CONGRATULATIONS!
You’ve Accidentally Summoned a World-ending Monster. What Now? is the latest offering to spring
from the loins of author Duncan P Bradshaw, those same loins which have already
produced a number of books with really long titles. Like the best marmalade, the
book is thick and chunky, the spine of the paperback alone is an incredible one
inch (24mm) wide and the volume weighs in at an impressive 17oz (482g). If
these amazing statistics alone aren’t enough to convince you to buy it (bear
in mind there’s a kindle version too but it’s difficult to make any kind of anthropometric
measurement of a virtual medium - but let’s say it’s 21g which is the weight of
a hummingbird or a human soul) then maybe the words inside will be.
There are
loads of them, verbs, nouns (some of them proper), adverbs (I know!) and adjectives
– all arranged in an order which makes them instantly readable and sometimes
hilarious. The most important word in that sentence, of course, was “order”
because that’s the key to enjoying this book to its fullest, is indeed the principle
upon which it has been created/extruded from loins. The thing is, the reader
themselves decide on the order in which the pages within are read!
I know, this
is a major dereliction on behalf of the author; reading books is supposed to be
relaxing, an activity done for pleasure and here we are having to do ALL the
work. There are however, ample instructions as to how this might be achieved;
at the end of some sections a choice is presented to the reader as to which
page to go to next, each of which will lead the story down a different path.
(In the kindle version, this is achieved by the use of hyperlinks like this one). It’s a clever concept and
one which – if it hadn’t been for Edward Packard coming up with the idea of the
Choose Your Own Adventure books – would be totally unique. Readers who
manage to ignore the feelings of paranoia born of wondering if they’ve chosen
the right path and stressing over whether they’re going to be lost in a never-ending maze
within the book will enjoy themselves greatly, following the eclectic bunch of
characters to not one, but TEN different endings. The challenge of course is to
find them all, and minimise the number of times you say “bollocks, I’ve been
this way before”. As an added bonus, there’s a hidden section which will take
the (crafty clue-solving) reader into a completely different realm (not
literally) in which they will uncover – shall we say – stories within the
story…
As to the
plot… well, the title pretty much sums it up and to be honest, I can’t be arsed
to review ten different stories. It is hugely entertaining though, with lashings
of the trademark Bradshaw humour and surrealism with enough fourth wall
breaking to satisfy even the most ardent and critical aficionados of postmodern
metafictional mucky jokes.
Joking
aside, the book truly is a wonder to behold. It’s mind-boggling to contemplate
the amount of work that must have gone into producing it. It’s an amazing
achievement and one which has been pulled off with aplomb (see mucky jokes
above).
I loved
the time I spent wandering around aimlessly in the dark corridors of this book.
In the best traditions of GoreCom, it will have you laughing out loud one
moment and stifling a gag reflex the next (sometimes simultaneously actually).
It could well be the author’s finest hour (or minute if you choose ending
seven).
By way of
homage to the book and its central theme of “be careful playing word-based
games, you never know what might happen” and also to a key character who –
despite only warranting a couple of sentences – provides the beating heart of
the novel, here’s a wordsearch puzzle containing a number of key themes from CONGRATULATIONS!
You’ve Accidentally Summoned a World-Ending Monster. Which you should buy.
Now.
