Cripple Wolf [Paperback]

Jeff Burk (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2011

Part man.
Part wolf.
100% crippled.

Welcome to Fetish Flights, the only airline where BDSM flight attendants service your every need. Aboard a red-eye flight from Tokyo, Japan to Portland, Oregon, a disabled Vietnam vet is harboring a secret. Every full moon he turns into a ravenous killing machine. When he transforms mid-flight and slaughters most of the passengers and crew, a Japanese punk band, a limbless superhero, a Muslim terrorist, and two stoner pilots must fight to stay alive until they reach land. In the spirit of Snakes on a Plane and Tokyo Gore Police, Cripple Wolf is a hilarious, perverted, and hyper-violent ride for fans of video games, comic books and trash culture.

This collection includes six additional stories: Punk Rock Nursing Home, Adrift with Space Badgers, Cook for Your Life, Just Another Day in the Park, Frosty and the Full Monty, and House of Cats.

"From the twisted author who penned SHATNERQUAKE, HIPSTER HUNTER, and SUPER GIANT MONSTER TIME! and the publishing house that brought you THE HAUNTED VAGINA, comes this hyper-violent, hilarious collection of absurd shorts that will startle, entertain, and undoubtedly offend. Warning: a sense of humor is absolutely required to enjoy tales about a werewolf in a wheelchair, and S&M airline, and badgers from outer space."

- Jessa Sobczuk, Rue Morgue Magazine # 119

Product Details

• Paperback: 152 pages
• Publisher: Eraserhead Press (September 8, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1936383861
• ISBN-13: 978-1936383863
• Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 0.3 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,743,477 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

"Jeff Burk writes some awesome shit. Just read it." -Carlton Mellick III

"...like Lloyd Kaufman and Sam Raimi's mutant offspring..." -Wil Wheaton

A fusion of pop culture insanity and pulp-punk action, JEFF BURK is the cult favorite author of SHATNERQUAKE, SUPER GIANT MONSTER TIME, and CRIPPLE WOLF. Like the literary equivalent to a cult B-Horror movie, Burk writes violent, absurd, and funny stories about punks, monsters, gore, and trash culture. Everyone normally dies at the end.

He is also the Editor-In-Chief for THE MAGAZINE OF BIZARRO FICTION and the Head Editor of ERASERHEAD PRESS' horror imprint, DEADITE PRESS.

Born in the Pennsylvania backwoods, he was raised on a steady diet of Godzilla, Star Trek, and EC Comics. He now resides in Portland, Oregon. His influences include: Sleep deprivation, comic books, drugs, magick, and kittens.

You can stalk him online at www.facebook.com/literarystrange and www.JeffBurk.wordpress.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Jeff's best so far! November 9, 2011

By Gabino Iglesias

Format:Paperback

Jeff Burk is not only the man responsible for the continuous outpour of amazing titles out of Deadite Press; he is also an author with a few cult classics like Shatnerquake and Super Giant Monster Time! under his belt. Now Burk is back in the writing saddle with Cripple Wolf, his latest release with Eraserhead Press. While Burk has shown his skills in all his previous work, Cripple Wolf has taken him to a new level. Let's take a look at the seven stories that make up the book.

The first story, Cripple Wolf, names the collection and kicks things off with a fun bloodbath. This one is classic bizarro with a violent slant. A veteran in a wheelchair catches a red-eye flight from Tokyo, Japan to Portland, Oregon on Fetish Flights, an airline where BDSM flight attendants in a variety of costumes take care of anything a traveler might need. Unfortunately, there's a full moon out and once the plane is in the air, the veteran turns into a ravenous werewolf that starts biting, ripping and slashing his way through the rest of the passengers. With the pilots busy snorting blow like epileptic vacuum cleaners, listening to reggae and rolling doobies, the Air Marshalls getting maimed and a superhero getting his limbs ripped off, the fate of the plane falls on a trio of punks on their way to some gigs. Kiishi, Kana and Yousei, collectively known as Mouthful of Ants, will turn the bloodbath into an amazing adventure and, by the time the story ends, every reader will be cheering for them.... With a nurse carrying around a torn baby, some lesbian sex, a healthy dose of gore, a terrorist with great work ethic and a tip of the hat to a plethora of pop culture icons that range from "Snakes on a Plane" to a very subtle reference to Richard Matheson's "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet," the first story of the book is a definite must-read.

