Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy

by Bradley Sands

Bizarro humorist Bradley Sands returns with one of the strangest, most hilarious collections of the year.In Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, the pope gets sued, a headless man falls in love with a bowl of rice, and architects dismantle the earth. A war breaks out over greeting cards. A suicidal amputee tries to kill himself. William S. Burroughs becomes an amateur archaeologist and Tao Lin drinks an ape-flavored smoothie.Between a breakfast of clocks, a lunch date with Adolf Hitler, and breakdancing in outer space, anything is possible in the work of Bradley Sands. Just never wear a bear costume to an orgy.

Praise for Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy:

"Nothing I could dream up compares to the strangeness and wildness of Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy. You should read this book." - SHANE JONES, author of Light Boxes

"Words cannot express what Bradley Sands can do with words. Every page in this book is shocking, hilarious, sad and surprising. Reading it is like crowd-surfing a bookstore full of basketball players on MDMA." - MYKLE HANSEN, author of HELP! A Bear is Eating Me!

"Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy is like an Adult Swim show written by Russell Edson." - CARLTON MELLICK III, author of The Faggiest Vampire

"A new strange amusement." - DENVER EXAMINER

Genres: Bizarro Fiction, Short Stories, Humor, Fiction, Horror, Short Story Collection, Ebooks

130 pages, Paperback

First published September 30, 2010

About the author

Bradley Sands is an author of bizarro fiction. He wrote Dodgeball High, Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, Rico Slade Will F*cking Kill You, and other books.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy is a collection of flash fiction and prose poems by Bradley Sands.

Life is full of oddities. For instance, I like hot tea but hate iced tea. I like cooked cauliflower but dislike raw cauliflower. And I hate short stories but it turns out that I enjoy flash fiction quite a bit.

Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, along with having one of my favorite titles of all time, was a great read. All of the stories are delightfully strange and the perfect length for what they are. A man shows up at an orgy wearing a bear costume. A detective is hired to find a man's remote. Mount Holyoke prepares to hike Bradley Sands. Tao Lin acquires the ability to turn his eyebrows into gold after drinking an ape smoothie.

There are a lot more gems than duds in this one. Where else will you find a short story called Cormac McCarthy that consists of two sentences, one of which is a page and a half long? Or a book reading an author? Or the Pope getting sued?

If you're in the mood for 52 tasty morsels of absurdity, this is the book for you.

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is the first day of spring, the way when the men of the village make their blood sacrifices for the upcoming year. Blood sacrifices so they'll have good luck with the women of the village. Blood sacrifices so they'll have many opportunities to fuck lots of hot chicks.

I had some other passages 'highlighted' in my Nook version of this book, but when an updated happened to the software it seems like my 'highlights' got lost. This one isn't so good, but it made me chuckle a little. You know what doesn't happen to real books? You don't lose all the little slips of paper and marginalia you might put in a book while reading it because someone has decided that there should be an app upgrade.

I can't complain too much though. I snagged this for free when Bradley Sands made it available at no cost to the consumer a month or so ago.

I'm not a big fan of the idea of reading on my phone, and the idea of purchasing a device so I can read something in a less comfortable manner seems silly. Besides, ebooks cost more than real books! It's true! If you are like me and the majority of the books you read are found in used bookstores, library book sales, dudes on the street with a table of books, and other places where people sell books ebooks are more expensive, but quite a bit. And it's generally an inconvenience to read them.

But!

But this book was quite nice to read on my phone (a less than optimal device for reading on). I read this while waiting for the subway to take me the two stops to go fighting four nights a week. For various reasons I don't like to bring a book with me (ok one reason, my cheap dollar-store quality bag I used to carry my shit with me seems to stain and blacken books, weird right? It does. Books look like shit after being put in it). And these mostly very short, mostly funny and disturbing stories were great for standing on the platform and the five minute train ride I had. I don't know if I'd recommend reading these stories all in one sitting. It could easily be done, but I think they would get a tad repetitive, but reading a couple a night kept the collecting feeling pretty fresh.

The stories are in the bizarro vein, they are at times ridiculous but they are so short that I didn't get tired of the onslaught of weirdness that is used in some of the genre's novels in place of plot development.

