Bizarro Books | Carlton Mellick III

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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: 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

15th Anniversary of SATAN BURGER

Posted in Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, eraserhead press, Satan Burger, Uncategorized on July 6, 2016 by carltonmellick

15 years ago, my first novel SATAN BURGER was published. When it came out I really didn’t expect it to do well. I wrote it for fun, just for myself, not expecting anyone would ever even read it. I mean it’s basically just about a group of 20-year-olds who get jobs working at a Satan-themed fast food franchise as the world is ending. It’s not exactly the most commercial concept. Yet for some utterly strange reason that I still can’t even slightly comprehend the book did well. Really well. It actually found an audience big enough to launch my career. A year or so after its release I was able to quit my job and write full time which was something I never thought possible, especially not at such a young age (I was barely old enough to buy beer at the time). 15 years and 50 books later, I’m still here, still writing, and it’s all thanks to this book. I pretty much owe everything to Satan Burger and the fans who supported it over the years.

The 15th Anniversary Edition of SATAN BURGER is now available at amazon. It’s got an introduction by one of my heroes, John Skipp, who was a major influence on me when I was a teenager (and still is today). It’s also got illustrations by Ryan Ward, an underground artist who sent me fan art for the book years ago that I loved so much that I asked him to illustrate the whole book. And there’s also a new forward that I’ve written detailing the history of the book over the past 15 years.

If you haven’t read the book before or you want to get a more collectible edition, check out the anniversary edition at amazon.com

Here’s a video comparing the hardcover edition with the original:

SATAN BURGER (15th Anniversary Edition)

When Satan Burger was first being passed around among teenage punks and fans of weird art and film, there was nothing else like it. A book of rebellious spirit that simplistically captured the postmodern malaise of a culture obsessed with consumerism. It quickly gained an underground following, was transcribed by fans and bootlegged online, was translated into Russian and made its way around the world attracting the attention of readers bored with typical mainstream fare. Combining a satirical wit and style on par with legendary humorists such as Kurt Vonnegut and Russell Edson with the crazy punk ethos of cult film directors such as Terry Gilliam, David Lynch, and Takashi Miike, this was a book overflowing with so many new ideas and absurd philosophies that it not only launched the career of underground author Carlton Mellick III, but inspired an entire literary movement.

For the fifteenth anniversary of the release of this Bizarro Fiction classic, Eraserhead Press is thrilled to present this special hardcover edition, featuring an introduction by splatterpunk legend John Skipp, illustrations by Ryan Ward, and a new preface by the author.

Satan Burger explores a new kind of apocalypse. Not an apocalypse caused by disease or nuclear war, but an apocalypse of boredom. A plague of monotony has spread across the countryside, sucking all passion and inspiration out of everyone over the age of twenty-five, leaving only the disenfranchised youth to fend for themselves in a world crumbling around them. Featuring a narrator who sees his body from a third-person perspective, a man whose flesh is dead but his body parts are alive and running amok, an overweight messiah, the personal life of the Grim Reaper, a race of women who feed on male orgasms, and a motley group of squatter punks that team up with the devil to find their place in a world that doesn’t want them anymore.

Available at amazon.com

OUT NOW: “Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen, Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, eraserhead press, Uncategorized on April 27, 2016 by carltonmellick

My new book, “Every Time We Meet at the Dairy Queen, Your Whole Fucking Face Explodes,” is now available.

EVERY TIME WE MEET AT THE DAIRY QUEEN, YOUR WHOLE FUCKING FACE EXPLODES

Ethan is in love with the weird girl in school. The one with the twitchy eyes and spiders in her hair. The one who can’t sit still for even a minute and speaks in an odd squeaky voice. The one they call Spiderweb.

Although she scares all the other kids in school, Ethan thinks Spiderweb is the cutest, sweetest, most perfect girl in the world. But there’s a problem. Whenever they go on a date at the Dairy Queen, her whole fucking face explodes. He’s not sure why it happens. She just gets so excited that pressure builds under her skin. Then her face bursts, spraying meat and gore across the room, her eyeballs and lips landing in his strawberry sundae.

At first, Ethan believes he can deal with his girlfriend’s face-exploding condition. But the more he gets to know her, the weirder her condition turns out to be. And as their relationship gets serious, Ethan realizes that the only way to make it work is to become just as strange as she is.

