Customer Reviews

Sex and Death in Television Town

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

One thing I can guarantee from this book: it is the strangest apocalypse book you will ever read. In the new 'Bizarro Fiction' genre, Mellick is a strange and outlandish leader.

In an era where kids, adults, and seniors alike spend most of their time glued to their television sets, Mellick has written his craziest satire yet on modern human behavior. Using the grossness of 'Ocean Of Lard' and the surrealism of 'Sea Of Patchwork Cats', '$ex And Death In Television Town' with have you laughing while you barf.

The zany cast of characters includes Random and Typi (newlyweds), the hermaphrodites Battle Johnny, Sharp, Oxy, and Cry (a.k.a. $ex). There's also a strange, silent gunslinger named Jesus (a.k.a. Death) and a green-faced Hoak named Nixx. The story starts with these eight characters fleeing for their lives on a stagecoach, when Cry informs everyone they need to go to Telos to escape the pursuing black demons. (You don't want to know how Cry predicts the future, its just gross)

Once they arrive in Telos, Cry and Jesus split the town into two halves, each conquering the Telosians in their own ways; one with Death and the other with $ex.

Hermaphrodite gunslinger gangs, worm-trains, pot-bellied demons made from ash, babies that are really fruits growing from plants, a town filled with people who have televisions for heads, a machine factory that creates the world's colors, clear suits with names like Forest, Music, Food, etc, that come to real life when you wear them ... this book really is the most deviant, unusual, and outrageous apocalyptic survival book you will ever read.

Unfortunately, the publication and editing isn't great. There are lots of typos and grammatical errors in this book, but in this utterly gross and highly erratic tale of offbeat fantasy and humor, the errors actually tend to blend in. While not the best of Mellick's books, '$ex And Death In Television Town' is worth a read if you have a twisted mind and a warped sense of humor. Enjoy!

This book is the perfect afternoon read. It's a satirical take on Westerns with a dose of dark fantasy and magical surrealism. The main character is wistfully saved by the "vicious Crawler Gang. A group of renegade hermaphrodites that have been terrorizing innocent farmers and councilmen, wreaking havoc from the silver coast to the end of the world." One member of which is an incredibly charismatic snake skinned nymphomanic with stegosaurus spikes and blades that come out of her skin who can tell your future from having sex. And that is just the first two pages. This book is full of suprising and imaginative details that make it highly entertaining and fun. The style is fast paced and fun. For me, this book is how I'd see Shinya Tsukamoto directing a Spaghetti Western.

Mellick's new novel is the best bizarre western to come along since Joe Lansdale's "Far Side of Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks." This book has it all... shoot outs... hermaphrodites... a woman with Stegosaurus spikes... a town of people with televisions for heads... Jesus, a.k.a. Death, a gunslinger who never misses his target.

The premise is great... Sex and Death take over the television town (set to an old west backdrop, but each television has a movie or television show on it that viewers well versed in television trivia will know) and divide the television people onto two sides. Any more would spoil the fun.

Mellick's signature surrealist style is in full bloom here, and his characters are quite interesting. This is a fast read and a great satire about a tv watching nation. Ed Mironiuk provided the illustrations.

I must begin by saying that I truly LOVE westerns, so it makes sense that one of my favorite Bizarro books is "Sex and Death in Television Town." Western+Bizarro+Mellick = Good times. Plus, CM3 signed my copy and drew a snail in it. Hooray!

The main theme of "SDTT" is the Telosians themselves. Their form of language is whatever is playing across their television faces. Instead of speaking, they show actual programs that we all know from pop culture. Mellick shows us something about our very perceptions here. When a farmer has the Dukes of Hazzard on his face, we know something about his character. When the gunman plays Nosferatu on his face, we know what mood he's in. Let's face it, television helped to raise us and is an integral part of our development as human beings. We recognize all of these pop culture signals so easily that the Telosians aren't that alien to us after all. They act as a metaphor for the sybiosis between humans and the media. For example, the hermaphrodite Oxy ties a Telosian girl up and watches her face obsessively, nevermind the fact that changing her channels manually appears to be the same as raping her. Eventually he marries her, a ceremonial melding of human and TV.