If you like reading stories where giraffes make unexpected appearance, and have been unconsciously depressed about the lack of giraffe appearances in your literature then this collection is for you.

Or how about some of the story titles?

"A Suicidal Amputee Tries to Kill Himself By Rollin Off His Bed, Down the Stairs, Through the Screen Door, and Into Traffic; Some Dominican Kids Poke Him With Sticks Too, and an Eagle and an Eagle Shit on Him."

Want to guess what that story is about?

"Want to Hear Something Really Creepy?"

"The Time Traveling Giraffe Is On Fire"

"Cormac McCarthy"

"A Sloth and the Newspaper Boy"

"The Adventures of a Small, Ceramic Giraffe in Tudor England"

"Time to Eat"

"A Headless Man Falls in Love with a Bowl of Rice"

"The Time Traveling Giraffe Defies God"

"Alligator in Space"

"Crawling Over Fifty Good Pussies to Get One Fat Boy's Asshole"

"How to Get Beautiful Women Into Bed"

Is this the best short story collection you will ever read? Most likely not, but it's funny and quite entertaining and probably the perfect sort of book to read on a smartphone, if you have to read on a book on device like that.

[Seb · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first picked up Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy, I thought I would be reading short stories. I found out it was more flash fiction than short stories but I like that genre too, though different.

However, I didn't like it. Even for flash fiction, the stories lacked narrative and a certain sense of purpose. I didn't know what I was reading, but it felt rushed and unstructured.

Then I did something I rarely do: I looked up my friends' opinions on GR, to see if I was the only one. Turns out I wasn't! I felt duped. Until... I found one comment that changed everything: Bradley himself telling to another disappointed reader (hi Douglas 👋): "most of them are poems, not stories."

And then... All of a sudden, the gears got in motion and I finally understood what I was reading and why I wasn't getting what I was expecting!

I started over, with this new insight. And I liked the works much more than before, although I liked the shorter works more than the longer ones.

But I'm not a fan of bizarro poems. It's my second collection of poems and I've read more in short story collections and they leave me mostly unmoved. They're just too weird for me. Hence the three stars.

Here are some of the impactful sentences I've noted:

"The life went like this: joy, bills, sorrow, weariness, contentment, quest for the perfect last words."

"Happy birthday! You're one day closer to putrefaction!"

"I vomit Adolf Hitler's chewed eyeball back into the serving tray."

"Sorry I ruined your orgy."

[Melki · Rating 4 out of 5]

When attending an orgy, it's not a bad idea to take a book along in case you get bored. This one would be a good choice, as it takes as long to read some of this flash fiction and poetry as it does for the average person to perform an average act of perversion.

Ponder, along with Cormac McCarthy, just what would come out of a house that was being walked on a leash? Urine, feces, or wood shavings? (I'm bettin' on fiberglass insulation myself.)

Cringe before the mighty chainsaw-wielding William Shakespeare.

Meet a crazed greeting card czar who travels everywhere by parade float.

Admire the best short story title ever - A Suicidal Amputee Tries to Kill Himself by Rolling Off His Bed, Down the Stairs, Through the Screen Door, and Into Traffic; Some Dominican Kids Poke Him with Sticks Too, and an Eagle Shits on Him.

By the time you finish this book, you will believe a giraffe can fly.

[Anita Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite story in this collection is “Invincible.” Beware, I am going to be spoiling the hell out of this story, so skip if you need to. This story is about a character called “the boy.” He is a stuttering child and is selling lemonade at a stand in his yard, making some money. Then come two neighborhood toughs:

Billy and Jack come down the street in fine Italian suits. The boy does not like Billy and Jack. They are bullies.

[...]

Jack removes a Tommy Gun from his pants, which contain an interdimensional dimension transcending time and space. He pours the lemonade on the sidewalk… slowly. “Faggot,” he says, “You’re cutting into our business, faggot. Go inside and stay there, faggot, unless you wanna be filled full of holes and eaten like Swiss cheese.”

The threats make Billy cry. His mother hears him and comes out to see what is happening:

Rata tat tat. Jack shoots the mother in the chest with his Tommy Gun.

She is not bothered by the bullets. She is unfazed.

Mothers are indestructible.