Buy it at amazon.com

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Quicksand House in Spanish and Italian

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Uncategorized on April 27, 2016 by carltonmellick

My novel “Quicksand House” has recently been translated into Spanish and Italian. Both editions are available now.

La Casa sulle Sabbie Mobili (Vaporteppa)

Tick e Polly non hanno mai incontrato i loro genitori. Sono confinati nell’appartamento dei bambini dove crescono sotto le cure dell’anziana Tata Warbourogh, nell’attesa di poter incontrare mamma e papà e andare a vivere nel resto della casa. Dopo anni di attesa ormai Polly è diventata troppo grande per i vestiti che ha nell’armadio e dei genitori non c’è ancora nessuna traccia.

Quando i macchinari che rendono autosufficiente l’appartamento iniziano a guastarsi, Polly e Tick sono obbligati ad affrontare il resto della casa. Li aspetta un labirinto di stanze e corridoi in rovina, abitato da creature mostruose che cacciano nelle ombre. La ricerca dei genitori diventa una battaglia per la sopravvivenza, nella disperata speranza di trovarli prima di morire di fame. Il mondo fuori dalle poche stanze in cui sono cresciuti è molto diverso da quello che pensavano di trovare, e più attraversano la casa e più svelano misteri che non avrebbero mai voluto scoprire.

Uno dei libri più intimi e toccanti della produzione di Carlton Mellick III.

Available at amazon.it

La casa de arenas movedizas (Orciny Press)

Esta es la historia de dos niños que no conocen a sus padres, aunque viven en la misma casa que ellos. Sueñan con el momento en que podrán abrazarlos por primera vez, pero parece que los padres nunca tienen tiempo para ir a verlos. Los niños saben que tienen que estar en algún lugar de la mansión que comparten con sus progenitores, pero tienen prohibido salir de la guardería en la que viven. Siempre les han dicho que si la abandonan, sus vidas corren peligro.

Durante un tiempo, las cosas van bien: tienen una niñera que los cuida y unas máquinas les proporcionan todo lo que necesitan… Hasta que un día pasa algo que los obliga a abrir la puerta y adentrarse en los pasillos oscuros de una casa que les es ajena, para desvelar los misterios que rodean su propio pasado y el mundo en el que han creído vivir.

Al fin en español, “La casa de arenas movedizas” es la primera novela que se traduce de Carlton Mellick III, instigador del género bizarro y una de las mentes más retorcidamente divertidas de la literatura actual. En su obra más personal, este autor de culto introduce las constantes que lo han hecho granjearse una legión de seguidores (personajes extraños, situaciones que coquetean con el absurdo, y tramas impredecibles) y les da la vuelta para crear una obra tan tierna y sincera como aterradora.

Mellick ha sido galardonado con el premio Wonderland de bizarro, y en 2013 el diario “The Guardian” lo situó entre los veinte mejores autores de ciencia ficción de menos de cuarenta años.

Available at amazon.es

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OUT NOW:　”Hungry Bug”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Carlton Mellick III, Neil Gaiman, Sin City, Urban Fantasy on January 13, 2014 by carltonmellick

My latest book is now available. Hungry Bug was loosely inspired by Frank Miller’s Sin City and Neil Gaiman’s urban fantasy work. Think Pulp Fiction with wizards. It’s one of my longest books and I personally think it’s one of my best yet. I hope you check it out.

HUNGRY BUG

In a world where magic exists, spell-casting has become a serious addiction. It ruins lives, tears families apart, and eats away at the fabric of society. Those who cast too much are taken from our world, never to be heard from again. They are sent to a realm known as Hell’s Bottom — a sorcerer ghetto where everyday life is a harsh struggle for survival. Porcelain dolls crawl through the alleys like rats, arcane scientists abduct people from the streets to use in their ungodly experiments, and everyone lives in fear of the aristocratic race of spider people who prey on citizens like vampires.

Told in a series of interconnected stories reminiscent of Frank Miller’s Sin City and David Lapham’s Stray Bullets, Carlton Mellick III’s Hungry Bug is an urban fairy tale that focuses on the real life problems that arise within a fantastic world of magic.

