The Freakshow by Bryan Smith. Horror, gore, sex. Spoilers and Adult language here.

underthecity

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The Freakshow is easily the goriest and most disgusting books I've ever read in my life.

In an effort to further acquaint myself with novels by authors I have not read, I picked up The Freakshow a month ago. Published by Leisure, February 2007. I have never read Bryan Smith, but the back cover seemed intriguing.

Here's the basic plot. (SPOILERS) A traveling circus freakshow has visited a town. Turns out the freakshow is actually from an alternate dimension made of actual freaks--who hate human beings--and are gradually taking over our world town by town. The story centers around two sets of main characters who are both going through different journeys in the same story. They never actually meet, but one story influnences the other.

When you start reading, you have no idea what the hell is going on, and the author gradually tells you the different important things you need to know as the book progresses. In fact, you still don't have the entire backstory until the very end. I suppose this is a good thing and it kept me reading, but it was only my curiosity that kept my attention.

Because here's the thing. The main characters are drawn into the most horrible acts of violence and sex you can possibly imagine. Quentin Tarantino, Hellraiser series, Friday the 13th, nope, couldn't hold a candle.

I finished Freakshow two days ago and still cannot get the most lurid and sensational scenes out of my head. I'm serious. They're haunting me.

The "freaks" are able to use mind control over the humans. And they are very sadistic and will make the humans slaughter other humans, have sex with each other, and at one point, I kid you not, a car's gearshift comes to life and rapes the main character in one of the most perverted/erotic moments in the book. I'm serious. It's this scene that haunts me the most.

It's like many of the sex scenes are there just for shock, and don't necessarily advance the plot. Some of them read as very f-ed up sex fantasies of the author, God help him.

Now, other than that, the book was very well written. I have no complaints except that many of the characters sigh a lot, as well as nod or shake their heads. It happened so often that I was noticing it. Otherwise, I LIKED the mechanics of the writing and plotting. It was the horrible scenes I had trouble with.

I have to ask if some editor at Leisure had to ask at some point, Do we really need this? Isn't this just beyond good taste? My God. There's one scene where, after the car rapes Heather, she is made to go outside and pummel another girl to death with a tire iron, then eats her brain and her heart. And this is good fiction?

When I wrote the first draft of Ghost Machine, there were some scenes that made me say, wow, this is pretty edgy stuff. Well, after reading this book, my stuff is pretty tame, let me tell you.

And, after reading Freakshow, I figure my book has a good shot at getting published after reading crap like this that actually makes it to bookshelves.

allen