. Throw your poop at will.
Literary Classics with Professor Nannerpants – An Introduction
Good Day 3.5 Readers.
Professor Horatio J. Nannerpants – Esteemed Literary Scholar/Poop Flinger
In the first year of this ridiculous blog, Bookshelf Q. Battler took on the role of a cool, hip online literary lecturer, educating his 2.5 readers (his stats weren’t as high then) about classic novels and poetry in a fun manner.
In year two, he turned the blog into a chronicle of his life as a magic bookshelf caretaker/yeti fighter/human selected by an alien despot to change the world through his writing.
Personally, I found that change to be tres blasé and ever so derivative. If I had a nickel for every blog about a magic bookshelf caretaker/yeti fighter/human selected by an alien despot to change the world through his writing I’d be a fabulously wealthy simian.
Now in year three, BQB has turned his attention yet again to actually writing a novel in an effort to appease the Mighty Potentate. Occasionally, when he is unable to think what his novel characters should do next, he writes top ten lists implying your significant others are all manner of horrible abominations and helps his staff of malcontent columnists spread their ridiculous opinions.
Ironically, BQB has found that his first year posts are the most searchable, most likely by high school or college English students writing papers about the classics.
(And between you, me and the four walls, 3.5 readers, if any of these kids are citing Bookshelf Q. Battler in their papers and getting A’s then I weep for the state of our education system.)
Ahh, but I do drone on, don’t I? This is where I come in.
Have you ever heard of the old saying that if you were to lock a thousand chimpanzees in a room filled with typewriters, one of the chimps would eventually produce a clean, error free copy of Hamlet?
I am that chimp.
It all began as an experiment at the Advanced Science Institute of Science University. BQB, literary lover that he was, was studying under the esteemed Dr. Hugo Von Science (they were still friends in those pre-East Randomtown Zombie Apocalypse days.)
As part of a research project, BQB rounded up a thousand lab chimps, locked us in a room with a thousand typewriters and over the course of a year, my colleagues produced:
- 179,854 pages covered in doody
- One clean, error free copy of a James Patterson novel. Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman were immediately cast for the movie version.
- One typo laden copy the collective works of Digital Underground. “The Fumpty Fance is Your Fance to Do the Fump.” Oh chimps, you try so hard and yet you fail, for there can only be one Humpty Hump.
And finally, I was the first chimpanzee in the history of the world to prove the assertion true.
I typed a clean, error free copy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
And then I smeared it with my doody.
BQB got an A+ for his project. Dr. Hugo had other plans for me.
Curious about my abilities, the mad scientist performed all manner of tests on my brain.
Dr. Hugo wanted to know if it was possible to educate a chimpanzee.
So he hooked my head up to electrodes and forced me to watch PBS for three weeks straight.
So many documentaries. So many British TV shows. So much Masterpiece Theater.
During a storm, an errant thunderbolt zapped the Science Institute, sending a current to the electrodes, which in turn, shocked me.
This left me with the ability of speech….in a British accent.
I used my newfound skill to plead for my freedom with Dr. Hugo but he would not have it.
Bookshelf Q. Battler proved to be kinder and when the coast was clear, he left my cage door open.
For many years, I traveled the world, experiencing all that I could.
Highlights include:
- Climbing Mount Everest. What a waste of time. There’s nothing to see up there.
- Visiting my friends and family in the jungle. Alas, Thomas Wolfe was right when he said you can never go home again. All those chimps wanted to do was laugh and throw their poop. Sure, it’s fun for the first five minutes but after that I’m the only one who wants to talk about the collective works of Lord Byron.
- I was briefly a member of Congress. I had to quit because everyone there was better at poop flinging than I was. (I’m not even joking.)
And finally, by donning a disguise, and holding myself out as a hirsute little person from London, I was able to convince a renowned university to accept me as a student of literature.
There I stayed for many years, immersed in my love of the written word, obtaining a doctorate I used to obtain a position as a professor of the classics at the same aforementioned institution.
Note that I haven’t said which one as I continue to hold this position and I don’t wish to be outed as a chimpanzee. I think I’m safe though as only 3.5 individuals read this blog.
Long story short, BQB would like to continue to put his stat counter on the rise by increasing this blog’s search ability amongst students in their late teens to early twenties who stayed up all night smoking refer and playing video games and need to whip up a last minute paper about Longfellow in order to do their parents proud by pulling down a C-.
Under my alternative name, I have written articles in the world’s premiere academic journals. Thus, I loathe the idea of having my work appear in a poorly studied blog.
Yet, I do owe BQB a favor for helping me escape.
Naturally, I won’t use my nom de plume so I will use the name I was given back when I was but a lowly lab chimp.
Horatio J. Nannerpants.
Yes. Based on the filthy stereotype that chimpanzees love…excuse me I have to finish this banana.
Oh…oh yes! Oh sweet, sweet curved yellow potassium stick! You are better that hot sweaty chimpanzee sex!
Pardon me. Where was I?
Oh yes. Class in now in session, aspiring literary scholars.
And by the way.
That’s Professor Nannerpants to you.
How the West Was Zombed – Book #1 of the Zombie Western Series
SUMMARY:
Highwater, Missouri. 1880. The Old West was a time of expansion and opportunity for some, oppression and violence for others. Dangerous desperadoes ran wild leaving lawmen struggling to maintain order.
U.S. Marshall Rainier Slade is a genuine stoic, a quiet man with a raspy voice, a permanent scowl on his face, and a disdain for humanity that leaves him using the bare minimum amount of words necessary to get his point across. His deputy, the elderly, pragmatic yet loyal Gunther Beauregard does most of the talking.
Together, they work to enforce the law in a town filled with drunkeness, debauchery, and mayhem. Meanwhile, there’s a tentative peace between the townsfolk and a nearby Native American tribe, made possible only by the good rapport between Slade and Chief Standing Eagle.
The world Slade knows crashes down around him when the dead start refusing to die, thanks to the evil endeavors of Henry Alan Blythe, Attorney-at-Law for the Legion Corporation, and his newly recruited flunkies, the Buchanan Boys.
Zombies aren’t the creatures our heroes will have to worry about. Vampires and werewolves are on the prowl too.
Will Slade save the day? Will the West be lost to the zombie hordes? And when the dust settles and the last undead brain gets a bullet through it, will our hero choose the scandalously alluring brothel owner Miss Bonnie, or the prim and proper bible thumping Widow Farquhar?
U.S. Marshall Rainier Slade and his trusty deputy Gunther Beauregard are joined by traveling snake oil salesman Doctor Elias T. “Doc” Faraday in a stand against the nefarious Buchanan Boys.
Smelly Jack and the Buchanan Boys have been captured and now our hero, US Marshal Rainier Slade, has to wait a week until the arrival of Judge Sampson.
In the meantime, a love triangle blooms. Scandalous brothel madame Miss Bonnie is the only woman Slade can be himself around but…the bible thumping Widow Farquhar is there.
Never underestimate the power a woman who is there has on a lonely man.
Plus, there are some damn werewolves.
A day of reckoning comes for the Buchanan Boys. Judge Sampson comes to town and is hankering to pass out some hangings.
But “simple country lawyer” Henry Allan Blythe and his werewolf lackeys have other plans in mind.
PART 4 – History Repeats Itself
Joe Freeman’s past haunts him again and again and his longstanding feud with Blythe is about to come to a head.
Blythe, a villainous vampire/counsel for the Legion Corporation’s board of vampire directors, has dreamed up a scheme to conquer the United States with a zombie army that responds to his will.
But the board’s bureaucratic maneuvering threatens to throw his plan off the rails. His bosses want him to toy with Slade and Freeman, rather than kill them outright.
Though his heart belongs to fiery redhead Miss Bonnie, Slade just can’t bring himself to say no to his fiance, Sarah “the Widow” Farquhar. Slade and Sarah head to Highwater to plan a wedding for the evening. Actually, Sarah does most of the planning. Slade acts like a depressed hostage.
Meanwhile, a heavily armed and armored train arrives in town. Despite an argument filled with chest puffery, Slade is unable to get any information out of villainous lawyer Blythe.
Smelly Jack crashes Slade and Sarah’s wedding in a big way, though as it turns out, in a much bigger way than expected…
PART 6 – Miles Freeman, Amateur Werewolf
When Blythe’s evil werewolves attack the Bonnie Lass Saloon, Highwater finds itself in the grip of a terrifying zombie outbreak.
But for young Miles Freeman, there’s no time to feel sorry for himself when he loses his father.
Miss Bonnie needs his help…and Blythe’s wolves are on the hunt.
Somehow, Miles will have to figure out how to use his werewolf powers to save the day.
It won’t be easy for him. After all, he might be a werewolf…but he isn’t a very good one.
After Miles gives the survivors a crash course regarding the Legion Corporation’s evil plans, Doc must acknowledge his tarnished past in order to come to grips with a terrible mistake he’s made in the present.
Plans. Everyone has them.
Slade’s isn’t much of one. He intends to send his bride away in the care of Miss Bonnie, the woman he loves the most. After that, he and Gunther will take Blythe head on, hopefully with Standing Eagle’s help.
Meanwhile, Lady Blackwood beseeches the Chairman to set aside the board’s plans in favor of her own.
And Doc? He’s planning to do something with two mysterious documents.
Part 9 – The Not So Great Escape
Tribal shaman Wandering Snake guilts Standing Eagle into coming to Highwater’s aid.