There are eight characters who go to Telos. Cry/Sex and Jesus/Death head up this rag-tag family as the perverse and psychotic mother and father. They are embodiments of Sex and Death, leading their six human charges like competing messiahs. In fact, when the group arrives in Telos, that's exactly what Cry and Jesus do. Like fickle gods, Cry and Jesus forget about their old children and covet the newer and more interesting mortals, the Telosians. They begin to bicker over ownership of them. Followers gravitate to both Sex and Death and the town devolves into an orgy of violence and debauchery. If Cry and Jesus are gods, it is only because they represent the most basic instincts of human nature. Fornicating and killing are almost as natural to us as eating and sleeping. The only Telosian who resists them is the local priest, who rallies the mob. The Telosians then rise up when Sex and Death's influence becomes an excess that threatens to destroy them all.

And of course it does destroy them all. The presence of Sex and Death wipes the mortals out, and the story ends with the two of them wheelbarrowing off into the sunset, off to bring more sex and death to those who need it. As living embodiments, Jesus and Cry are both natural and dangerous to the mortals around them. Sex and Death are parts of life, but too much of it can easily ruin your day, if not bring about the apocalypse.

Honestly, this wasn't my favorite of Mellick's books. That's not a bad thing, though, because it's still better than 95% of everything being published today. I had a more difficult time slipping into the world, but when I did it was fabulous. I'll definitely read it again, but I'll probably re-read everything else by him first.

Overall, I highly recommend Sex and Death in Television Town, which might serve as the perfect companion to John Edward Lawson's hiphop cross-genre satire, Last Burn in Hell. If you're just starting out with Mellick, though, his latest release, Sea of the Patchwork Cats, might be a better bet.

This books is essentially a western only it takes place in a weird surreal landscape that is being ripped apart by these horrible demon creatures. The action scenes are downright brilliant, and characters are great. But the landscape he created just bored me. And that's one of the things I love most about westerns is the landscape. Theres a town filled with people with television heads and that's just cheesy. Still, it's a good read. Highly erotic.

When I was first getting into the Bizarro Genre, I read a lot of reviews of Carlton Mellick's work. Many of the books I checked out had reviews that said, "not as weird as his other stuff, this book is a serious, sweet adventure between..." and so on. I read these books and loved them Mellick does not write poor fiction.
However, I was always curious about his earlier, "weirder" works. I have to say, "Sex and Death in Television Town" is this weird, messed-up, balls-to-the-wall strange-fest fiction.
Fleshy trains, cowboys, telepaths, demons, living fruit babies, people with televisions for heads...it's all here.
This is Mellick in full swing, weirding you out with every page,going for the gross out, throwing a strange sort of violent sex into the mix for good measure, and killing almost everyone.
If you are always on the lookout for really "out there" fiction, or you enjoy the feeling of having your brain placed in a blender (Brian Keene, Master Of Horror, said that about Mellick. High-Praise indeed.), then I suggest you grab this book and lock yourself in a closet until it is finished doing what it does to you.

Carlton Mellick III ceases to amaze with yet another romp into the weird, with this novel of a western meets the Telos (those with televisions for heads) meets crazy humans going to the end of the earth in hopes to conquer and split up the Telos, and finally take over the Telos population. The band of hermaphrodite gunslingers works their way across the land trying to get away from the black demons that are out to get them. They end up in the town of the Telos, where everyone has televisions for heads, and thus communicates through shows that play on the actual televisions. Two of the main characters, Cry and Jesus, divide the town into two different forms of how they want to live their lives. In the end this goes horribly wrong, and anarchy ensues between the two camps. From here on out, it just gets nuts. Oh wait, it was nuts to begin with! This is definitely one of the weirdest books I've ever read, and I thought it was a great, especially if you are a fan of Mellicks' books. The newest edition also has a great cover, along with great artwork on the inside, definitely a recommended book.

In this novel, CM3 reflects on how lost we all get staring at the television set day in and day out. He also examines the human fascination with both sex and violence. I think it a wonderful juxtaposition on CM3's part to place this examination in a town run by television people. Anyway, enough of the pseudo-literary analysis. This book, like all of CM3's is just good fun to read. His characters are quickly defined, and easy to sympathize with. Like always, CM3 rips the story apart, taking us for a wild ride in the last 30+ pages. Once again, as with all other reviews I have written about CM3's work, I highly recommend this book.

This book is a fun Spaghetti western style Bizarro book. It involves a crazy killing nympho hermaphrodite. People with Televisons for heads, and some pretty kinky and fun action. If you like to have your westerns done on the weird side. Then go ahead and take Sex and Death in Televison town for a ride. You won't come out the same on the other end.