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cryptotheism · 1 year

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A Review of The Way Of The Shadow Wolves: The Deep State And The Hijacking Of America by Steven Segal

Alleged rapist and human trafficker, cop groupie, washed-up action movie star, and personal friend to Vladimir Putin, the paradox of Steven Segal is how he manages to stick around despite being –by damn near every account– a universally unpleasant vacuum of charisma. I could go on, but I feel that no introduction of Steven would be complete without the tale of the headlock. Legends tell of Steven’s conflict with legendary martial artist and hollywood stunt coordinator “Judo” Gene Lebell. Allegedly, the two fell into an argument on the set of the film Out For Justice. The crux being Steven’s claim that he was “immune” to being choked unconscious. Allegedly, LeBell called his bluff, and put the actor in a headlock. A headlock that resulted in Steven losing consciousness, and control of his bowels. Steven denies the story. He also wrote a book.

The book is garbage, but garbage in a way that can be easily overstated. I wanted to take a page from other reviewers of this book, and call the text what it is; a fever dream of exhausting mediocrity, swaddled in delusions of grandeur. I wanted to whale on it. I wanted to denounce it like some ridiculous fire-and-brimstone preacher of internet literary criticism. But this does not capture the core, the essence of Way of the Shadow Wolves. There is a paradox at the heart of this text, a contradiction that even now I struggle to describe. Because despite everything, despite the balls-to-the-walls premise, the disastrous prose, and the buckwild plot, this book is deeply and powerfully boring. To call it a fever dream is to imply that it might be exciting.

Some books are bad in a way that must be experienced firsthand. This is not one of those books. In a way, I feel that you’ve already read this book. You know Steven Segal. You met him in elementary school, when he told you he has “every black belt.” You met him in college when you tricked him into smoking a bag of oregano. You met him at your most recent family gathering, where you were trapped in an awkward one-sided conversation about “those people.” The bad-ness of Steven’s work is deeply familiar.

We have our boots. We have our waders. We have our shovels. But, before we wade into the shit, there is one more thing we need to get out of the way: The Shadow Wolves are real. In 1972 the United States government agreed to the Tohono O'odham Nation’s demand that border enforcement agents patrolling their land have at least one quarter native ancestry. The result being the specialized unit of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers known as The Shadow Wolves. In the 2020 Sonic the Hedgehog film, Dr. Eggman states that they are who trained him in the art of tracking.

WAY OF THE SHADOW WOLVES

Let us cook Way of the Shadow Wolves from scratch. Think of every dogshit C-list action movie you’ve ever seen. Ideally, you want the trash cuts of post-9/11 hysteria marbled with ex-cia heroes and vaguely arab villains. Drop it all into a stockpot. Next, roughly dice some comic books and kung-fu movies, the more racist the better. Now add some datura, it doesn't matter if it's edible or not, because you saw a native American in a movie make something like that once and you’re totally 1/64th Cherokee. Add a whole can of Qanon and a whole can of racism. Boil until you have pacing thicker than mud.

Way of the Shadow Wolves is a police procedural meets a spy thriller, a fast-paced action drama about elite agents on the fringes of the law who have the huge sweaty meaty balls to do what needs to be done for our country. It is Steven's attempt at the action schlock he embodies as an actor. Our hero is John Gode: Shadow Wolf. Reservation-born native American tracker, ICE agent, and Kung-Fu master. I believe he might have been described at one point. If he was, I do not care. Steven does not care. It does not matter. John Gode is Steven, and he’s the most badass dude to ever not be gay. He is: Special Agent Shaman Cop. He’s gonna beat up the deep state. That’s all you need to really need to know. In fact, it is shocking just how little you need to know about this book.

We begin in a movie theater, where our protagonist is alone, watching the end credits of a movie about the atrocious treatment of native Americans on behalf of the united states government. When the film finally ends, John says to himself “It’s about time.” He gets up to leave. The chapter immediately ends. My compliments to the chef. A delightfully bland apéritif of a character introduction. Steven uses the essential point of first contact with our protagonist to tell us vital information like “He doesn’t like it when movies are long.” or maybe “He didn’t like this movie about the trail of tears.” It is unclear. To quote English-Albanian philosopher Dua Lipa, “Go girl, give us nothing.”

