Violence Dave: Heartless

by Konstantine Paradias

"Hell is real. And it's coming this way..."

This isn't the first time Dave's been dropped into the killzone, where Hell and Earth meet. Again and again, he's crashed down into the ground like an angry comet, clad in his living armor, with his shotgun, Bielebog, primed and ready.

Time and again, Dave's waded knee-deep through the dead, riding on the adrenaline wave, halfway baked out of his mind. Except, Dave's had enough.

He's died, fought and rampaged one too many times.
He's gotten sick and tired of being a berserker.
This time, Dave knows, will be the last time.

HERE WE GO AGAIN...

Genres: Horror, Bizarro Fiction

86 pages, Paperback

First published July 10, 2017

About the author

Konstantine Paradias is a writer by choice. At the moment, he's published over 100 stories in English, Japanese, Romanian, German , Dutch and Portuguese and has worked in a freelancing capacity for videogames, screenplays and anthologies.

People tell him he's got a writing problem but he can, like, quit whenever he wants, man. His work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His book, "Sorry, Wrong Country" is published by Rooster Republic Press.

Reviews

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW, what an exhilarating thrill ride this was, just a action-slam-jam-packed!!
Really grabs (and throttles you) from the very first page and doesn't let up (or even let you breath) till the last.
It's non-stop riveting and with no chapter breaks or pauses, you really stay on that intense level the entire read.

This is labeled as a science fiction bizarro novella, I don't read much bizarro so when I do decide to take one on it's always with a bit of trepidation at first. My mind just don't bend that way.
This book is weird and strange with many odd creatures and even odder happenings BUUUT the narrative of it was not bizarro, weird or wonky.
I had absolutely NO trouble following along. And if I can...

Greek author Konstantine showing so much versatility here, the only other thing I have read from him so far couldn't be more different than this, it was called Sorry, Wrong Country and it was a nonfiction series of entertaining and humorous tidbits all about the offbeat, wild and crazy Greek life.
Violence Dave: Heartless is also offbeat, wild and crazy but in a far removed way, also...it's fiction, I believe.
So Mr. Paradis gets my most versatile vote. My second read from him in just a few short weeks and the two books are as incomparable as apples and ouzo.

It's literally Hell on Earth, two years into the apocalypse and us mere humans are attempting to fight the battle to end all battles, or at least survive long enough to fight a new day.
Hellgates, Hellportals, and Hellmouths have opened up all around the globe, whenever we manage to close one..more appear.
Time works differently there, not to mention the inhabitants, they work differently too....they are not very people friendly. Some are about as sentient as cockroaches, but others are intelligent and savvy enough to have stolen and modified human weapons, other top-gear, aaand have figured out shameful ways to use our intel against us.

The future is scary but ahhhh the gadgets; state of the art robotic combat suits fitted with a living layer that repairs you as you still fight, shoots you up with oxytocin to make the pain bearable, so you can still fight. Also a turbo booster long-high-jump mode. Niiice.
With nooks and crannies built in to efficiently carry blitz-guns, rocket propelled tearers, raptor repeaters and other wonder weapons.

But ohhhh the enemies, those adversaries really know how to take the fun out of it all; spider-like alien looking creatures, giant women-esque worms, bull-demons, dog soldiers that play dress-up (quite dumb but abundant), mammoth behemoths with tentacles that fly, crow demon scavengers that circle the dead or dying of either species.
They all have their weapons too, some from ungodly natural abilities, more often from kiped and converted human tech.

We follow Dave and his platoon in one such recon (suicide) mission, they are literally pummel dropped from their Lancer right into the thick of it. They refer to Dave as greenhorn and new fish, since it's his first slated day in the trenches and that's true, it is his first slated day, but this ain't exactly his first rodeo. He's like a trapped loop wrangler, ducking, dodging, and riding for his life... trying to grab that bull-demon by the horns and end this all...once and for all.
He's watched them all die countless deaths, he's watched himself die countless times over but now....now, he's going off the grid, he's not feeling very compliant anymore.
Time to venture away from that beaten up path. Sick and tired and running off pure endorphined-up endurance and with his trusty shotgun, affectionately coined Bielebog, by his side, he's breaking protocol.
He may be spent but he's still got his wit!
But how can you live to fight another (brand new) day when the enemy always seems to be able to 1-up you.

I have a feeling this Dave is gonna save the world...ooooor die a 1,000 more times trying.
Or maybe he's just on one extreme acid trip. Eh, could be.
We'll just have to wait for the 2nd installment to find out a little bit more about the who's what's and hooow's of it all. I'm really liking this Dave character though, I think he's full of heart, and I'm jonesing for his backstory.
And how the hell did he find himself in such a wretchedly repetitive predicament anyway?!?
This was like a little teaser, gets you all amped up for the real guts of the glory, story.

I can see the homage/inspiration to popular first person shooter video games like DOOM, but I'm not a gamer and can't really parallel the two. I very much likened this to that awesome Tom Cruise movie 'Live Die Repeat' (well, technically it's Edge of Tomorrow but that title is lame compared to Live Die Repeat, am I right??) with a slap dash dose of 'Starship Troopers' and a hint of 'The Mist'.
Just a flat-out surrealistic, down-right freaktastic alt-world this author created, chalked full of otherworldly ambiance. Creative and clever indeed.
I pictured it, a bit too vividly. His descriptive prowess ~ whoa and ewwww.

I very much enjoy Konstantine's easy going yet hard core writing style, it's so magnetic.
It astonishes me how this Greek born and bred (and still firmly rooted) writer writes 100% fluently, HAAA better than some native English speakers.
Even people fluent in another language can often have trouble with all those little nuances, slang terms, or like, participle phrases or whatever. I don't know, I don't quite grasp the scholarly aspect of it all, I just know when it reads wrong.
And Konstantine reads write...errr right.
Very impressive!!

