Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden

by Cameron Pierce

Flying sharks and robots...more fun than the Bible!

What would you expect to find if you traveled back in time to the Garden of Eden? Adam and Eve? The tree of knowledge? A wicked serpent? How about some giant fucking flying sharks! That's right, I said sharks. Biblical sharks. Sharks that are bigger than city buses. Sharks that can swim through the air and through the ground just as easy as swimming through water. The Garden of Eden is swarming with these mammoth killing machines and they'll eat just about anything or anyone they come across.

A group of fanatical religious tourists from the future travel back in time to meet Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, their time ship crashes, killing the majority of the crew (including the leprechauns) and leaving them stranded in this strange shark-infested land. Among the survivors Ernest who has the ability to turn people into mannequins, Ira who wields a razor-edged bible for a weapon, Wayne a giant wizard head with fat lizard legs, Donkey the hunchback halfwit, Anton the birdman, Rattlesnake Doctor, Ancestor, and Sturgeonwolf.

This cult of deranged priests soon discover that Eden is a far more surreal and dangerous place than they ever could have imagined. It is going to take everything they've got in order to survive long enough to find another way back home.

Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden is a crazy, wild ride of a story. It is what William Burroughs' imagination would look like if turned into Japanese anime.

Genres: Bizarro Fiction, Horror, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Ebooks

112 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2008

About the author

Cameron Pierce is the author of eleven books, including the Wonderland Book Award-winning collection Lost in Cat Brain Land. His work has appeared in The Barcelona Review, Gray's Sporting Journal, Hobart, The Big Click, and Vol. I Brooklyn, and has been reviewed and featured on Comedy Central and The Guardian. He was also the author of the column Fishing and Beer, where he interviewed acclaimed angler Bill Dance and John Lurie of Fishing with John. Pierce is the head editor of Lazy Fascist Press and has edited three anthologies, including The Best Bizarro Fiction of the Decade. He lives with his wife in Astoria, Oregon.

Reviews

[Stephen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book but reading it left me with a profound sense of regret and melancholy that I hadn’t done more hard drugs in my life. I am convinced that if I done serious amounts of peyote mixed with Halcion, I would’ve been able to better visualize passages like:

I shrug and chomp down on a tentacle. The sudden rush of synthetic battery taste tremor-blasts down my spine and coils spider web patterns in my belly. My eyes water me blind and my face puckers citrus-sour…

Alas, my imagination was not sufficiently unfettered to squeeze the most out of this imagery.

Anyway, here is the best I can do with a plot summary: The Garden of Eden is for reals. An eclectic (and I mean seriously eclectic) band of religious pilgrims from the far future travel back in time to The Garden to meet Adam and Eve (yep, the original fig-leafers). Unfortunately, upon arrival their ship crashes and they find themselves stranded in Eden.

Doesn’t sound too bad you say? Well you would be wrong my little conclusion jumper...wrong and screwed right and proper.
You see, Eden is infested with gianormous, people-alien-anything-eating sharks that can move through the air, sea and LAND. Yes, that’s right…LANDSHARKS. But unlike the devious finback played by Chevy Chase on SNL, these babies are the size of buses and are mean, nasty and seriously hard to kill.

So stranded in this horrendous suck are the craziest assortment of survivors you are likely to come across, including:

Ernest, our narrator, who can change into a toad and turn living things into mannequins;

Ancestor, the world’s most impressive bad-ass (”Ancestor patrols the edge of the clearing where the Gibarian crashed. He twirls his battle axe in his gorilla hands. A bundle of bamboo spears dangles from his crocodile jaws.);

Ira, mega bitch and wielder of a razor-edged bible.

Rattlesnake Doctor, a man-snake surgeon who drinks venom; and

Wayne, a wizard and ex-fantasy writer who is little more than a giant head.

So this charm oozing group of nightmares find themselves battling and bickering through hostile territory trying to find Adam and Eve as well the secret to the meaning of life. Meanwhile, chaos of every form and description ensues around them. Throughout it all, the comical musings of out narrator Ernest are there to keep you company as he comments on the journey and his fellow pilgrims.

Wayne was in one of his Dr. Occult moods where every statement appears to him as a question in need of a lecture-length response on subliminal sea monsters in the Jerry, how vampires invested cyberspace to communicate with the Martian Antichrist, or how Buddha and his sect of Zen warriors unleashed psychic warfare on the dinosaurs…

The rest, you will have to discover for yourself because you probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway. This is bizarro in every sense of the word. 3.0 stars.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A group of priests from the Dawn of Yahweh sect goes back in time to hunt sharks in paradise garden with Adam and Eve, only to have their ship crash, killing most of the people on board. Exploring a hostile landscape populated by flying sharks, jellyfish whiskey addicted robots, and wheeled wild boars, can Ernest and the rest of the survivors find Adam and Eve and find their way back home?

