Two children leave the safety of their automated nursery to explore a vast, dreamlike mansion in hopes of finally meeting their parents for the first time in Carlton Mellick III’s most critically acclaimed novel to date.
In a topsy-turvy world where clowns are killers and crooks, Little Bigtop is a three-ring circus of crime, and no syndicate is more dangerous than the Binzo family. From the wildly original mind of Carlton Mellick III comes the short-story collection ClownFellas—an epic mob saga where life is cheap and the gags will slay you.
For years, the hard-boiled capos of the Binzo family have run all of the funny business in Little Bigtop, from the clown brothels to the illegal comedy trade. But hard times have befallen the Binzos now that Le Mystère, the French clown Mafia, has started moving in and trying to take over the city. If that weren’t enough, they’ve got to deal with the cops, the Feds, the snitches, the carnies, the mysterious hit man Mr. Pogo, and the mutant clowns over in the Sideshow district. With the odds stacked against them, the Binzos must fight to survive . . . or die laughing.
Tony dreads the idea of going to his wife’s company dinner party in Eagle Hills; the new upper-middleclass gated community that just popped up outside of Scottsdale, AZ. He hates these Southwest-style planned suburban neighborhoods. All of the streets look the same. All of the houses look the same. All of the people look the same. Because everything in Eagle Hills looks exactly the same, Tony has trouble finding the dinner party. He quickly becomes lost in the sea of red tile roofs. The streets seem to go on forever. The addresses don’t seem to make any sense.
After hours of navigating the suburban labyrinth, Tony discovers that there is something terribly wrong with the Eagle Hills gated community. There is something unnatural about the houses around him. There is something inhuman about the people staring at him through the windows. And no matter how far he drives, he can’t seem to find his way out.
My latest novel, APESHIP, is now available at amazon. This book is a follow up to my books APESHIT and CLUSTERFUCK, and is another splatterpunk satire for people with a gruesome sense of humor, but is a stand alone story and all three books can be read out of order.
An intolerable prick takes his weird daughter, his college-aged girlfriend, her douchey brother and her awkward best friend on a boating trip to show off his new yacht. But when they come across an abandoned cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, they find themselves hunted by a group of sadistic mutant killers hell-bent on keeping them as their immortal playthings for all eternity.
There exists a race of cannibals who are made out of candy. They live in an underground world filled with lollipop forests and gumdrop goblins. During the day, while you are away at work, they come above ground and prowl our streets for food. Their prey: your children. They lure young boys and girls to them with their sweet scent and bright colorful candy coating, then rip them apart with razor sharp teeth and claws.
When he was a child, Franklin Pierce witnessed the death of his siblings at the hands of a candy woman with pink cotton candy hair. Since that day, the candy people have become his obsession. He has spent his entire life trying to prove that they exist. And after discovering the entrance to the underground world of the candy people, Franklin finds himself venturing into their sugary domain. His mission: capture one of them and bring it back, dead or alive.
I am currently seeking cover artists for The CM3 Library collector’s edition hardcover series. Submission guidelines are below.
COVER ART
I am looking to commission cover images in a variety of styles from horror to science-fiction to surrealism to erotica and everything in between. I am only interested in traditional art or digital paintings that are of professional quality. ABSOLUTELY NO AI-GENERATED OR AI-ENHANCED ARTWORK. I am also not interested in photography or photo-manipulations.
PAYMENT: $500-1000 (depending on complexity and popularity of the book)
Send a link to your online portfolio to cm3library@eraserheadpress.com. If I think you’re a good fit for the series I’ll email you back.
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.
Starting in 2024, there will be a new subscription service for obtaining special edition hardcovers of my books. Three to four books will be published each year. They will be signed and numbered, limit to 500 copies. Click here for more.
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.
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.
"Carlton Mellick III has the craziest book titles... and the kinkiest fans!"
—Christopher Moore
"Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale."
—Cory Doctorow
CARLTON MELLICK III is the Wonderland Book Award-winning author of over 45 novels, including Quicksand House, Bio Melt, Cuddly Holocaust and Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland. In 2013, he was named one of the top 20 science-fiction writers under the age of 40 by The Guardian UK. His work has appeared in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror, The Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade, and Vice Magazine.
Featured Titles
Apeship
Six people are stranded at sea on a derelict cruise ship filled with immortal cannibal mutants.
Splatterpunk satire.
Full Metal Octopus
A fairy and an octomaid go on the run from the elf yakuza.
Pulpy and sexual.
The Bad Box
A class of fifth grade students find themselves at the mercy of a malicious godlike teacher.
Dark and absurd.
Snuggle Club
A short horror comedy that takes the art of communal snuggling to a whole new extreme.
Awkward and creepy.
Mouse Trap
A group of school children try to survive an alien invasion within an abandoned amusement park.
Dark and pulpy.
The Boy with the Chainsaw Heart
A Bio-Mech pilot drafted into Hell’s army must fight his way through a surreal afterlife in order to save his wife from slavery.
Dark and pulpy.
Neverday
The story of what happens to society after everyone in the world gets trapped in a never-ending time loop.
Dark and dystopian.
Stacking Doll
The story of a man who falls in love with a Russian nesting doll.
Dark and surreal.
Parasite MIlk
A travel show producer is infected with deadly sexually transmitted parasites after visiting a brothel on an alien planet.
Body horror science-fiction comedy.
The Big Meat
A kaiju tribute novel that explores the surreal aftermath of a giant monster attack.
Dark and gritty.
Spider Bunny
A group of college kids get trapped inside a deranged children’s cereal commercial from the 1980’s.
Creepy and absurd.
