While Cameron Pierce’s Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island bills itself as a tragedy for people who eat food, I imagine that those living on total parenteral nutrition would still find plenty of things tragic and more than a few things darkly humorous. Throughout the story, it feels like Pierce was until now the only person fully aware of how pickles are among the most depressed of foods from wallowing in murky green brine, as opposed to the happiness of warm and fluffy pancakes and their maple...

Fantastic fiction fosters a certain kind of melancholic anti-hero, an amoral, luckless mess of a messiah destined to do more harm than good. Now, to the ranks of Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné and Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever comes Gaston Glew, a pickle, narrator of Cameron Pierce's The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island: A Tragedy for People Who Eat Food. Sixteen and hereditarily-depressed, Glew escapes the confines of the pickle planet, launching himself into space in a vehicle

The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island was one of those books where I stop and think - that's odd. I have not had that feeling since Ass Goblins of Auschwitz. But of course they are the same author. Ass Goblins still tops my WTF meter but The Pickled Apocalypse is second place. Where do I start?There is violence and sex. If they were human it would not be anything more than what you will find on cable. But they are not human and these characters have abilities that are enhanced. Such as beer f...

Zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt hätte mir das Buch vielleicht besser gefallen, aber momentan fand ich diese abgedrehte Geschichte über eine eingelegte Gurke und einen Pfannkuchen einfach nur lächerlich und albern. Manchmal passt es einfach nicht.

What a weird little tale about a sad pickle and a happy pancake. This is a tale of Gaston, a very depressed pickle living on a very depressed pickle planet. He wants more to life than the sadness and misery of the pickles. So he journeys until he finds the happiest place in the universe, the pancake planet. There he tries to fit in but fails. He does fall in love though and with that, happiness and sadness collide into the ultimate apocalypse.

There’s bizarro, then there’s BIZARRO. This book is the latter.

It takes a special sort of writer to craft a fairy tale that works for adults. In Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island, Pierce has woven a finely crafted fairy tale that works on several different levels at once, making it a delight to read no matter what level of depth you’re looking for.The story revolves around a pickle, Gaston Glew, who comes from a planet where happiness is entirely unknown. There are no birthdays, only “sad days,” and suicides are not only common, but expected. Gaston deci...

I won this book at the first-reads giveaway, which got me excited since it's not the kind of book I would pick up at a bookstore, and it's always fun to expand one's reading preferences. Even with all the weirdness, it was a light read and almost felt like a kids fairytale (apart from explicit intimate scenes in the middle). Yet the plot wasn’t shallow: I found myself drawing parallels and making analogies all throughout the book. On levels of weirdness: there were “nice” weird moments (the whol...

What just happened?

This is quite possibly the best titled book with the best cover art out there. For that alone Pierce gets major points. Also, combining two of my favorite foods into something altogether strangely delicious. And then there is the originality, inventiveness and humor which he brings to this story that starts off as a fairy tale and ends up something so bizarre, bizarre genre would have to be invented to contain it, if it hadn't been already. Just like a pickled pancake or pancaked pickle, this wa...

I can see some people looking at the cover for The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island by Cameron Pierce and saying, “Aw! That's so cute. What could be more innocent than a pickle and a pancake falling in love?” To those people I say, “You haven't read Cameron Pierce before, have you?”This story is what I would imagine someone would come up with if they had an acid flashback while staring into their refrigerator. It involves a pickle named Gaston Glew from the Pickled Planet, a planet who peopl...

In this wonderful fairy tale like story Cameron Pierce creates a world that is deliciously consumed by imagination. It is simple and yet oh so complicated. Gaston Glew is a depressed pickle from Pickle Planet, where everything is sad and pickle life ends in suicide. Gaston decides he wants to escape his Eternal Pickle Plight and fleas his planet in search of something more. He crashes upon Pancake Island the most happy place in the universe and home of pancakes. The sad pickle finds more than ha...

I have been a fan of Cameron Pierce's work for a while and have yet to be disappointed. Pierce's books always surprise me. Sometimes I'm surprised that I can process what is going on in his fiction, sometimes I'm surprised that the language is so clear and visceral. Sometimes I'm surprised that a human being wrote what I am reading. But while reading The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island I was surprised that this story about a suicidal pickle who falls in love with a pancake sounded so famili...

The level of weirdness in this book is pleasantly addictive especially when you have food characters that represents human emotions. The concept/idea works brilliantly even though I find the sex scene hard to digest. It's like the oddest thing I've read in a long time. The book is a quick read but incredibly fun and imaginative. I believe that this book isn't just written for the sake of being weird. Pierce's ability to talk about deep matters without being overly emo or annoyingly angsty made i...

Cameron Pierce seems like a happy, well-adjusted young man, but he has a keen grasp of depression and sadness. This book, ostensibly a lovely parable/metaphor/surreal fairytale about a self-destructive pickle on a planet of stupid, happy pancakes, is really about a certain familiar package of self-loathing and cynicism and longing and despair, a syndrome that traps people in their own unhappiness, separates them from honesty and kindness, and drives them to inflict even deeper misery on themselv...

I don’t know what I expected.

Eine sehr skurrile und bizarre Geschichte. Aber auch stellenweise ziemlich witzig, wenn man sich die ganzen Szenarien vorstellt 😂Hat mir gut gefallen und ist schnell zu lesen. Hat ja nur 84 Seiten 😂

Gaston Glew is a pickle and Fanny W. Fod is a pancake. From the very beginning, the reader can tell this book will be bizarre. This story was everything I have and have not imagined about pickles and pancakes. The writing style was curt and to the point and the author spared no details when it came to sticky subjects such as suicide, death, murder, and sex but he did provide a strange perspective: that of a pickle. This pickle was not just any pickle. It was a sad pickle. Did the author choose a...

You know, when I was still new to the concept of Bizarro and saw these outlandish covers and even more outlandish titles staring out at me from my Amazon recommendations, I was skeptical. Certainly, I had an admiration for what Eraserhead Press was doing, but I wasn't sure it was going to have the legs it now does. As the years went by and they became stronger, with even more outlandish titles and cover art staring back at me, I had to begin to approach some of their titles with a bit more curio...

Interesting story...Fanny Fod is a pancake,the most beautiful pancake on Pancake Island! Everyone is happy on Pancake Island, sadness is unheard of, except Fanny wonders about it and wishes for it. Gaston Glew is a pickle who decides to leave Pickle Plant to get away from the sadness as that is all there is in his life and on his planet. Gaston is looking for happiness is it out there? Gaston arrives on Pancake Island and meets Fanny Fod...can they find balance for each other and their world?