Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere

Rampaging Fuckers of Everything on the Crazy Shitting Planet of the Vomit Atmosphere

author: Mykle Hansen

name: Steev

average rating: 3.58

book published: 2008

rating: 4

read at: 2010/12/08

date added: 2010/12/09

shelves: fun, novels, own-it

review:
If Mykle wasn't a friend I'm not sure if this book or its synopsis would appeal to me, but I was actually intrigued... As it turned out, I really enjoyed it.

Each of these 3 stories, as with Mykle's other longer-form fiction, centers around some wildly surreal notion: penises that become giant monsters, devices that shrink people and insert them in other people's rectums, etc. One might calmly dismiss these tales as flights of pure fantasy to be consumed and then forgotten. But what strikes me about all of Mykle's work is that in the background somewhere is some (at least somewhat) profound social commentary about some real and important aspect of our real world. Whether it's the soulless crushing weight of corporate office life, the tendency for corruption and greed to permeate almost any situation, or the possibilities for environmental and industrial collapse in the near future, Mykle manages to depict actual real problems and troubles with true wit and scary charm, while with the other hand distracting you with his jokester hijinks. It's a sort of curious method, to my mind, and makes me wonder if he has some nefarious plan up his sleeve, or if it's just more fun to do it this way.

semi SPOILER alert: My favorite of these 3 short novels in this volume was the 3rd one, "Crazy Shitting Planet". I think that is because this is the only one that ends on a happy note. It goes from horrific to happy, while the other 2 stories go from bad to horrific. But that's just me.