The second tale, Frosty and the Full Monty, is like a Christmas movie gone horribly wrong. When Frosty gets hooked on meth, his life spirals down into a sad mess of snowjobs, twirling around a pole, sucking on the pipe and even doing some time in the joint. If you hate Christmas and recognize it for what it is: a celebration of mindless consumerism, then this one will stay on your mind until you can read it to someone in December.

Cook for Your Life, the third story in the collection, is of the most original stories I've read this year. Burk took the senselessness of reality television, the competitive elements of cooking shows (on steroids, of course), a robot, a clown, a gorilla, a family secret and some corpses and spare body parts and concocted a deliciously inventive tale that will make readers laugh, cringe and, if they're stomachs are sensitive, even gag. However, the interesting narrative is not the only great thing about Cook for Your Life. For starters, Burk wrote the story in script format. The format allowed for the creation of commercial breaks during which bizarro gets plugged like it has never been plugged before. If this unique form of promotion takes off, remember that Burk came up with it first.

House of Cats is the author's ode to the city of Portland, Oregon. The story deals with loneliness and homelessness in uncanny ways on the surface and with injustice, bureaucracy, the need for companionship and creativity in the face of necessity on a deeper level. Also, it's a story about how to get rid of a surplus of feral cats.

The fifth story, Adrift with Space Badgers, is a perfect mix of comedy, horror and sci-fi. A ship in space in destroyed by a Behemoth, a neon-blue whale-like beast equipped with three rows of killer teeth. The lone survivor scrambles into a pod and plans his trip away from the carnage. Unfortunately, space badgers have taken over the pod and fighting them will prove to be quite a horrific challenge. This one reads like an old sci-fi comic and adds an unexpected touch of desperation and frustration to the book.

Punk Rock Nursing Home is a bittersweet account about old rockers that can still kick ass and about how passion for music never dies. Burk set out to answer the old question: what happens when punk rockers grow old? The answer is full of flying middle fingers, loud music, a bit of projectile vomiting and recovered youth. If there's something to be taken from this story, it's this: you're never too old for a last blaze of glory.

Just Another Day in the Park rounds up the collection. Almost philosophical in nature, this narrative shows a side of the author that is not so visible in the other stories. In a way, just like Frosty and the Full Monty, it's easy to read a critique of modern society here.

After the stories are over, the book continues with a section titled About the Stories. In it, the author gives readers a glimpse into the genesis of each tale and shares some of the views, memories, ideas and jokes that lead to the preceding work. This is a nice treat that's just icing on the cake.

Hilarious, bizarre, charming, violent, gory and very original, Cripple Wolf might just be Jeff Burk's best work yet. Grab a copy right now. Read more ›

3.0 out of 5 stars The Wolf is Loose! On a Plane!!! November 21, 2012

By Sheldon Nylander

Format:Paperback

"Cripple Wolf" by Jeff Burk is a series of short stories, all in the bizarro subgenre. I don't know how I would characterize them, which is probably one of my problems with it. The stories are as follows.

Cripple Wolf: The title story. Basically werewolves on a plane.

Frosty and the Full Monty: I read this one before in Christmas on Crack. A dark, more modern take on the Frosty the Snowman tale. Sort of.

Cook For Your Life: A tribute to Iron Chef. And Soylent Green.

House of Cats: A homeless man builds a house of live cats. But is it up to code?

Adrift with Space Badgers: Kind of like the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles," but with badgers. And space whales.

Punk Rock Nursing Home: What happens to punk rockers when they get old?

Just Another Day in the Park: This one is weird, and honestly, I'm not really sure what to make of it.

It's kind of funny and somewhat clever the way Burk peppers some advertisements for his other books or other bizarro authors' works within the stories. And, strangely, it's not jarring. It actually fits with the tone of each story. I have to give kudos to Burk for that one. He's missed his calling as a product placement specialist.

