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A review by modernzorker
Zod Wallop by William Browning Spencer
5.0
The Paranormal Romance genre absorbed 'Dark Fantasy' like an amoeba in the 21st century, but there was a period of time when Dark Fantasy meant what it said on the label instead of being shorthand for 'angsty, hard-knock-life women falling in love with angsty, hard-knock-life werewolves, vampires, mermen, or other things designed to stretch local bestiality ordinances to the ripping point'. Those were the days of Wagner, of Lovecraft, of Poe and Gaiman and Smith and Grant, where the real world was besieged by forces man was not meant to know, and man fought back, bravely, often futilely, against things beyond comprehension because capitulation was not an option. William Browning Spencer's Zod Wallop resides in this realm of instability, where reality is refracted through a cracked prism, and characters know it, but we a readers keep thinking that maybe, if they can just find the right viewing angle, suddenly everything will make sense and go back to normal.
We're fooling ourselves and we know it, but we keep reading anyway.
'Zod Wallop' is a book. Obviously it's a book, I'm writing about it, but it really is a book. Or rather, a book within a book. Harry Gainsborough should know--he's the one who wrote it, after all. He's 1995's equivalent of J. K. Rowling, the most popular author of children's fantasy literature in the world. Everyone reads Gainsborough, and everyone loves 'Zod Wallop'. What they don't know is the 'Zod Wallop' they've fallen in love with is a fake, a fraud, a counterfeit painted over by its own artist, dipped in saccharine, rolled in chocolate, and served up on a tray of Happily Ever Afters so sweet you can taste the diabetes. It's all bullshit, and the public ate it up like pigs at a trough. It made Harry Gainsborough a very wealthy man, which has only brought him further ruin, as money cannot replace the two gaping holes in his heart.
The real 'Zod Wallop' was penned by Harry at the suggestion of one of his doctors during his stay at the Harwood Psychiatric Institute. The stay was prompted by the accidental drowning death of his only daughter, and subsequent separation from his wife. Now back on his own two feet, the heavy-drinking author is (dis)content to live out the remainder of his days in utter solitude while his agent routinely badgers him about writing a sequel or, at the very least, selling the film rights. There he would remain if it wasn't for another Story, this one named Raymond.
A fellow patient at Harwood, Raymond Story is the dictionary definition of the mental man-child: a grown-up who has refused to grow up, a man who still tilts at windmills, believes in happily-ever-afters, and is convinced Harry Gainsborough is a prophet who will lead them all on the biggest, most important, most epic quest since a couple of hairy-footed men clung to one another at the foot of a volcano after disposing of the world's worst piece of jewelry. The biggest problem with Raymond Story, in Harry's mind, is that he's seen the original 'Zod Wallop'. He found it, he read it, and he hated it. While the published 'Zod Wallop' is all about redemption and finding the power within, the original is nothing like it: a dark, disturbing world where no one will be saved, filled with glacial-dwelling frost giants, shadowy demonic entities, and their minions: the flying, manta ray-like, soul-devouring Ralewings.
Harry left the old 'Zod Wallop' behind, but Raymond never could. Now Raymond has broken out of Harwood with his 'bride' Emily (a wheelchair-bound young woman, comatose since childhood), the ox-like Allen, the tragically-depressive Rene, and Lord Arbus, Raymond's trained monkey. They're on a cross-country trip to find Harry, because Raymond isn't sure what to do next, but Harry will have the answers. He's got to. After all, he invented the Ralewings, and they're currently chasing Raymond's group, along with the vile Lord Draining who has plans for all five of them, but especially for poor, defenseless(?) Emily.
Have the five patients from Harwood all cashed in their sanity chips, or has Harry Gainsborough actually penned a story so powerful that it's ripped through the fabric of reality like the creatures from Stephen King's The Mist, to reshape our world to its specifications?
Zod Wallop is like nothing I have ever read, and even now, twenty-two years after my first encounter with it, I've been unable to get it out of my mind. Spencer's writing is dramatic, impactful, and dream-like. Cross Alice in Wonderland with H. P. Lovecraft, throw in a liberal dose of mind-altering/expanding drugs, and you'd get something akin to this novel. This is Dark Fantasy of the O.G. variety, not the drippy, love-triangle-laden bullshit that crowds the shelves today.
Find this book. Read this book. Treasure and love it. Harry's world will never be the same again...and neither will yours.
We're fooling ourselves and we know it, but we keep reading anyway.
'Zod Wallop' is a book. Obviously it's a book, I'm writing about it, but it really is a book. Or rather, a book within a book. Harry Gainsborough should know--he's the one who wrote it, after all. He's 1995's equivalent of J. K. Rowling, the most popular author of children's fantasy literature in the world. Everyone reads Gainsborough, and everyone loves 'Zod Wallop'. What they don't know is the 'Zod Wallop' they've fallen in love with is a fake, a fraud, a counterfeit painted over by its own artist, dipped in saccharine, rolled in chocolate, and served up on a tray of Happily Ever Afters so sweet you can taste the diabetes. It's all bullshit, and the public ate it up like pigs at a trough. It made Harry Gainsborough a very wealthy man, which has only brought him further ruin, as money cannot replace the two gaping holes in his heart.
The real 'Zod Wallop' was penned by Harry at the suggestion of one of his doctors during his stay at the Harwood Psychiatric Institute. The stay was prompted by the accidental drowning death of his only daughter, and subsequent separation from his wife. Now back on his own two feet, the heavy-drinking author is (dis)content to live out the remainder of his days in utter solitude while his agent routinely badgers him about writing a sequel or, at the very least, selling the film rights. There he would remain if it wasn't for another Story, this one named Raymond.
A fellow patient at Harwood, Raymond Story is the dictionary definition of the mental man-child: a grown-up who has refused to grow up, a man who still tilts at windmills, believes in happily-ever-afters, and is convinced Harry Gainsborough is a prophet who will lead them all on the biggest, most important, most epic quest since a couple of hairy-footed men clung to one another at the foot of a volcano after disposing of the world's worst piece of jewelry. The biggest problem with Raymond Story, in Harry's mind, is that he's seen the original 'Zod Wallop'. He found it, he read it, and he hated it. While the published 'Zod Wallop' is all about redemption and finding the power within, the original is nothing like it: a dark, disturbing world where no one will be saved, filled with glacial-dwelling frost giants, shadowy demonic entities, and their minions: the flying, manta ray-like, soul-devouring Ralewings.
Harry left the old 'Zod Wallop' behind, but Raymond never could. Now Raymond has broken out of Harwood with his 'bride' Emily (a wheelchair-bound young woman, comatose since childhood), the ox-like Allen, the tragically-depressive Rene, and Lord Arbus, Raymond's trained monkey. They're on a cross-country trip to find Harry, because Raymond isn't sure what to do next, but Harry will have the answers. He's got to. After all, he invented the Ralewings, and they're currently chasing Raymond's group, along with the vile Lord Draining who has plans for all five of them, but especially for poor, defenseless(?) Emily.
Have the five patients from Harwood all cashed in their sanity chips, or has Harry Gainsborough actually penned a story so powerful that it's ripped through the fabric of reality like the creatures from Stephen King's The Mist, to reshape our world to its specifications?
Zod Wallop is like nothing I have ever read, and even now, twenty-two years after my first encounter with it, I've been unable to get it out of my mind. Spencer's writing is dramatic, impactful, and dream-like. Cross Alice in Wonderland with H. P. Lovecraft, throw in a liberal dose of mind-altering/expanding drugs, and you'd get something akin to this novel. This is Dark Fantasy of the O.G. variety, not the drippy, love-triangle-laden bullshit that crowds the shelves today.
Find this book. Read this book. Treasure and love it. Harry's world will never be the same again...and neither will yours.