You Morbid Westphal [Paperback]

Steven Rage (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 2009

WELCOME TO HARBORSIDE DISTRICT HOSPITAL... ..where three of a kind have come to live, work and kill. Born whole from the rectum of a dying patient, Morbid silently stalks the hospital's hallways, heinously dispatching the most helpless of patients and in the most painfully repulsive of manners. In the meantime, in order to pay for his family and home that includes his ghost step-father Sammy and his pet aborted fetus Chip, Westphal has to ingest mounds of dangerous narcotics to get through his night shifts. Barely hanging on to his Care Tech gig by his fingernails, the last thing Westphal needs is to be accused of Morbid's evil deeds. You, on the other hand, simply want to find some solace. Terminally ill from a virulent infection, and dependent on Life Support, all You beg for a peaceful and dignified demise. Shirk has other plans for You. The ancient drug-snuffling demon makes You relive all of your deadly and venial sins as he tortures You. Night after night. Until eternal Damnation begins for YOU MORBID WESTPHAL, yet again.

Editorial Reviews

Review

I was verily disgusted and appalled by this piece of "Morbid" and I am certain that this was the author's intent. It takes a sincerely sick, drug-addled, putrified brain to come up with a world-view this demented. --nuff b. ess

A wonderful step forward in Rage's career
You Morbid Westphal is very highly recommended and a real treat for anyone who enjoys their fiction warped to breaking point and smeared in blood.
--Matthew Revert (Melbourne, Australia)

An Unholy Trinity
Rage is incredibly creative and talented. All of the graphic, disturbing and gruesome imagery Rage demonstrated his prowess at in the first book return in this offering.
--Todd A. Fonseca (Minneapolis, MN)

The Reverend Rage Hath Come
The story is so eloquently presented that you're straight in it for the whole nail-biting ride. It's masterful. Dark, beautiful, bizarro, and insightful--The Reverend does brilliantly.

--Kevin Shamel (Pacific Northwest)

Fuel yourself with RAGE
But beware, because underneath the everyman persona, Steven Rage is one sick man. The evidence of his twisted mind is You Morbid Westphal, a brutal noir tale of drugs and demons.
--David W Barbee (Georgia, USA)

From the Author

Also by The Grim Reverend Steven Rage:

 

"The Fall of a Blood Drinking Drug Dealer"

"Rage Primer"
"BELLY: A Brutal Bible Tale"
"For All The Marbles"
"The Place In Between"
"You Morbid Westphal"
"PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale"

 

AND LOOK FOR "PHARMACIDE" coming soon!!

 

Rage creates a dismal post-industrial future, a look at man defiled and in decline. Evil has arrived. Dominion has been taken by those who walk as the damned, demons, halflings, products of debauched rampages and sins against nature. Sex, drugs, and broken souls are the only things of value. Life is more like a disease, and the only salvation is the right amount of Plata to numb the conscience and, if one is lucky, to bring on a cleverly disguised demise. Through the sheer shock of his presentation, Rage forces readers to consider the alternatives, to look at the garbage in the streets, to see what is swept into the gutters at night right before all decent people awake to see another cleaned up version of the day. He uses tradition to break tradition, to push the imagination in ways that are uncomfortable at the least and border on the offensive at worst. Yet, in doing so, he illustrates what real Love is.
Visit Rage anytime at stevenrage.wordpress.com

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 134 pages
• Publisher: BookSurge Publishing (October 12, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439259739
• ISBN-13: 978-1439259733
• Product Dimensions: 7 x 5.2 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,667,688 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful step forward in Rage's career, October 30, 2009

By 

Matthew Revert (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Morbid Westphal (Paperback)

To be honest, Steven Rage's first book, "Pilate: A Brutal Bible Tale", only half-worked for me. There was certainly a compelling tale to be told but you had to cut through the style to get there. I accept that I may be in the minority here but that was my initial reaction. After the "adjustment period", if you want to call it that, Pilate really opened up and revealed a wealth on nearly realised potential. Rage was tantilisingly close to writing a great book.

Flash forward a few years and an unsuspecting literary world is handed Rage's next book, You Morbid Westphal. Set in a hospital, the title of the book is derived from the three main characters. Born fully formed from a rather unpleasant orifice is Morbid. His game is to stalk the hospital wings and violently (very violently!) dispatching helpless patients. Next we have Westphal. He works nights at the hospital trying to support, what some my call, a rather dysfunctional family. With Morbid reeking havoc in this very unfortunate hospital, the one thing Westphal doesn't need is to be blamed for Morbid's actions. It would do his job no good. The "You" in this book's title literally refers to "you". You are a dying patient who wants to die as peacefully as possible. There are elements at work that want to prevent this from occurring.

