GAME OVER A Review

Oh sweet almighty...this thing is 31 pages long?!

Well I'd better get started *sigh*

This is the aptly titled GAME OVER by Nickolaus Pacione. I say aptly titled, because just like Hudson in Aliens I found myself shouting that very phrase after every paragraph hoping the horror would stop.

The story begins with Eugine (Eugine Judas Verner, yes the person who betrayed Jesus) a magazine editor fretting over deadlines. Eugine is the polar opposite of Nicky: He wants PVC, not denim, won't print blue collar authors, He'll accept anything in his magazine, except for "these damned blue collar takes of Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits – Rod Serlings with long hair and listen to Metallica,”

In other words, this is someone who rejected Nicky irl and this story is revenge. Putting Judas in the guy's name tells you what Nicky thinks of himself. First three paragraphs and we have a baddie already!

Someone (probably Nicky) doesn't like Eugine. After all, someone went through the trouble of not only making a voodoo doll of him, but tacked it on to a dartboard, THEN sent Eugine a videotape of said stalker playing darts with it aiming specifically for the doll's genitalia. Yep, that's Nicky! Well they don't know that yet, but they suspect it's a "factory worker" horror author who can apparently write death scenes really well. I keep expecting the character you KNOW is supposed to be Nicky to keep calling up Eugine asking him to "play Misty for me" or boil his rabbit in a kettle, but then I remember it's Nicky and just like the real world, he won't actually lift a finger to do anything to his foes.

Eugene is also unsettled by a writer who comes from Glendale Heights high school who is often pictured wearing denim jeans, jungle boots...your basic Sear's Do It Yourself Metal Outfit. Eugine knows his girlfriend collects this author's work.

This author, the ying to Eugine's yang, has been known to drink blood twice a year to keep himself healthy but wears a Lord's Gym hoodie because he's Christian.

(I don't want to read this anymore! Please! The rest of it is everything Nicky it's like I entered a wet dream of his I feel dirty! Please let me stop?! Aw man!)

k...*deep breath* this magazine, "In The Depths", is the "Reader's Digest of horror" and it doesn't post any erotic content but has a "Conservative slant" to it. *sigh* seeing it freaks everyone out...it's really scary...Lucifer...The Lord...scary...Eugine shits himself because if she has a "flesh and blood" it means this author has their address (I don't blame him there and so far I'm totally rooting for Eugine) lots of other self spanking...someone named Jerry Osborne...friend has a metal band...zzzzzz

Oh here comes some action! Eugine, the hero, opens a note presumably from (Nicky) or someone in his magazine, and upon opening it, Eugine suffers welts and pain as each dart hits his voodoo doll. These guys really DO have teh spooky powers because THEY SENT THE DOLL AND DARTBOARD TO EUGINE ALREADY HOW CAN THEY BE USING IT IF HE HAS IT?!?!

See what you make me do Nicky?

Eugine has enough (I feel you brosef) and denounces the "In The Depths" magazine because it's sooo spooky it has his girlfriend praying every night. Eugine declares he's going to keep his readers by using a picture of two women making out on the cover. He believes this will get the Christian fanatics who think he should be saved off his back (but wait...if he publishes more smut...won't they just...*sigh*) something that will say "'Read me fucker!'"

From there we get the typical shit you expect, like people just happening to have a feeling they can't describe, being scared of shit they can't describe, visions of all the things Nicky has obsessed about over the years, basically these poor people just wanted to have an "alternative lifestyle" magazine but they are being harassed by...wait for it...the "Southlands Blue Collar Horror Movement".

Non-believer! Dost thou still doubt this was scribed by Nickolaus Pacione? Then feast thine eyes upon this single sentence!

"...some of them were photographed wearing a Master of Puppets shirt and some drawn sitting with Edgar Allan Poe and Rod Serling in a diner."

This is so incredibly Nicky it's not funny. Well it is actually, it's hilarious (Nicky sends Eugine a picture of a pair of eyes that stares at him for two hours. How...why wouldn't he just...) but because it's prime Nicky, it also is dripping with his hypocrisy. For example, Nicky dares to have a line that says "Talk about being disrespectful of the dead" yet, yes you know where I'm going with this, that's right, he mentions an author in an anthology who is no longer with the living.

After being harassed by (Nicky) for some time, eventually every contributor to Eugine's fine literary publication all die. Some kill themselves, some are killed, some O.D., there are even shark attacks. Yes I typed that correctly, there is a figurative then literal shark attacks. One of them, Jessica Wagner, is a not-anywhere-near-subtle reference to Jenny aka Horrorgal. This person damned their eternal soul by taking some of (Nicky's) work and using it and the characters as her own. The irony is that someday the real Jenny will probably get a copy of this story and laugh at what she's supposed to FEAR OH NOES!

Of course Eugine and Jerry wind up in a diner that's hell I guess, they both have feelings of impending doom, which turn out to be right because they and all the contributors wind up in eternal hell suffering damnation. The End.

***Here's the tl;dr version

- Eugine is a successful editor who won't accept (Nicky's) work. Nicky is a vampire who HAUNTS HIM FROM FAR AWAY LIKE EVERY OTHER REVENGE STORY OF HIS until he and all those who were his friends die horrible deaths and go to hell. The End. ***

This was just like every other Nicky revenge fantasy, although I must say I was surprised that he made himself a vampire. I had heard rumor he was a Twilight fan (I already knew he was a fan of Lestat, his old blog entries on ETT show he was an Anne Rice fanboy back in the day) however, I have a hard time believing he *could* be a vampire. I'm supposed to believe the same guy who forgets to take his meds at conventions then passes out and gives himself Bell's Palsy stays healthy by drinking blood? For that matter, I'm supposed to believe he's healthy?

I give this one out of four pairs of denim jeans. Now if you'll excuse me, Suicide Hotline awaits me...