Maybe it's a lifetime of being interested in weird things but some bizarro books don't seem all that weird to me, like I've been desensitized. Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden managed to tear free the calluses from the weirdness sensors in my brain and poke at them for 120 pages.

This is one crazy book. From Ernest's abilities to change into a frogman and turn living things into mannequins to a bible with razor sharp pages to a man who's a wizard's head with legs, it starts out weird and the weirdness level climbs until the karate fight between the Tree of Knowledge and the giant shark son of God. Just when you think it can't get any stranger, it does. By the end, I completely stopped trying to predict what was going to happen.

With the amount of weird things going on, it would have been easy to lose track of the plot by Pierce never does. The weirdness moves the story along rather than obscuring or confusing it. While it may be fifteen varieties of bizarre, it still makes sense.

If you're looking for a mind-blowing bizarro tale, this is it. Go get it!

[Garrett Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Making fun of organized religion is as easy as making fun of mental retardation or flatulence. Farting Down Syndrome Jesus is not altogether unlikely to appear somewhere. Writers make fun of faith as if they could be burnt at the stake for it. I'm getting kind of bored of it. Cameron Pierce doesn't do that. He's twenty years old, he's writing a book about God and it isn't about Farting Down Syndrome Jesus and it's not about how Satan is a rockstar. That automatically earns some points and puts him head and shoulders above those who think they are clever because they right obvious religious satires. Sharkhunting ain't obvious. His crew of missionaries includes a wizard head on lizard legs, a gladiatorial apeman creature, a razor bible toting lady badass and Ernest...who can turn people into mannequins. Invited to Paradise Garden to hunt flying sharks, they find the place overrun with the creatures and must make a stand for their faith and find Adam and Eve. They are not berated for their beliefs by Pierce but rather shown as both empowered and vulnerable on account of them, lured into territory they cannot comprehend or endure. This lack of outright derision shows the mind of a strong satirist at work. Comedy is based in vulnerability, seeing and examining weaknesses, not in outright hatred and condescension. As they explore Paradise Garden, their beliefs begin to unravel but in their place they find new and shocking existential truths, mostly harsh but one crucial to the understanding of life and faith. The ending is strange, ominous, beautiful and uplifting without the stench of Existentialist pretention. Good work.

[Grant Wamack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cameron Pierce throws a motley crew of priests into Eden in search of Adam and Eve and some recreational shark hunting. Things go from bad to worse in a matter a minutes. Pierce's prose is poetic and tastier than some squid. The surreal world that he builds is intoxicating and ultimately adds to the overall tone of the novella. It may sound like there is no point to all the weirdness,but that is far from the case. Religion lies at the heart of this novella and takes on a whole new light by the end. Cameron Pierce is a writer with a lot of potential and you see him shine here. However,I can't wait to be blinded by his development in his next work,The Ass Goblins of Auschwitz.

[Christy Stewart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really smart theological fiction for those who don't appreciate being preached to.

[Andrew Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

What to say about Cameron Pierce's debut novella?

Well, for starters, the story is totally kick ass. A weird futuristic Christian Cult called "Yahweh's Dawn" travels back in time to Paradise Garden in order to hunt sharks. They are invited by Adam & Eve, but when they get there they discover something unexpected. Giant sharks are at war with intelligent / humanesque robots, and worse, Adam & Eve don't even exist. Now they are on a mission to find God while trying to avoid death by Robots and/or Sharks.

Furthermore, the writing is great.

This book is totally bizarro and completely captivating. A wonderful debut.

Granted, what more can we expect from the author who would go on to write The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island and Die You Doughnut Bastards?

[Nobody · Rating 4 out of 5]

God is a megashark and you are an asshole.

[Vilém Koubek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surreálná, ale svižná. Ujetá a víceméně zábavná. Bůh je svatá trojice žraloků a brokovnice je řešení.

[Emory · Rating 5 out of 5]

How do you remember Eden? Everyone has their own favorite ideal of what the home of the first man and woman looked like. A perfectly landscaped garden, replete with every imaginable flora and fauna. Perfect weather, a bright blue sky, and two naked humans given reign over this idyllic setting.

Well, what if things weren't so idyllic? What if Adam and Eve were at the bottom of the food chain?

What if you could go see it all for yourself with the help of a hyperdimensional time-ship?

