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Guy Psycho and the Ziggurat of Shame
Guy Psycho and the Postmodernaires are broke.
An enigmatic billionaire offers them five million dollars for a private performance of their lounge act. Somehow, that performance includes re-enacting an ancient Assyrian epic deep inside a mountain in Tennessee, in the sub-basement of a mansion that leads all the way to ancient Mesopotamia.
To escape, Guy and his bandmates must retrieve a rumored thirteenth tablet of GILGAMESH. If they don’t, they can’t spend the five million, and worse, they’ll be 5,000 years early for their gig at the Sabre Room.
An enigmatic billionaire offers them five million dollars for a private performance of their lounge act. Somehow, that performance includes re-enacting an ancient Assyrian epic deep inside a mountain in Tennessee, in the sub-basement of a mansion that leads all the way to ancient Mesopotamia.
To escape, Guy and his bandmates must retrieve a rumored thirteenth tablet of GILGAMESH. If they don’t, they can’t spend the five million, and worse, they’ll be 5,000 years early for their gig at the Sabre Room.
- GenresFiction
197 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 16, 2019
2 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
About the author
John King
1 book24 followersJohn King is the host of the world’s greatest creative writing podcast, The Drunken Odyssey, as featured on “best of ” lists by Book Riot and The Millions. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from New York University, and a doctorate in English from Purdue University. His work appears in the anthologies 15 Views of Orlando, Other Orlandos, and Condoms and Hot Tubs Don’t Mix, as well as in journals, such as Gargoyle, The Newer York, and Painted Bride Quarterly. He lives in a secret location in the lesser Orlando area with his wife, cat, and a cadre of robot duplicates.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 12, 2019
From negrocomics.wordpress.com WARNING THIS REVIEW IS FAIRLY ANALYTICAL
Guy Psycho shows King's noteworthy love of comic books and B movies, documented on his site under "curatory of schlock." The reader gets a strong sense when reading down Guy Psycho's relatively slender spine that the novel, far from being one of those "serious" books, is to be read as a comic-book ride, which is appropriate since Gilgamesh began as the comic book of its day, as did Faust.
Right away this writer liked how the story is about a fictional band, because fictitious music is some of the best (see hatestep). In the front of the book we get the members of the band conveniently listed, followed by the admonition "style is meaning." Thanks, professor! The book then drops us into a wheel of speeding events that definitely give flashbacks of harried nights on tour, all arranged to a sort of ritual importance that should not be overlooked just because it's a crappy band on a crappy tour.
Early on in the text we get something of Douglas Adams' ability to render the prose itself scaled to its significance, oscillating within painstaking precision and hyperbolic decadence, though this attenuates as the plot thickens. King writes to write, and his affinity for comic book slapstick backs up against all kinds of cultural signifiers and name-drops disguised as hallucinations. This writer bets that such economy is probably what he was going for in terms of technique in Guy Psycho. What Carl Hiaasen would read like if he weren't a boring normy.
The text is at turns cleverly satiric, intentionally "psychedelic," as some commentators have named it, and often claustrophobically jumbled. Without giving anything away, the whole story is in a series of interiors, and there are times when this writer stopped reading to imagine both how all these vistas would render to the naked eye, as well as how stressful some of these leaps of imagination physically would be.
I easily could grab King's references to ancient literature, but part of me wonders if the lay reader would get some of the characters'/settings' intentions/functions. My only critique would be for King to slow down and let us feel it, and to let the characters really work things out. There are some feelings expressed inwardly by the guitar player, but by way of late-placed exposition, instead of an opportunity to test Guy's ego in front of the family, or make an in-your-face parallel to the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu that many readers might need. Or not!
I would like to see the band members really come up against each other's abilities, will and personalities to provide some kind of tension in need of decision.
All in all Guy Psycho is filled with hilarious visuals, insightful gags and a brief lesson in ancient epic. What Guy has to be ashamed of is up to the reader.
Guy Psycho shows King's noteworthy love of comic books and B movies, documented on his site under "curatory of schlock." The reader gets a strong sense when reading down Guy Psycho's relatively slender spine that the novel, far from being one of those "serious" books, is to be read as a comic-book ride, which is appropriate since Gilgamesh began as the comic book of its day, as did Faust.
Right away this writer liked how the story is about a fictional band, because fictitious music is some of the best (see hatestep). In the front of the book we get the members of the band conveniently listed, followed by the admonition "style is meaning." Thanks, professor! The book then drops us into a wheel of speeding events that definitely give flashbacks of harried nights on tour, all arranged to a sort of ritual importance that should not be overlooked just because it's a crappy band on a crappy tour.