This is one of those times when bizarro may seem loony but really isn’t. This story is utterly perfect in depicting a common scene of bullying and the way a loved and protected child sees a parent. The bullies are so terrifying they resemble mafia hoods to the boy, and their guns may be toys but the menace Billy and Jack offer makes time seem like it is standing still, like time and space have ceased to exist. All there is is the fear and terror in that moment. But then comes the mother, who never speaks, only making guttural sounds as she protects her son, sounds that in turn terrify Billy and Jack. They run away and she takes her sad son into the house where it is safe from bullies.

Even though it uses the often strange narrative style found in Sands’ tales that are absurdist, it would be hard to find a story that depicts better the vulnerability of an atypical child at the hands of bullies and the way that a fierce mother can vanquish all foes. This story amazingly captures the fear of being a child and universal awe of having a mother-protector. Read my entire discussion here: http://ireadoddbooks.com/sorry-i-ruin...

[Bradley]

What this guy said: http://www.amazon.com/review/R1Y816B6...

[Mykle]

This book is a basket of perfect gems of weirdness. It's like a fragrant weirdness bouquet, or a mouth-watering four quart bucket of fried weirdness pieces. I love it.

In this book there is a story called A SUICIDAL AMPUTEE TRIES TO KILL HIMSELF BY ROLLING OFF HIS BED, DOWN THE STAIRS, THROUGH THE SCREEN DOOR, AND INTO TRAFFIC; SOME DOMINICAN KIDS POKE HIM WITH STICKS TOO, AND AN EAGLE SHITS ON HIM. That's what it's about, but I won't spoil the ending. It's beautiful. It's on page 24.

In this book there are short stories, and very short stories, and extremely short stories. They are all just short enough. You can read them one at a time, like diet pills, or you can sit down and OD on the entire book and have a wild weekend. Both are recommended.

[Auntie Raye-Raye · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy Bradley Sands' work. He's definitely in my top 5 favorite Bizarro authors. He's like the bearded, author version of Dali. His writing is fabulously absurd and surreal. It's fantastic to picture the stories as one reads.

I'm quite partial to variety. There were bits flash fiction, short stories, and poetry. I'm not a fan of poetry, but I rather liked the pieces in here. This was a very smart collection of stories. It goes the humorous route, instead of shocking.

(Shoot! I forgot to mention that I got a big kick out of hamsters showing up in at least 2 of the stories. There's a huge shortage of hamsters in the genre.I'm a huge hamster fan.)

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this was just absolutely magnificent.

I wasn't sure exactly what kind of crazy to expect when I started to read this but found out very quickly. There are very few words to describe what this book of flash fiction is like. The only thing I can think of is to liken the feel of it to a movie such as The Science of Sleep but stranger... and multiple subjects.

"Debunking the Bard" will probably be my favorite part of this for a while.

[Vince Kramer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so great that it must be banned because I don’t think the world is ready for it. Ever see those old movies where the government imprisons writers? One of them would have to be Bradley Sands, chained to a wall being starved to death, rambling on about Bizarro fiction, and his wild and far-fetched escape plan. Meanwhile, the book would be so underground that the penalty for having one in your possession would sign your death warrant. You’d have to buy copies off a toothless street peddler after midnight while wearing a disguise. And trust me, it would be worth it.

Bradley Sands’ writing style is so excruciatingly witty and entertaining. There’s something on almost every page that brutalized me with laughing fits. (And then terrible coughing ones.) The stories of Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy can sometimes seem to read like a stream-of-consciousness outflow reminiscent of the most bizarre and obscure dreams you’ve ever had. You know, the INTERESTING ones. There was one page I got to which immediately hit in me in the head with a 20-year-old dream I had forgotten. The whole thing just came back flooding back to me. It was so exciting because it was like – “WOAH, I’ve HAD this dream!” I don’t think an author has ever done that to me before. That was way too awesome. And like I kind of said, if someone like the Pope read this and had the same experience Bradley Sands would immediately be arrested for witchcraft.

