Taking a look this month at August Hill’s Division X, GUSH: Tales of Vaginal Horror by Gina Ranalli, The Best of Bizarro Fiction Volume 1 from Planet Bizarro Press, Night Birds by Lisa Snellings and Alan M. Clarke, and Robert Essig’s Mojave Mud Caves.
Title: Division X
Author: August Hill
Publisher: Brother Mockingbird
Website: http://www.brothermockingbird.org
I admit, I have myriad complex and conflicting feelings about this book. Even now, after taking a break to think about it before attempting to write this review. And I honestly don’t know if I can adequately convey those feelings in a way that makes sense.
You know Schrodinger’s Cat? The “is it or isn’t it” when it’s simultaneously both and neither, and nobody can know one way or the other? You know Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, where the more you understand one aspect, the more it changes the others? Those are the closest I can come to expressing the vibe I got while reading it.
Did I like it? Yes and no. It did things I should normally dislike, but in ways that worked … while at the same time doing things I should normally like, but in ways that I didn’t. The writing style overall put me in mind of a movie-maker laying it all out in detail for the entire production team, with “telling” of character info and descriptions.
The descriptions, though, wow … it’s visual to the point of being downright cinematic … the action scenes are tight and tense and fast-paced, the special effects (particularly gore and creature-feature stuff) are freakin’ outstanding. It starts off plunging into the deep end of a big-budget bloodsoaked monster-hunter horror blockbuster, then shifts to a more MiB / secret agency training type thing, with episodes of at least three different seasons of a sassy dark-comedy paranormal series mixed in, and it’s both all-over-the-place but weirdly cohesive at the same time.
Can you tell I’m struggling here? I mean, under other circumstances, I woulda/shoulda been annoyed as heck, even as I was puzzled and compelled and strangely fascinated. Maddening isn’t the word I want here, but it perhaps comes closest.
What’s it about, you may wonder? Well, in the broadest stroke overview, there’s this young woman who survives a family-slaughtering werewolf attack, to end up “recruited” into a shadowy agency for training to be dispatched to battle other supernatural menaces, while nobody’s telling anybody anything and everybody’s trying to figure out what’s going on.
Probably the best option here is to read it yourself … then get back to me and let me know if I was even close!
**
Title: GUSH: Tales of Vaginal Horror
Author: Gina Ranalli
Publisher: Madness Heart Press
Website: https://madnessheart.press/
Whoa nellie, here we go again … this book is going to cause another commotion, and I am totally there for it. Gina Ranalli continues to excel at fearlessly pointing out hypocrisy and bull(bleep), throwing it right out in the open for all the world to see, showing no mercy, and taking no prisoners.
Last time, it was with the hard-hitting, controversial All Men Are Tr@sh, just the title of which was deemed unacceptable for social media. Its very existence, let alone its content, let alone the author’s temerity to even dare to DO such a thing, upset and offended and outraged a whoooooole lot of a certain type of people (most of whom probably never even read it)
Well, those same certain type of people aren’t going to like this book either, aren’t going to read it, wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot pole, because omg eew biology. Those who prefer to believe ladyparts serve the sole purpose of being attractive and pleasurable for men, remain willfully ignorant about how the female body works, and are afraid to so much as walk down the feminine hygiene aisle at the supermarket? Those people are gonna run so fast in the other direction from this book, they’ll break the sound barrier.
Heck, even people who don’t feel that way, even people who HAVE ladyparts with attendant biological quirks, might not be prepared for this one. All the more reason to read it anyway. Nature is disgusting, bodies are weird and gross, accept it, get over it, grow the (bleep) up.
I confess, as soon as I started reading the first story, “Gush Run,” I forgot it was a collection and immediately settled in for an entire epic-length doomsday scenario, such that I was more than a little disappointed when it ended. But dang, if you want all that plus a bag of chips and a smack in the face metaphor for climate change, it certainly delivers. The characterization of the dudebros may be unflattering, but look me in the eye and tell me it’s not accurate, go on, look me in the eye.
The follow-up tales are all shorter, but each packs its own punch in a variety of disturbing ways. From the strangely beautiful and sad “Lush Life” to the fetish-fueled insanity of “Endlessly Beating” … from a coming-of-age tale that makes Carrie look tame to a terribly toothy take on a classic folk tale … from the itchy and oozing “Thrush” to the miracle of rebirth and renewal in “Valentine Sweet” … will you be able to handle this book?
**
Title: The Best of Bizarro Fiction Vol 1
Editor: Matthew A. Clarke
Publisher: Planet Bizarro Press
Website: https://www.planetbizarro.com/
I sometimes liken bizarro anthologies to reaching blindfolded into a bowl of those novelty jellybeans. Each story is a different crazy flavor, some of which you weren’t expecting, some of which you wonder how in the world anybody ever dreamed it up.
And this anthology is one of those jellybean bowls, with the assortment of novelty flavors definitely on the more wtf side. Just about anything goes in this genre, these authors take it to heart, and however ready you think you might be, you’re going to be in for some strange, strange surprises.
As an interesting touch, the table of contents only lists story titles, not author names, so you don’t even know who wrote what until you get there (unless you peek ahead, which is valid, but why spoil the adventure?). In keeping with that spirit, then, I will follow suit.
