How I Weird with Danger Slater
HOW I WEIRD WITH DANGER SLATER
Danger Slater is a lovely chap. He’s the kind of guy you can trust with your brain with. He’ll take your brain out on a date. Sure. He’ll wear a suit and bring flowers and will bring it back by the scheduled curfew. Okay. But look what’s done! That ain’t your brain anymore. He’s gone and made balloon animals out of your imagination and is playing your amygdala like a bugle horn!
But boy is that a catchy tune, you think as you click your fingers and hum along.
Readers of his work will already know that he’s extremely flammable, can talk to insects, and has quite large eyes. He’s also a cracking author of some incredible bizarro books like the Wonderland Book Award Winner – I Will Rot Without You and his latest slice of absurdity – Impossible James.
Join me as we crack open this little walnut and see what’s crawling around inside.
WHO – Danger Slater
WHAT – Huh?
WHERE – Portland, Oregon, in America, on Earth, in the Solar System portion of the Milky Way, as a part of the Local Group of galaxies that is itself a part of the Virgo Supercluster which in turn is a portion of the Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex, located within the Universe we all know and love.
NOTABLE WORK – I Will Rot Without You, I suppose.
WHAT DO YOU WRITE WITH – My hands. I use them to type words on a keyboard. It’s wild, you gotta try it.
ONE WORD THAT BEST DESCRIBES YOUR MIND – Flubber
CAN WE SEE A PICTURE OF WHERE YOU WRITE – Yeah, go Google ‘bathroom’ and my writing area looks pretty similar to that.
WHAT WAS YOUR INTRODUCTION TO BIZARRO – the Bizarro Starter Kit books that Eraserhead used to put out functioned a lot like a sampler of several early Bizarro author’s works.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVOURITE BIZARRO-ADJACENT MOVIE OR BOOK – The Greasy Strangler is a pretty good recent favorite. But weird shit has been around since movies began. Even A Trip to the Moon, the Melies film from 1902, is basically an Adult Swim short.
HOW DO YOU RECHARGE – Reading. And playing with my cat. I go out to eat a lot. I like that.
WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO SEE ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS – I can answer them again, if you like?
WE’LL BE IN TOUCH!
Check out more of Danger’s work on his blog, follow him over on Twitter, and check out his books over on Amazon.
Bizarro Summer Reading: Scum of the Earth
Wherein Bizarro Central takes a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer…
THEY CAME TO RAID… THEY STAYED TO GET LAID!
For centuries, alien drug-runners plundered the Earth, harvesting organs and freebasing fear. Few drugs could match the potency of humanity’s dysfunctional two-stroke brains, so the Intergalactic Enforcement Force burned it down.
Now, the last scattered, ragtag pockets of humanity strewn across a hundred backwater worlds are the most sought-after cash crop in the universe, and their only hope lies in the unsteady, oversexed hands of a pirate crew of intergalactic trash under the command of a devious cutthroat nymphomaniac known as Callista Chrome.
But to save the unworthy human race, Callista and her drug-hungry horde will have to go through conniving alien cartels, buzzkill narcs, priapic platypuses, polymorphic ex’s and bloodthirsty space-Vikings before facing the most devastating enemy in the worst place in the known universe… home.
Available for pre-order HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: Impossible James
Wherein Bizarro Central takes a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer…
My father was dying. There was no hope. Then he took a screwdriver to the brain. Got pregnant. And found the cure for death.
Impossible? That’s my dad.
IMPOSSIBLE JAMES
“Danger Slater is fearless and should be ashamed of himself. Thank God he’s not.” — JOSH MALERMAN, author of Bird Box
“If Richard Brautigan and William S. Burroughs had a baby it would be Danger Slater” — THE HORROR REVIEW
“Bizarro horror at its best.” — SPLATTERPUNK ZINE
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: Everybody Lies in Hell
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer
“In Everybody Lies in Hell Mike Stone’s eternal damnation is a private detective’s office in a re-imagined Brooklyn. In Hell, the beautiful woman with a case opens a literal Pandora’s Box, and Stone is soon inundated by all-too-recognizable evils and lies of Hell’s tortured souls, powerful ancient demons and devils, and haunting personal ones. Classic pulp, noir, and horror–think James N. Cain and Bukowski and Palahniuk–are all ground up in a blender and the result is a nasty, wild, and ultimately redemptive novel that only Dave Zeltserman could write.”
–Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts
Hell can be a tricky place with all of its rules. Mike Stone, hell’s lone practicing private eye, thinks he has it figured out, and more often than not, solves the cases that come his way. It’s not easy, though. Not with the fact that everyone in hell lies. And not with having to worry about a barbaric warlord from a long-forgotten time after his head. Or a compatriot of Vlad the Impaler wanting to purify his soul in a chamber of horrors for all eternity. Or that his circa 1992 Brooklyn private hell might be absorbed at any moment by a more aware soul. And then there’s that creepy Mortuary Man and whatever his agenda might be.
When Stone takes on a young woman as a client who wants him to find out who murdered her, it turns out to be his most dangerous case yet, and what he discovers might just be Hell’s biggest secret.
Available for pre-order HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: Cannibal Nuns from Outer Space
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer
The summer blockbuster book! Probably.
With an encyclopaedic knowledge of cake, and exclusive access to the church’s stockpile of holy weapons, the Order of the Crimson Rosary are on the frontline in the eternal war between good and evil. Whether it’s repelling demonic possession, judging the authenticity of supposed miracles or having the final say on the colour of bunting at church fetes, the organisation’s members sacrifice their own freedom to keep the world safe.
Father Flynn, the top operative in the UK, has been responsible for a number of recent high profile gaffs. Given an ultimatum, he must choose between returning to his old job of preserving the last microfiche machine in the church’s library, or submit himself for rehabilitation.
Yet evil doesn’t take a ticket and wait in line, as the dreaded cannibal nuns from outer space land to begin their annual harvest. Can Flynn get himself sober enough to repel their evil machinations? Or will another idyllic British village become the nun’s latest buffet?
One thing’s for certain, to beat them, Father Flynn is going to have to kick the habit.
Book two in the GoreCom series, this time it’s highly trained priests facing off against the titular cannibal nuns from outer space. Can the finest Crimson Rosary operatives in the UK thwart the nefarious plan to reduce another population centre to compote?
Available for pre-order HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: The Drive-Thru Crematorium
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer
“Toss Kafka, David Lynch, and a pinch of Flannery O’Connor in a blender and you just might end up with The Drive-Thru Crematorium. A thoroughly baffling, unsettling, and mesmerizing journey into madness.” – Dave Zeltserman, author of Everybody Lies in Hell
Stanley Maddox lives a mundane life in a nondescript town. His wife is cheating on him, his colleagues at work don’t recognize him, and he has recently noticed a mysterious creature darting its way through his house. When he notices a flap of skin on his face, he begins pulling. Beneath his skin lies another person, an evil person, with the power to change his life forever.
Available for pre-order HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: One for the Road
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer
“A road trip through Hell in the spirit of Skipp & Spector’s The Scream and Grady Hendrix’s We Sold Our Souls. I loved it!” –Brian Keene, author of The Rising
“A gritty and authentic rampage through Rock ‘n’ Roll. I loved every word.” –Matt Hayward, Bram Stoker nominated author of What Do Monsters Fear? and The Faithful
Only one more show and heavy metal guitarist Spencer Hesston can finally quit Rot in Hell. No more touring, no more fighting, and no more unwanted advances from the lead singer’s girlfriend. But instead of waking up the next day in their Midwestern hometown, the band finds themselves dazed and confused in an abandoned settlement in the middle of the desert, with no idea of how they got there.
Things are done a little differently out here: the trees have perverse urges, the spiders have human fingers, and every time they step outside the town transforms into a new hellish nightmare.
In this town anything is possible, except making it out in one piece…
Deadite Press is proud to present a new novella from Wesley Southard, a work of surreal horror sure to please fans of SILENT HILL, JACOB’S LADDER, and LOST HIGHWAY.”
“Wesley Southard’s writing thrums with uninhibited energy that’s both infectious and entertaining. Discovering Wesley’s work has been a joy, and you should seek out his books too. He’s definitely a writer to watch.” –Jonathan Janz, author of The Siren and the Spector and Exorcist Falls
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: The Story of Y
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer….
In an attempt to interview forgotten outsider musician Y. Bhekhirst, Alex, an aspiring rock journalist, travels the backroads of Mexico along with his girlfriend, Primavera, his best friend/drug dealer Larry AKA Lobster, and John, the ghost of a singer trapped in his own record. Along the way they discover towns that disappear overnight, waiters without mouths, cartel bosses with mysterious powers, anarchist militias, and churches which contain infinite worlds.
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: Dirty Rotten Hippies and Other Stories
Wherein Bizarro Central takes a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer…
They’ve come from all over the world for a three-day celebration of peace, music, and groovy vibes. Then a mystery drug sickens thousands and the dead begin to rise in Dirty Rotten Hippies, the new novella from the author of Depraved and 68 Kill. No one is safe during this weekend of carnage in the countryside.
