TEDDY BEAR CANNIBAL MASSACRE edited by TIM LIEDER
Dybbuk Press paperback, 139pp, $13

Stories of fear, obsession and killer clowns, runs the tag line for this publication from Dybbuk Press, staking a claim for the no man’s land of gonzo fiction, which the contributors do their best to deliver on with eleven stories, and the results very much hit and miss.

Opening story ‘Formaldehyde’ by C. C. Parker is written in the form of a rambling conversation about zombies and magic mushrooms and shopping, with credible dialogue voices and seeming to promise much more than the author can actually deliver, ending on a note that’s not so much what if as so what? Far more entertaining is ‘Doof Doof Doof’ by Paul Haines, a reinvention of fairy tale tropes, one that gleefully dumps on some of our most cherished childhood archetypes as the big bad wolf is thwarted by a hooker Red Riding Hood hanging out with the three little pigs in a top floor fuck pad. More Ellroy than Anderson. Roberta Rogaw’s ‘Peppercorn Rent’ is readable and certainly lively, but impossible to take seriously and growing more ridiculous with each passing page, as a scheming Lord seeks to exercise his droit de seignior with a young lady who turns out to be a were-something or other. It reads like Ye Merry England caricaturised by someone whose ideas of the country were formed through watching Carry On movies and reading Wodehouse, but apparently didn’t quite grasp they were comedies. A tale of medical science gone awry, ‘Rats, the Wrong Alley’ by Tim Johnson has two would be burglars get their comeuppance at the hands of feral policemen, the story having a delicious twist in the tail that makes it possible to overlook the prevailing air of absurdity.

I’ve no idea what ‘Brilliant Suspension’ by Trina Shealy Orton was about. Something to do with somebody being suspended I think. It was mercifully short, something you couldn’t say for Jenifer Jourdanne’s ‘Blue Elephants’, which suffered from a lack of focus, running on about parrots and children and elephants and other stuff to no real purpose, albeit an agreeably provocative narrative voice does compensate somewhat for the prevailing air of aimlessness. By contrast, Cameron Hill’s ‘Hermetic Crab’ is a wacky and undeniably daft tale of wizards and their familiars, but gets so wrapped up in its gonzo storytelling that it’s doubtful anyone will notice (or care) that what’s happening is totally ludicrous. Similarly in ‘Head Drippers’ by Rob Steussi a man who checks in to a lunatic asylum for the hell of it, as you do, discovers an alien invasion conspiracy, the story coming over like a grossly distorted reflection of some pulp era ghastliness, and all the better for it.

Brian Rosenberger’s ironically titled ‘Something Funny is Going On’ has great fun with the idea of an all out war against the menace of clowns, and ends on the wonderfully wry note of our protagonist shaping up for a showdown with Ronald McDonald. I’m luvving it. ‘Clob’ by Michael Stone continues the string of hits, with the tale of a young man and his invisible friend, who helps out when our hero needs a date, the feel good factor overcoming the essential silliness of what is going down. Lastly we have ‘Berries Under the Snow’ by William A. Brock, a brief look at the relationship between a crippled scriptwriter and a Hollywood starlet fallen on hard times, an elegant codicil to a generally rewarding collection of offbeat fiction, one where reader gratification will probably be in direct proportion to willingness to think outside the box.

Subscribe to Black Static for more of Peter Tennant’s book reviews.

Tags: Black Static • books • Peter Tennant • reviews • Teddy Bear Cannibal Massacre • Tim Lieder