Get it at amazon.com

Full List of CM3 Books Published in 2013

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, dark comedy, David Lynch, eraserhead press, extreme horror on January 6, 2014 by carltonmellick

2013 was a good year for me. I released 3 novels (including Clusterfuck, the sequel to my cabin in the woods parody Apeshit, and new fan favorite Quicksand House), 1 novella, 1 short story collection, and five older books were reissued. A total of 10 books! I’m not sure what 2014 will bring (aside from Hungry Bug, which will be available soon), but I hope it will be even better.

Here’s the full list:

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OUT NOW: “Clusterfuck”

Posted in Bizarro Books, cannibalism, Carlton Mellick III, deadite press, eraserhead press, extreme horror on October 10, 2013 by carltonmellick

Apeshit fans rejoice. Clusterfuck is now available!

CLUSTERFUCK

A bunch of douchebag frat boys get trapped in a cave with subterranean cannibal mutants and try to survive not by using their wits but by following the bro code . . .

From master of bizarro fiction Carlton Mellick III, author of the international cult hits Satan Burger and Adolf in Wonderland, comes a violent and hilarious B movie in book form. Set in the same woods as Mellick’s splatterpunk satire Apeshit, Clusterfuck follows Trent Chesterton, alpha bro, who has come up with what he thinks is a flawless plan to get laid. He invites three hot chicks and his three best bros on a weekend of extreme cave diving in a remote area known as Turtle Mountain, hoping to impress the ladies with his expert caving skills.

But things don’t quite go as Trent planned. For starters, only one of the three chicks turns out to be remotely hot and she has no interest in him for some inexplicable reason. Then he ends up looking like a total dumbass when everyone learns he’s never actually gone caving in his entire life. And to top it all off, he’s the one to get blamed once they find themselves lost and trapped deep underground with no way to turn back and no possible chance of rescue. What’s a bro to do? Sure he could win some points if he actually tried to save the ladies from the family of unkillable subterranean cannibal mutants hunting them for their flesh, but fuck that. No slam piece is worth that amount of effort. He’d much rather just use them as bait so that he can save himself.

It’s Tucker Max versus The Descent in this gore-filled comedy for the camp horror fan.

Now available at amazon.com

Praise for Apeshit, prequel to Clusterfuck

“The new gold standard in unstoppable fetus-fucking killfreakomania, Mellick’s APESHIT both earns and transcends its awesome title. Genuine all-meat hardcore horror meets unadulterated Bizarro brainwarp strangeness. The results are beyond jaw-dropping, and fill me with pure, unforgivable joy.”
— JOHN SKIPP, New York Times Bestselling author and splatterpunk superstar

“Hilarious, insightful and absolutely over-the-fucking-top, Apeshit will appeal to both traditional slasher fans and readers who want something a bit heavier.”
–BRIAN KEENE, author of The Rising

“An electrifying read, Apeshit successfully combines an exciting, blood-splattering slasher story with unexpected social commentary.”
— THE DREAM PEOPLE

“With undead necrophilia, monster-rape sodomy, abortion porn, more spilled guts than your average Fulci film, and so many more grotesqueries you’d need a notebook to remember them all, APESHIT just may be the extreme gorehound’s dream come true.”
— THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW

“Apeshit begins with a typical dead teenager setup. Three cheerleaders and three football players head out to a cabin in the woods. Yawn. But, this is a Carlton Mellick book. Each of the characters is funny and scary in their own way, a far cry from the cannon fodder Freddy and Jason types usually encounter. There’s Desdemona the punk cheerleader who wants to cover herself completely with tattoos, her former best friend Crystal who has an extremely disturbing fetish, dysfunctional Stephanie with her vagina dentata and horrible past and Rick and Kevin who are both with Desdemona, but would rather be with one another. The six are pitted against a horrific urban legend with crab claws and a particularly hideous mutation, and from there it all goes…well, look at the title. Gorehounds who like the scatology of South Park, the weirdness of Peter Jackson gore flicks and the confrontational brutality of Last House on the Left will all relish this loving homage to a genre that once looked this sick and exciting to Americans.”
— DOC FAUSTUS

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OUT NOW: “Quicksand House”

Posted in absurdism, Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, Fiction, horror, surrealism on July 18, 2013 by carltonmellick

My 41st book is now available. This is a book I’ve had in my head for over 15 years, but I didn’t feel I was ready to write it until now. It’s a bit longer than my most recent books and perhaps one of my best. This is for those who prefer my darker and more serious work (like The Egg Man) over my campy/trashy comical stuff (like Morbidly Obese Ninja).

