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Book Fuck Club: The Shadow God

August 23, 2012 in Book Fuck Club

Alright!  It’s time for our long overdue discussion of Aaron Rayburn’s sprawling satanic epic, The Shadow God.

In many ways, this book was worse than Moon People.  In fact, it was entirely worse than Moon People.  Although Rayburn seems, at the very least, to know how to use spell check and seems to have a high-school level grasp of sentence structure (something that Dale Courtney can’t claim,) this book was just awful.

But let’s talk about what made it so awful in the comments.

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  • Latterday Lenin

    Before this can commence, I need to shotgun at least two micheladas. Be right back!

    • Chillbear Latrigue

      I just cracked open a bottle of Malbec. Let’s flush this excrement!

  • Latterday Lenin

    Was anyone else as shocked as I was when it turned out that Spiers was both a werewolf AND a vampire?

    • Chillbear Latrigue

      To be honest, I was. Even in the worst novels, few authors are brave enough to combine two cliche monsters.

      • Latterday Lenin

        I was like, WHAT?!?

        • Chillbear Latrigue

          When you combine two monsters, it’s like you put one scare and one scare together and you get scare to the power of infinite.

          I’m just realizing that I can see you typing and it informs me when there is a response. I’m starting to like Disqus (in spite of the novelty spelling).

          • Latterday Lenin

            I would have preferred Dyssqkuss

          • Chillbear Latrigue

            I’m just excited that there’s no need to refresh. Back to the book. Wasn’t the dark world fascinating? I mean, I just kept hoping they would visit this giant void of nothingness.

          • Latterday Lenin

            Oh, yeah. Large, dark, completely flat, featureless spaces always make for such vivid imagery.

          • Chillbear Latrigue

            It was like they could walk forever without finding an old man to kill. I thought it was funny how they were all waiting around for this magical time to occur and none of the main evil people knew which people they were supposed to kill and which ones they weren’t. “Idiot, he was the only one who could kill Craig. What’s the matter with you.” “Oh, you never mentioned that before now. Had you said something, I might not have killed him.”

          • Latterday Lenin

            I thought if I read the words “The Dark World,” “The Shadow God,” Friends ’til the end,” or “blue light” one more time, I was going to ditch my Kindle in a public toilet. I mean, IN the toilet.

          • Chillbear Latrigue

            “The blue light” is as to “Shadow God” as “cocking his head to one side” is to ________ ?

          • Latterday Lenin

            Hah! My lip is quirking with laughter. This beer is delicious.

  • Chillbear Latrigue

    This is a character guide:

    Craig: The main friend of the three identical friends.
    Todd: The atheist who won’t curse.
    Mark: The pervert who likes guns.

    These are the only things that distinguish one from the other.

    • Latterday Lenin

      Yeah, that’s basically it. Then there are two types of females; moms, and sluts.

      • Chillbear Latrigue

        Well, Todd’s mom was banging Spiers. She’s like the vampire-werewolf of mom-sluts.

        • Latterday Lenin

          Then there’s the girl (forgive me, I can’t remember her name) who goes from being a slut with a nice little succulent Mark-virgin pussy, whatever that means, to being a legitimate rape victim.

  • Latterday Lenin

    So, I’m fairly convinced that Rayburn is a virgin, or at least was one when he wrote this book. Remember early on when he got all defensive of male virgins, and was all, “Most guys who make fun of other guys for being virgins are virgins themselves.” I thought he was showing his hand a little too much there. What do you think?

    • Chillbear Latrigue

      Yeah, I remember my mom telling me that when I was a legitimate virgin to make me feel better about my legitimate virginity.

      I finally lost it.

      • Latterday Lenin

        Also, I’m confused about the odd, almost “token” moments of racism and homophobia. They were sort of tossed into the weirdest places, and the way the author wrote them, it was as if he just expected us, his readers, to agree with the characters.

        Remember when they were driving down the street and saw a “group of black people” hanging out, and someone (I want to say it was Craig,) said “I wonder what they’re doing?” and the other person (Mark, I’m pretty sure, though it could have been Mark who said the first thing and Craig the second,) replied, “It’s never something good, is it?”

        I was like, THE FUCK?

        Though I suppose I shouldn’t be looking for political correctness in this kind of novel.

        • Chillbear Latrigue

          Yeah, the word “fag” was thrown around with wild abandon.

          I like when they would say something like, “Or should I call you Abel.” What a clever way of bringing in that plot point.

  • Latterday Lenin

    I’m going to post some of my favorite quotes. Here’s one of them:

    “Craig forced the sword into the dragon’s hide and into its heart. It slid in easily enough, as if the dragon’s hide was made of tenderized meat.”

    • Chillbear Latrigue

      Hah. I remember that one. I had forgotten to highlight it.

    • Latterday Lenin

      Here’s the Margie scene

      Margie had almost gotten him there. Craig had to pull back several times before he had an accident all over her face. That would be something he would probably never live down.

      “I want you inside me,” said Margie, lying on her back.

      Craig was so caught up in the moment that he climbed on top of her in a heartbeat. He was about to enter her when Margie hesitated, pulled open a drawer at the bedside table, and took out a condom. “Let’s use this,” she said. “I don’t want no babies.” She smiled. “At least not right now, do you?”

      Craig shook his head, tore open the square package and slid the rubber over his hardened cock. He guided himself and entered her. Margie squirmed and was moaning and groaning so erotically that it aroused him even more.

      There is no way this guy has ever been laid before.

      • Latterday Lenin

        Oh, I forgot:

        “Margie began moving her hips in a way Craig thought was out of this world.”

        • Chillbear Latrigue

          What about the way that they would recruit people for the SGAA or whatever it was called? “He likes guns and whores. We’ll take him.” I would have never stood a chance.

          • Latterday Lenin

            How did they get the nurse’s aide or whatever? Ginny? I can’t remember. Obviously she wasn’t into guns and whores.

          • Chillbear Latrigue

            Boob job?

      • Chillbear Latrigue

        “In a heartbeat.” hah. I think they used that a lot.

        • Latterday Lenin

          “Blue-vein throbber” has to be one of the most unappealing words for penis I have come across.

          Also, ejaculating on women’s faces was an oddly central theme to this book.

          “This was going to be a big one. He could feel it. This was going to be the most powerful one yet. He couldn’t wait to shoot it across her face.”

          This, again, leads me to believe that the author’s sexual experiences have been limited to pornography.

          • Chillbear Latrigue

            The facial stuff is a pretty common theme among men their age. I actually thought that was sort of genuine. The “friends until the end” talk wasn’t. I’m still with you though. The author is at least repressed sexually.

          • Latterday Lenin

            Oh, yeah. It was definitely genuine. Those seemed to be the moments when Rayburn seemed to relate most to his characters.

            Alright, it’s been an hour. I’m normally more enthusiastic about these things, but goddamn, this was one inane book. I don’t know how much more I have to say. I’m done if you are, I guess…

            Shall we meet back here in a month to discuss “Fucking James Franco?”

          • Chillbear Latrigue

            Deal. I actually joined a real book club where we meet in person and discuss books that aren’t supposed to be horrible. We just read American Pastoral. Great prose. Dull book.

          • Latterday Lenin

            Cool. If I have anything more to say about this book, I’ll say it here. Similarly, I’ll look for new comments from you. Until next time!

          • misslinda

            Yes, I am going to read the fuck out of Fucking James Franco.