The Four Gentlemen of the Apocalypse

by Douglas Hackle

The Strange Edge's first official release features four absurreal novelettes from Douglas Hackle, Dustin Reade, G. Arthur Brown, and S.T. Cartledge.

The Ballad of TERROR TINY TIM (Hackle): In an absurd world where the letter “r” has yet to be discovered, something evil is said to lurk behind a locked door in a suburban sex dungeon where a kidnapped father and an incestuous bigamist named You-Don’t-Have-To-Be-Lonely-At-Farmers-Only-Dot-Com find themselves imprisoned for life.

The Canal (Reade): As lawyers quote Melville and insects use public transit, one man has the audacity to become an adorable little kitty cat.

I Took One Apple to the Grave (Brown): In the time of the board game Risk, a sergeant attends to an elderly, dying man as fairy tale events transpire, sometimes to contradictory effect, while they wait for The Wolves to arrive and fulfill the often repeated and even more often revised Prophecy.

Wizard and Robot in the Land of Sand and Bones (Cartledge): A robot and a wizard made of glass wander a dreamscape of shifting sand dunes, searching through the ruins for signs of life, but what they find is far wilder than they could have expected.


Praise for The Four Gentlemen of the Apocalypse.

"Sharp, beyond bizarre, beautiful, hilarious." --- Laura Lee Bahr, author of Haunt.

"In the tradition of Three Cases of Murder, this four sided apocalypse hymn will set your nerves to dizzy. The Strange Edge has brewed up something wicked, tasty. Drink it up and feel that darkness." --- Brian Allen Carr, author of Motherfucking Sharks and The Last Horror Novel in the History of the World

"I am emerging from a night infused with confusion and discomfort. I sat myself down, did my best to tend to ongoing hydration issues, and began reading the words of these four apocalyptic gentlemen. A brief sojourn with unusual words became more, tempting me toward the sort of all-nighter I haven’t pulled since my brief obsession with the American Ninja movies in the 90s. And here I am… evolved in some way. Douglas Hackle, Dustin Read, G. Arthur Brown and S.T. Cartledge. Four names, each rather unexceptional in a purely linguistic context, but behind these names reside people, and within these people reside ideas. It’s these ideas… these sickening, hilarious, thought-provoking, worryingly arousing ideas you must be careful of. Sure… reading these ideas can be achieved in one frantic night, but they linger beyond the act of reading them. They insinuate themselves and become a component of who you are. These four gentlemen of the apocalypse know what they’re doing, and I struggle to think of any who can do it better. This blurb is long, but how could it be anything else? How else can I both tempt you toward and warn you away? Read this collection. I have faith your mind can take it, but if instead these words take your mind, please don’t say I didn’t warn you. For those dissuaded by grandiloquent musings within blurbage, there is also a character called Wasilly." --- Matthew Revert, author of Basal Ganglia and Human Trees

Genres: Bizarro Fiction

146 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 14, 2015

About the author

Many moons ago, I abandoned academia after receiving a degree in English Literature. Nowadays, I write fiction when I'm not toiling away as a copywriter/copyeditor in the healthcare space.

Here are some nice things people have said about my work:

“Douglas Hackle is one of the best writers of bizarre, absurdist work out there.” – Charles Austin Muir

"The best bizarro absurdist in the business.” – Amy M. Vaughn

“He's consistently delivered some of the weirdest, wildest, most well-written fiction I've ever read.” – Arthur Graham

“The head honcho of the absurd, the governor of wackiness, the top dog of insanity…Intelligent and imbecilic, Douglas Hackle is one of the most unique voices in bizarro fiction.” – Zoltán Komor

“…a master of the short story.” – Rodney Gardner

“Hackle is a laugh-out-loud genius.” – Donald Armfield

“…one of bizarro fiction’s sharpest satirists.” – Bizarro Central

“…always hilarious, horrific, and brilliantly written entertainment. Highly recommended!” – Brian Boyer

“Douglas Hackle is an evil genius.” – Kevin J. Kennedy

“My mind is blown. Literally. It needs a new fuse…I have never read anything like this.” - Nikki Howard on Clown Tear Junkies

