Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland [Paperback]

Carlton Mellick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2009

Novel of the Year 2009, Wonderland Book Award Winner

Road Warrior Werewolves versus McDonaldland Mutants...post-apocalyptic fiction has never been quite like this.

They call themselves the Warriors, their enemies call them the Bitches. They are a gang of man-eating, motorcycle-riding, war-hungry werewolf women, and they are the rulers of the wasteland.

A century after the fall of civilization, only one city remains standing. It is a self-contained utopian society protected by a three-hundred-foot-high steel wall. The citizens of this city live safe, peaceful lives, completely ignorant to the savagery that takes place beyond the walls. They are content and happy, blindly following the rules of the fascist fast food corporation that acts as their government. But when Daniel Togg, a four-armed bootlegger from the dark side of town, is cast out of the walled city, he soon learns why the state of the outside world has been kept secret. The wasteland is a chaotic battleground filled with giant wolves, mutant men, and an army of furry biker women who are slowly transforming into animals. Trapped on the wrong side of a war zone, Daniel Togg makes new friends and new enemies, while uncovering the mysteries of the people living in the wasteland and how they came to be there.

Including 45 illustrations by the author, Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland is an epic bizarro tale of dehumanization, gender separation, consumption, and violent sexual awakenings. A fast-paced post-apocalyptic adventure in the vein of The Road Warrior, featuring a very unique werewolf mythology.

"Carlton Mellick III gets better with every book. Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland is his best one yet."

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

"Easily the craziest, weirdest, strangest, funniest, most obscene writer in America."
- GOTHIC MAGAZINE

"Carlton Mellick III has the craziest book titles... and the kinkiest fans!"
- CHRISTOPHER MOORE, author of The Stupidest Angel

"If you haven't read Mellick you're not nearly perverse enough for the twenty first century."
- JACK KETCHUM, author of The Woman and The Girl Next Door

"Carlton Mellick III is one of bizarro fiction's most talented practitioners, a virtuoso of the surreal, science fictional tale."
- CORY DOCTOROW, author of Little Brother

"Bizarre, twisted, and emotionally raw--Carlton Mellick's fiction is the literary equivalent of putting your brain in a blender."
- BRIAN KEENE, author of The Rising and Dead Sea

"Carlton Mellick III exemplifies the intelligence and wit that lurks between its lurid covers. In a genre where crude titles are an art in themselves, Mellick is a true artist."
- THE GUARDIAN

"Just as Pop had Andy Warhol and Dada Tristan Tzara, the Bizarro movement has its very own P. T. Barnum-type practitioner. He's the mutton-chopped author of such books as Electric Jesus Corpse and The Menstruating Mall, the illustrator, editor, and instructor of all things Bizarro, and his name is Carlton Mellick III."
- DETAILS MAGAZINE

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Eraserhead Press (October 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933929928
• ISBN-13: 978-1933929927
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #410,372 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

CARLTON MELLICK III is one of the leading authors in the bizarro fiction movement. His influences range from offbeat children's book authors such as Dr. Suess and Roald Dahl to Japanese cult directors such as Takashi Miike and Shinya Tsukamoto to trashy B-movies such as those from Troma and John Waters.

He lives in Portland, OR, where the breweries, bookstores, and strip clubs are the best in the country.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Like a three hour bizarro summer blockbuster, November 8, 2009

By 

Spock (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland (Paperback)

Carlton Mellick III's longest novel in about ten years, The Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland is also one of Mellick's best. It features a diverse cast of characters, my favorites being Mayor McCheese, a samurai Hamburglar, Daniel Togg (the four-armed protagonist), and a complex society of wolf women who live by their own warrior code in the wasteland beyond the Blessed McDonaldland City. There are even forty-five illustrations of the characters interspersed throughout the book.

Despite all the crazy action, it's actually the characters and their relationships that made the book so compelling and fun to read. Daniel Togg is one of Mellick's most fully realized protagonists. Whether he's caught in an awkward social situation with his brother Guy (a Fry Guy, McDonaldland's equivalent of policemen) and Guy's spiteful half-wolf wife, giving instructions on making alcohol out of various McDonald's products, or caught in a power play of love between two wolf women, the reader feels right there with Daniel Togg. He's the perfect guide through this strange and unforgettable world.

