The new edition of my book “The Menstruating Mall” is now available at amazon.com.
“The Breakfast Club meets Chopping Mall as directed by David Lynch.” – Brian Keene
Ten ridiculously stereotypical consumer victims (a yuppie, a housewife, a retiree, a jock, a bible thumper, a cowboy, a preppy, a gamer, a goth, and a white suburban gangsta) find themselves unable to leave the mall one day. There is nothing stopping them. The doors are unlocked. Other shoppers are able to come and go as they please. But for some inexplicable reason, these ten people cannot pry themselves away from their shopping miasma. The mall closes, and they won’t leave. Days pass, and they’re still there, eating meals in the food court and sleeping in department store bedroom displays. Then they begin to die off, one by one, murdered by a mysterious killer, and they still won’t allow themselves to escape. Carlton Mellick III’s “The Menstruating Mall” is both a modernized take on Luis Bunuel’s “The Exterminating Angel,” and a parody of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None.”
Features: a world where people cosmetically alter their bodies to look like Japanese anime characters, cyberpunk assassins hired by electronics corporations, and a 700 pound ninja who uses his grotesque excess weight as a deadly weapon.
If you haven’t heard the news on Monday, hardcore horror writers Brian Keene and J. F. Gonzalez have signed with Eraserhead Press’s cult horror imprint Deadite Press. The press will be re-releasing multiple books by these authors, starting with Urban Gothic by Brian Keene and the first two books of the Clickers series by J. F. Gonzales, Mark Williams, and Brian Keene.
Keene is not only one of the coolest fucking writers out there in horror, he has also been one of the biggest supporters of my work and bizarro fiction in general for the past decade, so I’m really excited to see him working with Deadite Press. As many of you know, I design all the covers for Deadite (including the ones pictured above) and with these upcoming releases I hope to give these writers the badass presentation their work rightly deserves.
When there’s no more meat in hell,
the vegans will walk the earth.
If you are a zombie fan or a vegan you need to check out this book. Published by Deadite Press, the cult horror imprint of Eraserhead Press. I urged “punk horror” author David Agranoff to write this book because I thought it was a book that needed to be written. No one in the world could have written this book but David. I’m not a vegan, but you don’t have to be a vegan to like this. It’s just a good horror comedy that pokes fun at hipsters, Portlanders, juggalos, zombie fans, and even some aspects vegan culture. Oh, and it also pokes fun at the whole “with zombies” trend in literature that started with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. The main character works at a zombie publishing house and is copyediting the next big zombie mash-up: Of Mice and Men and Zombies.
“Like Shaun of the Dead with vegans and hipsters. A hilarious zombie comedy. I loved it!” – Carlton Mellick III
“Destined to become a favorite among zombie fans and vegans alike.” – Gina Ranalli, author of Praise the Dead
“This witty novel celebrates everything I love about vegan Portland and kills everything I hate!” – Jess of Portland’s Get Sconed vegan blog.
Presenting Stress Free Food! Animal suffering is a thing of the past. Hipsters can now enjoy bacon without guilt. Thanks to a new miracle drug the cute little pig no longer feels a thing as she is led to the slaughter. The only problem? Once the drug enters the food supply anyone who eats it is infected. From fast food burgers to free-range organic eggs, eating animal products turns people into shambling brain-dead zombies. Not even vegetarians are safe!
In Portland, Oregon, vegans, freegans, abolitionists, hardliners and raw fooders have holed up in Food Fight, one of the country’s premier vegan grocery stores at the vegan mini-mall. There they must prepare for their final battle to take back the city from the hordes of roaming undead. Will vegans filet the flesh-eaters or will they become zombie chow?
When there’s no more meat in hell, the vegans will walk the earth.
My story “War Pig” will soon appear in the werewolf anthology “Werewolves and Shape Shifters: Encounters with the Beast Within” edited by the one and only John Skipp. This story (about 6,000 words) is the one that I described as a steampunk version of Fight Club with werepigs. Of course, it’s actually more like Death Sport than Fight Club and there’s only one werepig, but there is also a werebear, a were jaguar, werejellyfish, and a werebulldog, among others. It’s personally one of my favorite short stories I’ve written in a long time. I hope to write more like it.
This anthology also includes fellow bizarros Jeremy Robert Johnson, Cody Goodfellow, and Nicole Cushing, as well as Chuck Palahniuk, Neil Gaiman, HP Lovecraft, George R R Martin, Kathe Koja, Francesca Lia Block, Charlainne Harris, Joe R Landsdale and a ton of other amazing writers.
