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gemmaduds's review against another edition
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
A strange and detached collection of short stories, featuring a woman pregnant with 37 babies, a cafe for zombies, and deadly mechanical wasps. There are so many bizarre ideas in this book that I enjoyed, some of them more than others. I wish that the odd one could be fleshed out a little more.
Overall I'm really glad I picked it up - very entertaining.
Overall I'm really glad I picked it up - very entertaining.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Pregnancy, Violence, and Murder
Minor: Cancer
joepasaran's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
hexyy's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
wacie's review against another edition
4.0
I received this book through Goodreads's First Reads program.
In this book are fourteen (sixteen, if you count the bonus stories in the back) of the most inventive, disturbing, and entertaining short stories I've ever read. Many of the stories are simply bizarre: a man, shopping for a new pet, finds himself in a shop where the owner sorts the animals by volume. A group of men hunt the flesh of humans to feed to the patrons of their zombie restaurant. A little boy finds a splinter in his toe; upon extraction, it turns out to be an entire fork. Other stories add the uncertainties and comedies of everyday human life into the mix: a new father struggles to find meaning and direction in parenthood after his wife gives birth to 37 babies. Another man, after learning that he has testicular cancer, brawls with a giant lizard monster rampaging through the city. Yet another man is annoyed to find there's a wasp nest in his backyard, only this is a world where the insects are all robotic.
The stories are all very fun to read and very imaginative without being so weird that the reader gains nothing from reading them. Each story balances the fantastic, grotesque, and strangely hilarious with the dullness and drama of everyday life, creating a rich and unique experience for every reader.
I loved it. Thanks for the book!
In this book are fourteen (sixteen, if you count the bonus stories in the back) of the most inventive, disturbing, and entertaining short stories I've ever read. Many of the stories are simply bizarre: a man, shopping for a new pet, finds himself in a shop where the owner sorts the animals by volume. A group of men hunt the flesh of humans to feed to the patrons of their zombie restaurant. A little boy finds a splinter in his toe; upon extraction, it turns out to be an entire fork. Other stories add the uncertainties and comedies of everyday human life into the mix: a new father struggles to find meaning and direction in parenthood after his wife gives birth to 37 babies. Another man, after learning that he has testicular cancer, brawls with a giant lizard monster rampaging through the city. Yet another man is annoyed to find there's a wasp nest in his backyard, only this is a world where the insects are all robotic.
The stories are all very fun to read and very imaginative without being so weird that the reader gains nothing from reading them. Each story balances the fantastic, grotesque, and strangely hilarious with the dullness and drama of everyday life, creating a rich and unique experience for every reader.
I loved it. Thanks for the book!
sadouglas's review against another edition
5.0
Instruction Manual for Swallowing is Adam Marek's first collection according to his website, but I can only assume that he had written pretty widely before creating this compilation of his work. There's little flab on show here, and absolutely no sign that Comma simply collected up every short story he'd ever written, threw a front cover on it and released the new book into the world.
Instead, what we have is a series of highlights, a set of stories where each successive tale trumps the one before it in some respect and where the very best stuck in my mind and popped back up as I lay in bed in the dark.
Like Paul Magrs' Salt Publishing collection, 'Twelve Stories', this is a book about a universe gone slightly and unexpectedly askew. Futuristic tales about metal wasps with red LEDS in their heads and Godzilla rising from the waves and destroying an un-named western city jostle for space with grotesque tales about a woman giving birth to thirty-seven foetuses and suicidal cheerleaders.
These are surreal stories in the proper sense of the word: placing the bizarre into the mundane world, juxtaposing the impossible with the probable, scattering hints of the banal in a universe gone mad. Zombies roam middle England, a man dresses in tea towels and gardening gloves to fight deadly robotic insects and nine foot tall Gilbert and George step out of stained glass into the Tate Modern, wielding giant willies.