There are twelve stories in total, and boy do they run the gamut of mind-warping! From a gifted sculptor taking on a national monument with shocking results (“The New Faces of Mount Rushmore”) to a high-tech biblical clash of epic proportions (“Ezekiel 2: Ezekiel Thinks God’s a D!ck”), from freakishly disturbing body horror (“The Other Half,” and “Sorry, Mom, But I Didn’t Love You”) to misfits just trying to get by in worlds where weird is the norm (“Freaky,” and “My Winter Lips”), and beyond.
We’ve got pest problems in the most unusual hotel of any realities (“Everything Will Be Fine When All The Squibbies Are On Fire”), a wife trying to figure out what’s up with her hubby’s new obsession (“A Shed Full of Pebbles”), a young woman determined to outdo her neighbors in the perfect baby department (“I Dream of a Roger”), and a little girl who doesn’t want to leave her magical fantasyland (“Vicariously”).
One of these stories, “A Puppet Scorned,” I’ve reviewed elsewhere as an independent, but it was just as much a messed-up bonkers treat to read again here; how often do you see sock puppet erotic horror?
And, for sheer most-bonkers bizarro title I’ve run across lately, gotta hand it to “Sow Beach: A True Story of Love and Sex Inside the Stomach of a Giant Space Pig.” Yes, you read that right. Title like that, you know you just gotta look!
**
Title: Night Birds
Authors: Lisa Snellings and Alan M. Clarke
Publisher: IFD Publishing
Website: http://www.ifdpublishing.com
Oh wow did this book bring back memories of being a kid growing up during the 1960s and 1970s! The main character, Lucy, has a few years on me, though. And a much weirder childhood with more complicated family dynamics and unusual goings-on. Many of which are not just unusual, but seem downright supernatural.
When you’re a little kid, especially a little girl, the world can feel like one big puzzle with everyone keeping secrets, withholding information, and saying you’re not old enough or you’ll understand some day. They expect you to be quiet and obedient and follow the rules.
But, when you’re a curious, clever, rebellious, stubborn, sassy, tomboyish little girl, “some day” isn’t good enough, and Lucy understandably chafes under being kept in the dark and having her questions go unanswered.
Why, for instance, does her grandmother have so many strange rules no one else in the family seems to have to follow? Rules about opening windows, and taking naps under the bed? Why does her grandmother bury glass jars containing odd items in the garden? Why do her grandmother and the family housekeeper, both practitioners of rustic magic, have such a strained relationship?
And what about the other girl — ghost-girl? — Lucy keeps seeing? What about the man in the dark suit and black fedora? What’s up with the crowds of crows, and why does it upset her mother so much? What’s going on with her brother? With the new neighbors who move in, the ones with the peculiar daughter and the pet monkey?
Having the story unfold presented through Lucy’s childlike point of view lends it that genuine feeling of being simultaneously aware and unaware of the greater moving currents all around you, the frustration of being left out and no one will let you in. Really well-written and evocative, it makes for an engrossing read, as Lucy continues to push the stifling boundaries imposed upon her.
My only complaint, or maybe disappointment, was the ending, which felt kind of abrupt and left a lot of tantalizing questions unanswered. Yet, even that, given the themes of frustration and not-knowing Lucy has to deal with throughout the book, is somehow fitting.
**
Title: Mojave Mud Caves
Author: Robert Essig
Publisher: Encyclopocalypse Publications
Website: http://www.encyclopocalypse.com
Aw yeah, B-movie drive-in creature feature time! Belongs right in there alongside all those made-for-SyFy goofy horror/comedy monster movies, and I mean that in the fun, check-logic-at-the-door, sit back with your popcorn and enjoy the show sort of way.
You’ve got your basic setup: a quintet of young people — the bestie bros, the couple, the single girl — roadtripping for a weekend of drinking and partying at the lake. One of the bros wants to make a desert detour and check out these ‘mud caves’ he saw on the internet. The rest of the group isn’t interested, but he’s their leader and the driver, and so, into the desert they go.
They find the mud caves, formations like giant termite mounds or anthills. And of course it seems like a good idea to go in and look around. Y’know, as one does; what’s the worst that could happen?
Next thing they know, one of their own number is lost in the caves, and they’ve found a traumatized injured woman. So, naturally, they split up; two stay to look for their friend, the other two take the woman to the nearest town.
Once things start going wrong in a scenario like this, they tend to keep right on going wrong and getting worse, which is, naturally, what happens. Because it turns out a lot of people have gone missing from town, including the daughter of one tough ol’ dude who isn’t about to sit by and do nothing, even drafting his daughter’s no-good boyfriend into helping.
It also turns out the mud caves — surprise, surprise — aren’t natural formations after all, but are inhabited by a whole lot of industrious critters who don’t take kindly to having their home invaded.
What follows is madcap chaos, with stinger-packing flying giant bug-things, seething pits of larvae, people getting dismembered and eaten, deputies shooting stuff, an ice cream truck carrying more than ice cream, lots of blood, lots of gore, trash-talk, and craziness.
I do hope, though, that the book went through at least one more edit before hitting print, to chase out a number of bloopers. Fun read otherwise, if probably not the wisest choice for someone who’s about to move to the Mojave …
**