“When it comes to Mr. Hackle, you don’t have a shot in hell of predicting what’s going to happen, even if he’s just told you. […] You can’t know where the story will take you, what the characters will do and say, how it’s all going to shake down in the end, even one page before that end.” – Melodie Ladner

“Hackle isn’t afraid to get you clutching your seat with fear only to have you giggling in the next sentence, and vice versa.”– Ben Walker at Kendall Reviews

“Batshit craziness! […] I honestly think that if you’ve never read a bizarro book, this might be the one you should grab.” – Livius Nedin (former host of the Booked. podcast) on TERROR MANNEQUIN

“… Zoltergeist the Poltergeist is an absolutely superb piece of Bizarro horror – and as a result, a novel that should be considered an exemplar for the rest of the genre to follow and attempt to best.” – The Sci-Fi and Fantasy Reviewer

“This book is an absurdist masterclass, and it may be that the whole problem with the world is that there isn't enough of this kind of thing in it […] Did War and Peace or Crime and Punishment change my life? I don't really think so, to be honest; maybe slightly? Did this book change my life? I shit you not, it kind of did, actually.” – Dirk Wartman on Is Winona Ryder Still with the Dude from Soul Asylum? and Other LURID Tales of TERROR and DOOM!!!’

Reviews

[Melki · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Get him!” Doctor Beard screamed. “I want his balls!”*

You know, that would be kind of a weird line in most books, but in the Bizarro world, it's pretty much par for the course. Here are four strange tales that will rock your world, shake you loose from your foundation and totally wreck your plumbing.

Take Douglas Hackle's The Ballad of TERROR TINY TIM in which a suburban Little League game goes horribly wrong and ends in a sex dungeon, clowns, the formation of a new rock band and other bad things. Bless us, somebody . . . please?

And in Dustin Reade's The Canal? There's a guy, see. And, well, as Jodie Foster once said, "...he's making himself a woman cat suit out of real women cats." And then some really bad stuff happens.

G. Arthur Brown's I Took One Apple to the Grave was my favorite of the four. Unwinding in beautiful fairy tale-like wonder is a story of old men, soldiers, witches and wolves. Don't let the loveliness fool you. Plenty of bad, yet beautifully written, stuff happens.

And then there was Wizard And Robot in the World of Sand and Bones by S.T. Cartledge. This one made me sad. It was full of sand and fury and signified something I don't understand, but there were dragons. And, oh yeah - bad stuff happens.

If you've never given Bizarro fiction a try, this would be an excellent place to start.

*From The Canal by Dustin Reade

[Arthur Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mama always said life was rough, that we don’t always get the things we want. Even really basic things — like, for example, an undemolished butthole.

— From "The Ballad of TERROR TINY TIM", by Douglas Hackle

If the four hombres on the cover are meant to represent the four authors included in this collection, I'd say it's a toss-up between Reade/Brown for the orangutan and the short chap in yellow, Cartledge is probably that George-Washington-pirate-lookin' motherfucker, and Hackle has gotta be ol' bulb head in back.

Overall I enjoyed these stories quite a bit, but even those less to my taste were not enough to make me vomit. Not even close. In fact, I'd wager that either every story in this collection will make you vomit or none of them will, depending on your tolerance for things like ape and ap music, transmogrified taxidermists, and other absurdo-surrealist shenanigans. Still, between all the boomerang babies and winter witch wolves, there's something here for everyone, really — fun for the whole famn damily. And that includes you, my tiny little son.

[Danger · Rating 5 out of 5]

If the God of Absurdity were the One True God, then this book would be his Bible.

Four novellas. Four writers. One cover. Lots of fun.

The Ballad of TERROR TINY TIM is like the Bad News Bears meets…Deliverance meets…A Christmas Carol? I don’t even know. Douglas Hackle ushers the reader through a litany of odd-situations and incongruous behaviors that, in their own perverted way, make a kind of sense-ish. It’s Hackle’s unwavering commitment to humor and the most ridiculous of premises that makes this particular novella shine. There might have even been a moral to the story in there too. Maybe. Probably not. Sorta.

