Archive for the absurdism Category

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OUT NOW: “Why I Married a Clown Girl From the Dimension of Death”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, eraserhead press, post-apocalypse with tags , , on November 14, 2023 by carltonmellick

My latest book, Why I Married a Clown Girl From the Dimension of Death, is now available at amazon.

WHY I MARRIED A CLOWN GIRL FROM THE DIMENSION OF DEATH

Timothy is terrified of clowns. He’s always found them disturbing and creepy and weird. But now that our world is besieged by clown-like invaders from another dimension, his phobia is spiraling out of control. Timothy has no idea how to handle living in a world full of these cartoonish creatures until he meets a clown girl named Puppy Caterpillars who happens to be the cutest, sweetest girl he’s ever encountered. They fall in love and Timothy believes his phobia has finally been cured. But after they get married, Timothy discovers his phobia might have been the only thing keeping him alive. Because the clowns from the dimension of death are even more terrifying and dangerous than he ever imagined and the woman that he married might just be the most horrifying creature to ever crawl out of his deepest, darkest nightmares.

Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “Glass Children”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Fiction, dark comedy, dystopian, Fiction, horror, surrealism on July 24, 2023 by carltonmellick

My newest book, GLASS CHILDREN, is now available at amazon.



GLASS CHILDREN


The children of the glass generation are the most sensitive, fragile, entitled, spoiled, lazy, selfish little brats that human society has ever produced. Part of this is due to overprotective parenting, but it is mostly due to the fact that these children are literally made out of glass. Nobody knows why, but one day the human species went through a surreal mutation where babies started being born with delicate hollow glass bodies with no flesh or bones or anything holding them together but their thin delicate exoskeleton. They shatter whenever they fall down or are touched too firmly. Even a mother’s embrace will cause them to crack open like eggshells. And they are emotionally just as fragile as they are physically, breaking to pieces whenever they become upset or offended or don’t get exactly what they want at all times. They expect the world to revolve entirely around their safety and happiness. They demand that our culture adjust to meet their expectations. And it seems as though the rest of human society is more than willing to go to every extreme imaginable in order to accommodate them.


Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “Goblins on the Other Side”

Posted in absurdism, afterlife, Bizarro Fiction, eraserhead press, horror, surrealism with tags , on May 9, 2022 by carltonmellick

My newest book, GOBLINS ON THE OTHER SIDE, is now available.

GOBLINS ON THE OTHER SIDE

There are no mistakes in Heaven. There are no flaws, no worries, no ugliness. Everything is perfect. Everyone is nice to each other and happy all of the time. Nobody is selfish or spiteful or mean. It is a place of peace and harmony. A place of love and hope and friendship. Nothing bad ever happens there.

But if you plan to visit, be sure to follow all of the rules. Stay inside your family’s designated area at all times. Do not venture off the beaten path. Always wear your goblin mask when looking out of the windows. And, most importantly, refrain from thinking unhappy thoughts. Negativity in Heaven is prohibited. You must never, ever be negative in any way whatsoever. If you whine or pout or criticize or complain, you do so at your own risk. We will not be held responsible for anything that happens to you.

Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “The Bad Box”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, eraserhead press, Uncategorized with tags , on September 2, 2020 by carltonmellick

My newest book, THE BAD BOX, is now available.

THE BAD BOX

Little Benny isn’t very good at taking tests. It’s not that he’s a stupid kid or doesn’t pay attention in class. It’s just that he’s absolutely terrified of failure. It doesn’t matter how hard he studies. He gets so nervous that he freezes up and his mind goes blank, rarely even answering a single question before the time is up. This is especially difficult now that he’s in Mrs. Gustafson’s fifth grade class, where the punishment for failure is to draw a curse from the bad box—a magical device that permanently mutates children into horrific monsters.

Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “Mouse Trap”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Fiction, end of the world, eraserhead press, post-apocalypse on May 1, 2019 by carltonmellick

My newest book, MOUSE TRAP, is now available.

mousetrapsmall

MOUSE TRAP

It’s the last school trip young Emily will ever get to go on. Not because it’s the end of the school year, but because the world is coming to an end. Teachers, parents, and other students have been slowly dying off over the past several months, killed in mysterious traps that have been appearing across the countryside. Nobody knows where the traps come from or who put them there, but they seem to be designed to exterminate the entirety of the human race.

Emily thought it was going to be an ordinary trip to the local amusement park, but what was supposed to be a normal afternoon of bumper cars and roller coasters has turned into a fight for survival after their teacher is horrifically killed in front of them, leaving the small children to fend for themselves in a life or death game of mouse and mouse trap. There appears to be a hope for salvation when eighth grader Clyde Donner, a boy Emily has had a crush on ever since she was a little girl, enters their lives and promises that all the children will be safe as long as they do exactly as he says. But when it appears that Clyde does not have everyone’s best interests in mind, it’s up to Emily to put her feelings aside in order to ensure the safety of those younger and more vulnerable than her.

Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “Neverday”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, dystopian, end of the world, eraserhead press, Fiction, horror on July 3, 2018 by carltonmellick

My new book, NEVERDAY, is now available. This is one that I’ve been talking about for almost a decade now. It’s my version of the time loop trope made popular in the movie “Groundhog Day” but instead of focusing only on a single character this story explores what would happen to society if everyone in the world was trapped in the time loop together, with no chance of ever escaping. Next to my last book, Stacking Doll, this is one of my favorite books I’ve written in recent years. I hope you check it out.

NEVERDAY

Karl Lybeck has been repeating the same day over and over again, in a constant loop, for what feels like a thousand years. He’s been stuck in this endless cycle for so long that he doesn’t remember what his life was like before time stopped moving forward. He doesn’t remember his parents’ faces or what he used to do for a living. The only reason he remembers his own name is because it’s printed on his Oregon State driver’s license.

