Weaponized

by Zac Thompson

Sexual activity is outlawed on Truog Island. A place where disease and infection run rampant. There lives Trip Yash, a bored teen who upon losing his virginity contracts a sexually transmitted disease that turns his arm into a gun.

For fans of Clive Barker and David Cronenberg, Weaponized is a nerve-shattering exploration of sexual identity and people's strange relationship with tools of death.

Genres: Horror, Fiction

356 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2017

About the author

Zac Thompson is a writer born and raised on Prince Edward Island, Canada. He's written titles like Marvelous X-Men, Cable, and X-Men: Black for Marvel Comics. Along with indie books such as Her Infernal Descent, Relay, and The Replacer.

In 2019, Zac became the showrunner of the Age of X-Man universe at Marvel Comics. His critically acclaimed miniseries, Come Into Me, was called the best horror comic of 2018 by HorrorDNA. His debut comic series, The Dregs, was called "lowbrow brilliant" by New York Magazine. His novel, Weaponized, was the winner of the 2016 CryptTV horror fiction contest.

Reviews

[Dev · Rating 2 out of 5]

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

I just ...really don't even know where to start with this. It is somehow the weirdest and also most cliched thing I think I've read this year and ...the entire thing is just bizarre. Which I was kind of expecting but ...I was just Not Prepared. Like, at all.

I guess I was maybe expecting it to be a little bit more subtle? And that is definitely the last word I would use to describe this book. I mean ...the kid has sex and his hand turns into a gun - which is deliberately described as 'phallic shaped' like EVERY time it's mentioned - that ...leaks ...white ...ooze ...stuff ....yeah. And really it only gets more obvious from there.

Also it just gets plain weird and I feel like the author tried to pack too much stuff into one story. There's several different weird STDs [that actually ..aren't STDs??] that aren't ever really coherently explained and then [SPOILERS] it's also revealed that the island they live on is actually a huge decaying giant [presumably mostly to make them travel around in its ...intestines? at one point. Although honestly it's written more like a vaginal/womb thing OBVIOUSLY].

I'm sorry, I feel like this is not a very coherent review but it's not a very coherent book and I'm just kind of at a loss here. I feel like it was a good concept but everything just went overboard and then nothing really connected together so I was just left very confused. Also I thought that maybe the fact that the main character is gay was going to be ...more significant than it was. Like I thought his disease was going to specifically be a metaphor for AIDs or for gay people being ostracized or whatever but it was just all sex in general. And there was a specific disease that gay men got but it was more mentioned in passing than anything so ...I don't know.

Also the fact that I'm aro/ace might have affected my opinion a little bit. I mean I still read books with sex in them all the time and obviously I knew going in that this was going to focus on sex so I'm not against that or anything, but the entire thing was just like Imagine!! If you couldn't have sex!!! And how horny you would be All The Time!!! And I was just like ...mmm ...no???

I mean it was obviously supposed to be a commentary on how sex is viewed in the world - and probably specifically in America - and how we live in a society that tries to tell people not to have sex while simultaneously throwing it at them in advertising from every angle, but it just didn't land for me for whatever reason. I feel like this could have been great if it had been more coherent and also a bit more subtle but as is I'm just very confused mostly.

[Fenriz Angelo]

ARC received via NetGalley.

DNF at 25%...the writing is pretty flawed, i couldn't stand it.

[Dan Summers · Rating 5 out of 5]

While not without its faults in characterization and world-building I found this to be a compelling (albeit very gross) body horror coming of age story.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trip Yash is resigned to his life on Truog Island. He processes people coming in, makes money, and stays out of trouble. That is, until he meets Cron, a newcomer from the mainland. All of his caution goes out the window and he has sex with Cron even though it goes against every rule in the society he lives in. He's shocked when he's not dead the next morning, but he didn't get away unscathed. His arm eventually mutates into a canon of flesh that spews a corrosive, white liquid. Trip becomes a fugitive and has to choose if he wants to simply run away or try to change life on the island for good.

