bizarro

The Second Cumming Book 1: All Outta Virgins by Matthew A. Clarke

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Look at the person to your right.
Now, look at the person to your left.
Both of them are terrorists.
Also, you’re a terrorist.
In Matthew A. Clarke’s The Second Cumming Book 1: All Outta Virgins, that’s the world we’re living in. Everyone has become part of one faction of terrorists or another. That includes the ragtag members of ANT (Anti Terrorists) we come to know during this first installment in the Second Cumming series. Believe it or not, that is the least crazy element of the story.
What we have here is a non-stop barrage of bizarro, both in imagery and in substance. One of the protagonists is a sentient, humanoid pile of shit, after all.
The best part is that all of this is only the beginning.
All of this is nothing more than the setup. The story takes off when Jesus shows up–oozing cum from every hole in his body–with a mad proposition and a whole lot of violence in mind.
Clarke has masterfully crafted a violent, pornographic satire, blending The Passion of the Christ with Battle Royale.

You can pick up your own copy of Clarke’s first installment in this new series at http://www.godless.com or through the Godless app. The best part is that it’s free. He’s giving you a taste, just to get you hooked…much as a drug dealer might. The link is below:

The Second Cumming Book 1 (All Outta Virgins) by Matthew A. Clarke

You Will Be Consumed…by This Riveting Tale

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Ignore, if you can, the “For Rectal Use Only” sticker I’ve affixed to the cover of this proof copy of my novella, You Will Be Consumed.

I know it’s difficult.

Some of you might find yourselves asking whether that’s a reference to the contents being best suited for use as toilet paper. I can assure you the paper utilized in printing this book is definitely inferior to most toilet paper on the market. You may find yourself wondering if I’m implying that you should attempt to roll the book into a tube of sorts for rectal insertion. I don’t recommend that. You may find yourself in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife. You may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” If those things are true, you’re probably somehow existing within the amazing song Once In a Lifetime by Talking Heads.

At this point, I’m sure you’re wondering what the hell this post is all about. You’re not alone. I think I might have forgotten that salient detail as well.

Of course, I’m joking.

I just wanted to remind you that it’s time to pick up your own copies of You Will Be Consumed…and the amazing publisher I worked with on this title, Madness Heart Press, has guaranteed that there are outlets available for anyone.

Amazon, of course, is available as an option:

You can also purchase the book in either physical or digital copy directly from the Madness Heart Press website at the link below:

You Will Be Consumed

However, if you’re interested in a digital copy of the novella, and you really don’t want to support Amazon…but you do want to show support for indie authors and small press publishers of horror titles…there’s another place you can go.

Drew Stepek, a fantastic author and an avid supporter of the indie horror literature scene, has assembled something amazing.

Check out Godless at the following link:

You Will Be Consumed by Nikolas P. Robinson

While you’re there…please spend some time perusing the available titles. This is a great distribution option for small presses, self-published horror authors, and fans to come together without Amazon lining their already bulging pockets in the process.

That’s all.

I wanted to peddle my new novella some more, and I really wanted to encourage everyone to visit Godless.

Hummingbird Salamander by Jeff VanderMeer

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My first exposure to Jeff VanderMeer was my purchase of City of Saints and Madmen in May of 2006. I was in my mid-20s and exploring more surreal literature; strange fantasies and bizarro being the two genres I was most greedily diving into. Upon reading that peculiar assortment of strange tales and explorations of the fantastic city of Ambergris, I could hardly wait to read more of his work.
I’ve been a fan since that time 15 years ago, and VanderMeer has not disappointed me since.
Hummingbird Salamander is a bit different from his other works, taking place neither in a feverish land of nebulous division between dreams and waking life nor in a future version of our world, transformed by otherworldly forces. Instead, this novel takes place in the here and now, though perhaps not quite the way you or I would recognize it in subtle ways.
We are first introduced to a mildly paranoid digital security consultant who serves as our unreliable guide through the events that unfold as she begins her journey to unravel a mystery that remains at least somewhat unclear as you reach the final page. It should be said, that if you go into one of this author’s books expecting clarity and a tidy resolution, you’re probably in the wrong place.
Elements of mystery and layered narratives are far from uncommon within VanderMeer’s work, but this particular story showcases the excellence of the suspense form when lovingly crafted by his mind and hands.
Familiar themes from his work are on vivid display within this narrative, ecological concerns, curious uncertainties relating to identity and the self, and suggestions that what is real might not be quite so clear as we commonly understand it to be.

You Will Be Consumed Preorder

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There’s less than a month to go until my novella, You Will Be Consumed, is released by Madness Heart Press.

This bizarro/splatterpunk novella will serve as an introduction for many of you to a shared world for a handful of upcoming novels, novellas, and short stories…the world of The Hungering Void. Welcome to a world where gods are not what we’ve long believed them to be, where demons might not be the bad guys, and where the very fabric of reality appears to be deteriorating. Elements of cosmic horror and splatterpunk meld together to create a phantasmagoric tale of nightmare becoming our reality.

In this novella, you’ll be introduced to detectives Lauren (Ren) Thomas and Martin Garcia as they investigate a surge of strange homicides taking place in and around Denver, Colorado. You’ll also meet Stephen Lee, the medical examiner who unfortunately has to help them unravel the mystery surrounding these peculiar and gruesome murders. These flawed and all-too-human characters are faced with reality-defying crimes that might just push them beyond the edge of sanity.

