Jump to ratings and reviews
Rate this book

Gruesome Futures

Rate this book
The librarian is back with her first misanthropic anthology!

When three brave astronauts embark on a trip to the moon, little do they know that a hidden purpose awaits them—an alien signal detected from the moon, shrouded in secrecy to prevent panic on Earth. The lunar module is damaged upon landing, stranding the astronauts on the moon's surface, with no hope of returning home. Determined to fulfill their mission, they follow the mysterious signal to a crater, leading them beneath the moon's surface and into an enigmatic library.

Here they meet the Librarian, a seemingly harmless elderly woman with a nefarious agenda. The bilious bibliosoph has decided to put humanity on trial by forcing each astronaut to read a sickening science fiction book from her liverish library. If just one can read a book without throwing up, the earth will be spared. But each time one of the astronauts gets green around the gills, the librarian will launch, by catapult, a giant rock at the earth, which will, upon impact, cause massive loss of life. As the bizarre book bazaar unfolds, the astronauts face an unsettling realization—the final rock will bring about the destruction of Earth.

Along with the frame narrative by J. Manfred Weichsel, Gruesome Futures features stories by three acclaimed authors renowned for their ability to invoke revulsion, dread, and a dark fascination. They

Misha Burnett!

With a penchant for crafting unsettling narratives, Misha Burnett’s latest tale, It Only Hurts When I Swallow, promises to take you on an emotional journey of grotesque beauty. In this slice of new wave fiction, Burnett’s twisted imagination births scenes of judicial punishment that will be difficult to digest.

Max Gunssler!

Prepare to be ensnared by the putrid pulp of Max Gunssler, for in The R*** and Annihilation of Babe Babylonia, he weaves a story of future professional wrestling that will disturb the depths of your puny human psyche. Gunssler’s uncanny ability to write gonzo, off-the-wall action scenes will leave you breathless, and empty your stomach.

Todd Love!

In The Secret on Subfloor 82 of Serenity Station, Todd Love offers readers an unforgiving plunge into the darkest recesses of the human condition. In this piece of Grimdark MilFic action, Love’s exploration of the grotesque serves as a reflection of our own flawed existence, challenging you to unearth the true horrors that lie within… within your gut, that is.

Gruesome Futures will invade your nightmares and make you sick. Can you read this digest of disgust without throwing up? Do you take the challenge?

120 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 18, 2023

8 people want to read

About the author

J. Manfred Weichsel

34 books18 followers
J. Manfred Weichsel writes extravaganzas that fuse adventure, horror, science fiction, and fantasy into some of the most original subversive literature being published today.

Weichsel’s shorter works appear regularly in Cirsova Magazine and anthologies from Cirsova Publishing.

His longer self-published works have gained him a broad and dedicated base of rabid fans comprising folks from every segment of society – readers of all stripes who share a dark sense of humor and a desire to see modern culture burlesqued, and age-old human stupidity mocked.

A fiercely independent author, J. Manfred Weichsel aims to give birth to the classics of the future by writing works ungoverned by the constraints of traditional publishing houses and the inhibitions of contemporary society.

Loved by some and hated by others, Weichsel’s funny, unconventional, often grotesque books inhabit a unique space in American literature and will be read, talked about, and debated for generations to come.

Ratings & Reviews

What do you think?
Rate this book

Friends & Following

Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!

Community Reviews

5 stars
2 (16%)
4 stars
5 (41%)
3 stars
5 (41%)
2 stars
0 (0%)
1 star
0 (0%)
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
Profile Image for Lindsay Crook.
1,076 reviews38 followers
August 20, 2023
I'm a huge fan of Tales to make you vomit so this was a must read for me. The whole space thing isn't normally my thing but I dived in anyway.
The stories were indeed full of stomach churning ick and humour. I'd also like to take a moment to appreciate the cover Weichsel never disappoints with his bright eye catching cover art.
Profile Image for Horror Bookworm Reviews.
535 reviews193 followers
September 1, 2023
A Horror Bookworm Recommendation
Tales To Make You Vomit: Gruesome Futures. Featuring Stories by Misha Burnett, Max Gunssler and Todd Love
https://horrorbookwormreviews.com/

When the punishment fits the crime, a cruel and unusual justice is served with malice and hate. Convicted, imprisoned and sentenced to a new life of torture, a man is equipped with a specialized kind of feeding prosthetic.

Cannibal Clara, Voodoo Woman and the tag teams of BDSM Sisters and The Naughty Lifeguards are all part of a gore-filled galactic wrestling federation. Prepare to follow the stomach-churning interplanetary trial and tribulations of wrestler Babe Babolonia.

Trapped and locked away within Serenity Station Prison on floor 82 is an artifact with unique special powers beyond imagination. When a prison riot and jailbreak occur, a pending doom of resetting the universe hangs in the balance.