I have been dancing around the quality of the writing. It seems impossible to approach without the footing of a new paragraph, an opponent that requires full-focus, an all-out assault. It is nigh-incomprehensible. I hate comparing bad writing to drugs. It feels too easy. But there is a specific air to Way of the Shadow Wolves. There is a distinct cadence, simultaneously manic and lethargic, that comes from attempting to write while day drunk on over-prescribed amphetamines. And make no mistake, if Steven was not entranced by the muse of Too Many Uppers And Downers At The Same Time, if he wrote this thing stone sober, that is worse. Small quotes will not do the writing style justice, you must see for yourself how sentences flow into each other:

“The desperado’s mind went back in time to a small town in Mexico twelve years before, where he first met his two cohorts when they were thrown together by a tragic set of circumstances. Their parents had been gunned down by a cartel who was at war with a competing cartel for control of the area, which was a pathway to the American border near Nogales, Arizona. All three had been shepherded to a local mission where they were being cared for by the Franciscans, who were becoming overwhelmed by the growing number of children left homeless due to the rampant killings by the warring cartels . . .”

Labyrinthine. A paragraph structure that would feel more at home with Calvino, or Garcia Marquez at his most experimental, though stripped of its deft control and musicality. Segal will regularly change temporal perspective in the middle of sentences. A single run-on sentence will begin in the past, have a middle clause in the present, and then return to the past by the end. There is a downright massive cast of characters for a 200 page book. Damn near every chapter introduces three or four more names, and we are lucky if Steven describes them before discarding them entirely. This book is a slog. I find myself losing patience with Steven.

—

Some time has passed since I began writing this review. Originally, my approach was surgical disassembly. I was going to go over the plot, summarize its anatomy, pick apart its flaws with surgical precision. But the more I cut, the more I felt as if I was the butt of a joke. I was performing an autopsy on a clown, pulling sheets of colorful rope from its gut, and the cadaver was laughing at me.

There is a moment, about halfway through. A woman approaches John at a bar. An assassin, who later attacks John in the parking lot with karate. A furious series of crescent kicks, effortlessly blocked by John Gode, who punches her in the ribs and knocks her to the ground. Realizing that her martial arts are defeated, she draws her gun, but John Gode is too fast. He fires his own weapon before she can get the shot off, killing her instantly. “Her round went upward toward the sky as she fell backward with eyes wide open, seeing nothing.”

This scene stuck with me. It illustrates one of the critical flaws at the heart of Way of the Shadow Wolves. Nothing hurts John. Nothing even gets close. He does not struggle. He does not sweat. He does not bleed. Steven clearly intends this scene to be badass, a moment where his self-insert hero defeats a dangerous enemy without trying. This book is an action movie, but John’s untouchability makes every action scene read as a moment of profound and boring cruelty. This was not a contest of master martial artists. This was an adult kicking a child in the throat.

I find myself losing patience with Steven. I am running out of humorous ways to describe this vapid tripe. This is, in my mind, the greatest condemnation of bad writing. There is no hell lower than being boring to mock. I see myself as a sort of sommelier of the awkward and disastrous. I will be the first to tell you “Wait! Don’t throw that out! There are things to be learned!” But Steven repeatedly proves himself to be a sort of Alchemist of Shit, capable of transmuting theoretically interesting bullshit into just fucking nothing. If this book deserves credit for anything, it is its miraculous ability to squander its own premise.

Why write this? Any of this? Steven clearly does not read. Or, if he does, he seems to subsist entirely on a diet of comic books about monkeys that do kung-fu. Why write this? At some level it all comes down to “because Steven wanted to” right?

Right?

But I cannot shake the feeling. To call this book masturbatory is to imply that Steven might have enjoyed it. There is a desperation to the power fantasy here. To be feared by men, desired by women, revered by all, yaddah yaddah yaddah, all the same trite excretions of blunt masculinity. But there is something else. Steven wants the same thing that every conspiracy theorist wants; a simple world. A world he can understand. Steven is exhausted, overwhelmed with a world he feels he can neither effect nor understand. I am exhausted.