Weaponized has an undeniably unique world steeped in body horror. Because of the Sex Wars and the loss of the Sexual Liberation Front, no one is allowed to have sex on Truog Island. If they do and its discovered, they will be immediately recycled, which looks like being publicly disemboweled and their body parts being repurposed to create weapons. Instead of being recycled, they can choose to become a Lich who have hardened internal organs as armor, mutilate their faces to appear more fierce, and dedicate their lives to enforcing the law. Propaganda tells the public that otherwise they'll die of the Hollow, a disease that will dissolve them from the inside. Reality shows that a variety of things can happen to them like becoming a Stalk like Trip did or gaining powers of shape or mold flesh or fusing together with a lover.

This government echoes real life situations especially with conservative states and schools who either spread misinformation about sex or flat out refuse to teach anything at all, leaving young people vulnerable to STIs and unwanted pregnancies. I also found it telling that weapons are literally made of human remains and the government was looking to find a way to kill more people to produce more weapons. When he becomes a Stalk, Trip uses his sexual drive as a literal weapon to fight against the corrupt government along with other people affected by the government's poison and disregard. These people are typically outside of the norm and seen as disposable like sexual people in general, bisexual women, and gay men. The exploitation doesn't stop at the people and extends to the island itself, which is revealed to be a living giant that poisons its inhabitants.

Weaponized is one of the weirdest books I've ever read. While the concepts are well done, some parts of the book lag. The plot and pacing lose their way in the middle of the book. I was questioning where the book was going and it lost momentum. Some processes could have been a little clear like the differences between becoming a Lich and a Stalk. There was an overabundance of ideas that sometimes weren't fully explained. Some of the descriptions grew a little monotonous. When something is described as phallic or oozing so many times, it loses its punch and doesn't seem as grotesque. Other than that, Weaponized is a bold, impressive debut novel and I look forward to more from Zac Thompson.

[Lucas Thompson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Folks... This book changed my life, its a must read and a masterslice among horror novels. This author is gonna go places. The imagery, the tone, the pacing... I've never read anything like this in my life.

This author... gonna be real famous one day!! I'm calling it now fellerz and fellerinos

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

3 and a 1/2 but rounding up. So this book is something else. First and foremost, it is packed with gore and full-on body-horror. Gore is in the sense, that many areas are composed of living flesh, the lich themselves are walking gore monstrosities, and then of course people are torn and melted apart - its essentially at the grotesque-level. As for the story, the biggest fault is the main character is obnoxious, but this is due to the fact that he is real and does the whole "I experienced this thing once so now I am an expert and not clouded at all on how I feel." Also, this book could have used a bit more world building as the Island is mostly explained but the world beyond the island is basically shrouded in heresay so there is no idea about what is actually happening. For the story itself, its interesting, sometimes confusing as sometimes the motivations for the higher-ups pulling the strings do not make much sense. It's short and an easy read and the side characters (Ree and the mutant) are the best people in the book though.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

It starts to read like a commentary on our own society. The concept was fascinating and the writing started out good. Turning people into biological weapons via viruses? Not the bio weapons we’re used to, but literal weapons. But as so often happens when you bring political intrigue into a story it stars to get confusing. Who is Gaia and what does she really want? I realize that’s part of the story, but there are times when it’s hard to tell what’s going on. How did she really feel about what happened to Freydis? I couldn’t tell even after re-reading. And then all the biological stuff started to run together and get confusing, too. How did Frank and Seth fit in to this whole thing? Were they some sort of experiment? Or an accident? OK; they’re eventually explained. But a lot of this world is a mite confusing. World-building is sometimes helped with more (but not too much) exposition. I give it 2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 for the concept.

[Mutated Reviewer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was outside of my comfort zone for books. Not that I don't like a horror story every once in a while, but this was just something else. Let me tell you, the description doesn't even give you a peek into how disgustingly shocking this book is, but not that it's disgusting in a bad way, because I did end up finishing the book and really getting tangled up in the story. Just a warning though, it is disgusting and horrific and all the other things we love about the horror genre.