Early on in the text we get something of Douglas Adams' ability to render the prose itself scaled to its significance, oscillating within painstaking precision and hyperbolic decadence, though this attenuates as the plot thickens. King writes to write, and his affinity for comic book slapstick backs up against all kinds of cultural signifiers and name-drops disguised as hallucinations. This writer bets that such economy is probably what he was going for in terms of technique in Guy Psycho. What Carl Hiaasen would read like if he weren't a boring normy.
The text is at turns cleverly satiric, intentionally "psychedelic," as some commentators have named it, and often claustrophobically jumbled. Without giving anything away, the whole story is in a series of interiors, and there are times when this writer stopped reading to imagine both how all these vistas would render to the naked eye, as well as how stressful some of these leaps of imagination physically would be.
I easily could grab King's references to ancient literature, but part of me wonders if the lay reader would get some of the characters'/settings' intentions/functions. My only critique would be for King to slow down and let us feel it, and to let the characters really work things out. There are some feelings expressed inwardly by the guitar player, but by way of late-placed exposition, instead of an opportunity to test Guy's ego in front of the family, or make an in-your-face parallel to the relationship between Gilgamesh and Enkidu that many readers might need. Or not!
I would like to see the band members really come up against each other's abilities, will and personalities to provide some kind of tension in need of decision.
All in all Guy Psycho is filled with hilarious visuals, insightful gags and a brief lesson in ancient epic. What Guy has to be ashamed of is up to the reader.
June 3, 2019
Sure it's kind of a re-telling of Gilgamesh, but it reads like a surf/tiki-noir filtered through Lot 49-era Pynchon.
The energy of the book reminded me of the best parts of the old Choose Your Own Adventure novels, too.
The energy of the book reminded me of the best parts of the old Choose Your Own Adventure novels, too.
April 17, 2019
I'm going to have to read this again to get all the references, which is why it gets five stars.
Guy Psycho, his band and dancing troupe meet up with a rich colletor who had got not only a first edition of Ulysses, but also the world's oldest ziggurat. The 18-member roupe, including their accountant, plunge into this building in order to find the 13th tablet in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
A story that gets a narrative hook out of the oldest creative work, The Epic of Gilgamesh and meshes that in with references to P.G. Wodehouse and has them both make sense is worth a five-star rating.
I had at firt thought that the eponumous lead was supposed to be Ulysses but, apart from the book by James Joyce, he isn't mentioned, which would make sense if we are going to see guy Paycho in another novel based on a somewhat more recent creative work.
Anyway, the narrative is a very strong, and there's an opportunity in the ebook to clikc a link and bypass a lot of it, which is all to the good, but you'd be missing a lot of worthwhile reading. I only had to go back once because I missed a bit, which may have been the kindle's fault.
Finally, if you know the author's podcast, you can see some interesting insights into his own life. In that sense, this is a a quasi-autobiographical novel with very little biography. I recommend it to people who want to read something that isn't going to bore them.
Guy Psycho, his band and dancing troupe meet up with a rich colletor who had got not only a first edition of Ulysses, but also the world's oldest ziggurat. The 18-member roupe, including their accountant, plunge into this building in order to find the 13th tablet in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
A story that gets a narrative hook out of the oldest creative work, The Epic of Gilgamesh and meshes that in with references to P.G. Wodehouse and has them both make sense is worth a five-star rating.
I had at firt thought that the eponumous lead was supposed to be Ulysses but, apart from the book by James Joyce, he isn't mentioned, which would make sense if we are going to see guy Paycho in another novel based on a somewhat more recent creative work.
Anyway, the narrative is a very strong, and there's an opportunity in the ebook to clikc a link and bypass a lot of it, which is all to the good, but you'd be missing a lot of worthwhile reading. I only had to go back once because I missed a bit, which may have been the kindle's fault.
Finally, if you know the author's podcast, you can see some interesting insights into his own life. In that sense, this is a a quasi-autobiographical novel with very little biography. I recommend it to people who want to read something that isn't going to bore them.
September 25, 2019
The book has the fun feel of The Beatles Yellow Submarine, a fantastic adventure, written in a style reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut’s wide open imagination in Cat’s Claw. Each chapter creates a sense that we are getting on a different Disney World attraction. There’s that feeling of anticipation as the cart kicks into motion and starts down a new track toward that mysterious bend, around the corner of which new magical worlds await with each chapter. The flow of the book is nicely tight. No coming up for air. You are sucked in, no letting go. Hang on tight for the ride. This is of course what good writing should do. The story just seems to keep pushing and pushing all the way through to the last sentence and beyond; as we can well imagine, jumping off with a smile, and trying to catch our breath again.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews