Synchronized Sleepwalking

by Martin Mundt

To sleep, perchance to dream... And in dreaming lies the danger! With Martin Mundt as your dangerous Dream Master, in the 27 tales within, you'll visit places dark and places strange. You'll live dreams both oddly hilarious and eerily heart-wrenching.

From a couple with a fetish for fireworks to a tower of words that reaches to the sky and beyond... from a dominatrix with a perverted parrot to a triptych of El Pollo tales of fowl revenge... from an ex-girlfriend who'd make Kathy Bates' character in Misery seem like a good time girl to a Lovecraftian descent into the darkest magic... These dreams will kidnap your imagination and take you to places you've never dared before to see. Hide all the sharp objects in your bedroom and prepare for some serious Sleepwalking...

256 pages, Kindle Edition

Published October 23, 2015

About the author

The year was 1957. Sputnik was launched & the Space Age was born. Me, too.
The next event of any significance happened in '69. I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey for the 1st time & my 12-year-old self thought that it was the best thing I'd ever seen, despite a total lack of knowledge of LSD. Also, the Moon landing dominated the news. Astronauts were heroes. For a skinny, uncoordinated kid with bad eyes & a fear of heights, it was a time when I realized that no matter how crazy my dream, no matter how high my goal, I was still just a skinny, uncoordinated kid with bad eyes & a fear of heights. I didn't stand a snowball's chance in hell of ever being an astronaut.
Cut to '74, when I received the results of my high school aptitude test. I was still skinny, but even more uncoordinated & my eyes had gotten worse, but that aptitude test had determined that I should be an astronaut. I felt vindicated. The threads of my future were at last becoming clear. (Of course, the same test had also recommended that I become a sheriff or an army officer or perhaps a department store manager if the astronaut gig didn't work out, but since those results left the threads of my future rather more tangled, I disregarded them.)
Quite naturally, I suppose, I then flung myself into the study of science fiction--Arthur Clarke, Larry Niven, Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Kurt Vonnegut. Yeah, OK, maybe flinging myself into the study of 'science', as such, might have been more pertinent to the goal of becoming an astronaut, but those science-fiction guys all wrote better than the textbook guys. How much difference could one little word like 'fiction' make anyway? Well, apparently, there's just so much difference between studying quantum physics & watching Space 1999 on TV that the two just don't compare at all. & I mean, at all.
Well, to make a long story short (check out the sly play on words there; it's a writing thing), I never got into the Astronaut Training Program, or whatever they call it, but just 21 short years after taking a wrong turn on my aptitude test, I published a short story.
OK, so maybe I could've gotten my career off the ground a little quicker if I'd been a department store manager, but I'm not bitter. Not at all. So what if the cherished dreams of my childhood lie in ruins because of a string of D's in chemistry? So what? I discovered that I have a real flair for spelling. Take that, Buzz Aldrin.
Does an astronaut get to hold up a book & say, "This is my book."? Well, OK, maybe a lot of them do. But does an astronaut get to go to writing conventions & volunteer to check bags at the art show door? Well, OK, so maybe that's not such a good example. Oh, wait, wait, wait! Does an astronaut know what a gerund is? Hah! In your face, John Glenn.
& that compulsion to hang myself as an abject failure? Well, that pretty much goes away for days at a time now. So, I'm fine with my career choice. Just fine. I'm all good. Yep. Just great.
I'm a pretty nifty writer, too, if I do say so myself. Really. I'm not just saying that because I'm a bitter, middle-aged man bitter about the bitter way the world has treated me, & with a totally irrational chip on my shoulder about astronauts in general. No. That's absolutely not what's going on here. Not at all. I worked thru all that mindless rage a long time ago. I did. Really. I'm all good with astronauts now. I am. That dead rat I mailed to Neil Armstrong back in '81? A total mistake. I can see that now. Never should have happened. Sorry about that, Neil. Love ya. Really.
But, anyhoo, back to the point of this whole thing. I went to school, got a job, made a lot of friends who change their phone numbers often, blah, blah, blah. I'm currently at work on the 15th book of a series of novels about a skinny, uncoordinated serial killer with bad eyes & a fear of heights who torture-murders a...

Reviews

[Mommacat · Rating 5 out of 5]

I received an email from John Everson of Dark Arts Books asking me if he could send me a digital copy of this book and if I would write a review on it. I told him that I had never heard of the author, but for him, I would read it.

OH! This just might be the most unique, most original set of short stories I have ever read! Was that redundant? Let me rephrase that to get my point across. Martin Mundt's writing is so fresh, it slaps you in the face with each story you read.

Then I come to find that he was published way back in the wayback by Delerium Books only in signed/limited form. Now John Everson has picked him up for the rest of us to enjoy.

And enjoy him you will. He writes dark fiction-comedy, dark fiction-sorrow, dark fiction- horror. And as you laugh, cry, scream at the tree, heroin addict and Realtor be sure to tell others in your house that you're reading. Or they just might wonder, like my husband did, if you've finally lost it. Whatever it is. But you've found something new in any case.

But if you miss this, you've missed something really special.

[Nev Murray · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I defy anyone who picks this collection up not to get something good from it. I absolutely loved it and I look forward to the next collection from Mr Mundt. The man is a genius at short story writing."

See here for the full review:

Synchronised Sleepwalking

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Larry Santoro introduced me to Martin Mundt back in the nineties, both of them being regulars at the Twilight Tales events at the Red Lion in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood, readings which were occasionally published as collections, collections which I came to proofread in exchange for free admission and beer.

The first story I ever read in print from Mundt, one about a hapless clown, was so darkly funny that my reading was punctuated by laughter, deep, gut-wrenching belly laughs.

Thus, when I began the practice of holding weekly cultural events (readings, music, movies, even dance) at local cafes and restaurants, I reached out to Marty, asking him to participate. This he did many times, most recently here at Heirloom Books. Also, generously, he provided the shop with many of his publications.

This collection is one of the few I hadn't seen before. Like most short story collections, it's hard to rate. Unlike much of his material I'd previously encountered, not all the stories are dark, gory and hilarious. Some are reminiscent of Bradbury's lyricism. The best, rating five stars, are the three of the El Pollo series, all of which I'd heard him read previously.

Marty is an excellent reader, his manner of presentation enhancing the impact of the material. There are some examples of his reading available on-line.

[Ronald Keeler · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a collection of short stories like this, the only way I can review it is to note my instant impressions as I read, or quote some lines I thought were really good. Overall, this is a book I would take on a trip to relieve boredom. With 27 stories to select from, there is a lot of diversion. And all the stories are great although the “chicken trilogy” did not impress me until The Chicken Killers. Then I was impressed again.

A Bird in Hand Where parrots and lawyers become one.

The Girl With a Motorcycle for a Heart Just in case you think innocence is always rewarded…

Breathless How can you know when it is really over?

He Passed Himself Away There really seems to be someone for everyone. This was one of my favorites.

The Pale Blue Zenith of the Sky This is a great story. I resisted the urge to google some of the titles mentioned.

Chair A very gruesome and disturbing tale centered on the theme of enduring optimism.

Skinny Bones Momma looked like too much candlewax dripped by a sloppy child onto the skinny wick of a skeleton. It is not over ‘til the fat lady sings.

Lost Dog When life is more than just a walk in the park.

The Once-Upon-A-Time King When the middle of the story becomes more important than the beginning or the end.

Flying You realize belatedly that, although confusion has always been more than generous with his time, understanding has consistently been something of an asshole toward you.

Live Poultry not remarkable, chicken kills man

El Pollo continuation of above, chicken kills “brothers”

The Chicken Killers a man cannot truly comprehend his own insignificance until his very life has been saved … by a chicken. Third in a series of chicken stories.

