CYASAWEMWN?

 

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.

 

Flower Power.

Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! Is the latest literary offering from the force of nature that is Duncan P Bradshaw. This is the man who in the past has brought us his own interpretations of the classic horror tropes of extra-terrestrial cannibal nuns and serial killer vacuum cleaners. For this book, the author has put aside the literary style and allegory of those earlier works and is definitely playing this one for laughs.

So, Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! – where do I begin? The ending maybe? Blimey, I didn’t see that coming.

In all honesty, there was much of this book I didn’t see coming. (OK, all of it). Anyone searching Wikipedia to find useful bits of information to use in a review to make themselves look clever will discover that works of surrealism contain the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non—sequitur. All of these things are present in Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! – so it definitely is surreal. For those who read the whole Wikipedia article rather than just finding interesting sound-bitey snippets, there’s the discovery to be made that surrealism is regarded by many as an expression of the author’s unconscious mind.

If this is true, then the picture Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! paints of Duncan P Bradshaw is a deeply disturbing one. Then again, it is only Wikipedia so it’s probably wrong.

So: Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! What’s it about then? It’s about a couple of hundred pages in total, each one of which contains images and ideas that will disturb or entertain you depending on your personal genetic makeup. The title’s a giveaway really so if you don’t want to spoil the story I’d recommend not looking at the cover or the first few pages.

In truth, it’s probably best not to dwell too much on the plot as , although it’s there, its main function is to provide a framework on which to hang a smorgasbord of surreal concepts, those concepts given flesh (and bones natch) by an array of eccentric characters. Among those characters is the narrator himself, a cunning, fourth-wall breaking malcontent who make this book more meta than meta-meta-man, meta-king of metaworld.

Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! bombards the reader with madness. Reading tip number two is to remove the idea that “that couldn’t possibly happen” from your repertoire of thoughts before you start. If you cling to a realistic, pragmatic approach to your enjoyment and evaluation of Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! then you’re going to be in real trouble. Go with the flow is my advice.

Those familiar with Mr Bradshaw’s oeuvre will be aware of his penchant for appropriating cultural references and twisting and corrupting them into something terrible (yet entertaining). There are the occasional nods within Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! – most notably Jason and the Argonauts and Alien, but this is a book that relies less heavily on them, making it all the more worrying that the scenes and set-pieces which make up the book are based on original thoughts. I was actually impressed by this change in tack, saw it as evidence of an author growing and maturing, finding their real voice, coming into full bloom as it were. And then the narrator made exactly the same point and opened up a vortex into another dimension. (Possibly). In truth, that was my favourite meta-moment in a book full of them. Indeed, the book is so metafictional, it’s quite possible that it’s actually a reinterpretation of The French Lieutenant’s Woman – though one done in a more literary style.

Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! is the weirdest book I’ve ever read. It’s also one of the most entertaining. There’s always a risk that a book quite this bizarre can alienate a reader, of tipping over into self-indulgence. Luckily, that’s a trap Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! doesn’t fall into. (If it did, it wouldn’t be a real trap anyway, merely some kind of device for harvesting the nectar of wildebeest). Each random image and idea somehow fits into the overarching theme and narrative, and all are written with a finely judged sense of comedy timing. I will admit to laughing out loud on a number of occasions. Here you’ll find a Speedo-clad policeman with concealed trebuchets and mysterious gentlemen dispatching clues via the medium of biscuit. There’s some really silly stuff in here too.

Don’t Smell the Flowers! They Want to Steal Your Bones! (copy and paste is such a useful tool) is less a novel, more an experience. It’s an experience I recommend you should definitely, err, experience. Bizarre, surreal but most of all hugely entertaining. As is the case with all of EyeCue's output, the production values are superb with as much care and attention lavished on the presentation as the madness of the narrative. I suggest you buy it. Now.

Holy inappropriate.

Duncan Bradshaw prefers cats to dogs and tea to coffee. He doesn’t like gravy. Despite these bizarre – some might say borderline psychotic – tendencies, I still like him, as a person and as a writer. With such a warped outlook on the important things in life, it’s unsurprising that his writing oeuvre lies well ensconced within the weird end of the literary spectrum. This is a man whose last novel featured a psychopathic vacuum cleaner on a killing spree.

His latest release, a joint publication via his own Eye Cue Productions and the Sinister Horror Company, is a summer blockbuster of a novel: Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space! (Or CNFOS for short – a name rejected by Lovecraft for one of his Great Old Ones because it was too easy to pronounce). It’s a book which the author claims is evidence he has finally found his voice. I wouldn’t disagree. I’m not entirely sure where he found it but wherever it was, I imagine there was a sign saying “enter at your own risk” on the door.

Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space! – what’s it about then? Those looking for a profound meditation on melancholia in post-modern society will be disappointed. Mind you, if that’s the type of book they’re looking for, I should imagine disappointment is a big part of their lives anyway. There’s little melancholy to be found here although, come to think of it, there is some post-modernism – most notably in the frequent references and homages to classic films which are dotted throughout the narrative. These are all handled deftly, enhancing rather than distracting from the story.

Scattered too, are name drops of indie authors, something I occasionally do find distracting but here presented in such outlandish situations that the jokes are magnified. It could be the case that real character traits have been exploited for comic effect. If that is so, then there’s one Welsh author I’d be reluctant ever to share a bus journey with. (There’s also an early mention for an “Anthony the Lesser Peeved”, a statue that weeps blood – it’ll make more sense when you read it. I’m currently in communication with my lawyers regarding a potential defamation proceeding).

(Over the word “lesser”).

But I digress.

As the title subtly hints at, the story concerns the threat posed by a group of extra-terrestrial sisters of little mercy arrived on earth to harvest human flesh. Their arrival doesn’t take place until quite a way into the book which instead begins by introducing the novel’s protagonist, the foul-mouthed and slightly deranged Father Flynn, member of the Order of the Crimson Rosary, in the midst of performing an exorcism.

Things go as badly as might be expected, ultimately requiring the calling-in of reinforcements, neatly introducing the book’s other main characters, Flynn’s rival Father O’Malley and the demon itself. The whole opening sequence is a joy to read, with some excellent one liners and highly inventive use of names. Possibly aware of how unrealistic these scenes are, and with an eye to keeping fans of literary horror happy, the author cleverly introduces a beard-dwelling axolotl to help ground the whole thing in reality.

Flynn’s performance - and his subsequent handling of the aforementioned bleeding statue - culminate in his becoming surplice to requirements for the Order of the Crimson Rosary. A last chance is offered to him: rehabilitation at the St Judas Centre for Reaffirmation of Faith & Training Convent. It’s here, amid a plethora of cultural references, that he ultimately encounters the titular nuns, who have landed their spaceship nearby.

High jinks ensue.

Twice now I’ve mentioned the cultural references which litter the narrative, a feature of much of Duncan’s writing. He’s a proper magpie in this respect, finding a pleasing line of dialogue or action set-piece and pilfering them to reinvent in his own, slightly warped, way. I picture him sat atop a huge pile of shiny snippets, leaving only to find a fellow magpie to bring joy, or two more for a girl, three for a boy. Failing that, he’ll probably just shit on your car’s windscreen.

The nuns themselves are a fine creation. (SPOILER: They’re not real nuns). The reasons for their arrival on Earth are explained along with their history and there’s much graphic blood and guts-letting to be enjoyed as battle commences. Entrails and jokes fly thick and fast as the forces of good and evil, and evil duke it out head to head.

It’s a rare gift to combine comedy and horror successfully, it’s often the case that one suffers as a result of the other but that’s not the case here. Even if you don’t get the references, there’s still plenty of the author’s own deranged humour to make you laugh out loud and, more importantly, a strong narrative upon which the jokes and entrails are hung.

A word too about the presentation of the book. Much work has gone into the formatting and layout, with a variety of versions available, each unique in its own way. The version I read as an ARC will ultimately be the kindle release and, in keeping with the cinematic theme, contains “trailers” for other movies ahead of the main feature. Both of which, I have to say, I would go and see.

CNFOS is yet another triumph for Mr Bradshaw. If you can’t find anything to entertain you within its pages then your either dead or – worse – Jacob Rees Mogg. Whilst marking a natural progression from Mr Sucky, nicely developing what is a very distinctive style of writing, it also increases anticipation for whatever lunacy spills forth next from one of the weirdest brains in the writing community.

Mr Sucky

Mr Sucky is the latest offering from Duncan P. Bradshaw and is published through his own imprint EyeCue Productions. With a word count coming in at somewhere between a long novella and a short novel, it’s an everyday tale of serial-killer-becomes-vacuum-cleaner, a trope which has been woefully underused within the genre. Vacuum cleaners had been around for some fifty years by the time Kafka wrote The Metamorphosis but he chickened out, preferring to use a giant insect to express his weird father complex thing.

