Here it is. My 40th book is in print and now available at amazon.com. 40th book release? That sounds like a call for celebration. It’s also my ten year anniversary of being able to quit the day job and write for a living. I think I’m getting some Super Dog IPA at Lucky Lab Brewery tonight.
This book is my April release (next one will come out in July). This book contains another bonus comic at the end.
Also: mermaids!
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
The Dream People is the ORIGINAL bizarro fiction webzine, debuting back in 1999 (when I was the head editor). It’s now on issue #37. An excerpt from my book Armadillo Fists has been published there. There are also novel excerpts and short stories from Michael A. Arnzen, Blake Butler, Sean Kilpatrick, William Pauley III, Andersen Prunty, Donna Fleck and Gary J. Shipley. And an essay from Lance Olsen. 
Carlton Mellick III 