Next comes THE CANAL by Dustin Reade. This one is almost a sendup to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. Except a bit stranger, if you can believe that. What starts out as a somewhat silly and playful tale about a lonely taxidermist who wants to be a cat, soon devolves into a story about alienation and decay. Juxtaposed next to Hackle’s story, this two are an interesting study in antipodes when referring to what bizarro/absurdist fiction can do. TERROR TINY TIM is a funny story about some of the most horrible things imaginable, while THE CANAL is a melancholy story built around a funny premise.

I TOOK ONE APPLE TO THE GRAVE is the densest of the bunch. One that warrants a second reading, which I haven’t done yet, but c'mon, gimmie a break ova here. I just finished the dang thing, like, 20 minutes ago. Let me cleanse my palate. The least linear yet the most well-written (in a literary sense) Brown’s story within a story within a novella is a fairy tale of sorts, but also a mind-bending allegory for philosophy and choice and storytelling and death. It was a really interesting piece that is tough at first, but ultimately tasty.

Lastly we come to WIZARD AND ROBOT IN THE LAND OF SAND AND BONES by S.T. Cartledge. This is a love story like no other; a wholly original bizarro fable. This is the first novella of Cartledge's that I’ve read and was impressed by both the scope of the story (even though WIZARD AND ROBOT is the shortest of the four) and the way he executes it. Fluid prose and deep characters. Cartledge just earned himself a new reader.

This was four strong novellas by four strong authors with four distinct voices who give four definitions to the word ‘absurd’. If you’re a fan (or just curious) about even one of these author’s it’s worth the ticket price alone. You’ll be pleasantly surprised. Or maybe you won’t be surprised, since I just told you you were going to be surprised. It’s difficult to surprised if you're expecting it. Let me to fix that: "…it’s worth the ticket price alone. You’ll be pleasantly ENTERTAINED." There, that’s better.

[Rodney · Rating 4 out of 5]

We begin with Douglas Hackle’s Ballad of Terror Tiny Tim. This story was the least predictable of the bunch and that is saying something considering the company he is sharing the book with. The absurdity is off the scale, and I am at a loss for where to begin. So many random occurrences and one leads to another, and another, and... To a reader not open enough to receive it, this could be seen as a detriment. For me this only added to the experience.
Dustin Reade’s The Canal was the funniest of the four. A man with an interest in taxidermy makes a “suit made of cat”. He embodies the feline persona to a ridiculous degree, and the story really takes off from there. Besides the humor, there are themes of loneliness and isolation that all together made this one even stronger. The ending wrapped this one up perfectly for me.
Next, G. Arthur Brown’s I Took One Apple to the Grave is a strange tale that is both intriguing and very hard to describe. While grounded in a bit of folklore, there is nothing traditional about it. There is an attention to detail that shines through. Things tended to wrap around each other. I was pulled along, never quite being able to tell what was coming next. In all, the results were pretty unique and the more I let this one sink in, the more I enjoyed it.
Last, my favorite of the book was S.T. Cartledge’s Wizard and Robot in the Land of Sand and Bones. Both magical and majestic, there is a specific way that this is written, and I was instantly pulled in. The world building and the degree to which Cartledge can write from the point of view of such unique, non-human characters is mindblowing. You become the girl robot. You are the wizard made of glass. You experience everything just as they do.
Considering all of the authors involved and the anticipation I had for this book, I took my time with it, and am happy I did. The stories fit well together and amount to a solid first release from Strange Edge Publications.

[Pedro Proença · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first (at least I think it's the first) official publication from Strange Edge Publications, spearheaded by Bizarro/Surrealist/Absurdist G. Arthur Brown delivered on its promisse: A weird trip through surreal landscapes, all rounded with an extreme pop appeal. It's accessible surrealism, a rare feat amidst publications on the genre.