From the description above, you could be forgiven for assuming this is going to be a rather confusing story. I'll allay your fears right from start and assure you that Rage waves this tale brilliantly. The details of the story are lucid and feverishly entertaining. The hyper violence is contextualised in such a way as to avoid gratuitousness. The book is brief, clocking in at just under 140 pages, which gives You Morbid Westphal and element of frenzy. In this format everything works. It's hard to imagine the tone sustaining over a longer period.

You Morbid Westphal is very highly recommended and a real treat for anyone who enjoys their fiction warped to breaking point and smeared in blood. Rage has applied all the lessons he learned with Pilate and written that great book!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Attention All Film Makers! (And Non-Film Makers, Too!), March 7, 2010

By 

A. A. A. (Illinois, U.S.A.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: You Morbid Westphal (Paperback)

I urge all film makers to collaborate with Reverend Steven Rage and make this book (and all of his books - written and unwritten - for that matter) into the greatest horror flick(s) that mankind has ever witnessed! When I read this book, I couldn't help but see in my mind's eye the strong visualizations and all of the big screen special effects potentials and possibilities (hint hint movie makers) that Reverend Rage perfectly delivers to us in You Morbid Westphal. I am confident that, with the help of the sheer brilliance and utter uniqueness that is the mind of Reverend Steven Rage, the whole of the horror film, bizarro communities, and many more people outside of these genres would be blown away and turned on their ears by any films made which involve Reverend Rage's creative construction and are based upon the writings of this honest, hard working, genius, and saint of a man! For all of you who may be reading my review and are not film makers, I am not going to waste your time by repeating the plot description of You Morbid Westphal, since it's repeated several times on this page already. I'll just give you my humble opinion of it. Firstly, don't let the shortness of pages fool you. There is more mind blowing action packed into this gem of a book than I've read in many books that are longer in pages! Reverend Rage's characters (true to this author's form) are highly inventive and uniquely interesting. I honestly found it extremely difficult to put this book down! I am going to read it again several more times in the future, it's just that amazing! I absolutely LOVE how the good Reverend Rage brilliantly manipulates the concept of time in his books! (In this book, and in his Brutal Bible Tales books equally as well!) It is my opinion that the few people in a couple of the reviews that I've read for any given Reverend Steven Rage book, who stated that they got confused by this author's twisted time concepts, should try to slow down and re-read his books. (Everyone should re-read his books, actually. I know that I will!) If you pay close attention to every word that Reverend Rage writes, you will understand what is happening in his books without any problems. Also, this author writes in such a way that you can discover something that you missed when you read it the first time (or other times after) before! This is another reason why I am so hopelessly addicted to the works of Reverend Rage and the reason why I recommend the re-reading of his books so much. As usual, I strongly recommend that the readers of this review who are unfamiliar with this author's writing style and background should search "Reverend Steven Rage" here on amazon.com or even google him. Read his reviews, read his own product descriptions, and definitely take the time to learn about his real life background. Do your homework on the good Reverend Steven Rage, and I know that you will find that he is more than worthy of our support and your research time!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Unholy Trinity, December 29, 2009

By 

Todd A. Fonseca (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: You Morbid Westphal (Paperback)

You live your final days lying in a hospital bed, unable to move or take of yourself while gritting through constant pain waiting for the madness to end. Unfortunately, your heinous deeds during life are coming full circle and sweet death continues to be stayed by the demons that torture you keeping you just this side of the living. One such demon, Morbid, spawned from you through some unholy means dispatches other hospital patients in gruesome fashion. Meanwhile, a male nurse named Westphal makes his way through life looking to make just enough money to score his next drug buy and take care of his ghost stepfather and pet unborn fetus. This is harbor hospital, and this is the end of your life.

Rage's sophomore novel You Morbid Westphal takes place in the harbor similar to his first novel PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale. All of the graphic, disturbing and gruesome imagery Rage demonstrated his prowess at in the first book return in this offering. However, in this chapter, these elements seem a less gratuitous, a little more muted, and more securely woven into the fabric of a very disturbing tale. This novel is not for the faint of heart and is extreme in all ways imaginable - really, I'm not kidding. None-the-less, Rage is incredibly creative and talented. It's hard to fathom what hell might be like - unspeakable pain and agony - perhaps. But I think Rage paints a picture that drives home the concept of a living hell one must suffer due to their heinous choices in life. If the real thing is anything like this, one can only hope and pray for redemption and salvation.

Rage parallels some biblical themes once again, though in an unholy bizarro fashion and throws in a twist at the end reminiscent of the 1987 movie Angel Heart [Blu-ray] starring Mickey Rourke, Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet. For those who enjoyed Pilate - you will find an even better book in Westphal.