The novella is presently available to preorder in Kindle format through Amazon. You can’t help but love that cover artwork designed by John Baltisberger of MHP. He did a fantastic job of designing not only the cover art, but also the interior layout.

You can also preorder either digital or paperback editions of the novella directly through the Madness Heart Press website linked below.

You Will Be Consumed

This will not be the end of the story. You can expect to see Ren and Martin in future releases as they continue what could be an impossible battle to restore some amount of sanity to the world they find themselves struggling to understand.

Additionally, my short story, Yeshua and Adonai is available in Kindle format, providing a different sort of introduction to the world of The Hungering Void.

Jurassichrist by Michael Allen Rose

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It all starts when Jesus Christ botches his second coming most spectacularly in Michael Allen Rose’s new book, Jurassichrist.
It’s time, the designated hour and day has reached us. J.C. leaps into the stream of spacetime to arrive just when humanity needs his return, full of confidence and righteousness. He does not stick the landing. Instead of arriving two millennia after his departure, he arrives on Earth a few hundred million years before he’d been born. Time is tricky like that. He can’t really be blamed, though, can he? We’re all guilty of being attracted to shiny things…he did see a bright blue pulsing light and he aimed for it.
Muddy, disoriented, and chagrined, J.C. finds himself in the age of thunder lizards, unsure how he’s supposed to get crucified for a return trip home and a fresh start. Utilizing his knowledge of 1980s action movies and his divine power to materialize firearms, Jesus doesn’t sit idly by to become dinosaur chow. Soon enough, he’s covered in as much blood as mud as he cautiously approaches the source of the blue light that shouldn’t exist in this place and time.
He’s soon forced to face the fact that what he thought he knew about dinosaurs is entirely wrong. More disturbing than that, the mammals (barely more than rodents) appear to be addicted to “As Seen On TV” trinkets, and they’re evolving quite alarmingly in response.
That’s when things get weird.
This book is packed with so many absurdities and so much drama it’s almost too much to describe. It’s a mystery that leads J.C. through various planes of existence and points in time. It’s an adventure story, complete with dungeons and traps. It’s a story of friendship emerging under the strangest of circumstances. It’s Band of Brothers, but with dinosaurs…and saviors…and time travel…
Ok…so it’s not really Band of Brothers at all.
What it is, is fantastic and hilarious, sacrilegious and utter lunacy…it’s a must-read.

The Mind Is a Razor Blade by Max Booth III

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This review was originally written in the summer of 2015. As you can probably tell from the picture above–as well as other, more recent reviews–I’m a bit of a fan of this particular author.

I went into The Mind Is a Razor Blade by Max Booth III without any expectations and no knowledge of the plot beyond what the back cover provided.
It starts off sporadic and disorienting, perfectly conveying the state of mind of our protagonist, the very definition of an unreliable narrator.
A man wakes up naked in a river with a corpse nearby and no idea who he is, who the corpse is, or how either of them got there. In the first few minutes of reading the book our protagonist has stolen a coat from a corpse, shot a man numerous times, and made a stumbling but successful escape from the police.
Believe it or not, the story gets crazier from there on out. As our protagonist begins getting a marginally better grasp on who he is and what is going on the narrative simply becomes more bizarre and disturbing along the way, keeping the narrator on his toes (and, by extension, the reader as well).
Through the protagonist, we become unwilling tourists through a city driven mad by drug use, organized crime that crosses into the supernatural while exhibiting the hallmarks of a cult, and inhuman creatures that hunt for organs from the populace…also, there are spiders, lots of spiders. In the midst of all of this, there is also redemption and at the core a sense that love can transcend even the most horrific experiences.
This book contained all of the best elements of noir, horror, a sort of perverse humor, and surrealism. If you’re a fan of the movie Dark City or the book John Dies At the End, this is definitely something you might want to check out.

Welcome To Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

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I’m copying over some reviews of titles I’d written up in 2018 and earlier, just in case these titles are new for other people.

Welcome To Night Vale by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor is definitely an interesting read, especially if your tastes lean toward the absurd and surreal.
It ranks up there with Douglas Adams (think Dirk Gently rather than Hitchhiker’s Guide) and David Wong, but with a bit less cohesion and rationality behind the narrative and the setting. That sounds like a bad thing, but it really isn’t…it’s refreshing to read something so ridiculous that still manages to be captivating and entertaining, because that is something a great many authors just can’t pull off.
Throughout this novel, none of the absurdity and randomness ends up feeling like it’s there just to be there or simply to categorize the story as being bizarre or strange. Somehow the authors manage to make it all feel like it furthers the plot, and there is one of those…a plot.
Reading this book makes me want to listen to more of the podcast that started it all, maybe from the beginning through the present (which would likely take up more time than I really want to invest). It’s a statement about the quality of the book that I would actually want to spend more time visiting the fictional, semi-lucid nightmare town that is Night Vale and hopefully they will opt to write another novel or two so that I don’t have to immerse myself in the podcast.
As long as I don’t have to visit the library to read them, I’ll be ok.