Yea, I'm unfortunately not reading or reviewing much at all this summer, the stress and demands and stress of kids has me over (and hiding under) a barrel lately but some books, some books, I just gotta get to. They deserve some attention. Violence Dave is one such book and I'm super stoked for the sequel.

Oh and finger guns, they can and dooo work, if you believe.
Air guitar next...??? Oh Yea...
ACES! :D

[Marvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Norman Mailer meets Williams S Burroughs in the comic book series The 'Nam mixed in with a Philip K. Dick version of Dante's Inferno via H. P. Lovecraft.

Violence Dave: Heartless is 86 pages of gruesome, gut wrenching. non-stop action. It is a bizarro version of those men's combat magazines with a liberal dose of Heinlein's Starship Troopers in Hell. That's the Heinlein novel he never wrote but I wished he did. The premise Of Konstantine Paradias' hyper-fiction evolves around Dave, a soldier who is dropped over and over into a war between Earth and Hell fought at the gateway between the two worlds, Dave fights dog-soldiers, demons and loads of other disgusting creatures and it never seems to end. But Dave is determined that this will be the last time he lives through this torment. The basic technicality of this Groundhog Day styled combat is minimally explained between the action but it is not the heart of the book. It comes down to Dave's determination to finally win and end the war respite its hopelessness. That is pretty much the entire gist of this short novella.

Despite its simple plot, It is a nice example of "getting there is half the fun". There is nothing simple about the writing skills the author brings to print. He has excellent writing chops especially when describing the horrors that Dave confront. He writes dialogue between Dave and his combat buddies that is tense and snappy. The macho fiction style is all there with a super-high dosage of Lovecraftian monster terror. For 86 pages , you root for Dave and that is pretty much the reason for this work of fiction.

Does it work? It works very well. Did it work for me? Well, that is where I have to be honest. War fiction is not my forte unless it is anti-war fiction. I am a great admirer of All Quiet on the Western Front for instance. Needless to say, this is nothing like it. This is high anxiety pulp fiction via a bizarro The Naked and the Dead. I wanted more explanation of Dave's dilemma. More background. Instead it was wall to wall action and slaughter...but very well written wall to wall action and slaughter. Sometimes you got to rate something for what it is and what it is supposed to do. Violence Dave: Heartless does what the author means it to do. If one is really into pulp styled war fiction by way of horror and science fiction then this just may be Nirvana. if that is the case,for you then this is a must read. For those who are not into that, it is still an impressive and visceral read.

[Thomas Joyce · Rating 5 out of 5]

He has published over 100 short stories in English, Japanese, Romanian, German, Dutch and Portuguese, including many stories in horror anthologies featuring Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos and more. But my first encounter with his work was Sorry, Wrong Country, the wonderful collection of nonfiction vignettes based on his experiences living in Greece released earlier this year by Rooster Republic Press. His latest release is more in keeping with his earlier horror stories, but it is fast becoming clear that Konstantine is a master storyteller regardless of the subject matter.

Violence Dave: Heartless is a novella-length blend of Science-fiction, horror and action published by Bizarro Pulp Press and with wonderful cover art from Justin T. Coons. It is reminiscent of the early incarnations of DOOM, which Konstantine has cited as an influence on the story. The story begins on a dropship on its way to drop a platoon of soldiers off near the “Heart of Darkness” during a conflict. There is little in the way of exposition in the early stages of the story; indeed, Paradias opts for a more integrated style, allowing the plot and the characters to develop throughout the tale.

Viewing the story through the first person POV of Dave, we are immediately thrust into the action as the platoon is attacked upon landing, suffering casualties straight away. But none of it seems to phase Dave, as it becomes clear that he has experienced it all before. Is he a reincarnation? Is he a robot? Is he experiencing a post-apocalyptic groundhog day? At this early stage in the book anything is possible. What is clear is that Dave isn’t prepared to simply allow the events to unfold as they seem to have done in previous incarnations. He sets out on his own path to the Heart of Darkness, which proves to be a portal to Hell, a result of mankind going where it shouldn’t have gone.

The story plays out as a series of well executed action sequences, while exploring the history of the hellmouths. The many enemy soldiers Dave meets along the way are brilliantly described in all their grotesque glory by Paradias, from the foot-soldier dog soldiers to the massive Behemoth, as too are the futuristic weapons at Dave’s disposal. His shotgun is christened Bielebog, a Slavic deity of light and Sun, while another weapon is named Czernobog, often seen in mythology as Bielebog’s counterpart. These mythical/mystical references add another layer to the story that, along with the mysterious hints at Dave’s knowledge of events to come, stop the novella from being solely about the action.

Paradias brings all of the elements together in a wonderful way to create an entertaining, action-packed science-fiction tale of man versus demon that kept me captivated until the end. Hopefully this won’t be the last we see of Violence Dave. And hopefully we will continue to see Konstantine Paradias blasting through genre barriers and growing as a writer, because the man has style in abundance.

5/5 Bielebog-blasted demons.

[Donald Armfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

Violence Dave is a non-stop, action packed, adrenaline ride through falling dead things from Hell. It’s like a re-spawn in some violent video game, where living armor and a shotgun calls the shots and shows Hell who is boss before the gateway closes behind you.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 4 out of 5]

Konstantine, you should write more stories in this universe. I think it's your best work so far.

[Μιχάλης · Rating 4 out of 5]

A surreal actionfest

First person shooters (Doom with cutscene structure inspired by military shooters like call of duty) meet bizaro sci fi in this actionpacked novela.
It is very light on backstory but it is full of action, gore and hellish monsters along with some interesting character moments.