The Egg Said Nothing in Q&A with Eric Hendrixson

Oct 25, 2010 Steve Lowe rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bizarro, nbas

I got this book at BizarroCon last weekend. I randomly selected it out of the six books that I had purchased and began reading it in the Portland airport. I continued to chew through it during my Denver layover, but intended to stop so I could get some sleep on my flight to Chicago. I had a 90 minute drive still awaiting me after I got to Chicago, and I really needed the rest.

It didn't happen that way. I wasn't able to sleep because of this damn EGG. Every time I lay my head against the side of ...more

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Jun 14, 2012 Madeleine rated it really liked it

Shelves: blogophilia, 2012, our-libeary, head-in-the-clouds-nose-in-a-book

Dear Caris,

Do you mind if I call you that? It's how you signed your most recent message so I'm assuming that we're on a first-name basis now. Please let me know if I'm being too forward because my social ineptitude likes to make itself known even on the internets.

I've been meaning to read "The Egg" for quite some time but prefer doing almost everything in the hazy future. What finally propelled me toward your novella were two overwhelmingly common factors in all the reviews I read: One, everyone ...more

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Nov 20, 2010 Eric Hendrixson rated it it was amazing

I may be an easy sell for any book with a bloody shovel on the cover, but this may be the most cleverly-plotted Bizarro book I have read. This is a difficult book to review without giving anything away, but it starts off like a Twilight Zone episode, turns into an Alfred Hitchcock Presents within a Twilight Zone episode, and turns out to be a Twilight Zone episode inside an Alfred Hitchcock Presents inside a Twilight Zone episode.

As the novel progresses, the shovel-murders promised on the cover ...more

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May 31, 2011 Dustin Reade rated it it was amazing

Yesterday morning, I awoke to find this book between Caris O'Malley's legs. It was covered in a thin, yogurt-y film, and it was screaming.
It was screaming: "Read me! Read Me!"
Don't ask me why, but I felt a sudden, very powerful attachment to the book. I found myself unable to ignore its request. So I took it from the author (who cried in an eery falsetto for hours after parting with it {and was espescially strange being as I do not know him personally, and do not know how he found his way into m Yesterday morning, I awoke to find this book between Caris O'Malley's legs. It was covered in a thin, yogurt-y film, and it was screaming.
It was screaming: "Read me! Read Me!"
Don't ask me why, but I felt a sudden, very powerful attachment to the book. I found myself unable to ignore its request. So I took it from the author (who cried in an eery falsetto for hours after parting with it {and was espescially strange being as I do not know him personally, and do not know how he found his way into my home, much less beside me in bed}), and after reading only the first line, I knew I would love it as if it were my own. See, it suckled at my teets. And I, in turn, suckled at its pages.
Neither of us found our diets lacking in any way.
I spent the better part of the following morning (today), going through the book and finding out exactly what it was about it that made me love it so. I imagine parents might do the same thing with their first child. As a matter of fact, I am a parent of a three-year-old girl, and I know this to be true. As parents, we examine our progeny. We stick them under microscopes to help us better understand what it is we like about them.
What I like about this book is that, at heart it is a love story. Not a cheezy one, either. More a love story of the "Benny and June" variety. Two weirdos falling for each other specifically because they are weird. THis makes me happy, and it makes me love the book a little. Have you ever seen "Niagra, Niagra?" Like that, only without the twitching.
THe other thing I discovered when I opened up the book was the same thing one would discover when opening their benefactors: blood. Tons of blood. So much blood you wake up choking on it. (Sleep on your side to prevent this from occuring.)
Yet, even though there are rivers of blood issuing forth from the book, it did not strike me as excessively violent. Sure, there was violence, but it seemed necessary to the story, and it made me laugh several times when it didn't make me feel sick. (It didn't make me feel sick.)
And even if you do not like excessive violence (perhaps you have a condition?), the book also comes equipped with shovels to help you scoop out any blood you might feel a bit too gratuitous.
So I suggest you read it, as it is a fine book, and one that skeets easily from one page to the next. Also, it has inspired me to write my longest review yet, so that should say something in its favor.
Five fuggin' stars! ...more

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Oct 29, 2010 Kate rated it really liked it

Shelves: bizarro

I really like the cover of this book. American Gothic is one of my all time favorite paintings and I just loved how it was doctored for the cover.

