You will never be the same.”—Cory Doctorow, author of Little Brother and HomelandIn a topsy-turvy world where clowns are killers and crooks, Little Bigtop is a three-ring circus of crime, and no syndicate is more dangerous than the Bozo family. From the wildly original mind of Carlton Mellick III comes the short-story collection ClownFellas—an epic mob saga where life is cheap and the gags will slay you.For years, the hard-boiled capos of the Bozo family have run all of the funny business in Little Bigtop, from the clown brothels to the illegal comedy trade. But hard times have befallen the Bozos now that Le Mystère, the French clown Mafia, has started moving in and trying to take over the city. If that weren’t enough, they’ve got to deal with the cops, the Feds, the snitches, the carnies, the mysterious hit man Mr. Pogo, and the mutant clowns over in the Sideshow district. With the odds stacked against them, the Bozos must fight to survive . . . or die laughing.Praise for ClownFellas“Mario Puzo meets Barnum & Bailey . . . You just can’t look away as the ridiculousness escalates.”—Publishers Weekly“The most original novelist working today? The most outrageous? The most unpredictable? These aren’t easy superlatives to make; however, Carlton Mellick may well be all of those things, behind a canon of books that all irreverently depart from the form and concepts of traditional novels, and adventure the reader into a howling, dark fantasyland of the most bizarre, over-the-top, and mind-warping inventiveness. In my opinion, ClownFellas is his best work to date.”—Edward Lee, author of City Infernal and Header“I rarely enjoy clowns—which is ironic since I’ve been one for over four decades—but ClownFellas is great on so many levels, irony being one of them. What can I say besides I love it! Great read, and funny as hell . . . I have been accused of being unfunny before, and after the trial I had to enter the Witless Protection Program. This is funny!”—Barry Lubin, aka Grandma, longtime Big Apple Circus clown“If Martin Scorsese and Ronald McDonald had a baby, this would be it. . . . Each story is clever, multi-layered, and filled with witty dialogue. . . . A must-read.”—This Is Horror   “Mellick’s writing is wonderfully descriptive and wildly imaginative. . . . I was utterly delighted, amused, and engrossed. . . . ClownFellas is a gem!”—The Qwillery   “A rollercoaster ride through a strange world that borders on our own reality . . . a story that is just as difficult to define as it is to put down.”—Examiner.com   “Mellick has created another amazing read. . . . Highly recommended.”—Kitty Horror

    He has gotten used to Mithra bringing him things from outside: dead mice, Twinkie wrappers, donut scraps, houseplants, and the occasional rabbit head. But one day, Mithra brings him an ankle... a sweaty piece of rubber-latex shaped like a human ankle. Later, he is brought an eyeball, then a foot. After more latex body parts are brought upstairs, Kevin decides to glue them together to form a piecemeal sex doll. But once the last piece is glued into place, the sex doll comes to life. She says her name is June. She comes from another world and is on the run from an evil pornographer and three crab-human hybrid assassins. Piecemeal June is a reality-bending journey into love, sex, death, and a bizarre parallel world of butchered flesh.

