Skullcrack City

Oh man what an incredible book. You have to pardon spelling or grammatical errors in this review because im pretty tired. The last quarter of this book is so good I couldn't put it down and ended up not getting that much sleep last night. I can say this is definitely one of the best books I have ever read. I have read a lot of books too! The story is perfectly crafted in a way the little bits of information unfold at just the perfect times. Everytime I felt like I was starting to get a little lost the author drops a little nugget of information that just puts everything in perspective. I started reading the book with a slow golf clap but by the end I was at full standing ovation and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. For those that claim they don't understand the book are obviously not reading it carefully enough. The story itself I would call a Bizarro Science Fiction Epic? In reality it stands alone almost incomparable to other books out there. It starts out with young protagonist who's works as a banker and also does a lot of speed. He decides he wants to expose corruption and bring the bank down but also get a little for himself while he does it. He eventually starts to decompensate both physically and mentally leading to paranoid drug induced delusions, or are they? Eventually he over does it but instead of dying he is pulled into a matrixy parallel type universe where starts to learn that the truth behind the conspiracy he was working to unfold is way more insane than he could have ever imagined. It just gets weirder and weirder from there. There are parts of the story that are funny. The scenes with Buddy, who stores his brain in a cerebrospinal fluid filled box outside of his head, are hilarious. I got several funny looks from folks as I chuckled and lol'd to myself while reading. The story also gets very dark at times especially when he is battling Dr. T in his mind. I feel like I can't give too many details about the plot because I won't do it justice plus it is way more fun to read it in context of the book. You have to pay close attention when you read SkullCrack City because the story will switch up on you so fast and the plot twists are at very unexpected places which made it all the more interesting for me. Apparently some folks can't keep up though. That's too bad for them. All I can say is please do yourself a favor and read this book. It's a fun, funny, dark decent into one of the most original stories you will ever read. JRJ is definitely one of my favorite writers and this book is some of his finest to date. I can't wait to see what else he comes out with!

Horror comes in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes it’s quiet and understated. Often it’s fantastic and archaic, reaching deep into our cultures to reawaken the terrors of our past. Occasionally, as in the case of Jeremy Robert Johnson’s novel, Skullcrack City, the horror is bizarre conspiracy and paranoia written at a drug-fuelled breakneck pace, jittery like James Elroy on meth, explosive and ultraviolent.The first person narrative starts in hyper-drive, our hero’s mind warped from his growing Hex addiction. Johnson wastes no time getting down to the particulars, constantly pushing the story forward and developing character effortlessly. When writing drug-induced paranoia, pacing the narrative is key to engaging the reader, and it’s here where Johnson really shines. He knows just the right places to slow it down a notch, when to get a little introspective, then how to tie it back into the story with skillful transitions. He provides comic relief with Doyle’s pet turtle Deckard, though it becomes painfully obvious during these interactions that Doyle is more than just a tortured drug-addict; he’s also very, very lonely, surrogating porn and masturbation for the damaged relationships in his life. The deeper Doyle falls, the more frenzied the action, but not at the cost of losing focus of the character. Once Doyle makes his move, and the drug-induced haze ramps up to overdose levels, Johnson contains the madness without sacrificing the main character’s personality, maintaining the narrative’s sarcastic edge.Once Doyle falls in with the rebels and begins to kick his Hex habit, Johnson dials the pace down without losing any of our hero’s personality or acerbity. It’s here that the author also breaks the narrative structure and gives us a peek into the minds of some of the other characters while never really leaving Doyle’s point of view. The transitions to those alternate perspectives are slightly bumpy, and take a little getting used to. Once he hits his stride and we realise what he’s doing, the change is refreshing and quite brilliant in design, allowing him a little space to develop the rest of the cast while maintaining a first person narrative. Skullcrack City is an excellent choice for readers seeking something a little out of the ordinary. Johnson’s bizzaro fictional universes translate nicely in novel form, allowing him to show off his impeccable skills. He makes it look and read very easy, providing action when needed, slowing down the tempo only to ramp it back up again, funneling the story down to a satisfying logical yet completely unpredictable conclusion that both whets the appetite and leaves you ready for the next instalment.