And speaking of the POPE – one of my favorite stories in the book involves him called “Bread and Body of Christ”. A lawyer sues him for false advertising when a DNA test proves that the wine and bread offered in communion is not actually Christ’s flesh and blood. That’s like the funniest thing I’ve EVER HEARD. Another story reveals that William Shakespeare didn’t write any of the works of William Shakespeare, but Leatherface did, because he killed William Shakespeare and wore his face. Nothing’s funnier than a Shakespeare fan turning to Leatherface and telling him how much he likes his work, and then being ripped apart by a chainsaw. That ruled! (And I hate Shakespeare, so thank you very much for making fun of him.)

Other highlights – a story where babies are on a restaurant menu for exactly $26.99, one where a cat patents an invention that scares away ghosts, which makes him a millionaire, Adolf Hitler retiring to Boca Rotan only to be killed by an angry mob of senior citizens, a couple trying to pass off their laundry room as a fourth bedroom in their house while selling it, and the crawlspace in there takes 30 years to reach the end of, a story where a mountain gets prepared to hike up Bradley Sands, but is disappointed when he finds out the man is too small for a mountain to climb, and a story that tells you how to get beautiful women in bed. If you want to know, then please buy this book to find out. (Hint: BLOOD SACRIFICES!)

*The book also has a helpful “Table of Contents” page so that when you want to read a particular story there’s a page number for it so you can find it faster. Call me crazy, but I think this could catch on.

[Liske · Rating 3 out of 5]

You’ve probably wondered what it would feel like to get into someone else’s head, right?

And if you ever had to get lost in another person’s thoughts, I’d wager that you’d never find your way out of those of Bradley Sands…

…because with every twist and turn, this author delves further into the bizarre.

Having read Sands’ latest offering of all things mind-blowing and unsettling and perplexing and absolutely bizarro, I feel a bit... disoriented(?). ‘Strange’ is a word that doesn’t quite cover it, and if things that seem disjointed or unrelated aren’t your cup of tea, then I wouldn’t recommend this book. I’m sure it’ll make your logical mind bleed while screaming a silent ‘no no no’ in the deepest recesses of human rationality.

That said, I quite enjoyed it – even if a lot of things didn’t make sense to me.

[There’s only a scarce chance that I’d put down a book without finishing it, anyway.]

From time travelling giraffes, lunch with Hitler, the mountain attempting to climb the man and Hallmark cards gone terribly awry, this short story collection spews up imagery and prose (with long descriptive story titles) in both long and short bursts – like a spastic volcano or faulty (and jaunty, I might add) kitchen tap.

Readers of Afrikaans literature might be able to draw a comparison with some of the works of Breyten Breytenbach, though his writings seem to make far more sense than what truly bizarre fiction has to offer. I suppose it is this correlation that ‘stopped’ me from rejecting Sands’ work and sending the PDF to the unknown depths of the Deleted Items receptacle.

My ‘favourite’ story, only one page long, has to be “The Ghost Parade” – the man’s cat ‘saves’ him and becomes a multi-millionaire, so taking into account that I am a cat lover, there’s no question why this tale of the surreal and warped should stand out above the rest for me.

Though I do not feel myself to be much of a critic and thus find myself unable to truly rate fiction – writers know how this feels, since the fear of your own work being rejected always seems to come into play here – but I will say that lovers of bizarre literature will be clapping their hands in apparent glee once they get their hands on SORRY I RUINED YOUR ORGY.

Sometimes a man in a bear costume isn’t just a man in a bear costume…

[Douglas Hackle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

I like weird fiction that pushes the boundaries of weird. However, and this is simply a matter of personal aesthetics, I also tend to like weird fiction that pours on the bizarre heavily while still including at least vaguely discernible elements of traditional fiction writing--things like plotting, characterization, theme, denouements, etc. I find that, by virtue of juxtaposition and contrast, the presence of such traditional story elements usually enhances the bizarre content that those elements underpin.

Overall, the stories in Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy completely abandon such traditional writing devices, each piece painting a disorienting little picture of absurdity and leaving the reader with little to grab on to in the way of plot or character or even theme. About a third of the way in, I realized I was waiting for this consistent style to change somehow, for the author to switch it up a little by throwing something stylistically different into the mix, preferably something with more of a storytelling-narrative kind of vibe to it. It was also at this time that I realized if I continued to wait for this to happen, I’d be one waitin’-ass, sorry motherfucker.