Highly recommended for fans of bizarro fiction and also those just reading Mellick for the first time.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a howling good read!, April 7, 2010

By 

D. Gorman "Crystalline Structure Moon" - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland (Paperback)

mellick is an adept voice for the new counterculture. i'm becoming a fan! i was a bit hesitant with this book...i'm usually not big on post-apocalyptic fiction because it's reaching the 'been-there-done-that' stage in fiction. but mellick treats the subject with just the right sense of humor. he tells a good 'alternative werewolf' tale with a certain serious, respectable story, but still injects humor about the world in which we live. it's filled with war, violence, carnage, biker wolf babes, sex and love...all the things that make life worth living. it's about the only book i can name that is written in the first person by a character who spends an entire chapter inside a wolf's stomach (after being eaten), that is still an easy book to digest. mellick can tell a serious tale...yet he has a good sense of humor about our so-called civilization. mellick is intelligent, at times irreverent...sometimes pleasant...sometimes sick and gruesome. i wasn't sure how i was going to like this book, but i was really impressed. i like sick and gross as long as it is well-written, and mellick can deliver the goods. i'm becoming a mellick fan. if you like stories that are filled with war, violence, women who turn into wolves, carnage, sex and love...(and did i mention women who turn into wolves?)...then wolf this baby down. you'll be glad you did.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Apocalyptic Battle of the Sexes, December 2, 2009

By 

David W Barbee (Georgia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland (Paperback)

Carlton Mellick has made his writing career as one of the pillars of the bizarro community. To some, he's already a legend. But with his newest book, it's easy to see that Mellick is still evolving as a storyteller. It seems he's no longer content to put on a weird spectacle, so he's pushing himself into new territories. Warrior Wolf Women is one of his longest books, and strangely enough, it's not very genre-heavy. The post-apocalyptic "Road Warrior" theme isn't so prevalent in Warrior Wolf Women. This isn't a simple adventure of barbarism in a blighted future. In fact, almost half of the story takes place in McDonaldland, a mega-city walled off from the wastelands (similar to the world of Judge Dredd). The landscape of McDonaldland could've been its own book, but Mellick has different intentions for this story.

The main character, Daniel Togg, is exiled from the city to (presumably) die in the apocalyptic wild. Like I said earlier, what unfolds isn't your typical post-apocalyptic story. Warrior Wolf Women becomes a tale of a fierce battle of the sexes. In this world, women slowly evolve into gigantic wolves while the men tend to sprout extra limbs. Both are considered freaks in civilized society, and are thrown out of the city and into the wild. In the wastelands, the Wolf Women enslave the men, and the men have rallied to defend themselves. The two factions are at war with one another, and Mellick uses this setting to tell a romance between Daniel Togg and his childhood friend, November. The two are separated by the weird gender roles society has thrust upon them. They are trapped in a cycle, as the women kill the men to survive, and vice versa.

Some characters manage to break out of the prescribed roles of this world. The characters of Krall and Slayer seem to have some sort of loving relationship, founded on the fact that they aren't your typical man or woman. They're society's exceptions to the rules, the ones who fall through the cracks. Because of this, they manage to create a real relationship when everyone else seems totally trapped by society's gender roles. And as Mellick peels back the layers of this social structure, we see just how weird and depraved this gender separation can be. When Daniel discovers the secret schemes of the war between male and female, it's absolutely stomach-churning.

Warrior Wolf Women of the Wasteland is a pretty good tale, and it might go down as one of Mellick's most thoughtful bizarro books. It was exciting, strange, violent, and sexual, but don't expect a simple action story in the vein of "Mad Max." There are plenty of crazy battles, but these scenes only serve a greater theme in the story. Despite the grittiness, this story has a lot of heart. Besides the theme of abusive gender roles, I thought Warrior Wolf Women was similar to "The Island of Dr. Moreau," a meditation on the animalism of humanity and the sort of atrocities we commit against one another. There's a lot going on for this book, and strangely enough, I haven't really spoiled anything for you. Make sure you read this one.