Firstly, you should buy this book. In the words of S P Doyle: F*** IT! WHY NOT? Secondly, and in a little more detail, I’m not quite sure how Jeremy Robert Johnson pulled this off but you should be glad he did. Having read his short fiction I was salivating at the thought of a novel, but couldn’t have anticipated quite how mind-blowing it would be. Using his “League of Zeroes” extreme body modification reality TV short as a springboard, what he’s created here is a delirious mash up of Bizarro, crime, (cosmic) horror, science fiction, conspiracy thriller and black comedy as if written by a hive mind consisting of William S Burroughs, Hunter S Thompson, Philip K Dick and H P Lovecraft after a heavy night on the town that finished up with them breaking into the evidence locker of their local police department’s Vice division and typing one handed as they all held each other at gunpoint. Alright, maybe I got carried away there, but it’s still pretty amazing. And those authors are just glib points of reference – JRJ has an incredibly distinctive voice all his own, and really writes like nobody else. The story of a lowly bank drone – the aforementioned S P Doyle - who decides to bring down the system from within, ably assisted by his turtle Deckard and distribution-quantities of the lethal street drug Hexadrine, Skullcrack City morphs at breakneck pace into a race against time to achieve nothing less than the salvation of humankind. Along the way, and in order to avoid the clutches of the skull-cracking, brain-devouring genetically-engineered mutants of the title, Doyle hooks up with a cast of Hex dealers, underground cults and off-the-grid techno-hippies and thus meets Dara, the one-eyed love of his more-than-likely-short-lived life. For an author to encompass both laugh-out-loud dick jokes and an unflinching history of the hideous experiments conducted by the Mengele-like villain Dr Tikoshi, not to mention cover topics like love, addiction, sacrifice and the only reason a man can find not to commit suicide as being the abandonment of a beloved pet is a remarkable achievement. That this is all followed by a coda that chills me to the bone even after the second or third reading is just further evidence that JRJ isn’t afraid to follow his ideas through to the end when most people would probably either quit or have the good sense not to go there in the first place. Thirdly, I should’ve written this review when I read Skullcrack City a couple of days after release almost a year ago. I’m writing it now because the author put out a call for reviews (on Amazon.com) that might improve the book’s chances of attracting movie interest and it’s not a big ask, all things considered. Okay, so there’s a very cool prize on offer if numbers reach 100, but I live in the UK so I’m not expecting to be able to claim it even if I win. I’m finally writing this because it’s probably my favourite book of the last year and one of my favourite books EVER… and just because it deserves to have how cool it is drawn to the attention of a wider audience. FIVE STARS, NO QUESTION. AND ALL OF THEM ON FIRE…

Jeremy Robert Johnson is something of a literary dominatrix, I kind of turn to his books whenever I want to receive a little bit of abuse for my own personal pleasure. And this is exactly the case for his latest book Skullcrack City. It takes place in the same universe as the short story The League of Zeros (found in Angel Dust Apocalypse) and tells the tale of a paranoid and drug-addled banker caught in the midst of conspiracies and cults, body-modders and hippies, (oh… and there’s a turtle too). This is a spectacular book, I cannot go into the story without giving too much away, but from the very first sentence Johnson grips the reader and doesn’t let them go. Johnson is a master of his craft and writes with an authority that can’t be matched. The characters work incredibly well together and display a chemistry and a very real depth to their relationships. The plot (as to be expected from Johnson) is mind-bending, hilarious, and heart-breaking. I can wholeheartedly recommend this book for any fan of sci-fi or Bizarro!

The summary intrigued me. It had everything I ever wanted out of a book and it delivered. It delivered that and then some and it was a wild ride from beginning to end. I hope to see more from JRJ in the future!

And I don't mean that in a bad way; the story pulled me in and held onto me until it was done. But the conspiracy theories and talk of wolf gods and detailed descriptions of body modification and conversations between some of the characters did make my head spin. I can see why the FBI visited the author! Overall a very enjoyable read!

There has been a lot of hype surrounding this book and it is fully justified. An immersive Bizarro read that will leave you exhausted and extremely happy at it's conclusion. Brilliant read.