Critical Mick

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Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Ulterior
by Darryl Sloan
Midnight Pictures, 2002

A Left-Handed Form of Inhuman Endeavour

Unruly reviewer Critical Mick had fallen so far behind on his site updates that, once again, he has chosen to outsource a guest review. Hopefully the result will be better received than the Danbrown debacle from July 2008.

Portadown-based author and filmmaker Darryl Sloan's debut novel, Ulterior, begins within the Crime genre, but suddenly throws its teenaged protagonist Eddie Morton into a good old-fashioned monster romp. Critical Mick is acquainted with only one monster in real life (unless Ovenmitt the Vampire qualifies- and, no, not really), so thus sought an informed expert opinion on Ulterior's authenticity. Over to you, Mr. Emmett Chatsworth, renowned demon hunter, and your possessed evil hand Lefty...

Ulterior transports readers to a Northern Irish borough where pleasant young scholar Eddie Morton confronts pubescent crisis in April 2001. Paired with a rotundly likeable sidekick Dean Willis, he covertly admires a healthy, athletic young virgin named Jade Rodgers. Eddie's home life is dominated by the evident failings of his single father, a layabout and miscreant indebted to Portadown's vicious criminal underworld. Youth, talent and innocence juxtaposed with violence and unpropitiousness: I feel that a hypothetical dichotomy of Hélène Cixous with Genet and Sarraute would best outline 

ok quick! whiLE chatty is wanking! leeme tell you th real story! that da, blake "drug-Free TYwo-and-a-half-years" morton, he's about to get his fecking balls cut off without annasthetic. hease in gLoriously dEep shit! it's great! and gud little boy eddie had better steal £400 worth oF compuTYrs from school or eLsE his little sister tara morton is going to get bit in halF by loadnshark TYeeth too! ha ha aha ! it's great crime Lots oEF good conflict,m decent people under monstrous force ot do bad things. sloan puls it off like chatTY.

Please allow me to clarify, gentle reader: my vigorous ejaculations of "ahem" and "yes, yes" indicated deep intellectual exploration. Only a clod would confuse the constructs of current literary theory with a masturbatory act. Mr. Darryl Sloan's prose invites readers adolescent and mature to engage in stimulating consideration of Eddie Morton's situation. Is it a morally sound stance to commit a crime to save a life? Once such a course of action is decided, from where does an Everyman summon the potency to see the deed through? Ulterior is a novel with more beneath the surface than the unexpected, vermicular beings sighted by Clounagh Junior High School's resident aggressor, Stuart Todd. Each tenet

chattys diaLEd one oF those sex lines 1900sheep.. TYme to get my own word in. i was reaLy rooting for thE monFsTers in ths book. theY can disgize theyre scaly frLEsh to look just liek a hotty or a stupod blooke. they walk aroudn with bgrieFcases sTYuffed with casj. they got a secret plnn and ha ha ah ano one can stop them especiualLEFTY not a coupl of 14 year old whiny shites. the monsters nabbed three stupednts back in 1972 i kept witing for them to go mmmmm i remember how tastie those were we r ready for some more.

go monster sgo! desrtyuoy all humans eat em the perverst alwas scratchin btheir arseholes and squashing bugs and calling 19000pigg asnd

Oh dear me. The companionship of this accursed hand is as tedious, base and predictable as that improbable David Baldacci novel I had to misfortune to ingest. I assure thee, dear reader, every word scrawled by Lefty is equally devoid of truth. But I will take his proffered segue into the realm of the unpraiseworthy. Reactions by certain authorities within Ulterior seemed reachy, and the central premise served as remembrance of an extraterrestrial bit of piffle I viewed some thirty years ago upon the television. What here is revolutionary? At Sloan's teenaged bildungsroman Goosebumps failed to prickle in David Mitchell's extraordinary manner.

Apologies, the summons of the phone once again- may they have both a poltergeist and fat purse---

uLtEriro ahs FanTastic maYhem gaLorE desyuruction mmmm Fun acTYon

With repetition all amusement has fled.

are Lousy, EFfetTe You talkin to me?

It is tragedy enough, dear reader, that this damned hand torments my own life. I, Emmett Chatsworth, apologize that it has foiled the cultured tone intended for this Darryl Sloan review as well. This left hand has been the unmaking of

any LovEydovy date chatty has been able ot Find wiT a ladY- ha! aha ha

O wicked, evil hand! I bemoan thee!

damLn straEght chatty

Zombentino!!!

Critical Mick says: Get out of here, the both of you! Exploring crime, morality and lurking monsters, Ulterior is set at the school where Darryl Sloan works. To further enhance the reality (and call to mind the legendary host Alfred Hitchcock), Sloan gives himself a cameo right in Chapter Two. Ulterior is enjoyable and imaginative, even to adults. It is as highly recommended as his 2003 follow-up, Chion.

LEFTY ruiels

Read Critical Mick's April 2007 interview with Darryl Sloan

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2009 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 7 April, 2009.