Exercise Bike
The story of a man who transformed himself into a human exercise bike and the woman who is forced to ride him.
Absurd body horror.
The Terrible Thing That Happens
In a post-apocalypse world, a small community of scavengers must survive by looting a grocery store that’s stuck in a time loop.
Dark and surreal.
Bio Melt
Within a toxic wasteland, six strangers find themselves trapped in an abandoned hotel, surrounded by a mysterious black ooze.
Dark and surreal.
ClownFellas
Six interconnected novellas revolving around the Bozo clown crime family
Surreal and Pulpy.
Sweet Story
A children’s book gone horribly wrong.
Dark humor.
The Tick People
In a city where people live like parasites on the back of a giant animal, a professional sadness-maker discovers that his soul mate is a hideous mutant.
Dark and surreal.
Hungry Bug
In a world where magic exists, spell-casting has become a serious addiction.
Gritty and pulpy.
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.
Comical and violent.
Quicksand House
Two children who have never met their parents before, even though they live in the same house with them, must fight for survival once their nursery becomes uninhabitable.
Dark and Dystopian.
Village of the Mermaids
An eccentric doctor travels to an isolated village of carnivorous mermaids to investigate a new disease spreading through the herd of human livestock.
Dark and Dystopian.
Cuddly Holocaust
A tale of survival set in a world where most of the human race has been exterminated by vicious stuffed animals.
Apocalyptic and brutal.
Kill Ball
A slasher thriller set in a city where everyone lives in plastic bubbles.
Dystopian and surreal.
Tumor Fruit
Seven castaways stranded on a bizarre deserted island must go to extremes in order to survive.
Surreal and disturbing.
The Handsome Squirm
It’s Franz Kafka’s The Trial meets an erotic horror version of The Blob when a man is forced by law to marry an alien woman who devours her mates.
Absurd and dystopian.
Armadillo Fists
Set in a world where people drive mechanical dinosaurs instead of cars, a female boxer with armadillo hands is on the run from deranged mobsters.
Pulpy and fun.
I Knocked Up Satan’s Daughter
A parody of romantic comedies about a man who finds himself engaged to a succubus who’s pregnant with his child.
Light and satirical.
The Morbidly Obese Ninja
A 700 pound killing machine must go against his corporate employers in order to save a terminal child.
Pulpy and fun.
Crab Town
A bizarre bank heist set in a radioactive post-nuke ghetto.
Dystopian and relevant.
Zombies and Shit
It’s Battle Royale meets Return of the Living dead in a fight to the death game of survival where twenty contestants are put against each other in the middle of the zombie wasteland.
Apocalyptic, pulpy, and epic.
Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland
A Wonderland Book Award-winning novel about a three-armed man who finds himself in the middle of a war between a gang of road warrior werewolves and mutants from a dystopian version of McDonaldland.
Apocalyptic, pulpy, and epic.
The Cannibals of Candyland
A man finds himself imprisoned in an under ground world populated by child-eating mutants made of candy.
Erotic and horrific.
A parody of cabin in the woods horror stories where the victims turn out to be far more deranged than the mutant killers who hunt them.
Campy and fucked up.
The Egg Man
It is a survival of the fittest world where humans reproduce like insects, children are the property of corporations, and having a ten-foot tall brain is a grotesque sexual fetish.
Dark, dystopian, and ugly.
Cybernetrix
A dark and bizarre parody of the movie Tron where a game world and our world bleed together into one reality.
Pulpy and awesome.
The Faggiest Vampire
A bizarro children’s book about two vampire rivals competing in a mustache contest to determine which one is the faggiest.
Cute and relevant.
The Ultra Fuckers
A landscaper and a trio of Japanese punks find themselves stranded in a suburban gated community that seems to go on forever.
Nightmarish and absurd.
Adolf in Wonderland
Nazis from an alternate world of absolute perfection go down the rabbit hole into a dark surreal world of chaos and imperfection.
Absurd and horrific.
Sausagey Santa
A bizarro Christmas story… filled with sex and violence.
Satirical and pulpy.
The Haunted Vagina
It’s difficult to love a woman whose vagina is a gateway to the world of the dead.
Satirical and absurd.
Praise for Carlton Mellick III
"If you like satires which are highly imaginative, subversive, gory, funny as hell and completely surreal CM3 may be your literary messiah."
—Ricardo Gonzalez Del Valle
"CM3 is the most imaginative writer since Lethem and Vonnegut. Different, and absolutely thought provoking..."
—Daniel McCreary
"Carlton Mellick creates fascinating and intricate worlds out of meat, slime, sexuality, wire, and the kind of nightmares that make you laugh when you wake up."
—Jemiah Jefferson
"Brilliant writing that oozes into your skull and melts your brain like a box of a zillion crayons."
—Idiot Alien Thought Creature
"His books are from another universe."
—Cameron Pierce
"Mellick is smarter than the dumbness he tries to coat his writing in; you feel like you're reading a comic or watching MTV - but that underneath there is something deeper and smarter than the cartoonish presentation before your eyes."
—Euchrid
"Through childlike narration Mr. Mellick can present to his reader some of the most curious and knee-slapingly hysterical blaspheme."
—Ian David McGowen
"There is depth behind his simplistic prose, and humor all around it. What at first seems unsophisticated quickly becomes a firm identity to the characters, and you realize the intelligence behind the naivety. Yes, it's all on purpose, and you've just been had!"
—Schtinky
"Mellick has definitely joined the ranks of the bizarre literary geniuses such as Burroughs, Philip K. Dick, and Vonnegut."
—Charles Glover
"Mellick's imagination is boundless, and his writing truly shows this. His characters, plot, and writing style are original, enjoyable, and inspiring."