Those expecting gritty social commentary will be disappointed if they pick up Mr Sucky but those looking for some cleverly crafted bizarro fiction will find much to enjoy here. It’s a mix of extreme horror and comedy (“Gore-Com”) which manages to combine both elements very effectively. I’m generally not a fan of extreme horror but when it’s presented in such a gloriously over-the-top fashion as it is here you can’t fail to be impressed by the imagination that has gone into some of the set-pieces. Before I started Mr Sucky, I wondered how a vacuum cleaner could possibly murder people but now I’ve finished the book, I feel I’ve been educated (and quite possibly know too much about the process).

So the “Gore” half of the equation works well, how about the “Com”? It’s really hard, being funny. Many have tried before and failed but there are some outstanding examples of horror/comedy hybridity out there too. It’s difficult because everyone’s sense of humour is different, one man’s side-splitting hilarity is another man’s melancholy and despair. Personally, I pride myself on my grumpiness but I have to say that Mr Sucky had me laughing out loud on more than one occasion. (Cue awkward conversations with my better half as to what it was that had made me laugh. “Well, there’s this hoover, possessed by the spirit of a serial killer, who’s just sucked someone’s intestines out…”) It takes skill to get the blend right and it’s here in abundance.

The “hero” of Mr Sucky is Clive Beauchamp, a serial killer with a split personality, the two halves of which provide the (mainly) first person narrative of the story. The events of the novel/la take place in the Quantico motel (a reference, I presume, to the FBI building – an organisation whose first director was J Edgar someone). Clive is setting up his latest kill, unaware that it will be him who will be Dyson with death – unsuccessfully as it turns out – himself becoming the victim, initiating a chain of events which, by a series of bizarre and unfortunate turns of fate, results in his spirit being transferred into the titular vacuum cleaner.

Following this, much chaos ensues.

To be honest, Clive’s reanimation as a domestic appliance is one of the less bizarre things to happen as the varied cast of characters make their appearances. It’s all very cleverly done with the humour ranging from broad to subtle, the violence from intense to very intense. What I particularly enjoyed was the structure of the narrative which was fractured, jumping around in time and point of view. Reminiscent of Pulp Fiction with its disrupted and looping timelines; Pulp Suction perhaps.

I had a blast with Mr Sucky, enjoyed the hell out of it. It takes a strange, twisted kind of imagination to produce something as bizarre yet enjoyable as this and, luckily for us all, that’s exactly what Duncan P. Bradshaw has.

Hexagram

Hexagram is the new novel from Duncan B Bradshaw and is published by The Sinister HorrorCompany. It’s a bit of an epic, with the story spanning almost 500 years and taking in a variety of locations, beginning in the Inca capital of Cuzco in 1538 and progressing, via separate sections, through the Florida of 1716, American Civil War Cobb County, Georgia 1864, Ripper-era London and the Bahamas of 1981 before culminating (almost) in present day Wiltshire.

The underlying concept of the book is the notion that we are all made of stardust but provides a very dark twist on it – namely that the use of said dust, harvested from the dead, could be used in a religious ceremony to summon Gods.

The harvesting, of course, requires much rummaging around in viscera – a process gleefully described by the author on many occasions and which provides the core of the horror on display within the novel. It takes skill to write scenes like this, it’s all too easy to go for shock and gross-out but the scenes of disembowelment and evisceration are actually reined in, presented in such a way as to not be over the top and gratuitous but as a natural progression of the narrative – and, as such, are all the more effective for it.

It’s a gory book for sure but there’s a lot more to it than that. There is great imagination on display here, along with some very good writing indeed. There are even moments of real emotion amidst the gloriously dark humour. Again, it’s a fine line between being humorous and, well… being stupid but it’s one Duncan stays absolutely on the right side of all the way through.

There may be some dialogue in the opening chapters which feels a little anachronistic, but other than that the period detail is spot on. Duncan has obviously done his research and it shows. Facts are never shoe-horned into the narrative (no doing a Dan Simmons here) but are placed carefully to enhance the reading experience. If I have a criticism it’s that the Ripper section felt a wee bit short to me but that’s maybe because it’s a period of history I’m (a little bit too) fascinated in myself.

The story’s a high-concept one and its narrative is cleverly kept going with subtle links between the different sections. I have to say I had a blast with Hexagram, devouring it in a couple of sittings. (Despite its epic themes, it’s not a long novel). Clever, witty and extremely well written, I highly recommend it to your reading pleasure.