What do you think?
Rate this book
Belly
~ Our hapless prophet finds himself in the wrong damn place at the wrong damn time. ~He simply wanted to go to The Harbor to get some Plata because his guy in Big City where he lives got pinched. Desperate enough for the Plata to trudge down to The Harbor, and naive enough to go naked, Jonah finds himself in the midst of a deadly squabble with a an angry , unstable drug dealer pointing a gun at his chest. At point blank range the Plata dealer can't miss. The dealer fires. Being shot by a large caliber handgun should have put a grieving Jonah out of his misery, but The Christ has other plans for him. What can you say She moves in mysterious ways. Jonah, shot in the chest, is dead before he hits the ground. Fine by him. Not so for the New Christ. She sends Pedro to intervene. Immanuel the Christ has some nerve. Jonah has already lost everyone he loves to Pilate the vampire and his Harbor drug violence. Jonah now trudges through his days staying as high on Plata as possible. He just wants to be left alone while he waits for his turn to die. The Christ has other plans for him. She sends Her messenger, Pedro, to assign Jonah the very dangerous task of ordering the Herod to dismantle the Harbor's Plata trade. Jonah has a fight or flight. He decides to run. But you can't run from God forever. As Jonah learns the hard way when the 'Edmund Fitzgerald' founders and goes down in rough seas, with the reluctant prophet on board.Job is Satan’s Chosen One and he doesn’t take kindly to orders from some upstart prophet. Rather than acquiescing, Job thinks caving Jonah’s head in with a tire iron is the best bet. Jonah finds himself out of the frying pan, but firmly fixed in the fire. Then the Lord Herself starts dispatching Job’s children. One at a time, until the Herod of The Harbor finally obeys.
140 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 2010
About the author
Steven Rage
17 books30 followersSep 19, 2010 Nick Cato 'The Place in Between" review:
The three stories presented here are tied to an apocalyptic underground community known as The Harbor (two take place post, while the title tale goes down before all hell breaks loose).
In 'Blood and Bubblegum,' we're introduced to some seriously strange characters who are involved in an ever-growing organic narcotics trade, including protagonist Juan and a fecal-demon that lives in his rectum. This is by far the weirdest entry here, and features a fresh look at vampirism.
'Th ...more The three stories presented here are tied to an apocalyptic underground community known as The Harbor (two take place post, while the title tale goes down before all hell breaks loose).
In 'Blood and Bubblegum,' we're introduced to some seriously strange characters who are involved in an ever-growing organic narcotics trade, including protagonist Juan and a fecal-demon that lives in his rectum. This is by far the weirdest entry here, and features a fresh look at vampirism.
'The Place In Between,' shows that a revenge story can be done in a fresh manner: Del's wife Luci is having an affair with her drug supplier, Sancho. Sancho and Luci eventually manage to get custody of the invalid Del, and Sancho uses this as payback time from their navy days (apparently Del had done something to ruin Sancho's career). The story becomes an extreme torture tale, one that made me wince a few times...but Del manages to turn the tables via a Faust-ish deal with a demon. Rage also gives another fresh spin here on ghosts, making this a perfect blend of hardcore horror and bizarro goodness.
In the final piece, 'Bad Notion, Traveling Potion,' we return to The Harbor and learn more about The Good Doctor (responsible for creating drugs and mutants) and his created servant, the scene-stealing hybrid man/chimp, Tugmunkee. This one was a bit of a chore to follow, but in the end Rage brings it all together. While some people in the bizarro community frown upon stories centered around drug use, this one works as the "tripping" scenes are just a side-note to the real weirdness.
THE PLACE IN BETWEEN is gross, disgusting, funny, horrific, and disturbing, yet at the same time it's quite entertaining. Rage writes with his conscience thrown out the window (that is, if he had one to begin with), yet unlike some more extreme stuff I've read, he actually knows how to WRITE a story around the grue. I'm keeping my eye on this guy as he truly lives up to his last name.Book 29 & 78 of 2010: You Morbid Westphal by Steven Rage
by Rhonda Wilson on Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 8:17am
YOU. Yes, “you”… are a poor soul in the hospital on your last legs. And as it is, you’ve “given birth” to one of the most horrible “people” ever possible…
MORBID. Born from “your” rectum, Morbid dispatches many other patients in the hospital in extremely horrendous and painful ways. However, the main suspect of these murders isn’t Morbid, but instead…
WESTPHAL. Living with his ghost step-dad, Sammy, and his pet aborted fetus, Chip, Westphal works as a night shift nurse, getting stuck with all of the worst patients. All those that no one else wants to fool with. Just to get through the day, Westphal has to dope himself up with the strongest narcotics possible and that doesn’t always help make things easier.
These three characters, as well as a host of other interesting “people” make up Steven Rage’s You Morbid Westphal. Both the characters and story format are unique- Rage has created a one-of-a-kind voice with this novella, which has enough story to fill a full-length book. A large chunk of the story follows Westphal day-to-day as he suffers through many horrendous tasks at work, in his dreams, and even just trying to obtain more drugs along the way.
As soon as I read the final chapters of this book I was ready to re-read it. I ended up waiting a few months before doing just that, but after a
The three stories presented here are tied to an apocalyptic underground community known as The Harbor (two take place post, while the title tale goes down before all hell breaks loose).
In 'Blood and Bubblegum,' we're introduced to some seriously strange characters who are involved in an ever-growing organic narcotics trade, including protagonist Juan and a fecal-demon that lives in his rectum. This is by far the weirdest entry here, and features a fresh look at vampirism.
'Th ...more The three stories presented here are tied to an apocalyptic underground community known as The Harbor (two take place post, while the title tale goes down before all hell breaks loose).
In 'Blood and Bubblegum,' we're introduced to some seriously strange characters who are involved in an ever-growing organic narcotics trade, including protagonist Juan and a fecal-demon that lives in his rectum. This is by far the weirdest entry here, and features a fresh look at vampirism.
'The Place In Between,' shows that a revenge story can be done in a fresh manner: Del's wife Luci is having an affair with her drug supplier, Sancho. Sancho and Luci eventually manage to get custody of the invalid Del, and Sancho uses this as payback time from their navy days (apparently Del had done something to ruin Sancho's career). The story becomes an extreme torture tale, one that made me wince a few times...but Del manages to turn the tables via a Faust-ish deal with a demon. Rage also gives another fresh spin here on ghosts, making this a perfect blend of hardcore horror and bizarro goodness.
In the final piece, 'Bad Notion, Traveling Potion,' we return to The Harbor and learn more about The Good Doctor (responsible for creating drugs and mutants) and his created servant, the scene-stealing hybrid man/chimp, Tugmunkee. This one was a bit of a chore to follow, but in the end Rage brings it all together. While some people in the bizarro community frown upon stories centered around drug use, this one works as the "tripping" scenes are just a side-note to the real weirdness.
THE PLACE IN BETWEEN is gross, disgusting, funny, horrific, and disturbing, yet at the same time it's quite entertaining. Rage writes with his conscience thrown out the window (that is, if he had one to begin with), yet unlike some more extreme stuff I've read, he actually knows how to WRITE a story around the grue. I'm keeping my eye on this guy as he truly lives up to his last name.Book 29 & 78 of 2010: You Morbid Westphal by Steven Rage
by Rhonda Wilson on Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 8:17am
YOU. Yes, “you”… are a poor soul in the hospital on your last legs. And as it is, you’ve “given birth” to one of the most horrible “people” ever possible…
MORBID. Born from “your” rectum, Morbid dispatches many other patients in the hospital in extremely horrendous and painful ways. However, the main suspect of these murders isn’t Morbid, but instead…
WESTPHAL. Living with his ghost step-dad, Sammy, and his pet aborted fetus, Chip, Westphal works as a night shift nurse, getting stuck with all of the worst patients. All those that no one else wants to fool with. Just to get through the day, Westphal has to dope himself up with the strongest narcotics possible and that doesn’t always help make things easier.
These three characters, as well as a host of other interesting “people” make up Steven Rage’s You Morbid Westphal. Both the characters and story format are unique- Rage has created a one-of-a-kind voice with this novella, which has enough story to fill a full-length book. A large chunk of the story follows Westphal day-to-day as he suffers through many horrendous tasks at work, in his dreams, and even just trying to obtain more drugs along the way.
As soon as I read the final chapters of this book I was ready to re-read it. I ended up waiting a few months before doing just that, but after a
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
February 8, 2011
Violent, Confrontational, and Fascinating, July 11, 2010
By Ray Dittmeier (Louisville, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: BELLY: A Brutal Bible Tale (Kindle Edition)
"Brutal Bible Tales" is a fascinating book. It's violent, confrontational, and might even be uncomfortable in places, depending on your sensibilities. Rage takes a selection prominent Biblical figures and and puts them in a contemporary world full of drug dealers, gangsters, pimps, prostitutes, perverts, and even vampires. But this is not just a facile, updated retelling of old stories, nor is it shock value simply for the sake of shock.
Rage uses the Biblical material as a starting point to tell his own stories. This book is well-thought-out, told in a distinctive and confident style that keeps the reader turning pages. If you want to complain that some of the sex and violence is gratuitous, I won't--I can't--argue the point. I'm not sure I'd want to say that "gratuitousness is the point" is ever a valid defense, but then again, I would insist that in a book like this it's better to go too far than not to go far enough.
The book gives us a new context for looking at this source material (if I may call it such), like a cynical Sunday school teacher telling the kids, "This is what these stories are really about." And maybe it is, if you can approach the book with no expectations and just let it be what it is--tales of greed, ambition, betrayal, cruelty--and ultimately, salvation. As I said earlier, this is not shock value simply for the sake of shock. But if it shocks you, maybe you needed to be shocked.
By Ray Dittmeier (Louisville, KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: BELLY: A Brutal Bible Tale (Kindle Edition)
"Brutal Bible Tales" is a fascinating book. It's violent, confrontational, and might even be uncomfortable in places, depending on your sensibilities. Rage takes a selection prominent Biblical figures and and puts them in a contemporary world full of drug dealers, gangsters, pimps, prostitutes, perverts, and even vampires. But this is not just a facile, updated retelling of old stories, nor is it shock value simply for the sake of shock.
Rage uses the Biblical material as a starting point to tell his own stories. This book is well-thought-out, told in a distinctive and confident style that keeps the reader turning pages. If you want to complain that some of the sex and violence is gratuitous, I won't--I can't--argue the point. I'm not sure I'd want to say that "gratuitousness is the point" is ever a valid defense, but then again, I would insist that in a book like this it's better to go too far than not to go far enough.
The book gives us a new context for looking at this source material (if I may call it such), like a cynical Sunday school teacher telling the kids, "This is what these stories are really about." And maybe it is, if you can approach the book with no expectations and just let it be what it is--tales of greed, ambition, betrayal, cruelty--and ultimately, salvation. As I said earlier, this is not shock value simply for the sake of shock. But if it shocks you, maybe you needed to be shocked.
Displaying 1 of 1 review