Check out my full review here!

https://radioactivebookreviews.wordpr...

[Zachary Jenkins]

Zac Thompson is truly one of my favorite writers in comics, so finding a very early novel of his that plays with nearly every theme he has since? I was fascinated.

In practice, WEPONIZED is a book with a lot of interesting concepts that is about one draft away from being something special. There's things here, but everything in it was later refined in Thompson's comics like COME INTO ME, LONLEY RECEIVER, NO ONE'S ROSE, and in a turn of events that was very funny to me personally, AGE OF X-MAN. I don't think I'd necessarily recommend WEPONIZED, but it does keep me interested in whatever Thompson does next should he return to prose.

[Madelyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book did not go the way I thought it would. Very intriguing and gripping all the way through.

[Jason Brown (Toastx2) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weaponized: I would say it is heavy handed, but that hand is a penis

Let’s pretend Zac Thompson’s book ‘Weaponized’ = cookies. Based on the synopsis, I thought ‘these are going to be some pretty good cookies!’ But something went horribly wrong! What? Too many ingredients.

Flour, eggs, milk, salt, baking powder, water, oil, chocolate chips, raw beef, ketchup, chopped prunes, used contraception, snake venom, baby aspirin, cat vomit, and viagra. Under-baked on a open half dictionary covered in lard and spritzed lovingly with a potpourri essence of airbourne phallic juices..

These are not cookies I enjoyed.

Weaponized tried too hard. Here are it’s actual ingredients: Dysptopian universe, with the 1970’s recent enough to be mentioned; The Sexwars which caused trouble but are never explained; Outlawed fornication (but page 3 tells you it is a fraud); Skeleton warriors who fail to be interesting; Bone gun and their references always mentioning ‘bone bullets’; Biomechanical buildings which didn’t exist until after people go into veiny/anus/vagina subtunnels; Mutants non-existing until the anus/vagina subtunnels; Sleeping giant gods; Duplicitous Godhead/penisheads; Acid spewing penis arm guns; Teenage angst and borderline date rape; A rediculous clown painting.

All bad? No. There were many great elements. Unfortunately, they needed to be carved off to world build several books not be stuffed into one. Some sentences were inspired, but they were buried under layers of critically needed editing. It was a single overwhelming mess.

I would question any person who says it was well written and assume they didn’t read it or are giving lipservice to the author. Laden with spelling errors, poor structure, inconsistent story, a simple scaling back of complexity could have made this shine or allowed issues to be forgiven.

I would consider reading this author again if he were to fnd a way to balance his ideas with the works he is creating. I would not finish another book that is of the same quality presented here. There were A THOUSAND GREAT IDEAS HERE.. most of which had no business being inside a single cookie.

Care for more examples? Message me directly.

[Cassandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the world where Trip lives, sex is outlawed because it makes people ill. They get a disease called The Hallow which they die from. If you are caught having sex, you are recycled (horribly sacrificed in front of the town). Trip and other teenagers are at the age where they have urges and want to have sexual relations with others. In Trip's case, he wants to have sex with a new guy in town, Cron. He loses his virginity to Cron and yes, he contracts The Hallow. However, the Hallow effects everyone different, and Trip does not die, he begins to evolve into something he never imagined. He tries to escape his island of Truog and get to the mainland where he might be able to get help. Gaia, who knows the truth about The Hallow and what Trip is becoming does not want Trip to get away. She uses Cron and other creatures to track Trip and his friends down and try to keep him on Truog. I read a few reviews of this book on Goodreads before reading and I was not sure if I was going to enjoy this book, but I received a free copy from NetGalley and I wanted to live up to my side of the obligation. I read about 20% and almost gave up, I am glad I did not do this and kept reading. No, this is not a favorite book of mine and no, I cannot recommend this to everyone. There is sex, a lot of sex. Not always the physical act of sex, but there is a lot of sex. There is also a lot of gore, A LOT! If these topics do not bother you, offend you, make you nauseated, then give this book a read.