Bizarro Fiction Month Day 3: Jack & Mr. Grin

 It's day three of bizarro fiction month here on my blog. This means it's time to look at a book by another author whse books you'll be seeing here repeatedly this month: Andersen Prunty. I downloaded quite a few of his books back in December when I first got my Kindle, mostly because they were all on sale for only 99¢ at the time. Unfortunately, I downloaded a lot of styff at the time, and dnever got around to reading them, until now. Later on in the month, there will be reviews for The Beard, The Overwhelming Urge, Fuckness, and Slag Attack. For now though, I'm starting off with Jack and Mr. Grin.

This is probably the least bizarre bizarro story I've read so far. The bizzaro sort of stuff doesn't start happening until the ending, and if it wasn't for this, the book could easily be read as a horror novel, or maybe even a thriller. It's the story of a guy named Jack. Jack is living with a girl named Gina, and is planning to propose to her. Unfortunately, a mysterious person who Jack calls Mr. Grin kidnaps Gina. Then he calls Jack up and threatens to kill her if Jack can't find them in 24 hours.

So far it sounds very thriller-ish, yes? Soon it veers into horror territory, because anyone Jack comes into contact with is marked with a strange brand that causes them to hate his guts and, in extreme cases, try to kill him.

The story doesn't really start getting bizarre until Jack figures out where Gina has been taken and who (and what) has taken her. Since I don't want to spoiler it, I won't get into it, but I will say that it does get weird.

I do think that this is a pretty good story, and the ultimate identity of Mr. Grin kept me guessing.

Bizarro Fiction Month Day 2: Piecemeal June

It's day 2 of Bizarro Fiction month here on my blog, and I've decided to continue by doing reviews of books by the authors who will be here repeatedly this month. I'm starting with Jordan Krall, whose books King Scratch, Squid Pulp Blues, and Fistful of Feet will be coming up in later weeks. The first book of his i read was Piecemeal June, so that's where I'll start.

This is has quite a bit of sex in it. The plot is about a loser named Kevin who lives over a porn shop. Everyday Kevin's cat brings him a piece of a body. Instead of being the result of a grisly murder of some sort, they are in fact the parts to a living sex doll named June.

June was made for this god/king sort of guy in another dimension where people can be taken apart and put back together in odd ways for various sexual purposes. The god king guy wants June back, because he is in love with the porn star she was modeled after.  Unfortunately, Kevin and June have fallen in love. The god/king guy has some crab monsters and evil pornographers at his disposal, and he tries to use them to regain his lost love.  There's also a washed-up boxer involved, as well. It's all just too strange to explain.

As you can probably guess from this, there is a lot of sex and gore in this book. A lot of the sex is weird sex, too. Still this is a good book if you aren't too prudish.

Bizzaro Month Day 1: The Bizarro Starter Kit (Orange)

I believe the best way to start off my bizarro fiction month is with a book that's designed as an introduction to bizarro fiction. This is precisely what The Bizarro Starter Kit (Orange) is. It's a collection of novellas and short stories by some of the top writers in the genre. I will say that I generally enjoyed the novella length works better than the short stories, but even the short stories were pretty good.

The collection starts off with a selection of short stories by D. Harlan Wilson. I thought these were all cool, but my favorite had to be "Classroom Dynamics," which is a strange college tale. These were all great.

Next up was Carlton Mellick III's Baby Jesus Butt Plug. Mellick is one of the best writers in bizarro, and while I don't think this novella length story is his best, I did think it was still pretty enjoyable.(Since it has been published individually, I wrote a more in depth review of it here.)

Following Mellick's work, we have the novella length Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson. This was a really cool story of a man in a cockroach suit surviving in a post-nuclear-holocaust world. I enjoyed this one. (As This too is available individually, I did a full review here.)

Up next was Kevin L. Donihe's The Greatest Fucking Moment In Sports. As the title suggests, this is indeed a sports story, and it is indeed the greatest fucking moment in sports. A great read (Also available individually, so a full review here.)

Then comes Gina Ranalli's Suicide Girls in the Afterlife, which I had actually read previously and was going to give it's own bizarro month entry before I picked up the Starter Kit. This is a very peculiar version of the afterlife with some really weird characters. (As you may have guessed, there is a full review of this here.)

Then next is Andre Duza's Don't F(beep)k With The Coloureds which is a novella about rampaging cartoon characters.  Another cool story.

That's followed by a selection of short stories by Vincent W. Sakowski. These were some weird and entertaining stories.

Up next is Steve Beard's Survivor's Dream, which, while good, was probably my least favorite of the novellas. It's about a girl called Dead Girl who has to track down the Witch Doctor for her Fairy Sugardaddy. It was strange enough, but I found it a bit tedious.

Then comes John Edward Lawson's Truth In Ruins, which is a strange apocalyptic novella set in a world where everyone is either a serial killer or a profiler.

The book ends with a collection of short stories by Bruce Taylor, which I found to be a bit of a mixed bag. I really enjoyed his "The Breath Amidst The Stones," but didn't care for the other stories as much.

Overall, this is a great collection, and since buying the individual works contained in it would probably cost more than three times as much as the Starter Kit, it's a great value too. This is a great but not just for people who are new to bizarro, but for people who want to expand their bizarro libraries without paying to much, too.