Also, I enjoyed the story itself. This is one of those rare books, that I think would of done better if it was longer. I wanted more of the relationship (it felt rushed). I wanted more Manny's and time travel. I even wanted more blood (even though there was a ton of it dripping all over the pages as is). Overall, a very strong debut from an interesting ...more

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Sep 24, 2011 Matthew Vaughn rated it really liked it

Shelves: reviewed, bizarro

I came across Caris O’Malley by accident. It was one of those deals where you’re reading a book review, and you click on a link and from there you click on another link. Before you know it you don’t remember how you even got to where you are. Where I ended up was Caris O’Malley’s wordpress site reading his rant about Netflix, which I completely empathized with. Along with his raging at the movie distribution service there was also a post about his book, The Egg said nothing, being available for ...more

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May 31, 2011 Suz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2011-jan-june

Excellent book! This book is about a man who lays an egg...or is it? There were so many ideas stuffed into this one book that it was mind boggling! Time travel and whether certain outcomes are fated or can be changed, parallel selves who each live completely different lives, and the exploration of the thoughts and feelings of the 1st man to give birth. I thought it was cool that the main character immediately feels protective and nurturing toward his egg even though he has no idea how he happene ...more

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Jun 18, 2011 Gabriel rated it liked it

It is pretty obvious from reading the reviews that we (all readers including myself) are all taken with the plot and the ideas behind the story. That is not in debate. Like some of the best of the NBAS series so far, the oddness is balanced with a strong story that demands the oddness in some wonderful way. The time-travel paradoxes, though not functionally explored (and I still think 12 Monkeys does the time-travel story best), made this a fun read and a complete story. Yes, I knew the ending b It is pretty obvious from reading the reviews that we (all readers including myself) are all taken with the plot and the ideas behind the story. That is not in debate. Like some of the best of the NBAS series so far, the oddness is balanced with a strong story that demands the oddness in some wonderful way. The time-travel paradoxes, though not functionally explored (and I still think 12 Monkeys does the time-travel story best), made this a fun read and a complete story. Yes, I knew the ending by page 20 (a quarter of the way through), but the trip to getting to that ending was full of twists that I didn't see coming.

So, what about this just "liked it" bit, then?

Well, unlike Anita Dalton (review is on her ireadoddbooks.com blog), I could NOT get behind the narrator's voice and the sentences and the endless (well, seemingly endless) smilies that are in the first half of the book. By the time that the story gets moving and we enter the metaphysical dance, sentences were cleaner, clearer and the book was so much more enjoyable ... and then it degenerated at the end. Maybe it was because I heard sentences from a worse written book (thankfully that book has not shown up on Goodreads yet ... something like "Before The Last Bell Rings"), I could only hear that staccato unchanging rhythm through the last couple of chapters. Spoiler-free example: "'Okay', she said. She turned and walked back down the hall. I watched her go, her fragile frame moving slowly. I didn't imagine she would last much longer. A few years at best. Would she outlive me?" [followed by two more questions that, almost exactly, match the meter and rhythm of at least one of the sentences before them, they kinda are spoilers, though.]

So in short, really neat story ... could not get into the way it was written. Of course, maybe I'm missing out on how the repetitive nature of the voice matches the repetitive nature of the story which matches the theme of repetition and futility and love and that there REALLY IS something MORE to this than I can see. Even so, even the ancient Sumerians in their Epic of Gilgamesh knew to control their use of repetition, using it only in one section (those 12 Leagues of Darkness). ...more

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Apr 07, 2011 S.T. Cartledge rated it it was amazing

Shelves: bizarro, reviewed

This is the third New Bizarro Author Series book I've read this year. It's one of my favourites. I’ve got two favourites from this group. This is one of them. I love this book. Caris O’Malley knocked my socks off with this one. Then knocked my teeth in. With a shovel. The Egg Said Nothing is a nightmarishly ultraviolent romance time-travel insane book thing that is not so much outwardly weird as it is psychotically fucked up. It gets in your head and doesn’t let up. When I first read it, it felt ...more

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