Carlton Mellick III

It was an excellent wierdly warped read. And so unsettling leaving a bitter aftertaste.

This book touches on certain themes that are actually taking place in real-time in certain parts of the world. Nine year olds who don't believe in Santa, need to be "mature" and focus on studying. I've lived in countries where the suicide rate for teenagers and elementary school students was significant. Then I consider sweatshops littered across developing countries across continents and actually even hidden in what people call 1st world societies. Childhood is losing it's childlike wonder, joy and innocence and fast becoming the "blurry" side of town found in this novella.

Speaking of Blurry, I found the description of how the Blurriness infected the "happy people" and how the blurry engulfed anyone who entered quite well written. Maybe the Blurries don't even know they're blurryvbecause blurry is all they've ever known.

This book had everything, the gluttony of the richer societies via Timmy the fat stalker. The poverty if the majority via The Blurry side of town. Sally the saviour who turned out to be the bringer of doom instead. And the consequences of wishing things into existence. I'll tell you something for nothing; genies, leprechauns, fairied, rainbow pirates, the lot of them are sneaky trickster gods trying to bring about the downfall of humanity one wish at a time.… (more)

Cue music from "The Exorcist.”

Okay, I'll give you a moment to clean your screen off after you just read the title and spit out what you were drinking.

So, what is The Haunted Vagina by Carlton Mellick III about? Really, you're going to ask that? Okay. Imagine if your girlfriend's vagina was the portal to another world with strange creatures inhabiting it. That's the situation that Steve finds himself in. And...that's pretty much it.

The really odd thing about this is that the simple concept actually works. Through Steve's exploring this strange new world, it gives Mellick a chance to perform an almost straight-up world-building exercise. It's a strangely interesting world with a mysterious history.

Steve himself goes through an interesting if very quick character evolution. The character is believable, switching between a coward and pretending to be brave because his girlfriend tells him to do something he really doesn't want to do (who hasn't been in that situation?). At the same time, the character evolution seems a little too quick and convenient. While it fits with the story, it also feels like the story itself could have been changed a little to slow down the character development.

One thing, which should be obvious, is that this book will not be for people who are squeamish around sexual situations. At least I really, really hope that's obvious. Mellick doesn't shy away from being fairly descriptive in these scenes, nor does he mince words. But, then again, if you're going to pick this book up, you're already expecting this, so I'm not sure why I'm even mentioning it.

The prose and editing are clean, which is a huge plus. Again, it's a pet peeve of mine, so I'm glad this one was a smooth read, and I could stay in the book very easily without my inner editor distracting me.

While The Haunted Vagina is actually a decent book (quality-wise), and Mellick seems to have put a disturbing amount of thought into how a miniature world inside a woman's womb would actually work. While the story is short and works in its own way, sometimes things feel a little convenient for pushing the plot along towards its conclusion a little too quickly. It ultimately feels more like an exercise in building an interesting world, but sacrifices a more involved story in the process.

The Haunted Vagina earns 3.5 tubes of lube out of 5.… (more)

What if sexually transmitted diseases suddenly mutated to give people extreme body modifications that are essentially super powers? This is the premise of Fantastic Orgy, the titular story (huh huh, I said “titular”) in this short short story collection by Carlton Mellick III.

Among these stories are a buff guy with a lollipop for a head trying to pick up women, a bunch of weird looking cats in a world plagued by agoraphobia, punk band roommates in a city overrun with hobgoblins (more on this later), and a group of porn actors who are lost at sea and have no memory of how they got there or how long they've actually been there. Each one of these stories brings something interesting to the table, and each one is immensely enjoyable.

If I had to fault one of these stories, it would have to be “City Hobgoblins,” mostly because it just didn't click for me, although there is probably a good explanation for this. At the end of the book, Mellick has been kind enough to provide an author's note for each story, explaining the origin and other background information for each one. These are actually really interesting to read, and a good look inside the author's head. Apparently, “City Hobgoblins” is actually a prequel/origin story to another one of his books, [b:Punk Land|136880|Punk Land|Carlton Mellick III|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1327914156s/136880.jpg|131915], which I haven't read yet, and didn't know this while reading it. A failure of the author to disclose this beforehand, or a failure of the reader to know this, I'm not sure. It probably could have been easily fixed by having the author's note for each story in front of the story, which I've seen done in other collections.

Aside from this frustration born of my own ignorance, most of these stories will make you laugh and make you cringe, sometimes at the same time. Keep in mind that these stories are not for the faint of heart, though. There is explicit sex and violence throughout a few of these stories. Well, if the name and cover of the book isn't a dead giveaway about that one, then you're probably not much of a reader anyway. Although, admittedly it's not as over the top as some other Bizarro books I've read.

Fantastic Orgy by Carlton Mellick III earns 4.5 bench-pressing muscle cats out of 5.… (more)