Still Life With Walls Jeff’s future was nailed.

Boom As promised by the title, the most explosive story of the lot.

The Time I Didn’t Meet Christopher Walken The reader is led by the anticipation of how a print version of Walken’s distinctive speech pattern emerges.

That Is the Man, Said the Boy An inspiring story of the usefulness of every life.

Summer of Love People should have their own dreams. When you start having the dreams of others, the results can get twisted.

And Death Came Down Like Moonlit Frost A story of final, true commitment

The Camera Loves Her Regrets that crossed generations.

The Black House There is a memorable first line here. And the Sin eaters watch you sleep.

To Continue Forever Here we find another version of the Ultimate Question.

Honk Bumper stickers are not to be believed.

Wet With Me Back to the very beginnings.

The Scrimshaw Museum Beauty vs. Death and the art of scrimshaw.

Anniversary And then the wish was fulfilled.

The Falling of Astronauts Like Rain Another version of Schwarzenegger’s “I’ll be back.”

[Icy_Space_Cobwebs Join the Penguin Resistance! · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review: SYNCHRONIZED SLEEPWALKING By Martin Mundt

After I read John Everson's introduction to this collection, I was almost convinced Martin Mundt might walk on water. After reading Mr. Mundt's stories, I am convinced of this truth: these stories are change agents. Every blessed one. I am not the reader who began at the beginning and read all the way through. I am different--enlightened, expanded, my imagination stretched to unaccustomed possibilities. In a sense, I've undergone a sort of personal apocalypse--and survived.

I reviewed a digital copy generously provided by the publisher, Dark Arts, for review purpose only; no remuneration or fees were exchanged.

[David Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are people out there that don't consider writing an art form. Though in reality a well written short story or novel is a work of art. A writer creates a world, characters and situations meant to entertain us as readers. Some writers have an easy time making us laugh, scaring us and making us scratch our heads in disbelief. Synchronized Sleepwalking by Martin Mundt is a book that does all of these things.

With a name like Synchronized Sleepwalking you know right away that this isn't your average read. This book includes stories that could fit in different genres, such as Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy and bizarre fiction. To give an example of how bizarre this book is the first story is a work of flash fiction called A Bird In Hand. It's about a man who goes to see a dominatrix that owns a parrot. When the dominatrix leaves for a bit, the man has "relations" with the parrot. If you think that's weird it gets much weirder later and with this being the first story I was left with the feeling of "What the heck kind of book is this?"

The second story is one called The Girl With A Motorcycle For A Heart. The setting is a futuristic world where everyone is born a criminal and when you turn 18 you have to pay for the sins of your past lives. A girl named Penny has just turned 18 and she is different then the other criminals because she is innocent. There was a heartbreaking point in this story about what jealousy can do to someone and how your past defines your future.

Another good one in this collection that's bizarre with a great point to it was Chair. On the surface this is an odd one with a man who is trying to become a billionaire by selling his body parts and who eventually gets a job as a chair. This story maybe hilarious with the description of what he feels as he lives his life as a chair and sells his body parts but it also has a good message about what people are willing to give up to be rich. The ending of this one is excellent when we find out that even people who give up everything will still pass judgement on others.

If horror is your game this anthology has it in the The Black House. I like the idea here of a haunted house where a man learns of the existence of sin eaters: creatures that are invisible and are waiting to take your soul when you die a sinner. The description of the old mansion and the sorcerer that owned it are excellent in this creepy story.

The best thing about this book is probably how it goes from fantasy in The Once Upon A Time King where someone takes over a kingdom in an original way to comedy along with a vengeful chicken in The Saga Of El Polo. Synchronized Sleepwalking is the kind of book you buy if you like a little comedy and weirdness with your horror. Though this is more than just a book full of weird stories, several of these stories have a great message to them and you have to appreciate a book that makes you laugh and think at the same time.

[John Weagly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great writer.