Id says:
3, 2, 1... BLAST OFF!!! Oh shit me straight to hell, the Invaders are coming! Look out, fairy tale creatures, 898 has left his Inpire Inc. piggy bank homeworld and has one and only one thing on his bulbous mind: Conquest.
No amount of cold hard cash growing on your crystalline trees is going to stop this fucker and his Doomshooter as it melts faces off fauns and shoots grenades into mountainous, orgy piles of people.
Who's gonna stop him? Maybe the Se7en Dwarves armed to the teeth with jewel encrusted weapons? Or perhaps the mysterious Wizches who rule over this planet will have something to say when they see the havoc 898 creates as he enacts his genocide over this soon-to-be new acquisition for the Inpire.
Of course, this all depends on if our little invading friend can keep that singing trumpet tucked in his pants and stay true to his mission...
Little Green Man, why does your determination turn me on so?
Ego says:
Upon completing the first few chapters of Carnageland, I quickly discerned most of the characters save for the protagonist, Invader 898, were not going to be too greatly developed and I was delighted by this realization. This is, after all, a book about carnage and I wouldn't be able to enjoy my carnage without widespread death and dismemberment.
The characters of this world I recognized as Bizarro versions of their fairy tale counterparts. From fauns and gremlins to the Three Bears and soldier playing cards, the whole gamut of fantasyland people are covered.
Of note to me was the Captain, sailing on a ship of gold and scouring the seas for mermaids to sell into slavery. While he shared only two chapters with this reader, his role was vitally important to understanding the way this particular world spins.
One of my favorite ideas contained in this book are the hermaphroditic magicians aptly known as Wizches. Self proclaimed rulers of the planet, they have even gone so far as to maintain a special school used to train young Wizches into future leaders. They serve as the chief antagonists standing in the way of Invader 898.
Which brings me to the protagonist of Carnageland, a character with a clearly defined goals who literally stops for nothing to achieve them. If I could give out a New Bizarro Author Series award for Most Well Developed Character of 2009, it would go to Invader 898. This walking apocalypse is a Zim on acid. His entire being was molded and conditioned from birth to invade, invade, invade. 898's faith in invasion is stronger than any Zionist, jihadist and Fred Phelp's respective faiths combined, and he uses this vigor to push himself forward in his quest to conquer alien worlds.
Super-Ego says:
At sixty-seven pages long, this is the shortest of the four NBAS books, but it packs a lot of story into those pages. The length is perfect, this is a lean point A to point B to point C...etc. read that never lets up from page one.
The story, although in third-person narrative, doesn't stray from Invader 898's point of view. We experience the action and events as he sees them. This does not, however, prevent the author from describing the world that 898 is experiencing and it stands as one of the more enjoyable aspects of the story. The landscapes, the buildings, the creatures, all described beautifully and in as few words as necessary, keeping up with the pace of the action while dazzling the reader with thoughts of a truly fantastic setting.
There exists an extreme juxtaposition between Invader 898 and the alien world he invades. This creates the main conflict in the story for the protagonist. Like any good priest or politician, 898 has vowed all his life to suppress his sexual tendencies. And like priests and politicians, he is constantly tempted by little altar boys and hookers in the form of fairy tale creatures who have turned sex into the greatest resource on their planet. Ironically, the planet they inhabit is made up entirely of what most other beings would consider to be of much greater value. They have crystal for ground, cash for leaves, and oil for water.
The book alludes to several fairy tale creatures along with several fairy tales themselves. From Grimm's Fairy Tales and Hans Christian Andersen to modern fantasies such as The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, David W. Barbee skews and sexualizes everybody's favorite children stories into Bizarro madness.
This is a modern fairy tale, complete with a moral to be found hidden under the layers of carnage. If Invader 898 is to completely conquer this world he must, above all else, conquer the last thing he ever thought he'd have to: himself.
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