Generation Bloodbath

by Paul Curran

“It could actually be told in ten words. That is what makes it so awful.”
—​Maurice Blanchot, Death Sentence.

“All of this seems irrelevant next to that one sentence.”
—​Bret Easton Ellis, Less than Zero.

“Thanks for writing! Til Deth.”
—​Dave Mustaine, Megadeth.

​NO LIFE ‘TIL LITERATURE

Genres: Horror, Short Stories, Surreal, Horror Thriller, Fiction

142 pages, Paperback

Published October 12, 2022

About the author

Books:
Generation Bloodbath (Apocalypse Party, 2022)
https://www.apocalypse-party.com/gene...

Left Hand (Schism2 Press, 2020)
https://schismpress.tumblr.com/SCHISM2

Anthologies:
Tormented Flesh Anthology (Anxiety Press, 2025)
https://www.amazon.com/shop/athinslic...

Look At Our Holes: An Anthology of Voids & Orifices (Plagued by Visions, 2025) https://www.amazon.com/Look-At-Our-Ho...

A Rancid Vat Anthology (Blamage Books, 2024)
https://pukepink.bigcartel.com/produc...

Infinity Land Press Anthology (2021)
https://www.infinitylandpress.com/ant...

Expat 4 Anthology (2021)
https://expatpress.com/product/expat-4/

instagram: @insanereading
website: insanereading.com

Reviews

[Janie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rabid virus bloodbath splashing black rain while corpses compress and ashes allow the entry of goons gone hollow. I saw the bloody stump etched in my memory as the ships left. Apocalypse whenever, but I think we were destiny.

[Plagued by Visions · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel untethered from the usual safety of reading a book. Generation Bloodbath is a steady and energetic pulse of a story running through a live wire into a dry socket in your mouth—something weird, fuzzy shapes, bodiless tinges hinting at dystopia and overbearing regimes and silent, dwindling resistance and addiction and social aversion and the blood and the blood so much blood (sorry for the fractured sentence—this is what the book has done to my writing at the moment)—where I felt the lingering taste and stench of a plot progression. The book feels more like a cold and itchy IV drip of transgressive ideas and violent outbursts than a novel.

The format of the book, of course, is another thing to consider. It is a numbered list of items from 1-666, and then an Afterword/Aftermath at the end. Each of these numbered items does not necessarily follow any easily discernible plot progression. The numbering doesn’t mean anything. To me, it only made what would otherwise be dense and suffocating prose crumble into easier but still irritating bites (not irritating as in annoying; irritating as in actually painful to the reading eye). It feels like a constant ache from some hematologic disease, the miasma of dead and drenched severed meat. I know that doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I think the book leaves a cut behind that’s different for everyone.

And what do I make of it all? Instantly, I think of the fractured nature of today’s language. Most of the things we read are online—snappy infographics giving us that sweet “general awareness” of the latest war complete with casualty charts, rushed texts from friends and family which are spelled completely wrong, and news of dubious veracity that are sometimes comforting, sometimes ravaging—and the constant, bright glow of an “almost paper” white from our screens makes this frayed and torn writing even more of a hideous pain. I think that language is dead, or dying, or been bleeding and dying and rotting and agonizing and begging to be stomped to death and excreting watery stuff for a very long time, and I think Paul Curran is photographing the gore and splatter and calling it Generation Bloodbath.

Fuck me.

[SpookyCurious]

Listen, I don't know what this is. I don't even know if I liked it. But, it's one of those things I want to keep poking with a stick.

It reads like a post-apoctalytic mess that sometimes takes the form of a story but keeps losing itself to the most bleak and disjointed narrative that you can barely piece together. If you are into giving yourself depression, pick it up.

[Tyler Barney · Rating 5 out of 5]

death by 666 sentences b/w apocalypse love letter b/w the Left Hand path to the end of the world b/w blood cells…but who’s dying?

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

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[Evan Femino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Paul Curran’s writing.

Like a movie captured on the page. Strange bending of the screenplay format into its own kind of abstract literature. Everything feels present tense. Bursts of action. A series of “shots” presented to the audience. This book feels like the raw footage of some massacre that is given to readers to piece together however they can.

Was expecting something way way more graphic based on reading Curran’s last book. Don’t think it worked against this book in any way, but this is an R to Left Hand’s hard X for sure.

[Ryan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

"It starts with a nosebleed, bathroom mirror reflection, and it ends with the end of the world." (pp. 49).

A Post-Apocalyptic Ballardian attack on the senses funneled through the adoption of morals and ethics founded by Exploitation Grindhouse Gorefests. A book that I found absolutely necessary to finish in one sitting, as I was seemingly enslaved by this "whatever-regime" and the endless menageries of decapitated limbs, cannibalized fetuses, and discussions of ontological hopelessness that permeated each page of this blood-soaked vision, and you can't forget the blood, and the blood, and the blood, and the blood...

It almost seems difficult to read anything more at the moment, as my brain was seemingly re-wired by the intensity and mastery of Curran's written word, as well as the unorthodox structure of the novel that gripped me from the get-go. With each paragraph numbered and separated (along with an extended Aftermath section), the structure allowed for the literature itself to never become too overwhelming, but always tightrope-walking across that precipice that makes for the most impactful, intense, and moving literature. Curran has crafted a masterpiece, a car crash in which a subject made from Body Horror, Exploitation, and Heavy Metal violence mangles and meshes itself with the body of heartfelt connection, adversity to totalitarianism, and visceral beauty upon collision.

"I know the end is coming (the when, the how, the why) but by then I'll already be gone." (pp. 85).

[Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

1. Haven't you always thought that books should be written in list-format?
2. Don't you want to read a sentence that lasts for 17 pages?
3. Aren't plots a giant waste of time?
4. Have I got the book for you!

[Chaunceton Bird · Rating 4 out of 5]

Paul Curran paints a violent and bleak apocalyptic landscape. This book is unconventional in every way, and pays no heed to taboos, rules, or reader sensibilities. Truly incredible violent writing. So anyway, if that's your thing, you'll love it. And I guess that's my thing.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cruelty's the wrong word for what I mean because, although what happened involved cruelty, the overriding atmosphere was one of headless pity.

Generation Bloodbath is one of the bleakest, most unhinged, untethered, nihilistic and brutal pieces of fiction that I have ever had the pleasure of reading. This sort of novel is extremely experimental, and highly transgressive, it also acts as a viscerally angry novel, and perhaps is one of the most abstract books you'll ever encounter. There is a story here, a vicious one at that, but it becomes increasingly difficult to keep a hold on what that story actually is, it's as if you're constantly microdosing over and over, until the words blur together, and then you lose all sight.

The way this book made me feel is actually detestable, it made my skin crawl, it made me want to scream and cry and vomit, it made me wish I had no eyes. There's not even anything particularly disgusting in this novel, at least, not compared to anything else I'd typically read. It's just so oppressive, so suffocating, so highly atrocious that it deals a devastating impact. All I could think of was the blood. There's just so much blood. At this point, the thought may have crossed your mind, why even read this book? That... I can't answer. This book will impact every reader differently, it will cut right through bone and find a home within your soul. The world is a broken place anyway, why not read about the end of it?

While writing these words on the back of your thigh, between the veins, I discovered a scar, hiding there like the sail from a shipwreck washed into the desert and sunk there until someone dug it up and discovered a way to project our dreams upon its ghostly surface

A drug fueled stream of consciousness fever dream nightmare mindfuck. That's the only way to describe this obliterating story. Honestly, what even was this? Did someone lace my drink before I started reading? Was I strapped into some freakish mind control machine where someone prods my brain over and over? Generation Bloodbath is a pure attack on the senses, an assault on the eyes, at some places becoming painful to even read - which isn't a criticism, it just feels like having needles thrust into your eyes and brain. It's overpowering, this book grabs you and proceeds to ruin your life. It's unending, the suicides, the decapitations, the death, and the blood. Oh Lord, there's so much blood, and so much blood, and so much blood, and so much blood...

At night, the stairs to the ship's galley sound more brittle than whatever bones find themselves somehow under there, but this was never the darkest exist.

