The End of the World [Kindle Edition]

Andrew Biss (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Get ready for a zany roller-coaster ride that becomes more bizarre the further you get into this surreal story. Told with great verve and spiced through with wit, this hugely entertaining story will grab you, hold you and won't leave you until the ride is over. Even then, the story will stick in the memory."

--Amazon Review

"A surreal, clever literary novella."

"Weird, funny and philosophical - recommended."

--Helen Smith, #1 Amazon Bestselling Author of Alison Wonderland

"The End of the World is very much Alice in Wonderland meets Beetlejuice."

"Humorous, deceptively light and drier than dust."

"Jerky for the mind."

--The Compulsive Reader

Product Description

An Odd, yet Oddly Touching Tale of Life, Death, and the Space In-Between by Award-Winning Author Andrew Biss

Are you prepared for what comes next?

Accustomed to a life of cosseted seclusion at home with his parents, Valentine is suddenly faced with making his own way in the world. His new life is quickly upended, however, when he's mugged at gunpoint. Finding shelter at a mysterious inn run by the dour Mrs. Anna, he soon encounters a Bosnian woman with a hole where her stomach used to be, an American entrepreneur with a scheme to implant televisions into people's foreheads, and a Catholic priest who attempts to lure him down inside a kitchen sink. Then things start getting strange...

In this story based loosely around the state of Bardo from The Tibetan Book of the Dead - an intermediate state where the dead arrive prior to rebirth - dying is the easy part. Getting out of Bardo and returning to the land of the living is a far more perilous proposition, and unless you know what you're doing...you might never leave.

"Riotously Funny."
--Elizabeth Miller, Amazon Review

"Like Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker's" only better."
--James Jenkins, Amazon Review

"The End of the World is a brilliant, intelligent tour de 'farce' delivered well-wrapped in a cutting wit so slyly subtle that the reader will return again and again out of sheer appreciation for the dialogue of its exceptional characters."
--The M.A.D. Take, Amazon Review

"Bizarre yet familiar, heart-warming yet chilling, this book keeps you reading, makes you laugh and also makes you think about life and your effect on it."
--Valerie Pointon, Amazon Review

"I was sorry when it ended and now have to go back to the longer novel. Highly recommended."
--Mace, Amazon Review

Watch the official book trailer on Amazon's Andrew Biss Page

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 258 KB
• Publisher: Vacancy Books (March 12, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B004RZ26E2
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,125 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #44 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Comic
  • #44 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Fiction > Fantasy > Contemporary
  • #54 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Fantasy > Contemporary

More About the Author

Andrew Biss is an award-winning author and playwright whose work has received critical acclaim in both the U.S. and the U.K. In 2011 he was named as a finalist for the prestigious Heideman Award. He is a graduate of the University of the Arts London and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Eccentric, surreal, and heart-warming, April 24, 2011

By 

P. J. Salisbury "science fiction author" (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The End of the World (Kindle Edition)

This book was recommended by a friend, so I downloaded the sample to see for myself. I found I was hooked from the first amusing paragraph and it wasn't long before my mouse wandered back to the 1-click button so I could read the rest.

The book begins with a verbal exchange between a mother and her stay-at-home son. From the first few words, I found myself chortling at the curiously philosophical conversation. The son later meets Anna the landlady, in whose household he spends most of the story. The various other 'lodgers' in Anna's house keep the young man in a state of naive bewilderment with a succession of eccentric propositions and unexpected questions. The only challenge he is able to rise to is when he is accosted by a priest who emerges from a kitchen appliance, in a scene which reminded me of the prison cell visit by a priest in Albert Camus' 'L'Etranger'.

If you can imagine your literary sensibility having feet, with one foot planted in surrealism and the other in existentialism, this book will tickle your toes in a singular fashion with its extravagantly eccentric banter. The story races along at a cracking pace, with barely a pause to draw breath, and includes many wonderful lines like:

"I stood in the doorway, sensing failure but clinging to hope."

- and of a bottomless coffee pot offered as part of the extensive breakfast menu:

"But surely that defies the laws of physics."

"Not if you pay your rent on time."

The mid part of the story veers into the macabre and even horrifiying, as death insinuates itself between the pages. Although death may be peaceful, it can also be horrific. This phase passes, however, and as the story concludes, it finds resolution in a surrealist form of reincarnation. 'The End Of The World' explores how death might also be a very confusing place for the recently and unexpectedly deceased.

I consider this tale to have a strongly humane and humanitarian message. It is an absorbing, entertaining and thought-provoking story, and one I would very highly recommend to anyone who appreciates a surreal and unconventional approach to 'life, death and everything in between'.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of The World, August 31, 2011

By 

The M.A.D. Take - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of the World (Paperback)

When Valentine's parents decide the time has arrived for him to cut the apron strings and take his rightful place in the big, bad world lurking just outside the safety of their doorstep, Valentine finds himself almost immediately launched into a surreal vista where priests pop from kitchen sinks, house guests run about without their stomachs intact, and snake-oil entrepreneurs spring unbidden from vintage refrigerators.

The End of the World is a brilliant, intelligent tour de farce delivered well-wrapped in a cutting wit so slyly subtle that the reader will return again and again out of sheer appreciation for the dialogue of its exceptional characters.

For such a wee book (98 pages) it certainly packed a wallop, giving me pause to think, laugh and sometimes fight the urge to cry.

I don't know how Andrew Biss managed to pull off this splendid cross between The Egyptian Book of the Dead and Portnoy's Complaint, but pull off he did - amazingly so - and I can't say when I've enjoyed character repartee quite so much as I did within the pages of this well-recommended book.

The M.A.D. take: A definite buy for those with a love of all things paranormal and an appreciation of intelligent writing.

I'd like to further add that as one who has experienced a life-long fascination with the continuation of consciousness post-mortem, I think the author has hit upon a rather obscure and not widely known truth that the mind may shape it's after death experiences in much the same way it is conjectured to do so during life.

Here I am reminded of Hamlet who spoke ..."There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The End of the World, January 12, 2012

By 

Lissi - See all my reviews

This review is from: The End of the World (Kindle Edition)

I enjoyed this book very much...only wished it were longer. I kept thinking as I was reading that it would make a great theatrical production or film. Nice visual images and a message with a bit of a twist.