The Apocalypse and Satan's Glory Hole

Foreword THE NEW REBELS OF FICTION An Introduction by William Pauley III

My first encounter with bizarro fiction was nearly ten years ago. At the time I was a very jaded reader, everything I would pick up would bore me, so when I first found bizarro, It felt like I had found a hidden door in a room that I had spent my entire life inside of. But that feeling quickly left me.

Bizarro seemed to be a style of fiction that was written specifically for my tastes. I’ve always been drawn to weird fiction, strange plots, and unique characters, and bizarro promised to have it all and more. For at least a year, I tried to get into bizarro, but every book I read felt flat, rushed, and, to be perfectly honest, half-assed. I gave it up and returned swimming through that great big ocean of books out there. That is until about three years ago.

Over the years, bizarro changed, a lot… and for the better. New authors had hold of the reigns, and most of them had the same idea of what bizarro should be that I had had. I decided to dip my toes in the bizarro pool once again, this time trying out books by authors Andersen Prunty, Jordan Krall, and Gina Ranalli. Holy shit. There it was. Those were the types of books I was looking for nearly ten years ago — full, well-developed, and perfectly paced stories about interesting characters in wild situations. Bizarro quickly became a way of life for me. In the last three years, over half the books I’ve read have been bizarro books.

But I’m not going to sit here and lie to you, bizarro is still about 50/50 — for every good bizarro book, you have at least one bad one. But that’s how it is in any genre of fiction. There is something in bizarro fiction for everyone, so I encourage you, avid reader, to not give up if one or two books let you down. Bizarro is more than a genre, it’s all genres — horror, sci-fi, romance, comedy, et cetera. It’s cult fiction.

There is something beautiful about this genre, this literary movement, that I’m sure most other bizarro authors probably recognize as well — Bizarro will be big, and it will be big very soon. We are all standing hand-in-hand on the shoreline waiting for the wave to come crashing down on us all. Some of us will swim, some of us will sink, and a few of us will be eaten alive. It’s coming. There is no escaping it. I actually feel a little sad that this moment is soon to be our past. There is a brother/sisterhood in bizarro fiction that is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed before. I’m sure success will tear a lot of us apart, some of us it already has. But right now, in this moment, we are rock stars. We are what Hunter Thompson was in the 70s, what the splatter and cyberpunks were in the 80s. We are the new rebels of fiction. Our day is coming soon.

If you picked up this book, The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole by Timothy W. Long and Jonathan Moon, and it is your first exposure to bizarro fiction, then you did well my friend. This book is not only highly entertaining and hilarious, but it also serves as a great introduction to the world of bizarro. If you enjoy this style of fiction, then I would suggest reading Cartlon Mellick’s SUNSET WITH A BEARD, Steve Lowe’s MUSCLE MEMORY, or even my books DOOM MAGNETIC! and THE BROTHERS CRUNK, as they all are very bizarre, but easily accessible works.

You’ll like this one a whole hell of a lot, that I am sure. And the best thing is, there are two more in the series coming out very soon. That ought to juice your brain for the time being.

Enjoy the ride.