Book Review: All Hail the House Gods by Andrew James Stone

All Hail the House Gods by Andrew James Stone

Paperback, 134 pages

Published July 2018 by StrangeHouse Books

All Hail the House gods is the second book by bizarro newcomer Andrew J Stone. I enjoyed his darkly humorous debut Mortuary Monster when it came out last year. I enjoyed that novel enough though it was a little out of my wheelhouse. It was a weird enough of a book I am not sure it was directly in anyone's normal reading pattern. That is a good thing. It was like a surrealist hammer novel with tongue firmly planted in cheek.

There is a certain sarcasm that comes with AJS's work but in All Hail it is a much darker vision with a few funny turn of phrases. Stone is a word smith and the tightly composed prose is what sets this super bizarre dystopia apart from other works of Bizarro fiction. The plot is about a society where people are forced to breed and sacrifice their children to the House gods. This is a not so thinly veiled totalitarian state and makes this novel almost a surrealist take on the Handmaid's tale.

It certainly seems timely as the supreme court is in the balance with the swing vote that might crush Roe V Wade happening any day now.

The book comes to a head when the two parents at the center of the story decide they have had enough. What I liked about All Hail The House Gods is that it is a political and revolutionary story told in a surrealist way. Responding to the times much in the way Deadite has intended to do this year with releases like the school shooting themed novel Crisis Boy by Garrett Cook and My climate change novel Ring of Fire.

This is a good time for topical bizarro and if you like your weird thoughtful and with a message you can't go wrong with Andrew Stone's second book. It was a slow start for me but once I got into the themes I was to ready to hail the house gods.