On Books: The Terrible Thing That Happens by Carlton Mellick III

I love a good post-apocalyptic novel; I really do. Technically this book is more of a novella than a novel, but damn. It's just so BIZARRE. And dark. And sssoooooo creative. And violent. And crude. 

So, in short, all of my favorite things.

I'd never heard of Carlton Mellick III before, but the poor bastard's officially been added to my list of authors I'll stalk badly and I've only read ONE of this books. Although, on second thought, maybe I should be a bit more careful stalking this particular author given the titles of some of his other books:

• Satan Burger
• The Haunted Vagina
• The Baby Jesus Butt Plug
• Zombies and Shit
• Adolf in Wonderland

Eh. I stalked Palahniuk and he writes happily about serial killers, so I think I'll be okay. Maybe. Anyway, if I survive our inevitable encounter I've got Punk Land on my shelf right now and Satan Burger in my Amazon cart, so I'll probably post a review here when I read them. This guy's writing style and choice of subject matter are so unique I just cannot wait to get more.

I can only imagine how twisted and bizarre these other books are after picking up The Terrible Thing That Happens. Even the freaking Introduction was fun to read, and before I even noticed I'd blasted through the whole novella. Somehow this magnificent mutant of a human created an insane, inexplicable, totally bizarre world, populated it with some of the most insane, repulsive, and grotesque monsters, then threw in an inexplicable regenerating grocery store/mass murder crime scene, and not once did I put the book down in disbelief. Somehow. Somehow. This guy makes you buy into all of this crazy shit and just accept it. And that ending man. OUCH. Heartbreakingly believable (in the context I suppose). 

Before you go grab all the guy's stuff though, as you might have assumed from the title list above, this book isn't for everybody. I mean there's definitely a bit about jerking off into a tin can to make mutant babies. It's not super graphic or anything, at least about the sex stuff, but if that's gonna squick you out maybe go read Moby Dick or something. Plus there's parts where people get exploded and apparently that's also hard for normal people to read. 

If you've read John Dies at the End or The Unnoticables, or you've got an affinity for Tank Girl comics or Mad Max, you're going to ADORE this book. If you prefer Victorian Lit to gritty, innovative, postmodern fiction, we're probably not friends and that's okay. 

In other news, Nick Harkaway, author of The Gone Away World (one of my favorite books OF ALL TIME - I should really write about it here cuz HOW HAVE I NOT), Angelmaker, and Tigerman (all GREAT go read them) just announced the publication date of his new book: Gnomon. I'm so goddamn excited.

On Books: You should read books all day long.

So I love books. I love starting them, finishing them, talking about them while drunk, hearing about them from drunk people.

 Books are lovely. Even the terrible ones are lovely. Twilight is complete trash and I fed it to my rodents but it was also wonderful. If that twat can get published well then hope is not dead for the rest of us. Even the rodents couldn't quite choke it down completely; there's still a bit of the spine getting crapped on in the corner under the water bottle.

 I got a Kindle and it's just not the same. On the one hand I had an entire library ratting around in my purse, it stayed charged for a billion years and I never had to worry about getting pizza sauce on the pages. I can also read complete trash without anybody ever knowing. Sadly this also meant I could never show off whenever I decide to re-tackle Atlas Shrugged before admitting that I'm actually a terrible person who will probably never finish it. You also can't force Kindle books on your friends which is my absolute favorite thing to do.

Just finished Nick Harkaway's The Gone-Away World and that man is a goddamn genius. I then proceeded to get all action-novel happy and burnt through his almost-as-awesome Angelmaker. I'm currently working on reviews of those two books, and then I'll go through John Dies at the End  and This Book Is Full of Spiders.

At least that's the plan. Let's hope I don't go all Atlas Shrugged up in here.