[Rose Masse-Pelletier]

DNF, after 90 pages I realized this is not my style, but still an interesting take on writing

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

i feel so insane that people like this. this feels like if rupi kaur was a scene kid. i appreciate that it is trying something different with form, and that it has something to say about modern communication putting a rift between us and the things around us, but fuck me is it a nightmare to get through. you understand the underlying themes almost instantly and then youre looking down the barrel of a whole book that is endlessly repetitive except the moments it tries to shock you back out of comfortability. but there are only so many times you can raise the stakes before the stakes become meaningless! i know this is all being used to serve the greater purpose, that everything im saying is intentional and advances the message, but you simply cant overlook that it is Boring! it is not fun to read! and I dont care how well you make your point, if making your point requires you to make your book More Boring, then maybe consider an alternate tactic or a different medium! it gets an extra star because there is nothing irredeemably bad about it, its just Not Good.

[Chanel Chapters]

1
This lost me way before the aborted fetus bukkake

I just don’t get it

[Raymond]

Don't read this book if you're looking for a warm feeling of completion when finished. The book is weird to say the least. Lightly put the book will make you feel uneasy throughout and assault your mind during the physical reading process. While covering topics of space, body mutilation, ending of worlds, lots of blood, these listed snippets of an obliterated existence will expand any cynical, down turned view of our current condition. Hopefully we won't get to the point of Generation Bloodbath during any of our lifetimes. As crazy as Mr. Curran's vision is, it is not an eventual impossibility.
The world is a fucked up place so why not read a book about it. Enjoy.

[Elle Bock · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cried on the beach reading the final pages oops

I would try and formulate an explanation for how perfectly constructed this text is to land its existential meaning/warning but I’d fall so flat trying to do justice and the text itself sums things perfectly:

“It feels easy to get lost in this metaphorical journey across a godless universe drifting through an unrelenting text not as a mystery to be solved or puzzled out but as a visceral flyover bypassing the narrative grid and the facade of story and going straight for the mainline to the organs or the nervous system or into the city’s heart”

[Nick Hertzberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A violent flash of what could be Tweets/Short Dispatches from generations of the near future to come. No narrative structure but has reoccurring themes in its seemingly shotgun blasts of random stream of consciousness. 666. Black Sabbath. Experimental and masterful.

Best summed up by the author in the Aftermath section:

“An unrelenting text not as a mystery to be solved or puzzled out but as a visceral flyover bypassing the narrative grid and the facade of story”

[Larry Ggggggggggggggggggggggggg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was cool because it felt like reading Ballard’s weird stuff for the first time at parts & theres speedboats that run on blood. Covid maybe also figures in there as well idk. I also want to note here that I honestly didn’t give this book enough attention because of the reading hangover from 2666

[Frederick Maheux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Speculative insights towards Space X logical conclusions.

[pattgue · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ni idea de lo que acabo de leer.
Al menos visualizar los escenarios (o al menos intentarlo) se hace entretenido.

[Isaiah · Rating 1 out of 5]

When the book was bad, the bad was book.

[Lbiddiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

What did I just read? 🤔

[Hellen Oliveira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Apocalypse alien vampire zombies that are also cannibals!?...

[Hannah Willow]

DNF

[Qualle · Rating 4 out of 5]

feels like a story but on acid

spookycurious review is quite funny

[Zana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's safe to say that I've never read anything like it and probably never will.
'Generation Bloodbath' is an experimental, bleak and completely unhinged work of fiction.
It's not for the faint hearted, reading it will make you feel disgusted and uneasy.
That's all I'll say about 'Generation Bloodbath', it's best to go into it blindly and enjoy the wild ride.

I'll leave you with a few passages from the story:

1 "Before they burned the bodies, they performed several rituals unnoticed by anyone unfamiliar with new-regime iconography."

186 "We were programmed to buy reality as a redemptive metaphor for our own lost youth, these broken sounds, words, and images a cruel link, an infinite torture porn of regret."

284 "It starts with a nosebleed, bathroom mirror reflection, and it ends with the end of the world."

391 "The old regime calls our language a virus, and the new regime calls our body a virus, and the resistance calls the words we hear untrue."

[D.B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short and sweet sci-fi love story.