Destroy All Monsters

by Ken Hollings, Savage Pencil (Illustrator)

With America hopelessly bogged down in a protracted Operation Desert Storm, Elvis has returned from the dead as a tormented political assassin, there are aliens in the White House and giant monsters on the rampage. Factor in crazed combat robots, the total destruction of Japan, insane conspiracy theories and huge quantities of mindless blood-spattered violence, then get ready for the end of all creation in this stunning literary debut.

Illustrated by legendary underground artist Savage Pencil.

Ken Hollings writes regularly for Bizarre, Sight and Sound and The Wire. His work has also appeared in Gargoyle and the St Martins Press anthologies, The Last Sex and Digital Delirium.

280 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2001

About the author

Ken Hollings is a writer, broadcaster, and cultural theorist based in London and the author of Welcome to Mars and The Bright Labyrinth (both published by Strange Attractor Press). He teaches at the Royal College of Art.

Reviews

[Geoff Battle · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb sounds like a Robert Rankin novel - Aliens in the Whitehouse, Elvis returned from the dead, a small telepathic dog, oh, and huge Terror Monsters determined to wreak havoc across the globe. It's no small boast, since this novel has all of these ingredients in spades - and more! However, Hollings' approach makes it all hard going. It's fragmented at best. The story begins mid-plot, which could be exciting, if only you had the faintest clue what was going on. Throughout the book the reader is expected to guess who each chapter refers to, making the narrative quite unrewarding to read. There are some good elements in there, but they are not played to their strengths. Robot psychopaths, cute dogs and giant Terror Monsters make for a great book, but unfortunately it's all a bit wasted here.

[Sam Thursfield · Rating 3 out of 5]

Imaginative imagery and plots, but the writing is average quality. It's a long book and it gets to be quite a drudge to read. Perhaps this is a book where the film version would actually be better.

[Rik Eberhardt · Rating 5 out of 5]

George H.W. Bush / Monster Island / Waco / Elvis

I'll fill in more when I bring myself to re-read this book - hopefully I'll do this soon.