Slade gets his crew to the livery stable, with a plan to send Miss Bonnie, the Widow Farquhar and Miles south to seek refuge with Eagle’s allies.
Meanwhile, Doc and Annabelle plan to head East to pursue their dreams of becoming international cocaine peddling gynecologists. (Yes, it makes more sense if you read it.)
But with an army of obedient zombies under his control, Blythe interferes with these plans.
The Reverend’s attempt to find some good in Blythe backfires in a big way.
Miles will need to figure out how to be a werewolf before its too late.
Part 10 – Dying with Your Boots On
Blythe has loaded his vile army of the undead aboard a train headed East, schemes to backstab his furry friends and enlists the aid of a strange vampire colleague for some sinister doings.
The vampire lawyer makes Slade an offer he can refuse, but in turn, the counselor refuses to take no for an answer.
Blythe separates Slade’s women. Will our hero be able to save them both before it is too late?
Gunther wishes his boots were off.
It’s do or die time for Slade.
A train full of zombies is barreling East. If it crosses the Mississippi River, the United States is surely doomed.
Will our hero save the day?
And while he’s at it, will he save the woman he loves?
Will he even get to save the woman he likes?
The West has been zombed. Cut off from the rest of the country, our heroes contemplate their next moves.
A year has passed since the West has been zombed.
Miles makes a deal with a suspicious new acquaintance.
Annabelle takes up Doc’s cause.
Slade and Miss Bonnie head to Arizona and get a visit from Wyatt Earp.
And finally…a master outdoorsman is put on the path to the presidency.
How the West Was Zombed – Parts 1-5
Hey 3.5 Readers,
For those of you just tuning in, I have been working on a Zombie Western novel, “How the West Was Zombed” since January 2016.
I’m 65,000 words in, a record for me, as I have a habit of starting and stopping stories, leaving them half-finished to move on to something else before any of them are ever finished.
I’m determined to finish this one though. It has been a challenge.
I’d appreciate your feedback, good or bad. It is a rough draft but the rough draft but completing a rough draft will be a first for me.
Check it out. Let me know what you think. And don’t be afraid to be like Vinny Baggadouchio and tell me if it sucks.
Hey 3.5 Readers,
My stats indicate some of you checked out the latest chapters and went digging for earlier chapters.
My blog rolls so fast that things often get buried. So here are Parts 1-5:
PART 1 – The Stand
Marshal Rainier Slade, a genuine stoic who’d prefer to shoot a fella as soon as look at him, is the only man in Highwater willing to face the dastardly Buchanan Boys. Reluctantly, he’s joined by his elderly deputy Gunther and the fast talking snake oil salesman Doctor Elias T. Faraday, who thinks the move would be good publicity.
When a misunderstanding occurs between Slade and Standing Eagle, Chief of a nearby Native American tribe, the Chief translates as his shaman, Wandering Snake, delivers an ominous curse.
Miss Bonnie, owner, proprietor, and prostitute-in-charge of the Bonnie Lass, is the only woman, nay, the only person…
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Movie Review: The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016)
Is love only a fairy tale?
That’s the question asked by this part prequel/part sequel to The Huntsman.
You’ll be hunting for some spoilers if you read further.
Freya (Emily Blunt) is sister to Ravenna (Charlize Theron) aka the Wicked Queen.
Prior to the events of the first Huntsman film, Freya becomes irrevocably heartbroken, and sets out to take over the Northern part of wherever the hell this fantasy world is.
To do so, she raises an army of “Huntsmen” and thus we learn Eric the Huntsman’s (Chris Hemsworth) origin.
Freya proclaims love to be a lie and bans it, leaving Eric and his secret wife, Sara (Jessica Chastain) to hide their relationship.
Yadda yadda yadda. Flash forward to a time post the original movie. The magic mirror has gone missing. Eric and two of his dwarf pals have to find it. Some dwarf women come into play.
Freya wants the mirror. Ravenna also wants to keep doing evil shit. That’s about it.
Lots of action. Great special effects. Not so great Scottish accents but you can’t have everything.
For whatever reason, Kristen Stewart’s not in this one. Occasionally, you get to see Snow White with her back turned. Maybe they figured with all these stars they’d save on a salary. Or maybe K-Stew’s post-Twilight fame is in its twilight. Who knows?
Emily Blunt is convincing as an ice queen. Charlize has been lamenting lately that tall, hot statuesque blondes have a hard time making a go of it in show biz, but somehow she was able to soldier on through this flick so I give her props.
I enjoyed it but it is a popcorn movie. Is love real or is it just an unattainable fantasy that we just torture ourselves with?
I ask myself that all the time. Yikes. Maybe I missed my calling by not becoming an Ice King.
Do they have Ice Kings? Queens seem to have a monopoly on the ice game.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy.
Bookshelf Battle 