So I stopped waiting for Sands to write what I wanted to read, and instead embraced what he’d written, gave in to the wordplay, the non sequiturs, the illogicality, the madness in the minimalist prose, and the time traveling giraffe who can’t actually travel through time. The result: I enjoyed reading the remainder of the book and ended up returning to the first third to reread a couple of the stories.

There's some really good short-form bizarro tales and poems in this collection, and a number of the stories had me laughing out loud. Favorites include “Seth Shultz,” “A Suicidal Amputee . . .,” “Debunking the Bard,” “The Lunch Date,” “The Study,” “Scenes From the Life of a Greeting Card Designer,” “The Time Traveling Giraffe is on Fire,” "Invincible," and last but not least, “Crawling Over Fifty Pussies to Get One Fat Boy’s Asshole.”

(Might have given this one 4 stars, but the book failed miserably as the faithful Tucker Max-inspired "fratire" that it claims to be, compelling me to deduct half a star.)

[Frank · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book hold a very special place in the history of my reading life, it is the first book I have ever put down part way through never to read further on. It's rare that I read something I find bad. I've always, as a matter of personal policy, slogged my way through some pretty loathsome stories. SORRY I RUINED YOUR ORGY by Bradley Sands was just unreadable to me. I had to put it down about a quarter of the way through.

Essentially, this is a collection of Bizarro Flash Fiction. The fiction is very flashy and the bizarro is way bizarre. I can accept some pretty bizarre premises and I embrace the Bizarro genre whole-heartedly but this stuff was so far out there. I couldn't believe this counted as writing. I couldn't find one shred of anything which to grab hold of and relate to on some level.

There must be someone out there who gets this. Someone who can make the connection. There is no way someone would have taken the trouble to write all this and someone else taken the time to publish it without believing it had some sort of literary merit. I would love to speak with anyone who gets this work. I would like desperately to know what I was missing in the translation.

Maybe I'm right though. Maybe this is all just drivel. Maybe Bradley Sands wrote this in his sleep, slapped it up on Smashwords and let the fools drop a dime on it. Perhaps that above all is the brilliance of SORRY I RUINED YOUR ORGY.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book got me through a very rough patch last year that included a break up, a car crash, family warfare and general anxiety about my own future. It did so with a very underused weapon: laughter.

Bradley Sands is a master of hyperbole. He takes the exaggerated and inflates it even more until you can't help but suspend your disbelief.

In this collection, you will find a trigger happy magician, geographical locations that go about daily routines like normal civilians, touching tributes to both Sands' brother and Sam Pink, a disco panda (if memory serves me correctly), William S. Burroughs trying his hand at archaeology, a bulletproof mother standing up to bullies and a video game that entails a guy falling down some stairs and rolling outside only to be shat on by a bald eagle. And I'm pretty sure Sands invoked the Contra Code for that last example.

[Abe · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not a mainstream book in any concept of the term. This is a collection of "bizarro" genre short stories that roll, stream of consciousness style, off the page as if William S Burroughs after a very bad David Lynch/Early Peter Jackson bender. It is rude, explicitly sexual and violent and indulges in some of the worst traps of post modern writing, and I had a blast every minute if it. Do I recommend this book? Absolutely not, unless you can watch Brazil and see it as a comedy that just didn't push hard enough, and have an appreciation for appropriated "beat" toned writing. This is comedy but comedy with knives and torches that plays far too close to the audience. Just a warning.

[Jannah · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well I don't know what part of my mind thought this author was going to be worth reading but I completely regret that thought process. Aimed to weird you out and shock you but ends up being utterly pathetic.

Just a bunch of pure organic BULLSHIT.

[NumberLord · Rating 4 out of 5]

My rating: 3.86 stars

This is a collection of flash fiction (and some other stuff, but mostly not) from the unbounded mind of Bradley Sands. Some standouts:

Seth Schultz - in which Seth Schultz ruins an orgy by wearing a bear costume and ripping someone's throat out.

Refrain - in which Sands goes to great length to explain how the story did not happen.

The Attic - where dad's backup family lives.