This new collection includes several never-before-published short stories, as well as other stories that previously appeared in various anthologies. The collection also includes the first widely available print appearances of the novelette Some Crazy Fucking Shit That Happened One Day and mini-collection Seven Deadly Tales of Terror, both previously only available in eBook format.
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: I’m Not Even Supposed to be Here Today
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer….
“Sometimes you stop by the convenience store for a slushy and the world just goes straight to hell, and takes you along with it. I haven’t had this much fun watching terrible stuff happen in a long time.” -Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels
A Bizarro fiction tribute to the Kevin Smith cult classic CLERKS.
After a killer surf session, Scot Kring stops into his local Fasmart for a delicious, icy Slushpuppy. But before he can leave, a homeless guy outside has a stroke and accidentally recites an ancient Latin phrase that summons a very hungry demon, who just so happens to look like filmmaker Kevin Smith.
Now Scot’s stuck in a time loop along with the other occupants of the convenience store who may or may not be demonically possessed and he’s fighting back with nothing but a fistful of greasy hot dogs and a souvenir Slushpuppy cup as the giant menacing kaiju Kevin Smith threatens to kill them all.
I’m Not Even Supposed to Be Here Today is a demon apocalypse comedy for the slacker generation.
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: Unamerica
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer….
“Cody Goodfellow knows how to chill your blood. . .” —STEPHEN KING, author of It and The Dark Half
#thisisunamerica
NEVER WORK, NEVER DIE
Buried half a mile beneath the desert sands of the US-Mexico border, exists a secret city that holds the promise of everything that draws refugees and immigrants to America––liberty, luxury and excess. . .
In this Terminal Autonomous Zone, two prophets will rise—one, a reckless seeker who believes the psychedelic mushrooms he’s discovered will spur a revolution in human consciousness; the other, a fire-and-brimstone preacher endowed by strange angels with a power that heals the sick and raises the dead—and as rival factions emerge around them, a march toward war begins . . .
“Unamerica is madness. Timely, familiar, brilliant—but most of all, terrifying—madness.” —ROB HART, author of The Warehouse
“Goodfellow satirizes the excesses of capitalism, religion, and drug culture in this macabre dystopian fantasy… a wild, trippy journey through a horrifying nightmare version of America.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: LAKEHOUSE INFERNAL
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer….
“Lakehouse Infernal is the coolest, ball-bustingest, most outrageous, and most ENTERTAINING horror novel you’re likely to find in a long time.” – Edward Lee author of CITY INFERNAL
Lake Misquamicus was an unremarkable lake in Florida, unremarkable that is until suddenly it was filled with six billion gallons of blood, bile, pus, piss, shit and …things… directly from the pits of Hell. First the public was in shock, then the government built a wall, and as time passed it became another urban legend. But for some, it has become a travel destination. Spring-breakers, drug-runners, and religious nuts. But a weekend getaway on the shores of Hell, may not be the safest idea…
With an introduction by and officially endorsed by splatterpunk legend Edward Lee, LAKEHOUSE INFERNAL is an official entree in Lee’s infamous INFERNAL series. Christine Morgan (SPERMJACKERS FROM HELL) expands on this universe with her own twist of hardcore horror tourism.
“Think Spring Break, only instead of a beach house, it’s a lakehouse, but the lakehouse IS IN FUCKIN’ HELL, that’s right, a chunk of Hell that’s been upheaved and pushed up into our pretty little world-sunny Florida, no less!” – Edward Lee
Available HERE
Bizarro Summer Reading: MOUSE TRAP
Wherein Bizarro Central features a wide-ranging look at all the weird books coming out this summer….
For almost 20 years, Carlton Mellick III has been writing some of the strangest and most compelling novels the bizarro fiction genre has to offer. Described as one of the top 40 science-fiction writers under the age of 40 by The Guardian and “one of the most original novelists working today” by extreme horror legend Edward Lee, Mellick returns with a quiet, apocalyptic tale of young unrequited love in a dying world.
It’s the last school trip young Emily will ever get to go on. Not because it’s the end of the school year, but because the world is coming to an end. Teachers, parents, and other students have been slowly dying off over the past several months, killed in mysterious traps that have been appearing across the countryside. Nobody knows where the traps come from or who put them there, but they seem to be designed to exterminate the entirety of the human race.
