Sick and Twisted tales

This is one in a million, funny and entertaining!

Hi Matthew,
Here for my part in our read swap, and I read the first four authonomy chapters. Good title, and way to deliver on what that title promised. I particulary liked the story about the poor hopeful bloke who got his shaft broken and then barfed on--what an end to his big night. Note: some of the punctuation is wrong. For example, always use commas, not periods, to separate dialogue from the attribution (e.g., he said). I saw a lot of this in the first story. In the second story (autho chapter 2), you have "Its health and safety" when it should be "It's health and safety." Good luck with this--highly starred.
Dean

Funny!

Read story 4 - black humour at its best. Well done, Mat. Nice one. Will return for some more.

Hello Matthew,

I was feeling a tad out of sorts this evening. I logged on here with the notion that reading something might rectify that. I had a gander at a few books and then I thought, Naaa, they're not helping at all, they're just a load of words and that. Then I saw someone talking about your work in the forum and I thought I'd take a look.

I've read the first five now. I actually didn't think the first three (or two and a bit - cos No3's just a bit of a doodle really, innit?) were all that good, but I enjoyed 4 and 5 immensely. I think you're better when you take your vulgarity off on flights of fancy rather than when you ground it in the everyday. 4 was particularly inspired and inventively depraved.

I can't be bothered to read any more or even critique the ones I read in depth because I'm still a bit grumpy in a residual way but, for a short time at least, I did recover some of my joie de vivre through your stories.

Yay, reading - it's alright again.

Thank you for helping me through this difficult period and good luck with your work.

Dave

Hi Matthew,
I am reading this purely on the basis of Whoster's review (below). Oh, and I think there was a thread in the forum, probably whoster's.

I could have read and read all night, but I didn't. I stopped after story 5.
This is marvellously original, weird and wonderful writing. I am slightly jealous which always means that I liked it a lot. Hard to crit it in the usual way, there were no real niggles in terms of grammar or punctuation and you are rewriting the rule book so seems strange to judge these stories in the way short stories are usually judged. But every story will probably stick in my head for a while, the images and situations you create are gloriously memorable and cringeworthy. They weren't laugh out loud funny (at least not for me) but they were acerbic and dark and strangely delicious.

Well done, 6 stars from me. Not sure about an immediate shelving, but I'll keep you on my WL and see how things go in the next few weeks.
All the best,
Sharda.
P.S. If you are so inclined would be very interested to hear what you thought of mine, but no pressure.
http://www.authonomy.com/books/42835/mr-unusually-s-circus-of-dreams/

Matthew,

When I saw this book had no backers, my first thought was; 'this is obviously going to be shite, but I'll have to return a read, say ambiguously complimentary things about it, and hope this satisfies the talentless cunt into keeping my book on his shelf.'

After reading your first four shorts, I was delighted to be confronted with such confident, free-flowing and numerous nuggets of hilarious comedy and wordplay. I won't lie to you about the fact that you'll need to tidy things up a bit to entice backings - i.e. first story should have 'I'm Too Sexy For My Shirt' capitalized and in italics (you don't need to mention Right Said Fred either), or that there's the odd grammatical error. Just the title of your first short story told me this was going to be good fun. Anyone who uses descriptiveness such as 'broken manhood' or 'shish-kebabed in the shitter' (note 'shish-kebabed' should be hyphenated) will win my affections.

This is too funny to be ignored, and I hope I can give this some deserved publicity with this thread:

http://www.authonomy.com/books/34404/sick-and-twisted-tales/read-book/?chapterid=336184#chapter

I read "The Tale of the Twisted Todger."

General comments: A captivating story. A quirky main character. Superb tension. Great twist (pardon the pun). Good pacing.

Specific comments on "Twisted Todger":
1) "So do you want to come in for some coffee?" She asks, I stare in astonishment, I presumed she thought ... 'She' should be lowercase. 'She asks' is a dialogue tag (tells who said something). When a dialogue tag follows dialogue, the first word of the dialogue tag is lowercase. Also, period after 'asks' and astonishment.'
2) "Sure I'd love to." I replied ... Comma after 'to.' 'I replied' is a dialogue tag (tells who said something). When a dialogue tag follows dialogue, the last sentence of dialogue is punctuated with a comma (unless it's a question or exclamation).
3) 'Don't you fucking dare you bitch, this hurts enough ... ' Comma after 'dare.' When you address someone in dialogue, offset their name or title with commas.
4) 'Cue the canned laughter for fucks sake!' Fucks (plural) should be fuck's (possessive).

