DangerRAMA by Danger Slater
My rating: 4/5 cats
did you ever wonder what a “danger slater” looks like??? it looks like this:
BIRTHDAY REVIEW—WOOHAAAA!!!!!
there are three novellas in this book. what is a novella to you? is it a lazy novel?? is it a short story that won’t shut the fuck up?? is it a way to pad your progress in your self-imposed goodreads annual reading challenge? this book is all of the above, and more!! (although publishing three in one volume didn’t really give me too too much padding, but still—i am one step closer!)
there are three novellas in this book, and i loved two of them. which is not to say i didn’t like the third one, but it did not make me laugh as much as the first two.
danger slater is a madman, in the “he writes weird shit that makes you laugh and is bizarro without being nonsensical” way and not the “he will make you put the lotion in the basket” way. NOTE: i do not have any proof about the lotion statement—he may very well also do that, but i can definitely vouch for the first part.
because while i want to be a person who loves the bizarro-lit, so frequently i am reminded that i am just not. i am not easily offended or grossed out, but i’m so bored when i am assaulted with shock value imagery if there is no reason for it other than that adolescent impulse to try to offend. i’m an old lady—i have seen a lot of shit—you’re not going to shock me with your stories about corpsefucking or splatter-violence. make it mean something or move on.
and danger slater manages to make his shit mean something. and, yes, it does feature rapping dinosaurs and decapitations and people turning into animals and giant nude peeing statues and amputations and will smith with penises in place of his hands and time travel and other trademarked elements of bizarro lit, but the only truly offensive thing is the rudeness and condescension of a character towards a woman working at white castle. i abhor rudeness.
if you were wondering, AND YOU WERE, my favorite novella was somnambulant because it used the fractured-narrative/confused narrator style so perfectly and all the little ducks lined up at the end which impressed me and it was funny and surreal but still managed to have a message. really good stuff there.
knights of the white castle was definitely the funniest, though. it was a great way to open the collection. a really fun romp with both dinosaurs and dragons.
the one i was not crazy about was me & me & me & me & me & me & me & me. and not just because that was a pain to type out. the synopsis is amusing: A computer malfunction sends a lone astronaut spiraling across the cosmos. Will he save mankind or just masturbate a lot? but it was the most sci-fi-y of the stories, and it just wasn’t my thing.
but two out of three is a pretty impressive win, and to answer the PM i got after i rated this about whether it was an “honest” 4 stars cats, yes. yes, it certainly was.
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