Satire

The Proud & The Dumb by Bob Freville

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The Proud & The Dumb manages to be simultaneously hilarious and depressing, irreverent and poignant. There’s a message in Freville’s story. Sadly, the people who should benefit from that message are probably just as incapable of reading at the appropriate grade level as Liam, Connie, and Gunther. It’s up to the rest of us to enjoy this bitter, sarcastic, and cynical glimpse into an evening amidst a small crew of white nationalists in the midwest.
Nothing is quite as it seems, and least of all Curry, the compatriot this trio of imbecilic alt-right gentlemen suspect of being a closet-libtard. Desperate to keep his former associates from killing him in cold blood, Curry talks circles around the other three, calling into question the coherence and consistency of the beliefs they supposedly stand for in their neverending battle against immigrants, homosexuals, and liberals. But is it simple desperation or a more sinister objective pushing Curry to test the limits of the tolerance of his three former friends, as well as their intellects?
While there isn’t much wit to be found in the characters populating this novelette, from the trio of alt-right fellas to the police who find themselves dealing with this unfortunate assortment of dregs, there’s plenty of wit in Freville’s storytelling. He expertly showcases examples of the seemingly limitless barrage of inconsistent, incoherent, and–frequently–incompatible beliefs espoused by groups just like those featured in The Proud & The Dumb. Within these few pages, we’re exposed to so many contradictory statements from the characters that we can only wish it was satire; but that same duration spent listening to people who travel in these social circles would quickly erase any hope of that being true.
The truest absurdity of this tale is that the truth is stranger than fiction.

This story was released on http://www.godless.com during the AntiChristmas event for December of 2021. You can obtain it for yourself by going to the website or downloading the Godless app to your mobile device. The link is below:

The Proud & the Dumb by Bob Freville

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

What the Hell Did I Just Read by David Wong

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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.

This book, along with the two previous installments in the series, was handed to me by this beaten up concrete snowman I’ve always had. It only has one arm and it’s covered in bird droppings, but it occasionally has excellent suggestions as far as reading material is concerned.
This was one of those times, not the others.
This book felt more mature, in a sense, than the previous two in the series…the personal relationships between the characters felt more visceral and true to life, and there was a miasma of despair that sort of flowed through the whole narrative in a way that led to everything coming across as more real even though this story was just as full of surrealism and insanity as the previous two.
I will be sorely disappointed if there aren’t further adventures of Dave, John, and Amy…now featuring not Joy Park.