J. Manfred Weichsel presents Tales To Make You Vomit: Gruesome Futures, featuring stories from Misha Burnett, Max Gunssler and Todd Love. In this series, The Librarian returns to challenge three astronauts stranded on the lunar surface of the moon. Encounters of morbid science fiction await the reader with these open tentacle arms of terror.

Misha Burnett has a recipe of food, fat and macabre surgery he would like to share. Todd Love’s poetic story of artificial atmospheres and sinister space stations are sure to tug at the horrific heartstrings. Then there’s Max Gunssler…ahem..an enjoyable tidbit of vicious planetary sex loaded with plenty of tentacle violations. What an enjoyable disgustingly degradation of humanity these three naughty novellas from space provide. This collection of the bizarre is one small step for sci-fi horror, one giant leap for extreme splatter.

Once again Weichsel hits a home run not only out of the park but out of this world. Told with whirring chainsaw action, these stories of science fiction and fantasy are tied together by a single theme of evil forces that test gag reflexes one page at a time. If you haven’t given this series a try, you’re missing out on all the putrid fiction that it has to offer.

Visit these Gruesome Futures and let The Librarian share her “love” of books. Also travel to galaxies where Cerullian vomit is used as a luxury moisturizer. Creative carnage is at full tilt, so warning lights and shrill alarms should be applied if easily offended. A Horror Bookworm Recommendation.
Profile Image for Diana  | Indie Book Addict.
542 reviews24 followers
October 3, 2023
Some astronauts crash on the moon. While they are there, they meet the Librarian, who has a very dark agenda. She wants them to read a book without throwing up. Simple, right? You might think that until you start reading. Burnett, Gunssler and Love have delivered some rather repulsive stories for us to feast on.

It Only Hurts When I Swallow
This one was quite unsettling. A man is essentially put through hell for something he did. We never find out exactly what that is, but because of the amount of torture, it must have been bad or maybe Susanna is just crazy. Either way, if you enjoy body horror, you’ll love this one. I’d love to read more from this author.

The R*pe and Annihilation of Babe Babylonia
Umm, what in the bodily fluids is going on? Tentacles, wrestling and violations, that’s what. Gunssler has a vivid imagination because this one is completely off the wall. Plenty of gore and fluids to go around.

The Secret on Subfloor 82
This one was interesting but milder than what I’m used to from Love. It’s a good mix of horror and sci-fi. The atmosphere was creepy and reminded me a bit of Event Horizon.

The frame narrative by Weichsel was unique and I enjoyed the layout and will be seeking out other volumes. If you enjoy gore, sci-fi and horror, this one is worth a read.
Profile Image for Dave Higgins.
Author 28 books54 followers
August 18, 2023
Weichsel gathers stories that take aim (with continent-destroying space rocks) at the question of whether the future is a source of hope or despair.

This is the fourth volume in Weichsel’s Tales to Make You Vomit series. It is a stand-alone anthology so no spoilers ahead.

This anthology contains three science-fiction short stories set within a framing narrative, each portraying the future as gross and unpleasant rather than clean and optimistic.

‘It Only Hurts When I Swallow’ by Misha Burnett: a man is sentenced to have his mouth replaced with a feeding tube. Opening as the punitive surgery begins and narrating the protagonist’s life after he is given into the sadistic custody of his ex-wife and her new lover, Burnett uses natural language and plausible descriptions of medical consequences to create a body horror tale that is all the creepier for the lack of spattergore excess. With the reason for the punishment never mentioned and the fragments of the protagonist’s former life that are revealed presenting him as neither especially decent nor perversely foul, the reader is left to decide for themselves whether the punishment could be fair, raising echoes of Kafka in theme if not form.

‘The Rape and Annihilation of Babe Babylonia’ by Max Gunssler: having almost been drowned in diarrhoea during a tag-team wrestling match, Babe Babylonia is sold to sex-crazed aliens. Filled with people being sexually assaulted by both humans and aliens, vomit and other bodily fluids, people being torn apart, cannibalism, and repeated hypersexualised descriptions of the protagonist and other wrestlers, Gunssler sets out to discover whether excess can be made more gratuitous. Yet, for all that this is a B-movie schlock horror dialled past the top of the dial, both Babe and the plot have just enough depth that this is a story rather than purely a series of gross-outs.

‘The Secret on Subfloor 82 of Serenity Station ’ by Todd Love: when their mind-wipes fail, a group of soldiers re-embrace the brutal personalities that led to them being imprisoned for war crimes, and are drawn to the still greater horror that is sealed away in the same station. Blending protagonists who revel in being sadistic, even to each other, with a slow revelation of how the unit ended up imprisoned, Love finds enough cruelty and horror to spatter guilt across both the protagonists and those who find it convenient to have remorseless killers to send against their opponents. Combined with the body horror of what else is imprisoned, readers might find resonances of both Heart of Darkness and Event Horizon.