    Rico Slade is not a body builder, an actor, or a governor. Rico Slade is an action hero. Rico Slade doesn't care about the political climate. Rico Slade has an advance degree in badassery. Rico Slade's favorite food is the honey-roasted peanut. Rico Slade can rip out a throat with his bare hands. But Rico Slade's arch nemesis, Baron Mayhem, is threatening to drop a bomb on the Earth that will kill every human being except himself while leaving the world's currency intact. To save the planet, Rico Slade must journey across Hollywood to find Baron Mayhem. Unfortunately, Rico Slade's crime fighting style involves ripping out the throat of anyone who gets in his way, including grandmothers and Midwestern tourists.As Rico Slade leaves Hollywood in ruins, the only person who can stop him from destroying the city is his Jewish psychologist, Harold Schwartzman. Until he does, Rico Slade will kill as many people as it takes to thwart Baron Mayhem's evil scheme. Rico Slade will fucking kill everyone.RICO SLADE WILL FUCKING KILL YOU.Praise for the book:"A one-man Expendables wrecking crew." - SUPERHERO NOVELS"Rico Slade can grab Chuck Norris by a wrist and an ankle and use him as a jump rope. If you're looking for some well-crafted literary mayhem that entertains and pleases in equal degrees, this is the book for you." - THE AUSTIN POST"And, though brilliant and vastly intelligent, it should also be noted that Bradley Sands is a dick." -CRACKED.COM"If you like violence. If you have a decent sense of humor. If you have ever wondered what would happen if Richard Brautigan wrote a 90's action film instead of killing himself in the winter of 1984...These are all great reasons to read Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You." - HOUSEFIRE"Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You is a biting piece of satire on the "unreality" of Hollywood." -THE UNDEAD RAT "Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You is laugh out loud funny, full of cheesy dialogue, testosterone, and can easily be read in one sitting. Buy it now or Rico Slade might rip out your fucking throat."- SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION"If Eugene Ionesco had a threesome with two reels of 80s action movies, the baby would be this book. If you like ridiculous humor with the hands-down wildest action you will ever read, this is your book." - ZOMBIEBLOODFIGHTS

    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 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.

    Cameron Pierce's work is an intoxicating blend of body horror and midnight movie madness, reminiscent of early David Lynch and the splatterpunks at their most sublime. His fiction will punch you in the brain and leave you gasping for more. Featuring: NO CHILDREN The apocalypse is over. Now zombies farm humans for their brains. As the imprisoned human cattle drift further from their humanity, the zombies flourish in a primitive renaissance, flying around in helicopters and living in smart houses made of human brains. THE ROADKILL QUARTERBACK OF HEAVY METAL HIGH After Heavy Metal High's star quarterback dies in a car accident, Danny the Dio-worshipping werewolf must transform from loser to gridiron star in this surreal pulp tragedy about teenage anxiety, high school violence, and heavy fucking metal. THE DESTROYED ROOM In a near-future city where automobiles have been outlawed and exotic animals roam the streets, a man wakes up one morning to discover that everyone in the world is a marionette. Now his wife is dead and he must find the answer, or else lose everything to the Great Shark Head in the Sky.

    Donihe is the best kept secret of the bizarro fiction genre." - Carlton Mellick III, author of Adolf in Wonderland There once was an odd reclusive little man who was in love with his house. He loved this house not in the way that normal people love their homes. His was a more intimate love, like the love between two humans. He loved his house so much that he asked it to marry him, and he believed that his house happily replied with a yes. Unfortunately, their love was to be torn apart the day before their wedding, on the day of the great house holocaust. On this day, every house in the world collapsed for no explainable reason. It was as if they killed themselves, and took many of their occupants with them. Distraught and despairing over the death of his fiance, this man must go on a quest to find out what happened to his beloved home. On his quest: He will meet Tony, a self-declared superhero, who looks kind of like a black Man-At-Arms from the old He-Man cartoons and claims to protect the world from quasi-dimensional psychopomps with his powerful sexpounding abilities. He will meet Manhaus, who seems to be part man and part house. And, finally, he will venture to House Heaven, a world where houses live inside of bigger houses made of people.

    Jack Orange is a twenty-something guy who works at a place called The Tent packing dirt in boxes and shipping them off to exotic, unheard of locales. He thinks about his girlfriend, Gina Black, and the ring he hopes to surprise her with. But when he returns home one day, Gina isn't there. He receives a strange call from a man who sounds like he is smiling- Mr. Grin. He says he has Gina. He gives Jack twenty-four hours to find her. What follows is Jack's bizarre journey through an increasingly warped and surreal landscape where an otherworldly force burns brands into those he comes in contact with, trains appear out of thin air, rooms turn themselves inside out and computers are powered by birds. And if he does find Gina, how will he ever survive a grueling battle to the death with Mr. Grin?

    Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner. Featuring: Captain Kirk, TJ Hooker, Denny Crane, Priceline Shatner, Cartoon Kirk, Rescue 9-1-1 Shatner, singer Shatner, and many more. No costumed con-goer will be spared in their wave of destruction, no red shirt will make it out alive, and not even the Klingons will be able to stand up to a deranged Captain Kirk with a light saber. But these Shatner- clones are about to learn a hard lesson . . . that the real William Shatner doesn't take crap from anybody. Not even himself.

    A deadbeat dad gains employment as a lady-in-waiting in a fairytale bromance where every character looks exactly like someone else from John Carpenter’s The Thing. The unknowing victim of a cruel prank, a simpleton spends his entire life waiting on a park bench for the hottest girl in school. Using only his twenty-sided die and good old-fashioned D&D magic, a man must continually resurrect the neighborhood kid regularly murdered on his own front lawn. An aging slaughterhouse worker and the iconic figure from Edvard Munch’s The Scream hit the clubs every weekend in a vain attempt to get laid.These and many more absurdities await in Clown Tear Junkies, the debut collection from Douglas Hackle.

    This novella is from Gina Ranalli, an author of bizarro fiction, including Chemical Gardens and 13 Thorns (with 0utsider artist Gus Fink). Suicide Girls in the Afterlife is weird and fun and hauntingly bittersweet. I read it in one evening and enjoyed it very much. -Brian Keene, author of The Rising and The Conqueror Worms

    Trapped in a remote Alaskan forest, pinned under his own SUV, gnawed upon by nature's finest predators, Marv Pushkin -- Corporate Warrior, Positive Thinker, Esquire subscriber -- waits impatiently for an ambulance and explains in detail the many reasons why this unfolding tragedy is everyone's fault but his own.

    You better pass it, feller. You’re joining the circus. Ain’t that the best news you ever got?"Delivered by a trio of psychotic clowns, this ultimatum plunges Jamie into the horrific alternate universe that is the centuries-old Pilo Family Circus, a borderline world between Hell and Earth from which humankind’s greatest tragedies have been perpetrated. Yet in this place—peopled by the gruesome, grotesque, and monstrous—where violence and savagery are the norm, Jamie finds that his worst enemy is himself. When he applies the white face paint, he is transformed into JJ, the most vicious clown of all. And JJ wants Jamie dead!

    Doyle, so he decided to bring down the whole corrupt system from the inside. But after discovering something monstrous in the bank's files, he was framed for murder and trapped inside a conspiracy beyond reason.Now Doyle's doing his best to survive against a nightmare cabal of crooked conglomerates, DNA-doped mutants, drug-addled freak show celebs, experimental surgeons, depraved doomsday cults, and the ultra-bad mojo of a full-blown Hexadrine habit. Joined by his pet turtle Deckard, and Dara, a beautiful missionary with a murderous past, Doyle must find a way to save humankind and fight the terrible truth at the heart of...SKULLCRACK CITY

    In its place is his wife's junk. Billy is now Tina, and Tina is dead. That's because Billy's dead. His lifeless body is still in bed and empty beer bottles and a container of antifreeze litter the kitchen counter. Over the next 24 hours, Billy and an odd assortment of neighbors, all experiencing their own bouts of body switcheroo, try to figure out what happened and why. Can they do it before the Feds find Billy's body? Was it aliens that caused this, or God, or the government? And did Edgar Winter really sleep with his sheep? Pro football Hall of Famer Terry Bradshaw has those answers in a story that asks, What Would Kirk Cameron Do?

    What if the prophecies of Revelation hit today? What sort of craziness and evil would ensue? With this list of excellent authors contributing, it’s sure to be a Hell of a read! Wrath James White Sam West The Sisters of Slaughter Jeff Strand K Trap Jones C Derick Miller Christine Morgan Patrick C. Harrison III John Wayne Comunale Hyäne Sawbones Delphine Quinn James Watts Wile E. Young Chris Miller Mark Deloy Richard Raven