Hello Devilfish!

by Ron Dakron

Hello Devilfish! is a first-person (or first-fish) account of a giant blue Japanese movie monster stingray’s attack on contemporary Tokyo and his tragic morph into human form. Using elements of Japanese shock-pop and the infamous Hello Kitty meme, the story is told in comic narrative from the stingray’s point of view as he gleefully creams Tokyo into rubble. The stingray is soon pursued by Squidra, a love-struck giant squid. She demands love; he refuses. In an epic waterfront battle, she traps him in a human-growth hormone bath that changes him into a puny human — a reverse metamorphosis — monster to man. Refusing to accept his humanity, the stingray acts like his former giant self while trying to find food, shelter, romance — and avoid the destructive rampage of his stalker squid love interest. Hello Devilfish! is told in a readable, comic narrative occasionally spiced with Manglish words. Funny and very readable, underneath the outlandish plot is a truly fresh critique of contemporary culture and mainstream literature.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction

148 pages, Paperback

First published October 7, 2014

About the author

Ron Dakron is a poet and novelist.

He is the author of six novels — Tricky (his latest), Hello Devilfish!, infra, Newt, Hammers and Mantids, and two collections of poetry. His work runs the gamut from surrealism to sci-fi pastiche.

Publishers Weekly reviews Hello Devilfish!: "Resistance may be futile, but this book at least makes it fun" and named him "a writer with a fine ear and plenty of gusto."

Library Journal lauds Hello Devilfish! as "an audacious, laugh-out-loud novel that is brilliantly committed to its conceit."

Kirkus Reviews called Hammers "cartilaginous prose, soft as fishbone, sense-bending and scattershot as a Robin Williams shtick."

Point No Point magazine tagged Hammers as "a cross between jive bullshit, hip-hop Henny Youngman, and full-tilt Rimbaudian street-smartass sublimity."

Raven Chronicles judged him "as sinister as a thirteen-year-old with a lighter and a keg of butane."

Reviews

[Kenn Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hello Devilfish makes you think in another language, Manglish. You start reading, then realize that if you stop reading, you may stop thinking ... or start thinking in plain old English again. You may just fall back into your same old mundane life. This is a story about havoc. You're not just reading about havoc, you're in the havoc, you're the cause of the havoc.

Read Hello Devilfish and take a ride on Godzilla's back and swing your tail with his strides while he wreaks havoc. You'll lay waste to anything that makes sense because nothing makes sense. You're the iconoclast. This is a story that lets you know that instability and bad behavior isn't so bad ... wait, I'm wrong ... if this were a story about that, then it would be a novel, and this is no novel, this is an anti-novel.

You have to read this story quickly like I did ... don't stop reading, keep moving. I read it while I was walking through my attic above my garage (you think I'm kidding but it's best read in this type of environment). This is a book for peripatetics, day walkers, people who dream about zombies. If this book doesn't cure your despair, or drive you to it, nothing will. Be prepared to make fun of yourself and anything you think you believe in ... .

[Flokky · Rating 5 out of 5]

Longed for an irreverent tale of hostile luv twixt two ginormous sea creatures who are thrashing Tokyo into a pulpy, smoke-smeared burning heap of split cement and oozing lust juice? Hello Devilfish! delivers sweet lit-crit stompifying, moist body decoupage, and thousands of crispified humans, all in I-can-haz-Manglish-speak.

This book could be classified as sci-fi-satire, but for me, it's really about the language. I really enjoyed that the author finds 101 ways to say "doin' it," but still seems to favor the term "sweet nooky." And could YOU come up with the following terms for the unfortunate folks who got in the way of the violent Leviathan lovefest? --
- biped sausage
- prole marshmallows
- boho gruel

This book is naughty. You might get offended--I certainly hope so. Like I was, you'll be cornered by its oh-ain't-you-a-dirty-thang onslaught and will be inable to defend yourself. And you'll love it.

I'll leave you with these wise words from chapter 3:
"When I hear the word culture I reach for my zipper."

[Gina Galinis · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit hard to read at first until you get a hang of the lingo and the way Hello Devilfish! talks. It's a bit unusual since he learned English from bad Japanese translations. But it was a fun quick read. Nice to see a new and different perspective from the monster point of view. You'll enjoy it if you're a fan of Kaiju books/movies.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious Japanese Monster Science Film Spoof of a Novel

Ron Dakron channels Mark Leyner on speed with the manic intensity of David Tennant's "Doctor Who" in this irresistibly funny, quite hilarious, Japanese monster science fiction film spoof of a novel that is also a not too sly fictional commentary on contemporary American mainstream literary fiction. Dakron slays literary snobbery and stands firmly in the excellent usage of speculative fiction as satire in his compellingly readable "first-fish" account as seen through the eyes of this devilish blue-tinted monstrous stingray as it attacks contemporary Tokyo before converting itself into something far more human. Quite possibly the funniest novel I have read in some time, "Hello Devilfish!" deserves a wide readership.

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

What to do if you're the kind of writer who thinks up lines like, "Lose a wang, gain a plot point," and "I'm lonely like dice in a church"? You can only use lines like that in genre - if you stick lines like that into literature, the cleverness distracts from your story. People won't see past the flippancy. This is why genre frickin rules, of course. But if you are too untamed even for genre, if your aim is to comment upon Literature even as you are writing it, even though you are too clever for it, then I guess your only recourse is Hello Devilfish!

[Constance Renfrow · Rating 5 out of 5]

(Full disclosure: I am affiliated with this book, and I absolutely love it.) Hello Devilfish! makes you think in every direction at once. It's an incredibly crazy and crazy-good read. It's about a giant blue movie-monster stingray ("Gee-ra!!"), who speaks only in Manglish and pop culture references. Even though he shouldn't really be a sympathetic character (after all, he eats about half the population of Tokyo on a regular basis), it's hard to do anything but love him and his incredibly candid commentary on today's society. It's a quick and super fun read, and I definitely recommend it!

[Staci Marie]

It was ok, enough to hold my interest. I liked the part in the beginning about how life is a B movie, the director is unknown, the plot reeks, the colors are dead wrong, the costumes blow chunks, the extras are always bitching, the scenery's cheap and cheesy-plus the actors suck!
So other than that I was interested enough to finish and I liked ( spoiler alert)



How they both turned in to humans, he's a blue skinned man and the love sick squidra gets him in the end and she's a pink skinned hottie.

[K]

I was looking forward to this so much... but it was nothing like it was advertised to be. It's a really bizarre, sexually obsessed stream of consciousness first-person narration with zero action and lots of very random social observations sprinkled in at weird places. With no build-up or follow-up. Just "Chocolate sprinkle orgasms, society is built on fear. Mayonnaise mythmaking. Fear what's in my pants! Hello Devilfish!" For the first 30 pages at least. That's as far as I pushed before I gave up.

[Brent Millis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Glorious insanity. What else is there to say? This is the story of a Devilfish and the love hate? of his life all the while destroying Tokyo in the process. Smash. Smash. Smash. Bonk. NOM NOM NOM. You've not experienced a kaiju monster story like this... until now.

[Marvin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a fan of comic book literature... The tale is repetitive and meaningless.

[Rick eich · Rating 1 out of 5]

childish snotty and sarcastic like a childrens book for jaded adults

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 1 out of 5]

The best thing about this book was the synopsis. The author went out of his way to be obnoxious instead of just telling us a story about Kaiju monsters.

[Henrik Rostoft]

I think this is just free word association for the author. Gave no meaning

[Joanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sort of funny but hard to follow. Read more like an offbeat poem than a novel.