We start off with "The Ballad of TERROR TINY TIM", by Douglas Hackle. Fun fact: I was once drunk-messaged by Hackle on Facebook, and let me tell you, it was a delight. This man knows how to turn a seemingly normal story into a surreal clusterfuck. This is the story about a man taking his special son to his Little League debut. From there, we have flying babies, forced sodomy, and a zombified version of a character from a Christmas classic. And all of it while keeping the world real and the actions somehow natural.

The follow up is Dustin Reade's "The Canal", a Kafkian story about a lonely man who loves cats. Love them so much, he uses taxidermy to become one. It's very dreamlike, but accessible and gloomy. I know the term Kafkian is used a lot, but trust me, you'll get the same feeling after reading this one.

Next, we have G. Arthur Brown's "I Took One Apple to the Grave". Here, we have Samuel Beckett trying his hand in Bizarro. A sort of fairy tale, it's a mysterious story from the beginning, with an old man asking the soldier in charge of his safety if there are any wolves. The whole thing devolves into a matrioska, with the last section mirroing the first, and it's all very meta (a term you youngsters love throwing around these days)

Finally, we end in a darker note with "Wizard And Robot in the World of Sand and Bones", by S.T. Cartledge. A depressing tale about the journey of a wizard made of glass and a girl robot through a desert. Lot's of observations about life and death, while maintaining the same surreal feeling of the other stories. The final part is perfectly paced, a lot of action and feelings of claustrophobia.


I loved this book, and I look forward to what Strange Edge Publications will put out next. This sort of Bizarro mixed with Surrealism is maybe my favorite arm of the genre. Great stuff.

[Jason Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Four Gentlemen of the Apocalypse is modern absurd, surrealism at its finest. The book is a collection of novelettes by some of the greatest writers in the realm of just, simply put, balls-out weirdo-insane fiction.
Douglas Hackle, who I've personally been chomping at the bit to see more from since reading Clown Tear Junkies a few years ago, opens this collection with The Ballad of Terror Tiny Tim. In typical Hackle fashion there is not a single predictable moment in this story and it would be too difficult to sum up what it's about here, just read it. You most assuredly will not forget it...my tiny little son.
The Canal by Dustin Reade was a trippy little tale about a lonely taxidermist who constructs a cat suit, and seemingly becomes a cat, or does he? The themes in this story are little more serious, and leaves the reader with questions that make for good discussion. The story is very intelligent in the way it uses absurdism, and has me wanting to read more from Dustin Reade.
I Took One Apple to the Grave by G. Arthur Brown was a brilliant little fantasy folk tale. There is a witch that lives in a lady's neck that must be dispatched by a group of bickering adventurers. There is a lot more to this tale, you'll just have to experience it yourself. It was a lot of fun and well written. G. Arthur Brown is probably one of the better writers in the Bizarro scene where things can get a little groan-worthy and ham fisted at times, it's easy to imagine Brown pouring over every sentence, and taking the ridiculous very seriously.
Last comes S.T. Cartledge's Wizard and Robot in the World of Sand and Bones. This one reads like a prose-poetic, fever-dream, an epic fantasy hallucination that's just gorgeous example of surrealistic beauty. Cartledge's imagination is tremendous, and you'll have fun with anything he writes.
Four Gentlemen of the Apocalypse is a must-read for anyone into offbeat, hilarious or heartwarming stories. Plenty entertaining, and plenty weird, get this book! I can't wait to see more from these writers and Strange Edge Publications.

[Teresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Four gentlemen, four different stories. All good in their own ways, but quite different from each other as well. Definitely worth a read, especially as an introduction to each writer's work.

[Nicholaus Patnaude · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Ballad of Terror Tiny Tim” by Douglas Hackle

This one has a hilarious and shocking twist in tone and content about midway through the first chapter. I won’t spoil the exact shift, but I will say that the narrator’s desire seems particularly at odds with the fate of his handicapped son during a Little League game. I empathized with the son at first, having, at one time, been the worst player on a Little League team as well back in the late 1980s.

During chapter 2, I thought about the difference between Comedy and Bizarro; the difference is: darkness. Yet it is an absurd darkness, not necessarily a pure and unrelenting darkness with sick humor as in the film Heathers. So we have dark absurdism grounded in a palpable American experience, at least in this one; the literary movement contains practitioners from other countries as well. The dungeon scene was unforgettable and offers a new meaning to the concept of portion control.

