At first I thought it was a book of literary reviews, but the blurb instead said that it was a "wildly inventive, mind-bending, hilarious horror comedy," Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy meets The Walking Dead.
Well, I like both Hitchhiker's Guide and The Walking Dead, and it was half price on Amazon, so why not?
While it was bouncing over on 2-day Amazon Prime, I discovered that the author was David Wong, whose earlier book inspired the movie John Dies at the End (2012): a horror-sci fi comedy about two buddies, David and John (Chase Williamson, Rob Mayes), who become reluctant heroes in a world of nonsensical paranormal danger.
Sounds great. I couldn't wait to read the novel.
To distinguish a supernatural visitor from a hallucination, ask it a question that you don't know the answer to, but can verify later, such as "Who is the current president of Peru?"
Then it went downhill. It was not at all funny, David's abrasive tone was annoying, and there were no zombies (or Scandinavian languages), but ok.
Then it went even further downhill. Their case involved Mister Nymph, a mincing, lisping fruitcake who "acts like a fag" and preys on little girls.
I get it. All gay men lisp and mince. All gay men are pedophiles, with a particular interest in little girls, for some reason.
Fiction has been portraying child predators as lisping, mincing fags since Peter Lorre starred in M.
I stop reading at Page 38, and toss the book across the room. It will go into the garbage tomorrow.
It's Jason Pargill, the head editor of Cracked. He states that he is "not very liberal" (no kiddng?). He didn't "come around" on gay rights until he met some gay people in his 20s. But now he won't publish an article against gay marriage, as he perceives it as an attack on his friends.
But he doesn't mind writing a novel that attacks his friends.
I'm surprised. Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits was pretty good, and predicted the rise of the alt right. (The bad guy is a Social Darwinist who talks like he's on 4chan: "I need to take my new arm for a test run.")
ReplyDeleteWhy would gay men prey on girls? That I don't get. I always assumed homophobes went with what they knew: They were taught how to masturbate by an older boy, masturbated with other boys through college, they know age difference was important for male lovers in ancient Greece, maybe they blew a priest, therefore gay men all want little boys. (A lot of psychoanalysis explains homophobes' obsession with anal sex and gender variance in gay men. Even if Freud himself was actually pretty liberal for his time.) But preying on girls is pretty much by definition I would assume such a predator isn't gay.
I assume this is his Iron Man. Hippies read a lot into Marvel comics. Not just obvious ones like the Hulk and X-Men, but seemingly apolitical series like Spider-Man. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby responded by basically giving John Galt (albeit better-written) a fancy suit.
I don't think Mister Nymph was really a gay man, he was a swarm of giant bugs that "acted like a fag," because the author thought that characterizing him like that would increase audience loathing. Male villains have swished to increase audience loathing since the 1920s, even when they are portrayed as liking women.
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