“Trans gangs, deadly viruses, and Vietnam flashbacks. Vertical Run has it all. But as weâve learned from Universal Soldier 2 and Jane Eeyre alike, guns and trans gangs arenât always enough to fill that plot-shaped hole. And this is holier than the Swiss cheese the pope used to hit Jews with back in his youth.
The basic story goes like this: Dave Elliot goes into work. Itâs just an average day until his boss tries to shoot him in the back of the head and a group of goons tries over and over to kill him while he plays hide and seek in his office building. So pretty much like Die Hard, right?
No, not right. Not right at all.
For example, letâs just play the imagination game for a second. Imagine that youâre a mercenary, a hired thug who has braved the jungles of Da Nang and the deserts of somewhere else Asian that we hated. Now, imagine that your job is to kill an ex-special forces dude who works in a functioning and fully-staffed office building. Your principle advantage is that he has no idea that anyone is out to kill him. You have the full authority of the government behind you and all of its resources.
Take 30 seconds and come up with a plan to kill Mr. Elliot.
â¦
What did you decide? To get a cop uniform and take him out of the building and shoot him in an alley? To have an agent dress as a hobo and knife him on his morning jog? Or did you decide, like Ransome, the principle bad guy, to hand the job over to Elliotâs elderly boss? If you did, youâre fired from Imaginary Government.
All of this aside, letâs take a moment to compare a key Die Hard element. If you recall, Bruce Willis, when he has the chance to make a quick quip to the baddie, came up with the simple yet effective âYippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!â What is Elliotâs version? âUp your poop with an ice cream scoop.â Yeah, for real.
And what about characters? The female lead is Marge. Her real name is Marigold Fields, but she prefers Marge. Letâs demonstrate her first encounter with Elliot from her point of view, as imagined by Yours Truly:
âI was in this computer room with my boss. Heâs a jerk and he was hitting on me, saying that sleeping with him was the only way I was getting anywhere in the company. He was persistent, but I was holding my own. Then, this psycho comes out from the floor and beats the holy hell out of him. I guess I was supposed to be happy about that. He kept staring into my eyes, like he was in love or something. He managed to convince me that he was in trouble and needed help, so I agreed to help him out with his needlessly complicated plan. Once I agreed, he said I would need an alibi and then punched me in the face and knocked me out. What an ass.â
After that Dave makes his ek-scape from the building. Marge goes home, but shortly thereafter a visitor comes knocking on her door.
For some reason, the bad guys come to her house. And for some reason, they are dressed as cops (NOW you figure it out?). And for some reason, they try to convince her that she was raped while she was out cold. And for some reason, even though she turns it down, for some reason they give her a forced gynecological exam of some kind. And for some reason, even though this would surely be the most horrifying experience of most womensâ lives, for some reason she is awfully sexually inviting to Elliot when he comes back to her house after knocking her out. Oh, and stealing the cash from her wallet for some reason (really!).
I know this is getting very blow-by-blow, but bear with me. Itâs worth it, I promise you.
Out in the streets of New York, Elliot changes his appearance by bleaching his hair and combing it forward, a change that inexplicably makes everyone assume that he is gay. SUPER gay. In the span of five pages he is called Cupcake, Fruit, Pixie, and Three Dollar Bill. He appears so gay, in fact, that a trans prostitute refuses to believe that he doesnât want her services. Things escalate quickly and Elliot soon finds himself surrounded by a gang of trans folks trying to kill him.
Iâm going to stop here for a second. This should be the best book ever. I donât know why someone isnât attacked by a gang of trans prostitutes in every book, but itâs just not the world we live in. But if you found a way to weasel it in, donât let me down. Donât you let me down. This isnât a plot device you can toy with, this isnât a magic stone or some kind of elf or a wacky neighbor. This is a trans gang with straight razors. Get it together.
The most frustrating part of this book, besides everything, is that it was so full of missed opportunities. There was a brief period where Elliot is unsure whether he is experiencing things realistically or just having flashbacks, an interesting idea that is trashed right away. There is the idea of companies and government in bed together, an idea that would have been very ahead of its time, but they never bother with that either. And, of course, there is a violent trans mob. I’m sorry, I’m just not over it yet.
Thatâs most of what I want to say about the book. Oh, except for it seemed like it was redeeming itself in the last 20 pages or so only to completely screw itself over again. Not as bad as âIt was all a dream,â but about as close as you care to get.
Overall, Vertical Run was a lot like the onion that fell behind my microwave: Never really great in its own right, signifying potential, and only worse as it aged.”