In his first novel Cameron Pierce visits an oft-ignored area of the Bible. Where there have been so many re-imaginings and blasphemies of the life of Jesus, the Old Testament is largely brushed aside. It is rare to find a good heretical tale related to the first section of the Bible. No Gay Moses and his Flaming personality, or Joseph and the amazing Hi-Def LCD jockey shorts. Mr. Pierce has fortunately done his part to fill this gap, and started in the beginning.

We are introduced to Yahweh's Dawn, a religious group/cult that has been invited to go hunting for sharks by none other than Adam and Eve. Unfortunately, the sharks get a head start when the group first arrives, destroying their time-ship and killing a significant portion of the crew. We are then taken on a roller coaster ride of bizarre imagery as the survivors try to stay a few steps ahead of the flying killers. Did I mention the sharks could fly? Or swim through dirt?

Along the journey more and more incredible and terrifying things happen to the dysfunctional zealots. I would mention some of them here, but I think that would ruin the experience. Suffice it to say they search for Adam and Eve, but end up finding God. Literally.

All in all, this was a fascinating story of weird characters with weirder abilities subjected to even weirder circumstances. Fast paced, sometimes funny, sometimes horrifyingly disturbing, but always entertaining.

Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden is a worthy addition to any Bizarro fiction fan's bookshelf.

[Jeremy Maddux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cameron Pierce has gone out of his way to mention Ridley Scott's Alien in his fiction, and judging by this stark, nihilistic and alien work, I have to believe he counts it as an influence on his own fiction.

We have a handful of religious people who are brought to the Garden of Eden in order to study it. Their vessel, the Gibarian crashes, killing every leprechaun who may have brought them superstitious luck on their journey.

Along the way, the long suffering crew (consisting of a bird man, a snake handler, a wolf with sturgeons growing from its body, a hunchback, a lizard with the head of a wizard and a few others I can't recall because my mind was blown from just those) encounter sharks that sail through the air, visions of a Last Supper where whiskey and pancakes will be served, squid flowers and a tree that alters reality to appear as a dreary, black and white foreign movie.

Watch for the Alien influence (and maybe a little Predator as well) as each surreal character faces their own mortality and is picked off by the place they pinned all their hopes on for achieving a brighter future and proof of a benevolent hand in nature's design.

[Krellyan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is full of colourful, strange and downright absurd characters and animals, visuals and situations. I enjoyed every moment with it, and I think that it being rather short - much like Pierce's other works - serves it well, since the silly, weird and stupid (in a good way) are all condensed into a hilarious block of happenings that you'll find hard to put down. That is to say, if you're into bizarro fiction. If you're going into a story called Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden and expecting to have every little thing explained to you, you're likely not going to have a good time. You don't need to know why or how Sturgeonwolf exists, or why Wayne the magician is just a floating head - you just have to go with it and enjoy it for what it is: weird and entertaining.

A definite recommendation.

[Kye Alfred Hillig · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure if it's that I don't have a firm grasp on the bizzaro genre or what, but I found it somewhat hard to enjoy this book. This was my first swing at bizzaro. I like that the imagination of Cameron Pierce bounces around so freely, but it seems to come out kind of half-baked like it hasn't been fully realized or something. He turns some incredibly poetic phrases. Some striking images like a glass shark full of whiskey. I know that this was his first book, so maybe he just wasn't in full swing yet. There seemed to be too many characters doing too much. You never really got a feel for them. I couldn't picture them and struggled to picture the world, but couldn't. I admire the to-the-wind nature of this book, but it didn't fully inflate my sail.

[Katy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely genius. It's been a while since a book has gotten me this emotionally involved in it. Aside from his bizarre creativity and awesome writing style, Cameron addresses some basic human themes like religion, God, and hopelessness/hope in a way that is unique and honest.

Shark Hunting leaves you a little heartbroken, and that's okay.

It also gives you a little hope, and that's okay, too.

It makes you want to be a mannequin and live in a whitewashed mannequin world, where everything is fragile. It's okay to be fragile.

This was the first book I've read by Cameron, and I'll definitely be checking out more. If you're a bizarro fan, this is a must read.

[Padre · Rating 4 out of 5]

Surprisingly, this is even crazier than 'Ass Goblins of Auschwitz". At the same time, "Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden" feels more consistent, like it actually follows its own logic. I'm slightly concerned about the first-person present tense narrative. It gets tiresome and I hope Pierce doesn't write all his books this way.

[R.A. Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'll write a decent review in the near future. For now, I'll just say that this book was a really fun read and I recommend it to people who like their fantasy with a little sprinkle of sci-fi and a load of surrealism and strangeness.

[Mark Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mad book with some of the most interesting characters I've met in a long time. A take on religion that raises tons of questions about morality and faith if you look deep enough but if I'm honest.
I just loved reading about the fucking shark son of God!