As with the other volumes in Weichsel’s Tales to Make You Vomit series, there is a framing story focused on The Librarian, a zombie who challenges people to experience a story without vomiting then punishes them in a cruel fashion if they fail. In this instance, the Librarian is discovered by the crew of a US space mission to investigate strange signals coming from the moon. As this is an anthology, there are three protagonists rather than one; however, again as with previous books, they are all stereotypical liberals as is epitomised by the mission commander being in awe of a colleague not because of her technical skill but because she is the first black, openly transexual astronaut.

While the framing story satirises so called “woke” sensibilities at every opportunity, the three stories can be read as critiques of excessive punishments, reducing women to sex objects, and the military, each stereotypes of the “right”. Thus, the anthology can be read as an, admittedly gross, parody of all dogmatic excess that exalts by contrast Aristotle’s Golden Mean. It can however equally be read as puerile crudity-for-the-sake of it that befouls the legacy of classical Western civilisation. Which is potentially the point.

Overall, I found the stories and the collection as a whole a solid parody of extreme social positions but mostly aimed at an audience that enjoys gross-outs and visceral body horror more than I do. I recommend it to readers seeking something that brutally satirises extremes on both sides of several divides in modern US culture.

I received a free copy from the publisher with a request for a fair review.
Profile Image for Nat Whiston.
Author 30 books56 followers
August 19, 2023
So three astronauts land on a crater, sounds like the start to a bad joke right? But oh boy, this book is no laughing matter. We have the strong and beautiful Diamond Jones, who is the first black transgender woman in space. Adam Chronis, the intelligent Captain and Atticus Finch (yes that is a play on who you think). After a very bumpy crash landing and losing the fourth member of the team. Little do they know the nightmare is just beginning. After they are tasked with a secret mission to make first contact with alien life. A noble cause one would think, but you would be very wrong. When they meet the Librarian everything gets batshit crazy. When asked by the Librarian, “And what is it,” she asked, “that draws you to this science fiction?” “We love the hopeful and optimistic vision for the future golden age sci-fi presents.” Her reaction will chill you to the bone, as she is about to give a reason for them NOT to be optimistic. In total we get three stories, from three brilliant authors.
Misha Burnett It Only Hurts When I Swallow, well along with the disturbing detail of surgery. There is the cruel and unusual punishment that the man endures at the hands of his ex wife and her new wife. This story was sadistic, twisted and I am still wondering what the hell this guy did. To be treated like a farm animal used for fat storage. But the last part of the story is definitely gag worthy, but it's only a taste of what's to come. I am kind of grateful that I do not know what's in the stuff they feed him. It's just the way that Misha portrays the level of torment that Susanna and her lover put him through. It keeps you on the edge of your seat and dying to know what happens next.
Moving onto the The Rape and Annihilation of Babe Babalonia by Max. Well this was a step up in the gross out oh metre but read in my brain like an 80s sci-fi porn. Out of space wrestlers, doing unspeakable things to each other while they fight and honestly at points read like a horror hentai. There were some bits that did make me gag in the back of my mouth. Of course this was the story given to Diamond and she doesn't even flinch, like dry heaved but by the end we are reminded she is a badass ass bitch. But it was interesting how Max took this opportunity to showcase this Barbarella style story with tentacle porn vibes that will make you very uncomfortable.
Leaving the Astronaut Leader, Adam to be the deciding factor in earth's survival. He gets to read Todd Love's story which is not only an honour but at the same time…you know he f*cked. Well he did say give me your worst, and Todd has a reputation for going above and beyond. The Secret on Subfloor 82 of Serenity Station, I expected Todd to give his classic dark and twisted take. As we follow the story of Mad and Miles the Butcher, as they get back the memories and try escaping a space jail. There is one bit involving another inmate called Shiv, which is a particular stomach turning. Especially now I own the animal in question that meets a neausiating end. As always Todd brings tension and nerve wracking anxiety into his stories, as the break for freedom takes place.
The ending to this creep show style book is just perfect and I will warn you. If you do not have a strong stomach, this may not be the book for you. But if you are like me, the more twisted the better and like to be pushed to the limit? But I also love a bit of horror mixed with Sci-fi. This is the book for you…now I need volumes 1-3, DAMN YOU J. MANFRED IM MEANT TO BE ON A BOOK BUYING BAN!
Profile Image for DA.
Author 3 books134 followers
August 19, 2023
Hilariously gross and off the wall. I liked the main story arc as well as the three separate stories. Sci-fi meets bizarro meets horror made for an entertaining read.
Profile Image for Kevin Cannon (Monty's Book Reviews).
1,318 reviews24 followers
September 5, 2023
This is my first experience of this type of literature and I should've been warned by the title, but I still didn't expect such graphic revulsion. I guess it failed its task as it didn't induce vomiting but that may be because there was more than enough of it going on already.

Leaving aside the sheer grossness of the stories in the anthology, they were actually well written and despite the queasyness I found myself en-GROSS-ed in the tales.

I'm not sure I'd read too many of these but it made an interesting break from cozy mysteries and crime thrillers

Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews

Can't find what you're looking for?

Get help and learn more about the design.