A Suicidal Amputee Tries to Kill Himself by Rolling Off His Bed, Down the Stairs, Through the Screen Door, and Into Traffic; Some Dominican Kids Poke Him with Sticks Too, and an Eagle Shits on Him - in which an amputee's left and right limbs battle for control.

Cormac McCarthy - in which Sands one-ups McCarthy and does away with even more rules of grammar.

The Detective - who helps a man locate his lost TV remote.

Gathered in Nerdy Congress - in which Congress can't stop playing Wii.

Scenes from the Life of a Greeting Card Designer - in which we find out what life is almost certainly like for designers of greeting cards. (And the story in which this literary gem resides: "He wants to visit Fort Knox and rub his testicles over every gold bar in the treasury.")

One of Those Poorly Written Stories That Are Impossible to Follow Because There Are Too Many Goddamn Characters - which sounds like a literary critique of the work of Greg Bear, but maybe I'm reading more into that than I should.

If you're a fan of bizarro flash fiction, then you can't miss with this collection. One warning though: all of the rumors about this book are true. It really is nothing like Tucker Max, and there just isn't a trace of fratire to be found here. If you can get past that glaring shortcoming, then you may be able to enjoy yourself.

[Jay Slayton-Joslin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy is by far the best collection of short stories I have read. Sands clearly establishes the Bizarro genre for those not familiar with it, and must seem equally delight for those who know it.

This book is the second book that has made me laugh out loud on a regular basis, the other being Rico Slade Will Fucking Kill You, by Sands also. Even the poems are fantastic. Sands tiptoes the line between completely bizarre yet every story has an underlying theme that stops it from just being a goofy story and makes it meaningful. Sand's best work in this collection tends to be the shortest ones, the stories that go on for more than a couple of pages tend to be less enjoyable, especially in comparison to some of the fantastic short ones.

The thing that annoys me about this collection the most is that my brain does not work in the same creative manner as Sands. After reading this I will now purchase his works, I urge people who are not familiar with this or who are on the edge to go check it out. NOW.

I did an interview with Bradley where we discussed his work: http://jayslaytonjoslin.com/2011/04/2...

[Grant Wamack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy is a collection of short fiction,prose poems,flash fiction,and poetry from Bradley Sands.

I've read some of his longer works in the past which are good,but I definitely prefer his short work.

Each story is a delicacy, easy to eat and even easier to digest.

Be forewarned that Sands has no boundaries or limits. Be prepared to be pushed to the edge of hilarity and weirdness.

[Jason Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why are you reading this review? Based on the title alone you should have bought it already. If that's not enough for you I don't know what to say.

How about this? Dinosaurs, game shows, Everybody Loves Raymond, amputees, break dancing, chainsaw massacres, genocide and video games.

Oh my god, what more could you want? If that isn't enough to make you want to read this book then I just feel sorry for you.

[Bob · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried to like this book. It's different and i like different, but i didn't like this. The book is a bunch of short stories that make little or no sense deliberately. It's one long literary non sequitor. It's humorous for about 5 pages. After that, i'm ready for sentences that make sense and stories that have a plot. I got about half way through the book before i gave up.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like giraffes! This book has four stories featuring giraffes! I liked this book!

[Elaina · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first foray into bizarro fiction. Honestly, I bought it because the title made me think, "there must be an interesting story there". And there was, kind of. It had to do with a guy dressed as a bear.

Book is totally random but I like that. I love that each chapter is something new. I also found myself highlighting random quotes that I enjoyed.

Not sure what the author did to create this but I imagine it has to do with drugs.

I say that in a nice way.

[April · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry, did a twelve year old write this?? Besides being completely bizarre, the dialogue and story structure is something a middle school student would come up with.
It's rare when I can't finish a book but this is definitely one I put down & walked away from. Fun title but don't let it fool you.

[Ben Fitts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read a fair amount of bizarro, but this is probably the strangest book I’ve come across yet.

[Roschele · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the title.

And that's all I've got say about that.

[Sheldon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flash fiction is a weird animal in literature. It can be so short that it doesn't allow meaning to enter into anything unless the author knows what they're doing. Still, in the right hands flash fiction can be a brilliant vehicle to get the point across quickly.

Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy by Bradley Sands is a collection of flash fiction and prose poetry that engages in a lot of experimentation and pushes the boundaries with how far an author can play with the rules before the narrative, even a very brief narrative, falls apart.

To start, you'll notice something right away: Most of these stories are very brief, in some cases being only a short paragraph long. Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy is kind of like Robot Chicken: The Novel (which doesn't exist; it's just a personal dream of mine). You get quick cuts of things that seem to be completely random with an occasional longer story, although nothing that's really that long. From the Pope getting sued to a war that breaks out over greeting cards, this covers everything that has nothing to do with each other and somehow makes them relate. Some stories even have some touching commentary on real-world perspectives, like how a child can see their parent as invincible.

You might notice how above I said that it pushes the boundaries before a narrative falls apart. In this book, Sands walks that line very carefully, and the way he describes everything as though it's the most normal stuff in the world adds to that effect. I found myself almost hearing these stories read to me in a deadpan fashion. While a few of the stories were a little off, none of them actually crosses that lines into total collapse. Some of these stories straight-up shine. It was a really fascinating experience to read this book. There are a lot more gems than stinkers here.

As far as bizarro fiction goes, it definitely qualifies. Believe me, nothing about any of these stories qualify as normal. In fact, that might be a bit of a sticking point for some. While collections of short pieces could be a good introduction for someone into the bizarro genre, I can't recommend this for newbies. Some of this is so bizarre that it would likely leave the uninitiated confused, if not send them straight to the looney bin babbling about Tao Lin with golden eyebrows.

A volume worth your time, this book is recommended but only for those that already have a little bizarro under their belt or might already be unhinged enough the get Sands' special brand of madness, and if you do then please seek help. The small size of the stories make it easy to read and take a break whenever you need to, but the stories may still be too surreal for the uninitiated. And even for the initiated, it's not perfect and not every story will be for everyone. While good, this book is completely non-traditional and experimental, so be warned. Personally, I happen to like more experimental fiction, and even when it doesn't always work, I still respect the author for trying something new.

Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy by Bradley Sands earns 4 ape smoothies out of 5.

[Marcus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This fella can write.

He does a nice homage to some of the Alt Lit crowd. Tao Lin with an ape flavoured smoothy. And Sam Pink too. And he uses the stylistic devices of both Sam Pink and Tao Lin in these stories and some others. Brilliantly done.

There is a lot of social satire here. Richard Brautigan comes to mind. And also some stellar surrealism in the form of an almost joke (the poetry of Zachary Schomburg comes to mind). I find the work political in the best sense. The most powerful kind. In all its personal complexity and realism. The saturation of violence and absurdity of violence for example. Which is really the absurdity at the core of life: we are all gonna be annihilated. It's a cliche in the hands of so called realist authors. It is made fresh in the mind/hands/heart/fingers of Bradley Sands.

This work brings back the political power of the historical avant garde (surrealism in particular) without aping its mannerisms.


This work is not so easily consumable. But its surface is inviting and entertaining. Avant Garde literature does not have to be boring, dry, academic.


There are critiques of capitalism/customer service with a deeply humane touch (see for example "In the Airport")


William Burroughs is in here. In the story "Archeologist" more directly, but also all over. I mean the way Burroughs challenges the status quo in radical ways.


The work is generous to the reader. And that is often my favourite kind of literature. When it is generous to the reader. And I think a lot of these flash fictions and poems will stand up to multiple re-readings. They challenge the old notion of entertainment versus art. Or genre fiction versus literary fiction. They crash barriers. They are gate crashers! YES! And that is also the kind of literature I am most interested in. The kind of literature that moves between borders (there are many borders). Like Sam Pink and Tao Lin (and also very very much not like Sam Pink and Tao Lin), this is some of the best of innovative/avant garde fiction currently being written in English. Did I mention it is also entertaining? Can you believe it. Avant Garde literature as entertaining. And it is squarely in its time. What does that mean? HA!


Of course there are other avant garde writers that are entertaining and ride the borders. Again, Richard Brautigan. And Tom Robbins. And Kurt Vonnegut etc.

