Book Review: Scum of the Earth by Cody Goodfellow + Podcast interview

Scum of the Earth by Cody Goodfellow

Paperback,158 pages

Eraserhead Press

Advanced copy, Due summer 2019

This is a good month two new Cody Goodfellow books in one month. I admit this is a time when I have great privilege being published by the same press I accidentally got my hardcopy before Mister Goodfellow. I have not been shy in my opinion of Cody's work, as a writer I think he is the most underrated genre voice of my generation. one of the aspects that makes Goodfellow such as fun voice as he is important as he is not afraid to just have fun. This is the writer who already showed early in his career how he could go from a genius work political body horror like A Perfect Union to at times Satirical Kaiju action in the collection All-Monster-Action that you can still pick-up from Kingshot Press.

Close fans of Cody's Career have read novellas and short stories that have gone into full satire most notably The Last Goddamn Hollywood Movie about a crew trying to take advantage of the end of the world to make their movie. That book has a tongue in cheek crazy-ness that not every author can pull off. Scum of the Earth is like an artifact of late 50's or early 60's pulp sci-fi spit out of a wormhole into 2019 complete with Monty Python level of snark and Goodfellow's hyper-intelligent meets gonzo style of insanity. This book could only be written by Cody Goodfellow because it requires someone with the writing chops, the wit, and most importantly someone well read in the classic genre not afraid to play and poke fun at the conventions.

The back cover does a good job of selling all the weird elements from brain stealing drug-dealing gray aliens to space Vikings. All seen through the eyes of an ex-stripper turned starship and her shapeshifting first officer. Everybody fucks everyone on the ship as they are bored traveling through space inside a giant fish who they have to get drunk and trick into going to warp speed. The earth is dead and humans are scattered trying to not have their brains stolen...look you are better off reading this on your own.

There are twists that are smarter than anyone who didn't know Goodfellow's work before might not be ready for. Goodfellow speaks directly to the reader many times letting you know when he is conveniently using certain tropes. My favorite was part when he was describing a race of barbarians called Monitors with FTL ships and he described them as "the monitors are that rare exception that proves those optimistic nerds read entirely too much Asimov and not enough Ellison."

There is also a funny scene that despite my years being straight edge made me laugh. A character is trying to figure out if their ship is a time machine and another responds "Fuck Science," She snarled. "science is for people who can't handle Drugs."

Scum of the Earth is a fun read, people looking for more humor in their science fiction can't go wrong. Codiacs whose numbers are growing rejoice because this is a fun one to add to the collection.