Here are the contents:
THE COMPANY OF WOLVES – Angela Carter
THE OTHER SIDE – Count Stenbock
THE LADY ON THE GREY – John Collier
GABRIEL-ERNEST — Saki
THE SHADOW OVER INNSMOUTH – H.P. Lovecraft
GRANDFATHER WOLF – Steve Rasnic Tem
FIRE DOG – Joe R. Lansdale
PURE SILVER – A.C. Crispin and Kathleen O’Malley
GIFT-WRAP – Charlaine Harris
SIDE-EFFECTS MAY INCLUDE – Steve Duffy
UNLESS YOU CHANGE – Francesca Lia Block
FORGIVEN – Eric Shapiro
THE COLD THAT FLAYS THE SKIN – Tessa Gratton
IL DONNAIOLO – Brad C. Hodson
WEREWOLF 101 – Mercedes M. Yardley
MANDIBLE – Alice Henderson
FAR AND WEE – Kathe Koja
BRAIDS – Melanie Tem
NOT FROM AROUND HERE – David J. Schow
THE SKIN TRADE – George R.R. Martin
THE ANIMAL ASPECT OF HER MOVEMENT – Adam Golaski
STRANGE SKIN – Bentley Little
BREAK-UP – Richard Christian Matheson
THE BETTER HALF: A LOVE STORY – Scott Bradley and Peter Giglio
PLASTIC FANTASTIC – Dieter Meyer and Maxwell Hart
WARM, IN YOUR COAT – Violet Glaze
ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN PIGGY CLASS – Nicole Cushing
HOWL OF THE SHEEP – Cody Goodfellow
PIECES OF ETHAN – Adam-Troy Castro
I COVET ALL THE WANING HOURS – Zak Jarvis
WHEN SUSSURUS STIRS – Jeremy Robert Johnson
WAR PIG – Carlton Mellick III
DISSERTATION – Chuck Palahniuk
ONLY THE END OF THE WORLD AGAIN – Neil Gaiman
SWEETHEART COME – Alethea Kontis
The masterful bizarro author D. Harlan Wilson will be editing a bizarro issue of The Pedestal Magazine. Here are the submission guidelines:
The Pedestal Magazine invites submissions for a special issue of Bizarro fiction to be edited by D. Harlan Wilson. Flash fiction between 250-1000 words will be considered. Loosely speaking, “Bizarro” is an umbrella term encompassing different kinds of weird, absurd, horrific, uncanny, and/or grotesque speculative fiction. Literary and experimental forms are strongly encouraged. Do not submit work that is simply weird for weird’s sake; also avoid toilet humor and boyish antics. We are looking for purposeful Bizarro that is dynamically written and thought-provoking. Payment for accepted stories will be $.08 per word. No reprints. Submission period will run from April 28-June 14. All submissions will be received via the submission form provided on The Pedestal Magazine website: http://www.thepedestalmagazine.com.
I’m looking for stories for an upcoming bizarro Christmas-themed anthology called “Christmas on Crack.”
What I’m looking for: very weird children’s Christmas stories for adults. I’m especially looking for fucked up versions of classic Christmas stories like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Twas the Night Before Christmas, a Christmas Carol, etc, but something completely original would also be welcome. I want these stories to be funny, imaginative, surreal, trashy, clever, and not at all appropriate for children. Think of Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas meets Lloyd Kaufman’s Poultrygeist. The weirder the better, the trashier the better, the funnier the better. Surprise me.
Note: I would prefer if the stories were told in a narrative style similar to that of a children’s story. Think of The Faggiest Vampire meets Sausagey Santa. That’s the kind of thing I want to see, but better. But a good story is a good story no matter what style it’s written in.
Length: I’d like stories that are 3,000-12,000 words long.
How to submit: I actually don’t want you to write anything until after you contact me. Pitch me an idea for your story first. That way if I’m not interested then you don’t have to go through the trouble of writing it. I am only going to respond to story ideas that interest me, so if you never hear back from me it probably means that I think your story ideas are completely lame and you shouldn’t have even bothered to try. Well, either that or other pitches better caught my attention.
Send an idea (or three) for a bizarro Christmas story you’d like to write for me to: carltonmellick3@yahoo.com.
Deadline: I will be taking pitches until May 15th 2010 or sooner if I find enough ideas that I like.
Posted in Fiction on July 14, 2009 by carltonmellick
Recently, one of my never-before-published short stories was accepted into an anthology. The story is “Cockroaches and Lemon Knives,” which is a not-really-that-bizarro zombie story about people living within the walls like cockroaches to survive after the zombie apocalypse.
The anthology is “Zombies” (published by Black Dog and Leventhal). It is edited by John Skipp, who was the co-editor of “Book of the Dead,” which anthologized all the greatest zombie fiction ever published in the history of literature. “Zombies” anthologizes all the greatest zombie fiction ever published in the history of literature that didn’t appear in “Book of the Dead.” I’m proud to have a story included in this. If you don’t know John Skipp, I highly highly HIGHLY recommend checking out his co-authored book “The Emerald Burrito of Oz.” It’s seriously one of my favorite bizarro books and it’s not even categorized as bizarro. It is like a weird modernization of Oz. Really fun to read. It kind of reminds me of that mini-series “Tin Man” only ten billion times better (because Tin Man was pretty weak).
Here are some of the great writers who will be appearing in this anthology with me:
Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Theodore Sturgeon, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Max Brooks, Joe R. Lansdale, Kathe Koja, Robert R. McCammon, Jack Ketchum, George Saunders, Dennis Etchison, Leonid Andreyev, W.B. Seabrook, Steve Duffy, S.G. Browne, Justine Musk, Adam Golaski, Mehitobel Wilson, Les Daniels, Steve Rasnic Tem, Steven R. Boyett, David J. Schow, Eric Shapiro, John Skipp and Marc Levinthal, Cody Goodfellow, Lisa Morton, Terry Morgan and Christopher Morgan, Douglas E. Winter, and Adam-Troy Castro.
Posted in Fiction on July 2, 2009 by carltonmellick
It’s my birthday today, so it’s made me think of a story I wrote around my birthday last year. (It was critiqued at the Clarion West workshop the day before my birthday.)
If you haven’t read it yet, the story is called “Candy-coated.” It was published in Vice Magazine around Christmas time in their last all-fiction issue. You can still read it online here: http://www.viceland.com/int/v15n12/htdocs/candy-coated-401.php
There is also an audio version you can listen to on that page, read by the woman who does the voice on the PA at Whole Foods. I recommend reading it first and then listening to the audio, because it is funnier that way.
If you like it, let me know what you think.
Here’s a sample:
“Knob Tyler thinks he’s the strongest, toughest, most badass motherfucker on Mill Avenue. Unfortunately, Knob has a lollipop for a head. This makes him not quite as badass as he thinks he is.”
"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."
Carlton Mellick III 