The danger is that they do not fit so easily into either: 1) best selling genre fiction or 2) MFA literary fiction. Is it a danger? A danger to who? I mean books like these might not get the attention they deserve since they do not fit neatly into a camp.

But Bradley Sands writing is out there. And we can get. And mighty generous to the reader in terms of price. Very cheap. HA!

If you are a border crosser. If you like to be both challenged and entertained. And if if . . you want to feel a little more alive. A little more awake during the bombardment and overload of your senses. Then Sorry I Ruined Your Orgy should rock your boat. THE BOAT.

I am ready to read more of this Bradley Sands. He is my favourite bizarro author. More please!

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contrary to the title, this isn’t an etiquette primer on how to make amends for a poor performance at a friend’s sexual soiree. It’s a collection of absurdist flash fiction that takes its name from a its introductory story in which a man shows up to an orgy wearing a bear costume and proceeds to behave badly.

Most of these stories are under a page long and few are longer than three pages. The stories don’t make sense, and are not intended to. (If they do make sense, the author has failed.) Instead, they are designed to subvert expectations to the maximum extent possible. Subverted expectations being the foundation of humor, there will be chuckles. However, it’s not just humor. It’s about defying one’s ability to judge what’s around the next corner by resisting any temptation to observe socio-cultural conventions about what could possibly and properly come next. Like spoken word acts, these stories are meant to invoke a response in the reader by surprises of language—often jarring surprises—more than by way of meaning.

If you are the type who doesn’t take words too seriously and take to absurdity like it’s a Zen koan, you might enjoy this brief work for the tickling it gives one’s mind. If you’re the type who takes words very seriously and are prone to get bent out of shape by “inappropriate” or loose word use, you will hate it and should avoid the trauma of reading it.

I’ll elaborate on my last statement. Irreverence, impiety, and a proclivity for the shocking are a few of the characteristics that go hand-in-hand with subverting expectations and conventions. Because of this, there’s a fair amount of profanity and jarring concepts included in the mix. I’ll offer one example of such a jarring concept that’s included in the book: “rape camp.” If you’re prone to be offended by the loose use of the word “rape,” then probably the only more reprehensible phrase than “rape camp” would be “rape fiesta” (though, to be fair, in the book a rape camp is more like a concentration camp than a summer camp.)

As a litmus test of how you’ll respond to this work, imagine opening a Hallmark card and reading the following sentence as contained in this book, “Sorry your grandma died! She molested me when I was eight.” If—despite realizing that it’s so wrong—you can’t help but grin, you’ll like this book. If you’re impulse is to write the author hate mail, you should avoid reading it.

It should be noted that the book is not all rape, molestation, and orgies. The book mostly consists of less prurient attempts to achieve the unexpected and/or shocking.

[Johnny Wi · Rating 4 out of 5]

While not my first foray into the world of Bizarro literature, this was the first I'd read of Bradley Sands' work, and the first collection of short and flash fiction Bizarro I've read.

My reading inclinations tend towards novels, the longer and more epic the better. I like to escape into a book, and if I can spend a week or more there, great. That being said, I am glad I strayed from my habits and gave this collection a go.

I'm still not sure, and won't be until a reread, if the pieces in this collection improved as it progressed or if my mind just began to melt a bit and settled into a form which better resonated with imagery coming at it. At the beginning my brain wanted to know "what is this?" and put it into some sort of sensible framework. I felt like what I was reading was sort of a collection of story ideas, the basic plot keys jotted down in a moment of inspiration, but because there are more ideas than time to write full stories, these were the abortions, little story fetuses with recognizable features but stunted in their development.

Not a bad thing, I kept finding myself thinking what a great idea, and how much potential lurked in these absurd and hilarious scenes. And in the midst of these were certain pieces where it all came together, the language with imagery, enough to inflict a strong feel for the piece.

Fortunately, before long I was drawn in to the point where the seatbelt came off and my mind flopped free to skip and frolic amidst the absurd, surreal and hilarious.

I'd never read anything quite like it. Chances are, neither have you. It's well worth it. Give your brain a break. Let it loose of stuffy convention and out for a run. This is a book you can read in whatever size chunks you feel like. Good for a laugh, good for a surprise, good for suspending reality and opening up a world where "what if?" rules.

Don't miss out on this one.