QUICKSAND HOUSE

“You must never leave the nursery. If you leave, you will certainly die.”

Tick and Polly have never met their parents before. They live in the same house with them, they dream about them every night, they share the same flesh and blood, yet for some reason their parents have never found the time to visit them even once since they were born. Living in a dark corner of their parents’ vast crumbling mansion, the children long for the day when they will finally be held in their mother’s loving arms for the first time… But that day seems to never come. They worry their parents have long since forgotten about them.

When the machines that provide them with food and water stop functioning, the children are forced to venture out of the nursery to find their parents on their own. But the rest of the house is much larger and stranger than they ever could have imagined. The maze-like hallways are dark and seem to go on forever, deranged creatures lurk in every shadow, and the bodies of long-dead children litter the abandoned storerooms. Every minute out of the nursery is a constant battle for survival. And the deeper into the house they go, the more they must unravel the mysteries surrounding their past and the world they’ve grown up in, if they ever hope to meet the parents they’ve always longed to see.

Like a survival horror rendition of Flowers in the Attic, Carlton Mellick III’s Quicksand House is his most gripping and sincere work to date.

AVAILABLE AT WWW.AMAZON.COM

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New Eraserhead Press Releases — SPRING 2013

Posted in Bizarro Books, Bizarro Fiction, Carlton Mellick III, eraserhead press, Fiction, Jeff Burk, mermaids, post-apocalypse, Uncategorized on April 26, 2013 by carltonmellick

Normally, Eraserhead Press releases 3-4 books per quarter. This quarter, however, there are only two releases. I blame this on Shatnerquest. It required more publishing slots to contain all of the awesome.

SHATNERQUEST by Jeff Burk

After the apocalypse, three Star Trek fans and their morbidly obese cat embark on a quest to save their beloved idol, the one and only William Shatner, from the hostile world America has become.

But their journey will not be easy, for the wasteland is filled with cannibal cults, Klingon biker gangs, Zombie Borg, and all manner of mutant creatures. And once they arrive at their destination, they discover that William Shatner has been transformed into Shatzilla – a giant 100-story radioactive monster hell-bent on destroying all of Los Angeles.

Now instead of saving Shatner from this new apocalyptic world, these three fans must save the world from this new apocalyptic Shatner. If only there was another giant monster who could take him down…

From the author who brought you the cult hit Shatnerquake, comes another Shat-tastic sci-fi comedy that proves once and for all that there actually is something even bigger than William Shatner’s ego. And it is… William Shatner!

Click here to buy from Amazon.com

VILLAGE OF THE MERMAIDS by Carlton Mellick III

MERMAID [mur-meyd] noun — a rare species of fish evolved to resemble the appearance of a woman in order to attract male human prey.

Mermaids are protected by the government under the Endangered Species Act, which means you aren’t able to kill them even in self-defense. This is especially problematic if you happen to live in the isolated fishing village of Siren Cove, where there exists a healthy population of mermaids in the surrounding waters that view you as the main source of protein in their diet.

The only thing keeping these ravenous sea women at bay is the equally-dangerous supply of human livestock known as Food People. Normally, these “feeder humans” are enough to keep the mermaid population happy and well-fed. But in Siren Cove, the mermaids are avoiding the human livestock and have returned to hunting the frightened local fishermen. It is up to Doctor Black, an eccentric representative of the Food People Corporation, to investigate the matter and hopefully find a way to correct the mermaids’ new eating patterns before the remaining villagers end up as fish food. But the more he digs, the more he discovers there are far stranger and more dangerous things than mermaids hidden in this ancient village by the sea.

Like a Lovecraftian version of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, Village of the Mermaids is a dystopian mystery that proves once again how cult author Carlton Mellick III brings the weird to a whole new level.

AVAILABLE AT WWW.AMAZON.COM

SUMMER 2013 RELEASES:
(Coming in July)

“In Heaven Everything is Fine: Stories Inspired by the Films of David Lynch” edited by Cameron Pierce
“Quicksand House” by Carlton Mellick III
“Japan Conquers the Galaxy” by Kirsten Alene
“You Are a Sloth” by Steve Lowe

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