Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden [Paperback]

Cameron Pierce (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 27, 2008

Flying sharks and robots...more fun than the Bible!

What would you expect to find if you traveled back in time to the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve? The tree of knowledge? A wicked serpent? How about some giant fucking flying sharks! That's right, I said sharks. Biblical sharks. Sharks that are bigger than city buses. Sharks that can swim through the air and through the ground just as easy as swimming through water. The Garden of Eden is swarming with these mammoth killing machines and they'll eat just about anything or anyone they come across.

A group of fanatical religious tourists from the future travel back in time to meet Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, their time ship crashes, killing the majority of the crew (including the leprechauns) and leaving them stranded in this strange shark-infested land. Among the survivors are: Ernest who has the ability to turn people into mannequins, Ira who wields a razor-edged bible for a weapon, Wayne a giant wizard head with fat lizard legs, Donkey the hunchback halfwit, Anton the birdman, Rattlesnake Doctor, Ancestor, and Sturgeonwolf.

This cult of deranged priests soon discover that Eden is a far more surreal and dangerous place than they ever could have imagined. It is going to take everything they've got in order to survive long enough to find another way back home.

Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden is a crazy, wild ride of a story. It is what William Burroughs' imagination would look like if turned into Japanese anime.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"If you enjoy strange yet insightful religious criticism mixed with madcap shark carnage, you will love this book." - THE DREAM PEOPLE

"Death abounds, mostly from giant flying sharks. There's blood, guts, violence, blasphemy, genesis and vampiric subterranean slug-fish!" - SF SITE

"A bizarro tour de force!" - THE HORROR FICTION REVIEW

"A deliberate and action-packed religious satire that manages to make its point." - NEW TIMES

"Robots, wizard heads, dead leprechauns, a person whose super power is turning living things into mannequin versions of themselves, the Tree of Life, and shitloads of flying sharks, all of which are in the Garden of Eden. Damn." - THE MAGAZINE OF BIZARRO FICTION

"The love child of Thomas Ligotti and Alejandro Jodorowsky." - NICOLE CUSHING, author of How to Eat Fried Furries

"You remember that old Dungeons and Dragons cartoon? Imagine if there was an episode written by William Burroughs, Takashi Miike, and other assorted crazy people. Now imagine they decided to add some SF elements. That's what it's like . . . this can very well be a cult classic twenty years from now." - JORDAN KRALL, author of Fistful of Feet

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Eraserhead Press (October 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933929774
• ISBN-13: 978-1933929774
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 0.2 x 5.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,075,423 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Cameron Pierce is the Wonderland Book Award-winning author of Die You Doughnut Bastards, Lost in Cat Brain Land, Ass Goblins of Auschwitz, The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island, and other books. He writes surreal nightmares that are funny, sad, sincere, and violent. His books have been praised by New York Times bestselling authors Piers Anthony and Thomas F. Monteleone, legendary cult filmmaker Lloyd Kaufman, The Guardian, Cracked.com, and New Times.

He is the editor of Amazing Stories of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction #5. He also runs Lazy Fascist Press, publishing books by indie cult sensation Sam Pink, World Fantasy Award-winner Alan M. Clark, and books like Broken Piano for President by Patrick Wensink, which became an international bestseller.

His fiction and poetry has appeared in The Barcelona Review, The Bizarro Starter Kit (Purple), The Nervous Breakdown, The Pedestal Magazine, Word Riot, Verbicide, Avant-Garde for the New Millennium, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, The Dream People, Christmas on Crack, Nemonymous 10, Warmed and Bound, Nouns of Assemblage, Kill Author, Thieves Jargon, Bare Bone, The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction, The Horror Library Vol. II, Sein und Werden, and many other publications.

Cameron lives in a tiny cottage in Portland, Oregon with his wife, author Kirsten Alene.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars In Soviet Paradise Garden, Sharks hunt YOU! July 13, 2009

By David W Barbee

Format:Paperback

I don't want to ever meet Cameron Pierce's imagination in a dark alley. It's probably a cross between Grape Ape and Sonic the Hedgehog, so an alley might not be the place to find it. It's probably swinging from the mountaintops of some weird planet made of pancakes.

Anyway, in Shark Hunting, Pierce smashes out a story that at first looks like a chaotic jumble but turns out to be a cultish bizarro adventure. At first, I was a bit annoyed that we didn't get to see enough of his wild characters. They are a time-travelling group of religious pilgrims, entering Eden in search of Adam and Eve. I would've enjoyed learning about the characters' different back stories and what led each of them to their faith (though Ernest was somewhat fleshed out as the main protagonist). But while you may not know much about certain characters, they sure seem cool when they get their moments. The reader is thrown through the time warp with them, lending to the chaos of crash landing in this savage world.

Shark Hunting moves with speed, and there is always something interesting to see on the next page. And what the story may lack in character development, it makes up for with sheer atmosphere. Eden is a brilliant kaleidoscope of weirdness, and what holds it together is the masses of surreal sharks. These sharks burst from the ground and fill the sky. They are savage and strange, just like the world Cameron Pierce has created. It is primordial bizarro, full of exotic weirdness. It could have been easy to get lost in this surreal landscape, but Pierce keeps the plot racing towards a satirical and apocalyptic climax. Cameron Pierce isn't kidding around. He's going to do big things in bizarro. If you want a taste of bizarro, Shark Hunting is a good start. It's weird, it's monstrous, and you will definitely be entertained.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Shark Hunting Has Never Been Crazier (or Cooler) May 19, 2009

By Kevin Shamel

Format:Paperback

I recently had the pleasure of seeing Cameron Pierce perform the second installment of his series called Meat Magick. It was a crazy meat puppet show with flying food and a hidden story under Pork n Beans and broken eggs that says something far more than what's being thrown at you.

It reminded me of the opening of Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden. In fact, someone in the room likened the performance to Cameron's writing. It's crazy. At first you don't know where he's coming from, and what exactly he's throwing at you, but right from the start, you know there's something really cool going on.

Not far into the barrage of bizarre and surreal, the story emerges and you find that you're completely wrapped up in it and have been since it began. It doesn't take long. Cameron Pierce is an artful story teller.

Even with craziness like flying sharks, sturgeon men, and leprechaun-powered time machines, (or in the case of the performance, flying pancakes and goblins) you soon find out what that something cool is, and in Shark Hunting, that something is a comment on religion, society, our future, our past, and what it means to be a person.

The protagonist narrator has one of the coolest super-hero powers I've ever heard of, too.

Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden is time-traveling religious fanatics, robots, Adam and Eve, God, one crazy version of the Garden of Eden and giant, flying, ground-swimming, everything eating, horribly scary sharks. All with an intelligent, fresh, ultra-entertaining look at the weirder world around us.

The Magazine of Bizarro Fiction says it's "more fun than the Bible".

It's so true.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Love Child of Thomas Ligotti & Alejandro Jodorowsky November 25, 2009

By Nicole Cushing

Format:Paperback

Words like "brilliant" and "genius" tend to get thrown around a bit too generously these days. But what other vocabulary fits? SHARK HUNTING is indeed brilliant, and Cameron Pierce might just be a genius.

The experience of reading SHARK HUNTING is very much akin to watching a film like Jodorowsky's THE HOLY MOUNTAIN. But cinematic influences aren't the only forces at work. Pierce's use of mannequins and puppets reflects the influence of dark magical realist Thomas Ligotti.

Of course, the best thing about this book is how Pierce uses these influences to build unique characters, a unique world, and a unique plot (of sorts).

If you're up for a smart, mind-melting surrender to the weird, this is the book for you!