I fear my earlier allusions to expressionist novels may have been more spot on than I imagined. Way of the Shadow Wolves has a plot in the sense that Sunny-D contains fruit juice. Its presence is a formality, a ceremonial hat worn for tax purposes. The plot is there, but it is unimportant. This is not a text that can be debated with. Because within the world of the text, politics is not complex. It is not actually a web of interconnected groups, each with their own interests, rivalries, alliances, and historical contexts. Behind all of it is two things: Good guys, and bad guys. The good guys are all working together, and the bad guys are all working together.

I find myself losing patience with Steven. I fear my earlier allusions to expressionist novels may have been more spot on than I imagined. Way of the Shadow Wolves has a plot.

John Gode finds a human tooth in the desert. It belongs to a body, a body of a woman described in lurid detail. Nearby, he meets a young native American man, a man who calls himself Sweet Tooth. The body is missing teeth, missing hands, missing feet. A trademark cartel killing. A young native American man. “I’m gonna be like, your assistant right?” A buddy cop dynamic. Meeting the task force. Tailing an ICE van full of cartel soldiers. A hostage situation. A shootout in the desert. Far away, faceless men in suits with masonic ranks plan a mass killing. Some sounded like they had Arabic accents. Freemasonry. Interrogation with a snake. The corpse was a woman. The woman was a reporter. She had the evidence on a flash drive, evidence that proved the existence of the deep state. What if its all connected? A sex scene, or almost a sex scene. A sex scene interrupted. A shootout in the desert. Kung Fu assassins at a bar. A cartel defector. A shootout in the desert. What if its all connected. They’re working with the Jihadists. The USA is already “half latino.” The government is paying the cartels to ship Jihadists north across the border. They’re well-trained and well armed. You can’t trust anyone. A terrorist defector who hears the voice of the prophet. The ghost of John’s grandfather. The sun sets over the Sonora. A shootout in the desert. They kidnapped John’s mother. Bring them the flash drive. They’re planning to bomb the casino. A shootout in the desert. The police chief was a traitor. The Catholics are in on it. Its all connected. A shootout in the desert. Assault by night. Rescuing the hostage. A knife dipped in pigs blood. A pit of vipers in the sonora.

Steven ends a chapter with the line. “They had functioned like a well-oiled machine that had just saved two innocent lives. All lives matter. Do they not?”

I am tired. I find myself at a neighborhood block party, trapped in a conversation I’ve had a thousand times. This time the man on the other end is a sweaty divorcee in range glasses who looks like a sunburned thumb. Last week, it was a woman with a necklace of crystals and blonde hair bleached blonder. “Haha yeah” I say, looking down at my phone. “Burgers look good this year huh?”

Thank you to my Patreon supporters who made this review possible.

#Steven Segal Review

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grimesgirll · 2 months

Text

like your weapons trainings or conditioning, getting to rick’s place for bedtime had become a nightly duty.

and okafor stressed the importance of being on time to you. after all, he needed his best soldier bright eyed and bushy tailed in the mornings.

you had to have your ass in rick’s bed by the time he was ready to hit the hay. it didn’t matter if he was planning on fucking you that night or just enjoying having another warm body around. okafor had clocked that you somehow increased the average hours of sleep rick gained each night and assigned you to a semi-permanent sleepover.

you watch from your elbows as the handsome man in front of you brushes his teeth.

this isn’t the first time okafor’s utilized your “girlish charm” or whatever the fuck he sees in you to get what he wants.

this is the farthest he’s ever asked you to go however. it was always innocent before; distracting important people, taking advantage of certain perversions to finish the mission. you shouldn’t complain. okafor did get you the job of your dreams, all things considered.

where else could you spend hours designing maps, establishing operation routes, and do it all with the help of formerly world renowned military engineers and some of the most advanced technology still left on the planet?

besides, the lieutenant colonel had kept his word; there isn’t a thing you want for at the moment. aside from the occasional homesickness which was gradually dulling into a numb, nearly nonexistent feeling, you didn’t yearn for much - only rick.

so now you spend your days in your new state of the art geospatial mapping studio and on your rare but highly anticipated surveying trips. okafor had reviewed your past surveying maps of the delaware valley with general beale and other senior staff - including rick - and your work proved fruitful enough to allow you a small team to continue surveying operations under the umbrella of logistics.

in all reality, okafor’s rewarding you handsomely.

and so is rick.

his southern drawl breaks you from your staring.

