This review is of brighter than a spoon, one of the very first Fearblogs written by the prolific and immaculate alliterator. To say he has done much for the Mythos is to be making a cataclysmic, world-breaking understatement, so I think it would be nice to do something in return and review his first Fearblog. I am not reviewing the remake, because I remember this one fondly and I wanted to review this one.
Okay, so it starts out with some fairly good exposition, involving the story of Tav Lowe, an aspiring young poet who I sympathize for, as he seems like the kind of lower-middle class person with dreams bigger than himself, something a lot of people can sympathize with. In any case, he finds the password to his old blog again and so he uses it now to write poetry with.
In any case, it starts out fairly simple and sets up exposition for the character well enough, and even takes the time to post his ideas for poems that he gets in his sleep, and uncovers strange symbols that he can't decipher. The fact that this happened right out of nowhere, in the middle of (near the end, but in the middle of) exposition time is fairly jarring, and the fact that the symbols aren't really used all that much afterwords, if at all. So... Big Lipped Alligator Moment.
In any case, he begins his sleepwalking soon afterwords and posts both either stereotypical Slendersickness-induced ramblings, or the greatest contemporary
poems I've ever heard. Even if it's a little strangely stereotypical, it makes sense because he's being afflicted by the goddamn Slender Man. But oh no, our poor protagonist isn't just getting Slendersick. He's getting SlenderHACKED, as he learns out through horrifying video and audio hallucinations that he is the eldritch version of a transistor radio. Also, he's visited by the SMSC, a Bowie-inspired superspy ring, and his house got ransacked by a former Slenderproxy, who later gets tentacle-raked by the Slender Man himself. Honestly, the timing for this is really good, although his posts are ungodly long. Then again, that's something I have already been, and still am greatly guilty of, so I'm not one to throw stones here.. Then he meets the homeless Agnes Day, who's stalked by another creature known as The Cold Boy, the second of the main Fears in this blog. First of all, Agnes knows about what Tav's going through. She's sympathetic, she grows on him, and she and Tav work so well as a duo that it makes them realistic and very sympathetic. Oh, and she has a dog, too, but besides one or two posts the dog is rarely mentioned or cared about, which is... kind of sad.
Then the Cold Boy shows up in all his giddy, nursery-rhyme creepisms. And he carries around a frostbitten bone with human flesh on it- for the pups, you know. Honestly, this moment was built up to fairly well, and aside from a slightly disappointing payoff in that post, I do like the tension, the fog, the dog barking, and the previous post that developed the Cold Boy as something not-human. Oh, and there's a package that plays a big role in the end. Also, he talks about old noodles. I love you, alliterator, but I'ma have to make a small, insignificant little rant about something unimportant. The noodles should have been brought to the exposition part of the story, and the symbols should have been brought into the part when shit finally started getting real. Instead of two perfect parts, it's two almost-perfect parts with one Big-Lipped Alligator Moment in each, and I am saddened by the fact that these two great parts are not the perfect gems they should be.
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Afterwards, you learn the backstories of those two SMSC agents. Agent Liza Jane is the sister of Agnes Day who was also stalked by a creature, and Agent Aladdin Sane was a former FBI special agent who found out about the Plague Doctor (he and the Quiet are mentioned in the blog but never seen) while staging a drug bust, leaving him on-edge and with a tendency to tap his fingers. The SMSC decides to lure the two Fears out having the two protagonists walk into a cornfield and having them try calling to the Cold Boy, an eldritch god-like being, with meager arms. I thought this was a very tense scene with really good action, interaction, and atmosphere, and the use of what was in the package was excellent, but the thing is the entire operation could have been completely avoided if the two were at least half-way competent. Granted, when you read it it sounds like the only option, but it isn't. Granted, the fact that alliterator makes you believe it's the only way is nothing short of stunningly amazing as far as writing-wise goes.
Okay, so the Slender Man shows up, tells the Cold Boy that it is not their time, and then they leave the two protagonists to realize how lucky and close they were. And then Tav Lowe passes out, and Agnes thinks he's dead. Actually, he's not. He's in an alternate universe where Agnes and Liza Jane are both dead, Aladdin Sane is a jibbering wreck, Tav himself is a proxy, and the Quiet is eating the universe whole like it was a well-baked chocolate chip cookie. Then he wakes up in a hospital, and is told that all he was dreaming was a falsity. Then he meets Agnes, they agree to run, not away from Fears, but run towards the rest of their lives.
In any case, what did I feel about this blog? In retrospect, this is the first of alliterator's thirty something blogs, and the progress shows, this being a very great work, and the remake so much better, but still very subpar in light of his newer works, such as Paranoia: A Manifesto, Case Study, and Break My Bones (a blog I really wish he would continue) and it does have something strikingly different from the rest of alliterator's works. I don't know, it doesn't have the alliterator FEEL to it... might be the title. I mean, alliterator's titles are all cleverly thought of pieces of philosophical and literary allusions of great significance, and you can tell when alliterator's influenced by Borges, which doesn't come across in this blog. However, it also showed the things that make alliterator one of the best bloggers in the Mythos. His characters. I loved all his characters. I loved how they interacted, how they showed their feelings in actions, not in words (save for Tav and, on occasion, Agnes) and the tension that happened when you knew scary shit was going to go down. Those all showed up later in better works, bu this is both his first blog in the Fear Mythos and the first Fearblog I read.
If I were to rate it, I'd give it a 7/10 (though the remake is really clever and has the Borges feel to it, and I would honestly rate a 9/10).
Next up is Eccentrically Bored.
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