Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice

Detective Tony Chu is a cibopath, meaning he gets psychic feedback from anything he eats. This means he feels the life of any animal, plant, or anything else he ingests. Well, except for beets. Why? Who knows, but at least he can eat something guilt-free.

In a world where poultry consumption has been outlawed due to an outbreak of avaian flu, Chu is hired on by the Special Crimes Division of the USFDA to use his talents to solve otherwise unsolvable crimes. Teamed with a hulking mass of a man named Mason (who is also a cibopath), Chu is assigned to the most bizarre of cases, including a reporter who's food reviews make people physically ill, an Arctic outpost with a seemingly pointless assignment to audit their spending, and a Yakuza chicken smuggling operation. All the while, clues emerge that question the government's poultry ban.

Fans of bizarro fiction are likely to enjoy the sheer weirdness of the plot, while those used to more conventional stories may not appreciate the storyline. John Layman does a great job establishing the state of this world and makes the characters as believable as possible, considering the absurdity of the conspiracy and nature of Chu and Mason's powers.

The over-the-top artwork by Rob Guillory helps drive home the quirkiness of Chu's world. Chu is drawn relatively straightforward, while those around him are exaggerated caricatures of the traits they represent. It also helps that Guillory doesn't seem to be afraid of backgrounds, which often have little "Easter eggs" if you're paying attention.

All in all, a pretty good read. Check it out if you'd like to add a little strangeness to your diet.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and Things From Another World

Title: Chew, Vol. 1: Taster's Choice
Author: John Layman
Artist: Rob Guillory
Year: 2009
Pages: 128

My Fake War

In a dystopian near-future, Saul Dressing's evening is interrupted to discover his forty-something, overweight ass has been drafted. Given no training, only a gun that can do everything, he is air-dropped into a desert country he's never heard of with orders to declare war on the population. Now, if he could only find someone...

From the way it started out, I was expecting a satire of the current U.S. geopolitical situation. The United States of Everything declaring war on every nation on earth provides a perfect analog to the U.S. government's policy in recent years to engage in as many
warskinetic military actions as it can handle. However, once you get past this bit of irony, the book goes nowhere quickly and resulted in a completely anticlimactic dud of an ending.

This is a trend I'm seeing in the four bizarro novellas I've read: The author comes up with a few unique, creative, and weird ideas, expands on these a bit, but then has no idea what to do with the actual plot, so s/he just rushes out an ending to finish the tale. This probably explains why most bizarro novels run in the 75–150 page range. I guess it comes down to whether or not you're a fan of the genre. If you are, then you'll probably love this book. If not, well... you probably won't be too surprised.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: My Fake War
Author: Andersen Prunty
Year: 2010
Pages: 112

The Cannibals of Candyland

The gist of the story is that there exists a group of cannibalistic offshoots of humanity that live in a subterranean world where everything is made of candy. Of course, evolution happened this way because the Candy People's favorite food is young children, and children are attracted to candy. Franklin Pierce watched one of the candy cannibals eat his siblings as a child and is seeking to expose and motivate the world into ridding existence of the Candy People. When he follows one down to their world, his plan goes awry, and he finds himself becoming what he hates most!

While Carlton Mellick III has a vivid imagination and a knack for thinking his universes through completely, I wouldn't consider this the best work of his I've read. Earlier I read Sausagey Santa, and that was a much more whacked-out and entertaining read. While this has some good moments, it mostly just drives the plot towards its inevitable conclusion.

It's a fun read, but not Mellick's best.

Available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Books-A-Million.

Title: The Cannibals of Candyland
Author: Carlton Mellick III
Year: 2009
Pages: 151

Shatnerquake

Aside from a few nerdgasmic moments introduced by the author, Jeff Burk, the book consisted primarily of jumping from plot point to plot point to plot point with little room for anything else to transpire.

I'm not a huge fan of long, drawn-out descriptions (Herman Melville, you are evil), but I had a difficult time trying to follow the action at times. You could tell Burk had a picture in his mind of what was happening, but he didn't describe it well enough to convey the events to the reader in order to achieve the full effect.

There was also a severe lack of any kind of characterization in this book, and the few characters that did receive any usually ended up as pointless cannon fodder a few pages later.

The less said about the ending, the better. Judging by other's comments on Goodreads, there seem to be one or more sequels, but on its own, it was rather ambiguous and nonsensical.

This was my first "official" bizarro book, so I'm not quite sure if I'm as qualified to review it as others more familiar with the genre, but this didn't do a whole lot for me.

Title: Shatnerquake
Author: Jeff Burk
Year: 2009
Pages: 100