“huh?” utterly oblivious, you fall under his deep blue gaze.

“i asked you if i can turn the lights off." he repeats, fingers hovering over the light switch.

you nod. "yeah, i'm ready for bed."

the bed dips with rick's weight and like routine, you're drawn into his crushing embrace. rick liked to cuddle before bed. you don’t ask but there has to have been some wife or some woman somewhere who used to be in your position.

the soldier is stoic and stands on business, but that sour expression had begun to soften since you’d first seduced him on his sofa. little bits and pieces of a southern, east coast kind of background popped up through the twang of rick’s accent. anyone with a history with law enforcement instantly picked up on his past as a cop. you’d playfully asked if he had to cuff anyone before and just received a dim smile that started to sour until you threw yourself into his lap and cast away whatever storm clouds you’d brought on with kisses.

he’ll never outright tell you why he sleeps better with you or how he slept before he was even a consignee, but you don’t mind. the cozy embrace really gets you conked out every night, without fail. his dick does too.

that’s how you end up backing against him and tempting the hard outline that never seemed to disappear due to his size.

rick chuckles behind you but doesn’t move, just pulls you closer. "good night." he says with a kiss to the back of your head.

"night," you return, like you’re not jutting your ass backwards into him.

you’re shocked that he hasn’t said anything. rick doesn’t always take your touch so lightly. he’d punished you for teasing him in front of some of the air fleet’s officers by fingering you until you were begging to come in the repurposed law library next door just the other day.

the man only speaks up once your tight ass is rounding indisputable, deep circles against his groin. you couldn’t be anymore obvious with the gasp that flies out of you like a kite as soon as rick’s newly throbbing length twitches through his sleep pants.

“honey.”

“please, rick!” you pull out the begging already, having expected you would be fucked silly tonight.

“tonight’s not the night, darlin’.”

needy and craving the man beside you, your knees squirm. it’s only when you’re lightly kicking rick that he pays you any mind; your legs are shut closed by the force of his human hand and the prosthetic digging into your soft flesh.

the look he gives you is lacking patience. “now, what’re you doin’?”

“i need you tonight, rick,” you state plainly.

he scoffs and lets go of your thighs. “c’mon, honey, why don’t you just lay down and get a good night’s rest?” the gears are turning in your head and you’re lifting your legs and shifting between his legs before he can even try to draw you back to your pillow. he croaks your name when you start pawing at the drawstring of his pants. “honey, you need to-,”

“you need this,” you insist.

you’re not giving him enough time to complain with his sensitive head already on your tongue. rick curses his traitorous groans, and himself when he does nothing to fight against the firm hand you're utilizing to usher him onto his back.

"so, you want to relax?" he manages, despite the shudder inducing way in which fully go for it and swallow around him. midway down your throat, a light thrust and a near gag from you is all he needs to know your answer.

rick can only lean back and take what you give him. he's pretty sure that you're going to have him coming in your mouth but before he knows it, you’re face to face again. there’s no reason to be disappointed by the firm hold you still have on him with your hand. a few more sluggish licks and you’re readjusting, straddling him to tease his tip with the slick of your entrance.

"what about you?" rick’s rasping, not yet prepared after you removed him from your sweet mouth.

"what if i told you i came here ready?"

the statement has his cock jumping. you swivel slightly, clit bumping his own sensitive slippery skin. spit strewn, his head falls back at the feeling of his dick dipped into your engulfing heat - even half an inch.

“you sure, honey?”

“mhmm,” you confirm with a kiss and a grind onto him.

“really wanted it, didn’t you, darlin’?”

your confirmation comes out as a whimper. "i just wanna be full before bed. i wanna be full of you rick," and once those words leave your mouth, rick is decided and sending you from your knees to your back. he could never say no to those watery eyes.

a courtesy finger and some intricately placed kisses on your knees, thighs, and clit have you straining upwards. you're not burning for long because rick is ready to indulge you just as you wished tonight. without warning - not that you were wanting it tonight - rick fit himself as far inside your thick muscle as he could on the first thrust.

the stretch is familiar but striking enough for you to nearly double over onto him. you won’t fold in the face of your reward - at least not yet. determined to hold on, you plant two hands on the older man’s chest as you sink onto his thick length. his groans and your steady breaths are enough to lower yourself, and even fuck yourself you and down on him.