When a woman named January enters his life, Karl learns that he isn’t the only one trapped in the time loop. In fact, the majority of the population has been repeating the same day just as he has been for hundreds of years. While Karl was hiding isolated in his suburban home, a whole new world was being built just outside his door. Society has adapted to repeating. Strange laws have been implemented. A new memory-based currency has been put into place.

But there’s something not quite right about the new repeating government. Karl doesn’t understand why those in charge have no interest in trying to fix their situation. He doesn’t doesn’t understand why going into the neverday–that time period that only exists if you stay awake all night to avoid repetition–is considered the worst possible crime that anyone can commit. With the help of others who share in his suspicions, Karl plans to find out exactly what is being hidden from them, even if it destroys the very fabric of their society forever.

Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: Parasite Milk

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Fiction, body horror on October 17, 2017 by carltonmellick

My new novella, Parasite Milk, is now available.

PARASITE MILK

Irving Rice has just arrived on the planet Kynaria to film an episode of the popular Travel Channel television series Bizarre Foods with Andrew Zimmern: Intergalactic Edition. Having never left his home state, let alone his home planet, Irving is hit with a severe case of culture shock. He’s not prepared for Kynaria’s mushroom cities, fungus-like citizens, or the giant insect wildlife. And the only human companion he has with him on the voyage is an obnoxious, sex-crazed producer named Mick Meyers, who seems more focused on alien sex tourism than scouting locations for the show.

Irving is taken on a crash course in Kynarian culture, tasting the strange local delicacies to getting drunk off the horrific local brews, until they find themselves ending the night at an alien brothel in the mushroom forests outside of town. Irving is completely resistant to the idea of sleeping with a non-human prostitute until he meets the most beautiful creature he’s ever seen in his life—a nymph-like woman with pink and purple skin, blue plant-like hair, and flowers growing from her head like butterfly antennae. But after a night of passionate lovemaking, Irving finds himself infected by dangerous sexually-transmitted parasites that turn his otherworldly business trip into an agonizing fight for survival.

Now available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: The Big Meat

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, body horror, Carlton Mellick III, eraserhead press, kaiju on July 11, 2017 by carltonmellick

My newest book, The Big Meat, is now available. This is my tribute to the kaiju genre. I hope you check it out.


THE BIG MEAT

The creature was finally dead. After months of fighting it, trying desperately to stop it as it rampaged across the American countryside, turning city after city into a landscape of rubble, we finally managed to beat the damned thing. We actually saved the human species. We survived.

But the corpse still lingers.

In the center of the city once known as Portland, Oregon, there lies a mountain of flesh. Hundreds of thousands of tons of rotting flesh. It has filled the city with disease and dead-lizard stench, contaminated the water supply with its greasy putrid fluids, clogged the air with toxic gasses so thick that you can’t leave your house without the aid of a gas mask. And no one really knows quite what to do about it. A thousand-man demolition crew has been trying to clear it out one piece at a time, but after three months of work they’ve barely made a dent. And then there’s the junkies who have started burrowing into the monster’s guts, searching for a drug produced by its fire glands, setting back the excavation even longer.

It seems like the corpse will never go away. And with the quarantine still in place, we’re not even allowed to leave. We’re stuck in this disgusting rotten hell forever.

The Big Meat is a gut-wrenching, nerve-squirming survival story of loss, addiction, and claustrophobia.

Available at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “Spider Bunny”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, surrealism, Uncategorized, urban fairy tales on April 3, 2017 by carltonmellick

My new book, SPIDER BUNNY, is now available. This one is a tribute to the unintentionally terrifying children’s commercials of the ‘70s and ‘80s. I hope you check it out.

Spider Bunny

SPIDER BUNNY

Only Petey remembers the Fruit Fun cereal commercials of the 1980s. He remembers how warped and disturbing they were. He remembers the lumpy-shaped cartoon children sitting around a breakfast table, eating puffy pink cereal brought to them by the distortedly animated mascot, Berry Bunny. The characters were creepier than the Sesame Street Humpty Dumpty, freakier than Mr. Noseybonk from the old BBC show Jigsaw. They used to give him nightmares as a child. Nightmares where Berry Bunny would reach out of the television and grab him, pulling him into her cereal bowl to be eaten by the demented cartoon children.

When Petey brings up Fruit Fun to his friends, none of them have any idea what he’s talking about. They’ve never heard of the cereal or seen the commercials before. And they’re not the only ones. Nobody has ever heard of it. There’s not even any information about Fruit Fun on google or wikipedia. At first, Petey thinks he’s going crazy. He wonders if all of those commercials were real or just false memories. But then he starts seeing them again. Berry Bunny appears on his television, promoting Fruit Fun cereal in her squeaky unsettling voice. And the next thing Petey knows, he and his friends are sucked into the cereal commercial and forced to survive in a surreal world populated by cartoon characters made flesh.

Get it at amazon.com

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OUT NOW: “Exercise Bike”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Fiction, body horror, Carlton Mellick III, dark comedy on January 16, 2017 by carltonmellick

My new book “Exercise Bike” is now available.

Exercise Bike

EXERCISE BIKE

There is something wrong with Tori Manetti’s new exercise bike. It is made from flesh and bone. It eats and breathes and poops. It was once a billionaire named Darren Oscarson who underwent years of cosmetic surgery to be transformed into a human exercise bike so that he could live out his deepest sexual fantasy. Now Tori is forced to ride him, use him as a normal piece of exercise equipment, no matter how grotesque his appearance.

Set in a health food dystopia, “Exerice Bike” is an absurd horror tale of domination and submission, power and obedience, desire and desperation.

Get it at amazon.com

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