It's actually this contrast and the presence of a prosaic background which prevents the book becoming a little too one note for comfort. There's a fine line between 'askew' and 'wacky', but luckily Marek stays on the right side of that line and if the occaisonal story dips a little, it tends to be when - as with the slight tale, 'Sushi Plate Epiphany' - he forgoes this surreal strand and attempts straight-forward story-telling in a straight-forward setting.
At times, I was reminded of John Irving ('Thanks to the monster, he'd stopped dying for a second' ponders the titular hero of 'Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth'), at others of a more restrained Philip K Dick ('Robot Wasps' and 'A Gilbert and George Talibanimation' in particular) or even David Cronenberg (the slice of gross out horror, best exemplified by 'Belly Full of Rain'), and at others still, of nobody in particular, which was best of all.
Marek is apparently working on a second collection and a novel - can't wait.
Instead, what we have is a series of highlights, a set of stories where each successive tale trumps the one before it in some respect and where the very best stuck in my mind and popped back up as I lay in bed in the dark.
Like Paul Magrs' Salt Publishing collection, 'Twelve Stories', this is a book about a universe gone slightly and unexpectedly askew. Futuristic tales about metal wasps with red LEDS in their heads and Godzilla rising from the waves and destroying an un-named western city jostle for space with grotesque tales about a woman giving birth to thirty-seven foetuses and suicidal cheerleaders.
These are surreal stories in the proper sense of the word: placing the bizarre into the mundane world, juxtaposing the impossible with the probable, scattering hints of the banal in a universe gone mad. Zombies roam middle England, a man dresses in tea towels and gardening gloves to fight deadly robotic insects and nine foot tall Gilbert and George step out of stained glass into the Tate Modern, wielding giant willies.
It's actually this contrast and the presence of a prosaic background which prevents the book becoming a little too one note for comfort. There's a fine line between 'askew' and 'wacky', but luckily Marek stays on the right side of that line and if the occaisonal story dips a little, it tends to be when - as with the slight tale, 'Sushi Plate Epiphany' - he forgoes this surreal strand and attempts straight-forward story-telling in a straight-forward setting.
At times, I was reminded of John Irving ('Thanks to the monster, he'd stopped dying for a second' ponders the titular hero of 'Testicular Cancer vs the Behemoth'), at others of a more restrained Philip K Dick ('Robot Wasps' and 'A Gilbert and George Talibanimation' in particular) or even David Cronenberg (the slice of gross out horror, best exemplified by 'Belly Full of Rain'), and at others still, of nobody in particular, which was best of all.
Marek is apparently working on a second collection and a novel - can't wait.
panikos's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 stars, rounded up to 4.
I really like the surrealness of this collection of short stories, and there are some in here that will resonate with me for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't think all the stories were made equally - some felt bizarre for the sake of it rather than to make an actual point, and even the endings of the best stories tended to drop off in a slightly inconclusive way. Nevertheless, the bizarreness and the concepts are excellent, as is Marek's very direct prose. I did enjoy the collection a lot.
I really like the surrealness of this collection of short stories, and there are some in here that will resonate with me for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't think all the stories were made equally - some felt bizarre for the sake of it rather than to make an actual point, and even the endings of the best stories tended to drop off in a slightly inconclusive way. Nevertheless, the bizarreness and the concepts are excellent, as is Marek's very direct prose. I did enjoy the collection a lot.
craigwallwork's review
4.0
I found this book because I’ve been interested in submitting something to the publishers, Comma Press, for some time. And I also thought it was one of the coolest titles of a book I’ve seen for a while. The Instructional Manual For Swallowing by Adam Marek is not your average book. It doesn’t quite fit anywhere, which is why you need to read it.
As I’m always searching for strange and wonderful short stories that match, and surpass, the likes of Etgar keret, I was really excited at the prospect of Robotic insects, a restaurant for zombies, and a woman pregnant with 37 babies. In truth, I was damn near peeing my pants. And Marek didn’t disappoint, well, not too much. The first story really blew me away. 40 Litre Monkey tells the tale of a pet shop owner who measures all his animals by their volume. It was funny, sad and very surreal. My expectations were raised, and although the second story in the collection, the one about the pregnant woman with 37 babies, didn’t quite hit me squarely on the chin as the first, I could tell Marek had a gift for pulling you from the page.