"thank you for fucking me tonight, rick." you cry through swollen lips and damp lashes. "i really need you to fall asleep," you confess in a tone no higher than a hushed hiss.

you don't know if you're expecting an answer but the quickened pace is to be expected. without a doubt, the man is sinking deeper inside of you as he forces his hips flush to yours.

"does this satisfy being full enough to fall asleep?"

the jolt he’s sending through your abdomen with each maddening plunge into you, has you fluttering around him.

“rick!”

you wake up with a hand on your ass and a breath behind you in your hair. it doesn’t last though. rick is gone before you know it and you’re left aching, craving him. you get him out of your system with your early morning physical training - pt - and a meal with your favorite fellow soldiers.

you’re not expecting to see rick again soon.

the office facing the arboretum and the airfield is typically a still place, plagued by the constant thrum of the planes and helicopters, yes, but those who worked in the building had grown accustomed to the white noise. you're so grateful everyone in your division is out at lunch when rick slams the thick wooden door open.

stirred from your half drafted map of the midwest, your head surges up. you don't have time to open your mouth before rick is talking at you in his sergeant's voice.

“there are ten minutes until i need to be down at the helicopter hanger. you need to get me off in eight.”

stunned, the command doesn't urge you to your feet just yet. it's the sudden slamming of the door that jostles you from desk to the plaid loveseat where you settle onto your knees on a cushion facing sideways.

rick shakes his head. "no, i want you on your knees on the floor in front of me. now." you sigh and carry yourself down to the polished wooden floors. "i don't have time to sit."

"why?"

"because what i said was an order. don't question it."

with that preamble, you waste no time finding his belt and expertly undoing the buckle in record time. your hands move as fast as they can given all of the work this bulky uniform requires. somehow you breeze through the layers and ignore the ache growing in your knees. your second pt of the day is going to destroy you.

as you strip down rick's thermal boxers, you wonder if he's keen on fucking you now too. perhaps you'd gotten your allotted pounding last night and this would be it for the week. you really can never know with rick.

the issue of time returns to your mind however, so when you grip his length, you only lick up and down enough to get him taking coordinated breaths through his nose and tautening.

“you’ve been demandin’ lately, doll.”

your thighs squeeze together at the nickname.

“maybe i want to be a little demandin’ of you.”

a gloved hand shoves your head down. the incentive to keep your moans quiet doubles when you hear commotion outside your office. right on time; your colleagues are returning to lunch.

“think you can quiet that big mouth enough?”

no words leave your mouth, you just swallow around his length, glancing up into his expanded pupils; almost void of blue. hollowing your cheeks, you remember the time crunch he’s in and put a little more pep into your step. this leads to you rocking a bit on your knees.

rick snorts once he catches sight of the development. “so needy, even just with a cock in your mouth, huh?” his teasing is cut off by the orgasm building up as he throbs against your tongue.

putting in the effort to counter more than a couple of gags, you allow your jaw to slack so rick can enjoy the unobstructed tightness of your throat - perfect for him to come without the mess, leaving it to your mouth.

you weren’t prepared to suck rick off in your office today but you’re determined to leave no trace of this interaction. when he spills down your throat, only a little bit remains on your reddened puffy lips. you wipe your mouth nonchalantly once rick flops out of your mouth, still gazing down at you.

“clean me up.”

an order is an order.

exhaustively, you trace patterns from his base to the spit covered tip that’s still twitching. “fuck,” he utters when you take him into your mouth again. “don’t have time for this,” he’s scolding and palming himself back into his pants, grabbing your hand to stand you up with him for some scattered kisses across your forehead.

he presses a kiss to your temple, traveling lower to embellish purple marks on your collarbone. you’re sure he’s about to do more than just wantonly groping your perky tits but a few more moan inducing punches for your nipple and he’s sealing the interaction with one wolffish kiss. you’re nearly stumbling after him when he pulls away, tugging the last of his belts on.

the door is flung shut and that’s that. rick’s gone.

you’re on rick’s bed before he retires for the night.

