Two years ago, a book blew me away so much it became my book of the year. That’s not an easy thing for me to choose, usually, but that year it was. That book was Nick Harkaway’s The Gone Away World. What made that book work so well was the humour, the weirdness, and the hook. I never honestly thought I’d read anything more like that again.

But I was wrong.

Enter: David Wong. He’s had a cult following online for some time, and when you read his book, you can see why. He’s an insane man. A deeply deranged, and possibly very disturbed man, but he’s also a funny man – and I don’t mean funny in that he has a weird walk, an eyepatch and a wonky elbow. Though, he might. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never seen him.

But if I DID see him, then I imagine he’s got a very wonky elbow.

He also has bleary eyes from too many illegal substances.

He HAS to. This kind of genius doesn’t come naturally. If it does, we should tie him down, suck out all his blood and make a new drug to feed other writers, because the world needs this kind of imagination desperately.

John Dies at the End is, quite frankly, a rollercoaster of weirdness. How to describe it? It’s like Douglas Adams woke up one morning and decided to track down William Burroughs. He had deep and meaningful sex with Will, the result of which was a bastard child who grew up overnight (thanks to some killer drugs Will fed it) and it fell through a whirly thing in space and time and ended up on top of one very-surprised looking Franz Kafka who was entertaining Edgar Poe, who were both forced into an unwilling union with this foul spawn, and once more this resulted in an evil offspring which was whisked off by daleks to become their god for a few years before abdicating its throne and exploring the jungles of the Amazon for a few years. Traumatised by a dread of insects as a result, this new offspring hid on an American gunship where it witnessed all sorts of ooooh nasty violence, and then it hitched to Texas, married Stephen King for two weeks before realising he was simply crap, and then heading out to Vegas where it met and did the nasty with the drummer from GWAR, and then downgraded to Warrant’s roadies – producing another eerie little offsping. This crazed creature was named David Wong, and thus a hero was born.

All terribly simple, really.

I’m openly in awe of this book. It competes very heavily with Robert Rankin‘s Retromancer as the best thing I’ve read all year.

Plotwise, it’s not simple. It’s all over the place. It’s basically three or four adventures locked together into a story disguised as the near-confessional history of David Wong as told to a reporter. Mister Wong has fought all manner of evil. He has fronted up to the jaws of Hell and challenged evil slugs, shadowy men made of shadowy black manstuff, weird ghostly demons and wacky undead the likes of which are terribly hard to explain without benefit of being very drunk indeed. It’s this endless rollercoaster of imagery and flashing action that makes this an exciting read. It never slows down from beginning to end, and doesn’t let up at all on the weird factor. It’s like Shatner’s there, calling for warp factor 100, and Scottie’s saying, “I canna give no-” and Shatner’s like, “Bite me, you little engineer! I’m the captain! Do as I say! Gimme 100!!!”

And that’s about all that’s missing from this book – Shatner.

It’s got everything else, though. And in what other book do you know do the heroes chase after demons by weilding the greatest and most powerful weapons known to man – ’80s ballads?

I mean – ’80s ballads!

Ballads! Real ones!

It made even me cringe. Those things can be uber-powerful weapons in the wrong hands, and it seems David Wong has two of them.

His style is uber-cool and nerdy in a way without being overly-nerdy. There’s an honest, alomost relaxed and vibrant quality to his prose that’s deeply refreshing. It feels happy, and energetic despite the themes and the central character’s desire to just not be part of it all. It’s also got more tangents and long meaningless asides than a Tarantino script. It will appeal to everyone who ever stomped on a cockroach and pretended it was a demon they just vanquished. Or anyone who ever had a little too much “caffeine” and ended up talking to their reflection in the mirror. Anyone who’s ever been to “the other side.”

A big part of me wishes I could have been there at the “beginning” of this novel, to have witnessed its growth into a novel of such comicbook cool. It’s got a fine history as outlined in the afterword by David Wong, but I’m happy to simply have read the book. It’s an amazing achievement it really is, and it’s one of those books which clearly shows creativity isn’t a lost artform and that not everyone’s trying to write something for the masses – just for the kicks and giggles.

I cannot recommend this book enough to you. I really can’t.

It’s horrifying how good this is.

Only one thing really horrifies me any more than reading this book: the fact that they’re making a movie of it.

when reading this book, i recommend you listen to: nomeansno