Emily thought it was going to be an ordinary trip to the local amusement park, but what was supposed to be a normal afternoon of bumper cars and roller coasters has turned into a fight for survival after their teacher is horrifically killed in front of them, leaving the small children to fend for themselves in a life or death game of mouse and mouse trap. There appears to be a hope for salvation when eighth grader Clyde Donner, a boy Emily has had a crush on ever since she was a little girl, enters their lives and promises that all the children will be safe as long as they do exactly as he says. But when it appears that Clyde does not have everyone’s best interests in mind, it’s up to Emily to put her feelings aside in order to ensure the safety of those younger and more vulnerable than her.
Mouse Trap is an intense, suspense-filled thrill ride for fans of Mellick’s more disturbing YA stories such as Sweet Story, Quicksand House, and The Terrible Thing That Happens.
Available HERE
Available for Pre-Order: ZOMBIE PUNKS FUCK OFF
We’ve been hearing forever that Punk is Dead. And zombie stories are even deader. ZOMBIE PUNKS FUCK OFF is here to show that is bullshit. This antho is loaded with 14 stories of gnawing teeth, shredded entrails, rotting masses, punk as fuck fury, post-punk weirdness, and beautiful decay. Within these pages are a touring Christian Punk band run afoul of a horde of living dead, a group of zombie-infected anarcho-punks staging a revolution in London, Hank William’s far-distant great-grandson struggling against the restraints of universal fame, and guitars that gently eat.
“This is my dream book, I can’t believe it exists!”
–Jeff Burk, author of Shatnerquake and The Very Ineffective Haunted House
Zombie Punks Fuck Off will be officially released on October 9, 2018, and can be pre-ordered HERE
Madeleine Swann wants you to FREAK HER OUT!
It’s October and Madeleine Swann wants weird stuff for Halloween! Send her links, videos, or other strange, spooky things via email (evilpixie.madeleine@gmail.com) and she’ll react to it in an upcoming video on her YouTube channel! See her video request below. This is a lady who wants to be weirded out! Help her out, bizarros!
New Release: Walkin’ After Midnight
*THE (LIMITED) KILLER CASSETTE EDITION!* A lovely little bludgeoner-book, perfect for concealing in your pockets… An adult-diaper wearing Casanova discovers a potent ability to actualize wild, gonzo porn fantasies. An Unsolved Mystery episode equipped with mind-reading tech takes a seriously wrong turn. A particularly repulsive coworker finds himself in a wrestling match made of equal parts dream and nightmare… and we’re just getting warmed up. Armfield’s collection is a treasure-trove of treasures best left buried. Throughout this collection, sex meets filth, and the two embark on misadventures more than twisted enough to leave your psyche permanently crippled. Weak stomachs need not apply. If you’re made of the right stuff, Armfield’s humor and energy will amply reward you. If not, find a vantage point close to the nearest stall – don’t worry, you’ll thank me later. More fun than a barrel of maggots, you’re guaranteed to depart from this wellspring of bizarro flavored gross-out a changed human, assuming you’re still human at all. And while we’re on the topic of change, you should pack a change of clothes. Things tend to get messy in here.
Get it here
New Release: Sleazeland
From two-time Wonderland Book Award-winning author, Cody Goodfellow, described as “one of the best writers of our generation” by grandmaster of horror Brian Keene, and “the Ellroy of speculative fiction ” by acclaimed cult author Jeremey Robert Johnson, comes a novel of desperation and degradation in the city of mutilated dreams.
Loathe him or hate him, nothing can stop Charlie Parsons from living the Hollywood dream––not homelessness, not a shady agent who sends him on daily suicide missions, not even the combined might of the LAPD and the infamous Blood Eagle Security. With only a tattered tell-all bio of the most problematic child star in TV history for guidance, Parsons is going to get famous if he has to blow every studio mogul in town to make his dream come true.
But Charlie slides into a nightmare when he touches the bulging belly of a runaway pregnant woman with the unborn son of a cult-leader so powerful, thinking his name could give you cancer.
From the empty LA River to an eternal, interdimensional A-list party, Charlie is running for his life, crashing through twisted alternate Hollywoods where the religious right rules all and bloodthirsty studio execs hunt the homeless for sport. On a quest to save the proverbial damsel in distress, he’ll have to pitch a dozen shit-hot movie ideas, slay the dragons of his problematic past and somehow overcome the temptation of the most dangerous addiction in the dirty business of dreams––true, unselfish love.
Sleazeland is one of Cody Goodfellow’s absolute best works of bizarro fiction. A parable for the harsh realities of surviving in one of the filthiest industries on Earth.