“good to see you again today.” you purr, nearly kicking your feet. “i’m feeling spoiled seeing you three times in one day.”

the soldier rolls his eyes. he drops his tactical bag on the ottoman in front of the bed. “you here to sleep? or mess around?”

you shrug. “your choice.”

hints of a sly smile are on the sergeant’s face but he walks away shaking his head before you can call him down to bed just yet.

you could just sleep tonight. rick had been turning you on enough for you to take a night off, preferably drifting off in his arms until you had to wake for your quarterly river survey with the geologists, engineers, and biologists in your neighboring divisions. you had a lot to prepare for come the morning. it wouldn't be terrible to unwind by getting off tonight.

the thought's put on pause once rick's arms wrap around you as he sinks into the soft, bedding. smelling of fresh toothpaste and some kind of beard balm, he’s more than ready to hold onto you like a vice for the night.

“hey.” you coo.

“hey there,” an arm escapes you to turn out the wall light still on over on his side of the bed. only the dim glow of the hallway light touches the darkened room now.

you turn slightly so rick can at least see the outline of your face - your eyes, nose, and lips in the dark. “what was that all about early?”

“hmm?”

"the asshole act earlier?"

“you needed to remember rank.”

an exasperated heave almost sends you to a seated position. “rank?”

“yes.”

the lack of playfulness in your voice has you wondrously thankful that he can’t see your eye rolls in the dark.

“that’s kinda fucked, rick.”

“says the one who just loves getting fucked.”

you shut up.

“getting on her knees, i don’t remember you complainin’ once i got you beneath me earlier today.”

you can’t say that you recall complaining either.

it feels like muscle memory when he gets you onto all fours.

set up on his knees with your cunt under his nose, rick licks a devastating stripe from top to bottom. then he’s coming back up again and squeezing muffled shrieks from you.

“you like that, honey?”

“i do, rick,” you reply breathlessly. you dig a clenched fist into the comforter. “fuck!” tears threaten your waterline already.

“like my tongue?”

“mhmm,” you writhe as he makes it his mission to bury his warm, wriggly appendage as far inside of you as he can. he’ll never be as deep as his cock but the difference in sensation has you nearly folding into the mattress.

the added finger has you squirming in conjunction with the taunting, flickering tongue working back out to your clit. eventually there’s a two pronged attempt to open you up. you’re clenching around his fingers when you hear him ask, “do you think you’re ready?”

“one hundred percent,” you breathe.

“‘kay, i need you to be one hundred percent sure of that, soldier.”

you tease on top of him at the mention, nearly jumping once you feel him at your entrance. lust centered, you nod your head assuredly. “yes, sergeant. i’m ready for your cock. ready to fulfill the mission.”

rick’s smirk and tousled curls are the last thing you see before you’re manhandled like a rag doll into the mattress.

then that rhythm that had you so worked up is paling in comparison to how full you feel with just a few inches of rick. whispering sweet praise and reminding you of the task at hand, you exhale and puff soft cheeks. the biting kisses from rick as he settles inside of you have your eyes already rolling back. his newfound rhythm only fulfills the trance you knew only ne could put you in.

crammed tight full of cock, you’re chanting his name and he’s petting your hair, praising you as you squeeze around him just excellently.

“you gonna come on my cock, soldier?”

“only if you’ll let me, sergeant.”

his balls slap against your clit, wonderfully matching the dull tap he’s testing on your cervix. it doesn’t matter though as he’s repositioning constantly and brushing the forlorn parts, placing his fingers in a painstakingly strategic position on your clit.

“want you so bad, rick.” the words tumble out as rick brings another hand from the fat of your ass to your tit. the touch has you arching, gasping and clawing at the sheets. “rick, rick!”

“love hearin’ you say my name,” he’s grunting into your hair when he lowers himself down to fuck you deeper.

this new angle that rick’s fucking you at has you incoherent. hips pistoning you into the mattress and closer to the mounting heat in your core that was threatening to ruin rick’s sheets. the pressure has tears cascading down your cheeks. if it was lighter you’d see them on the sheets but your bleary eyes only take in pillow, as your cunt takes all of rick.

a palm pushing down on the flat of your back. you sink further into the bed, allowing rick to penetrate you deeper. this newfound depth has you face down with a single trembling clawed hand to the sheets.

“rick,” you’re croaking, crying out for him.

one more thrust of his hips and you swear he’s going to break you.

he mutters a “fuck” and croons deep;

“michonne.”

pt. 1

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