I hope this critique helps you polish your all important opening pages. These are just my opinions. Use what works for you and discard the rest.

Would you please take a look at "Savannah Fire" and, if it's worthy, keep it in mind the next time you reshuffle your bookshelf?

Have a sensational day.

Al

Matthew,
You should be a stand-up comedian with all these bizarre tales you dream up. I rarely laugh at their jokes and that's probably due to the one time I was at one of those places and the comedians were desperate enough to pick on everyone in the front row. I was one of them and have come to despise the genre because of it. In any event, you have some lovely metaphors like "drowning in her ocean deep eyes." However, I think Miss Manners may think you crossed over the line into the vulgar in some places. You must be fun to have at parties since you don't hold anything back for fear of being thought of as sick and twisted.

Walden Carrington
Titanic: Rose Dawson's Story

The second one is hillarious. will read more later.

This is fun. I love your relaxed and funny way of telling your stories, and you have my attention. I was a bit disappointed with some of them, not that they were boring, on the contrary, they were funny and i wished i could have read some more. I found some typos along the way, but nothing a good editor can't rectify.
A clever and delightful read. I have high rated your book and wish you the best Authonomy has to offer.
Maria
Dark of the Moon

interesting short stories; you write in the style needed, plus they are nice and short...
on my watchlist...
6 stars******
read SEASONS...

These are indeed sick and twisted tales and I must be a sick and twisted individual because I found them a lot of fun and some were very funny. Some have weak endings (eg the fire in the office one), some have great ones (like Ch.10, which was wonderfully disgusting), but, whatever the ending, one can just go on to the next one. My favourite was the sonic death ray one (Ch.7). I also liked Little Juanita as I have days like that. And the mouse that wanted to be a fish. And the time machine. All are nice, easily swallowed, bite-sized chunks, so a breeze to get through.
One thing you might consider would be to connect the stories together in some way, like the author of Stories from a Leaking Mind on here does. So, drop in little elements from other stories into each one. As a simple example, you could let the rat boy, Connor, from Ch.4 have a walk-on part in the playground of Karl and Walter in Ch.7, etc, etc.
I don’t think it’s necessary to put “The End” at the end of each chapter.
There were quite a few typos which I will send you separately in a message.
Anyway, I really enjoyed reading these stories/poems, and I wish you luck with them.

The Tale of the cursed dog poo:

What can I say? The title alone really doesn't leave much to the readers imagination does it?
Or does it?
I read the story about how Cledwyn finally found the time to break free from his 'manual' labour to go out and buy a box of tissues and a lasagna. I kept thinking, ok, he's going to step in shit now... but he didn't.
Not until the very end. (Great build up there!)
But being the cursed piece of shit that it was it didnt just ruin Cledwyn's shoe.... no..... things we're gonna get much much worse!
I hope that every sex shop employee reads this story. It could save their life!
Another brilliantly sick story.
Well done!

Naughty, but nice. Very amusing. I read four of them. I liked that they were short. And it's always good to have a laugh. Thanks! I will Watchlist this.

Marilyn

When I read your bio I thought you may be my long lost twin or something, the sickness was uncanny.!!
I decided to check whether you really were twisted or just pretending to be. The Tale of the twisted Todger caught my eye so I read it. omg... What was worse, having it snap in half or the 'hot vomit drenching you?'
Sick. Sick but funny.
There aren't enough stories like these on here.
I'm glad you joined Authonomy and added your book. Now I'm not the only one writing stories like this.
Starred to the max and added to my w/l.
I'm going to enjoy reading the rest of this.... :)

Saw this on the new books list and appealed to me in a sick way... what I read so far doesnt let you down. I will read the rest and comment further. x

Thanks for the backing! Your book is on my watchlist. I have a feeling we have stuff in common.

Cornelius Carter - A guide to...grave robbing
I thought this was an interesting idea, with some amusing touches (the cane being oddly arousing was a nice line!)

The tale of the twisted todger
Again, an interesting idea with great comedy potential.

I thought both stories were just too brief. I know this is the idea, but I think both have great potential and could be developed into something much better.

On my WL for further reading. Good luck with this.