Back to the Beginning: Jungle Jitters

With Space Escapades, the third book in the Action Girls trilogy, set to launch next month, I thought now would be the perfect time to reintroduce readers to the book where the saga first began.

In Jungle Jitters (2021), the Action Girls, Jennifer, Stephanie, and Jackie, three wannabe starlets from Hollywood, all glamorous in their own chaotic ways, are trafficked into the Congo by a cult of mad scientists hidden deep in the jungle. These aren’t just any mad scientists though. They’re the descendants of a Soviet genius who disappeared a hundred years ago, and they’ve inherited his grotesque mission: to create a new race of hybrids by mating humans with apes.

What follows is a nightmare of savage trials, grotesque experiments, and a fight for survival against enemies both human and inhuman.

Jungle Jitters received some very thoughtful reviews when it first came out, such as this one, from Dave Higgins, who recommends the book “to readers seeking satire that accepts no boundaries but does not use that liberty to shock for the sake of it.”

https://davidjhiggins.wordpress.com/2023/10/27/jungle-jitters-by-j-manfred-weichsel/

And this one, from Benjamin Espen, who writes that Jungle Jitters “is one of the most horrifying pieces of social commentary I have ever read.”

https://www.benespen.com/2021-7-20-jungle-jitters-by-j-manfred-weichsel-book-review/

When Jungle Jitters book first came out in 2021, I threw Jennifer, Jackie, and Stephanie headfirst into danger. But in marketing the book, I failed to prepare readers for was just how transgressive, shocking, and violent the story is.

This led to some negative reviews from readers who weren’t expecting what was coming.

So, let me be clear: Jungle Jitters isn’t a safe or cozy pulp adventure. It intentionally pushes boundaries in ways that are designed to horrify and sicken. This book is bizarre, grotesque, and completely unhinged. There are moments of raw violence, moments of dark comedy, and moments where you just have to lean back and say, “Did that really just happen?”

Jungle Jitters is also, as should be made apparent by all three reviews, like all of my books, a satire. And it’s not satire in the modern sense of the word, either. This is a book that harkens back to crazy old days of Lucian, Rabelais, Sterne, and Swift. If you don’t know what that means, look over this list of characteristics of Menippean satire. You can find all these characteristics in my books.

Looking back, I realize Jungle Jitters is the perfect introduction to what the Action Girls are all about: they’re thrown into the most outrageous situations imaginable, and they face them with a kind of reckless ineptitude.

If you missed Jungle Jitters when it first came out, now’s the perfect time to get started on the Action Girls trilogy. The girls’ world only gets bigger and stranger in Into the Bush (2024), and coming October 3rd, in Space Escapades. But it all starts here, in the jungle, with three women, a nightmare cult, and a fight for survival like no other.

Jungle Jitters is available now, so catch up before Space Escapades blasts off! https://amazon.com/dp/B0996BY7P6