In a Bluebeard-style room, we meet a surprise guest. The satirical rap sessions caused me to chuckle and wonder if that genre of music would ever cease dominating the charts and the radio. Yes, there are current gems (Run the Jewels comes to mind), but in most rap the lyrics often plummet in at least one of the following four annoying directions: misogyny, narcissism, materialism, or sentimentality. This is parodied effectively in this ghoulish tale by Douglas Hackle.

“The Canal” by Dustin Reade

Bizarre waterways and a fridge full of frozen cats greet the reader like an invitation to an alternate dimension at the beginning of this tale.

Bathing cat corpses is routine as is sitting next to a cockroach smoking a cigarette on the commuter train homeward. Once back in our vicious narrator’s humble abode, we witness a bizarre and sadistic ritual replete with the skinning of discoveries from the local canal. This lurid passage is certainly not for the squeamish; nor are the after-effects resulting from wearing the skins, although the disgruntled neighborhood is undoubtably aware of his presence afterwards.

The chapter entitled “Cat People” was my favorite, featuring hairless cats lumbering about on two legs while wearing robes. One might feel as if she’d jumped off a diving board into a sea of psychedelic nightmares by this point.

Further fun adventures lay in store with a visit to the library with a cat lady and various other men in cat suits who also abide by Bartleby’s famous mantra. I particularly liked the moment when, on the verge of getting fixed, Russell witnesses a nurse torn apart to reveal stethoscopes and surgical instruments as her internal organs.

“I Took One Apple to the Grave” by G. Arthur Brown

This is the most dreamlike piece in the book so far, despite there being less fantastical elements than in the others; Brown’s wicked sense of humor is more subdued than in other works I’ve read of his. This one has passages that alternate between a fairy tale mood and a bleak Dostoevsky scene.

I wanted to hear more about the three brass dwarves swimming until they found a black swan. The image of a tiny hand emerging from a lanced boil is not one I’ll soon forget.

Angel Hair: five golden cigars. I wonder where this whimsical but dark tale will lead.

Two men wait for a diamond ship to rescue them while talking to a snowman who may very well benefit their conditions by stabbing them.

An island of wild ponies who can swim but also bite and kick, spoiling dreams. Or a girl writing in code about her grandmother before being pecked to death by geese. Such nightmarish stories lie almost buried within this transfixing tale.

The mysterious wolves, talked about frequently in this tale’s first section, do eventually emerge; yet I refuse to spoil the details of their grotesque entrance.

The scene with the Winter Witch will certainly cause your toenails to curl and your eyeballs to explode. Either that, or Brown’s deranged imagery will haunt your dreams forever.

Horses flicker in and out of existence and wolves float into a child’s coffin. Characters are deemed redundant and then, in a rather aggressive metafictional act, are whisked from the story retroactively.

I did laugh out loud during this one when the conversation took place about the significance of certain characters with hilarious names like Glasscock, Bracgirdle, and Bonebrake.

I loved the sophistication of this story’s odd but cohesive structure; it sort of resembles an experimental film made by a ghoulish Monty Python team. It’s my favorite of the quartet on display here.

“Wizard and Robot in the World of Sand and Bones” by S.T. Cartledge

Girl Robot and The Wizard Made of Glass must fight against the influence of sand during their otherworldly but love-fueled journey.

They search for dragons in the sky as they discover dragon bones in the ruined sandcastles of former homes.

This one has a more lyrical flow than the other three.

The odd reality created herein fuses corporeal diffusion with sailing trips through sandcastle skies alongside dragons and a wizard who ages more quickly based on the level of strenuousness contained in each of his magical tasks. Yet, luckily, a dragon bone heart may await his resurrection.

[G. Brown]

Available now on Amazon for $2.99 American. 4 novelettes for less than 3 bucks. Sounds like a fair price for stories that damage your brain.

[mari]

One of the most ridiculous, crazy, disturbing books I have read in a while. This literal cluster of stories question reality and the use of language is hypnotic.