Get it here
New Release: Nightmares in Ecstasy
Nightmares in Ecstasy is a collection of thirteen stories of surreal body horror. Within its pages, the line between eroticism and terror, desire and death, is blurred. Damaged souls hurtle, as if in a dream, toward mutilation, transformation and fates worse than death. It is literary hardcore fiction for fans of David Cronenberg, Junji Ito, and Clive Barker.
“Surreal, grotesque, erotic. Brendan Vidito is a unique and disturbing new voice.”
-Wrath James White, author of If You Died Tomorrow I Would Eat Your Corpse
“Brendan Vidito is the bastard son of Clive Barker and his fresh take on body horror will f**k you up.”
-Jack Bantry, creator of Splatterpunk Zine & author of The Lucky Ones Died First
“Vidito’s words squirt shocking psychosexual bug juice into your brain’s most private parts.”
-John Skipp, author of The Light at the End
Get it here
New Release: God’s Mean Older Brother
It’s The Hangover meets The Book of Revelation in one of the funniest bizarro fiction novels of the year.
God, a single father, is forced to move back home with his parents. He really just wants to focus on writing his indie rock zine and escape the responsibility of being the Supreme Being, which can be a real drag. He’s also got a mean older brother who never left home and never stopped tormenting God or humanity by interfering in events throughout history. Now, God finds out the bastard’s built himself a time machine. As visions of an apocalyptic future come to God’s attention, he devises a foolproof plan to stop his mean older brother from destroying the world… then gets so drunk he forgets what the plan is.
“Whether he’s scribbling on napkins, writing online, or penning fiction, G. Arthur Brown is interested in taking the world we think we know, cracking it open, slathering it with weirdness, and twisting it into odd shapes–which, surprisingly, resemble the world more accurately than the world we wish we had. Brown’s a prime example of how the weird and the bizarre can provide an active and irreverent critique of the real. This is fiction that’s fun to read and yet deeply resonant.” – Brian Evenson, author of A Collapse of Horses
Get it here
Review: All Hail The House Gods
If dystopian fiction holds a magnifying glass to trends and aspects of the present day, increasing their prominence horrifically, then what about a bizarro dystopia? It presses a distorted glass against our fears, holding it so close that the details twist and mutate, making us not entirely sure what to think any more. Touches of weird humor leak through, and it becomes a question of debate where the divisions are between parody, satire and warning.
All Hail the House Gods is, partly, dystopian horror, and it’s particularly inventive in where it aims its magnifying glass: you could consider most of the horror to stem from a millennial anxiety about the changing nature of adulthood. Things that previous generations took for granted, that you’d grow up, that you’d raise a family, that you’d own a house, are distorted and made grotesque. Your family only exists to satiate monsters. Your house isn’t yours; you belong to it. You won’t grow up, because the state of childhood no longer exists. (Even the “typical” adult pastime of poker is made part of the mechanism of terror, and the old realtors’ trick of baking cookies to make a house smell tempting is a trick perpetrated by the houses themselves.)
But it’s also absurd comedy! I hope I’m not too horrible for finding the endless, child-like euphemisms funny (if kind of gross at the same time). Same too with the never-ending diet of aphrodisiacs — is there a funnier food to see mentioned repeatedly than “watermelon arugula salad”? I don’t think so. Throughout, the writing has a lightness and wit that made me smile, unless something awful was happening at just that moment… There’s also the surrealism, which, if not exactly funny, here seems more aligned with humor than horror. A House can crabwalk. A house can be a Gothic, a pueblo, or a log cabin shaped like a dachshund. It can be brown, white, or teal. Houses can blow their sides in and out, like they’re laughing, and can stack themselves into a tall, dancing column that stretches to the sky, an image more strange than frightening.
And, maybe most affectingly, it also includes a heartfelt debate about how to fight systemically entrenched oppressors. There are two opinions presented, both of which are convincing. Should you work from within the oppressive system, or attack it from the outside? There are no real villains, apart from the faceless and characterless minions of the system and the Houses themselves, which are the system. Stone is great at presenting characters simply and sympathetically, and I wanted nothing more than to see these people succeed, though the difficulty of their struggle is best portrayed by a single, darkly funny image: that of a brave or foolish hero, who has decided to fight a house, and who is armed with only a bow and arrow.
+++
The reviewer, Caleb Wilson, is the author of Polymer, published as part of the 2018 New Bizarro Authors Series.
The Beginner’s Guide to Bizarro Fiction
Like zines? Then you need to get The Beginner’s Guide To Bizarro Fiction, a new zine by Ben Fitts profiling great writers in the bizarro scene. Email doomgoat666@gmail.com if you are interested in receiving a copy.