The stories are generally good. The title story and "Cook For Your Life" were my personal favorites among the bunch. But there's a couple nagging problems here.

The first and foremost is the editing. I'm sorry, and I know that I nitpick this a lot, but clean editing is really essential to me, and there's enough grammar problems throughout that didn't get caught that they pulled me out of the story.... It one of those things that really sticks in my craw.

The problem is that, while the stories are enjoyable, there's not a whole lot that really stands out. It's that I didn't like the stories. I did, but if you asked me for many details now, I would be hard pressed to come up with many, although you will be hard pressed to find another book that contains the line "I think a baby werewolf just stole our coke." They're not bad at all, but they also don't really stand out much for me. Combine that with the editing problems, and I'm forced to give this book a middle of the road review.

"Cripple Wolf" by Jeff Burk earns 3 coked-up baby werewolves out of 5. Read more ›

5.0 out of 5 stars Is that Wolf in a Wheel Chair? November 10, 2012

By Buckeye Nick

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

Yes he is and so much more craziness ensues in this great collection of short stories by one of the editors at Deadite Press. Jeff once again entertains as only he can and one of my particular favorite things in the book was in the one story he has short commercials in between the action and it took me back to my college days and when I was writing commercials for the college station and class, then later on, sorry as I reminisce, either way I highly recommend this collection and urge you to seek out more from Jeff he is a great talent and one of the people at the forefront of the Bizzaro movement.

4.0 out of 5 stars Beyond Cripple Wolf October 28, 2012

By MP Johnson

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

"Cripple Wolf" is not the best story in this collection. It's good, but it's not the best. It's gore-soaked insanity is outshined by "House of Cats," which manages to be completely insane and also kind of sad. Also, old punks who whine about bands getting back together really need to read "Punk Rock Nursing Home." Sometimes it's not about you!

5.0 out of 5 stars Furry Fury August 10, 2012

By 13visions

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

Truly insane. A disabled war vet, who is actually a werewolf, unleashes his fury onboard a fetish-themed airplane, which also happens to contain a Japanese punk band, stoned pilots, a superhero, and the threat of terrorism? Sign me up. It's as crazy as it sounds. A short, quick read, bulked out with 6 additional stories. An absolute must buy for fans of Bizarro fiction.

3.0 out of 5 stars Werewolves on planes, space badgers in a starship, etc. June 18, 2012

By Mad Mac

Format:Paperback

So. This was my introduction to bizarro short stories, which seem to have just as much weird stuff going on as a bizarro novella only with fewer sanity reference points thrown in like escape pods. Which this collection has (escape pods, not sanity). And they seem to be filled with Hungry Hungry Space Badgers. Because when you start off with a story about werewolves on a plane, you can only top that with space oddities. And also houses made of cats. (Not houses filled with cats, which is what I was expecting. What, is cat hoarding too weird for you, bizarro?)

The short story is not at all my favorite story-telling vehicle (unless you're Raymond Carver, and most people aren't) but it really works for this genre in general and these stories' tone in particular for a number of reasons. It's a nice little sampler, only instead of chocolates and cheeses it's geriatric punk rockers (in what is probably the best recapturing-one's-youth yarn I've encountered since "Cocoon") and reality television to the extreme (or the next logical step, depending on your preferred degree of society-directed pessimistic realism). It gives a broad overview of the different bizarro flavors -- the shocking and gory, the reality that's just a bit more off-kilter than ours, the unfamiliar landscapes, the just plain weird -- so that it serves as a really great introduction to all the places the genre can go. It also keeps the more viscera-strewn tales from getting to be too much for the reader who isn't used to encouraged cannibalism and Frosty dancin' for the dollars.

But it also totally spoiled "Shatnerquake" for me, so points off. Though said spoiler is mentioned in one of the best and least shameless approaches to self-promotion ever, which is quite redemptive....

It did need juuuust a little more editing. My proofreading superpowers, having been instilled in me via a proclivity for eating and not being homeless, are not a part of my awesome that I can just turn off, so reading things like "want" instead of "what" or "this" instead of "his" or "an" instead of "and" just irritate the pants off me. Read more ›