WeirdBlog.com

Posts Tagged ‘Fiction’

There’s a new genre rising from the underground. Its name: BIZARRO. For years, readers have been asking for a category of fiction dedicated to the weird, crazy, cult side of storytelling that has become a staple in the film industry (with directors such as David Lynch, Takashi Miike, Tim Burton, and even Lloyd Kaufman) but has been largely ignored in the literary world, until now.

The Bizarro Starter Kit features short novels and story collections by ten of the leading authors in the bizarro genre: D. Harlan Wilson, Carlton Mellick III, Jeremy Robert Johnson, Kevin L Donihe, Gina Ranalli, Andre Duza, VIncent W. Sakowski, Steve Beard, John Edward Lawson, and Bruce Taylor.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, the first page offers the following explanation:

Defining Bizarro
1. Bizarro, simply put is the genre of the weird.
2. Bizarro is literature’s equivalent to the cult section at the video store.
3. Like cult movies, Bizarro is sometimes surreal, sometimes goofy, sometimes bloody, and sometimes borderline pornographic.
4. Bizarro often contains a certain cartoon logic that, when applied to the read world, creates an unstable universe where the bizarre becomes the norm and absurdities are made flesh.
5. Bizarro strives not only to be strange, but fascinating, thought-provoking, and, above all, fun to read.
6. Bizarro was created by a group of small press publishers in response to the increasing demand for (good) weird fiction and the increasing number of authors who specialize in it.
7. Bizarro is:
Franz Kafka meets Joe Bob Briggs
Dr. Suess of the post-apocalypse
Japanese animation directed by David Lynch

There are strange happenings going on at Dactyl, Inc, the world’s first and only time travel tourism company. So strange that Joe is promoted to the new position of Chief of Probes. His first probe: find out who’s been traveling back in time and torturing his boss in rather disturbing ways.

Joe quickly finds himself catapulted from his dull life into a surreal journey where a blind hog-tying monkey is one of the sanest creatures he meets. Traveling through a past where the only thing that changes the present is death, while dealing with the fabric of space-time slowly unraveling, Joe stumbles into the middle of events that threaten both the Earth’s future and past.

“Foop! is a surreal pie in the face.” – CHRISTOPHER MOORE, bestselling author of Fluke and Lamb

“Genoa’s first novel is a seriocomic romp through time and space as his hero tries to save the world from losing both its future and past. A procession of oddball characters, including a blind monkey and a quirky pair called Boogedy and Nibbles, adds to the humor in this tale of a reluctant hero and his call to duty.” – LIBRARY JOURNAL

“Wild, fearless and wickedly clever, Foop! fireballs through time and space to find a future that is as absurd as it is heartbreaking. The more you read of Chris Genoa, the more you realize he’s not content with just tickling your imagination along with your funny bone–gosh darn it if he isn’t also making a play for your soul. Wonderfully dark. A terrific read. An inspired debut.” – NICK SAGAN, author of Edenborn and Idlewild