The subsequent stories that followed had a little more weight to them, which is probably why they dragged me to real world very quickly. It’s not that these stories are bad, it’s just that based on the first two stories, I was convinced Marek would be my guide to the dark places in his mind. Instead, he decided it would be best all round to “coast” for a while before throwing back the curtain. Ramping it up with stories about a man fighting both testicular cancer and a monster tearing up the city, a boy who can extract cutlery from his body, and the title story which illustrates how the body might function if it was controlled from within by a person, makes Marek an author to keep your eye on.
Sure, with any short story collection, there are going to be lulls. Fortunately, there are not many here. From one story to the next, you’re caught between laughing, reeling back in surprise, and dropping to your knees with wonder. As the blurb perfectly illustrates, as you turn the first page you enter the “surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.”
The price tag is worth it for the stories, 40 Litre Monkey, and The Instructional Manual For Swallowing.
As I’m always searching for strange and wonderful short stories that match, and surpass, the likes of Etgar keret, I was really excited at the prospect of Robotic insects, a restaurant for zombies, and a woman pregnant with 37 babies. In truth, I was damn near peeing my pants. And Marek didn’t disappoint, well, not too much. The first story really blew me away. 40 Litre Monkey tells the tale of a pet shop owner who measures all his animals by their volume. It was funny, sad and very surreal. My expectations were raised, and although the second story in the collection, the one about the pregnant woman with 37 babies, didn’t quite hit me squarely on the chin as the first, I could tell Marek had a gift for pulling you from the page.
The subsequent stories that followed had a little more weight to them, which is probably why they dragged me to real world very quickly. It’s not that these stories are bad, it’s just that based on the first two stories, I was convinced Marek would be my guide to the dark places in his mind. Instead, he decided it would be best all round to “coast” for a while before throwing back the curtain. Ramping it up with stories about a man fighting both testicular cancer and a monster tearing up the city, a boy who can extract cutlery from his body, and the title story which illustrates how the body might function if it was controlled from within by a person, makes Marek an author to keep your eye on.
Sure, with any short story collection, there are going to be lulls. Fortunately, there are not many here. From one story to the next, you’re caught between laughing, reeling back in surprise, and dropping to your knees with wonder. As the blurb perfectly illustrates, as you turn the first page you enter the “surreal, misshapen universe of Adam Marek’s first collection, where the body is fluid, the spirit mechanised and beasts often tell us more about our humanity than anything we can teach ourselves.”
The price tag is worth it for the stories, 40 Litre Monkey, and The Instructional Manual For Swallowing.
wendleness's review
4.0
None of these stories are about what you expect. My favourite was Cuckoo, i think, because its elusiveness works so well; it has a well-rounded story that doesn’t give all of its pieces up at once. Robot Wasps and Meaty’s Boys are two that also sit strong in my mind. Meaty’s Boys is one of the longest stories in the book, but seemed to fly by in no time at all. It is also the story with the most well-built world. Though the world we glimpse in Robot Wars was fascinating and left me wanting to know more about it.
These weird little glimpses into strange quirky worlds are what i love about the best short stories. They don’t all make sense, they don’t all have an underlying message or meaning, and they don’t follow any kind of pattern. They’re mostly just light-hearted gems to while away a few minutes while you’re waiting for the bus. And if a few of them have any kind of depth to them, well, that’s a bonus for those who want to search for it.
A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.
These weird little glimpses into strange quirky worlds are what i love about the best short stories. They don’t all make sense, they don’t all have an underlying message or meaning, and they don’t follow any kind of pattern. They’re mostly just light-hearted gems to while away a few minutes while you’re waiting for the bus. And if a few of them have any kind of depth to them, well, that’s a bonus for those who want to search for it.
A longer review can be read at my book blog: Marvel at Words.
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