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The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island
A demented fairy tale about a pickle, a pancake, and the apocalypse.
It is Gaston Glew's sixteenth Sad Day - the sixteenth anniversary of the saddest day of his his day of birth - and his parents have just committed suicide. Fed up with the sadness of Pickled Planet, Gaston Glew builds a rocket ship and blasts off into outer space, hoping to escape his briny fate.
Meanwhile, on Pancake Island, Fanny Fod, the most beautiful pancake girl in the world, nurses a secret sadness as she guards the origin of all the mysterious Cuddlywumpus. When Gaston's rocket ship crash-lands in the sea of maple syrup that surrounds Pancake Island, nothing will ever be the same for him, or for Fanny Fod.
Captain Pickle "Unchain yourself from this briny fate, oh pickled prisoner, and read Cameron Pierce's The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake A Tragedy for People Who Eat Food !"
It is Gaston Glew's sixteenth Sad Day - the sixteenth anniversary of the saddest day of his his day of birth - and his parents have just committed suicide. Fed up with the sadness of Pickled Planet, Gaston Glew builds a rocket ship and blasts off into outer space, hoping to escape his briny fate.
Meanwhile, on Pancake Island, Fanny Fod, the most beautiful pancake girl in the world, nurses a secret sadness as she guards the origin of all the mysterious Cuddlywumpus. When Gaston's rocket ship crash-lands in the sea of maple syrup that surrounds Pancake Island, nothing will ever be the same for him, or for Fanny Fod.
Captain Pickle "Unchain yourself from this briny fate, oh pickled prisoner, and read Cameron Pierce's The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake A Tragedy for People Who Eat Food !"
106 pages, Paperback
First published July 22, 2010
4 people are currently reading
515 people want to read
About the author
Cameron Pierce
53 books197 followersCameron 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.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
August 15, 2025
It's a beautiful book, very sweet, very well written. You might think it's a simple story of love, sex, a pickle and a pancake, but it's more than that. It's a story of depression. It's the story of sadness and happiness. It's the story of an encounter so important that it changes the face of the universe.
Read it, you'll see!
Read it, you'll see!
November 10, 2024
There are times when you know you're going to have a good laugh just from the title and cover.
There are times when you expect fun and weirdness just from the promises of a book description.
And there are times when you get much more than you expected 👏
In Picked Apocalypse of Pancake Island, you'll find an open thesis about happiness and sadness, how they have to live with each other and how sadness can easily and quickly contaminate happiness, while the other way is much harder to achieve.
This sweet tale deserves attention for its simplicity and effectiveness!
There are times when you expect fun and weirdness just from the promises of a book description.
And there are times when you get much more than you expected 👏
In Picked Apocalypse of Pancake Island, you'll find an open thesis about happiness and sadness, how they have to live with each other and how sadness can easily and quickly contaminate happiness, while the other way is much harder to achieve.
This sweet tale deserves attention for its simplicity and effectiveness!
September 29, 2010
Cameron Pierce seems like a happy, well-adjusted young man, but he has a keen grasp of depression and sadness. This book, ostensibly a lovely parable/metaphor/surreal fairytale about a self-destructive pickle on a planet of stupid, happy pancakes, is really about a certain familiar package of self-loathing and cynicism and longing and despair, a syndrome that traps people in their own unhappiness, separates them from honesty and kindness, and drives them to inflict even deeper misery on themselves and their loved ones.
Having said that, I should point out that it's really a very sweet and hopeful book, romantic and emotional and touching and funny. But what really got me is how deeply I recognize this pickled plight. I almost want to hand a copy to my college girlfriend, by way of explanation, because I was exactly this kind of sad jerk. Pierce really puts his finger on something universal here, by combining the surreal with the totally human.
Having said that, I should point out that it's really a very sweet and hopeful book, romantic and emotional and touching and funny. But what really got me is how deeply I recognize this pickled plight. I almost want to hand a copy to my college girlfriend, by way of explanation, because I was exactly this kind of sad jerk. Pierce really puts his finger on something universal here, by combining the surreal with the totally human.
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July 27, 2025Angry pickle ruins happy sticky pancake land with his sour brine
2⭐️
2⭐️
July 29, 2015
This is quite possibly the best titled book with the best cover art out there. For that alone Pierce gets major points. Also, combining two of my favorite foods into something altogether strangely delicious. And then there is the originality, inventiveness and humor which he brings to this story that starts off as a fairy tale and ends up something so bizarre, bizarre genre would have to be invented to contain it, if it hadn't been already. Just like a pickled pancake or pancaked pickle, this was incredibly odd, yet oddly enjoyable. Acquired taste, possibly, but interesting, quirky, imaginative and quite entertaining. Fun way to spend an hour. Recommended.
December 10, 2010
I have been a fan of Cameron Pierce's work for a while and have yet to be disappointed. Pierce's books always surprise me. Sometimes I'm surprised that I can process what is going on in his fiction, sometimes I'm surprised that the language is so clear and visceral. Sometimes I'm surprised that a human being wrote what I am reading. But while reading The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island I was surprised that this story about a suicidal pickle who falls in love with a pancake sounded so familiar.
Gaston Glew, the first pickle to attempt an escape from a life on Pickled Planet which will inevitably end in suicide, brings his pickled disease everywhere he goes. He lands, by accident, in the maple syrup sea off of Pancake Island, where everyone is intoxicated with a terrible, vacant happiness. Except Fanny Fod, the most beautiful pancake girl ever created who lactates maple beer and guards a terrible secret.
It takes an author of supreme vision and unending empathy to write a character so selfish and narrow-minded. Read this book for its weird story, its horrible characters, its amazing language or its really awkward door-sex scene. Just read this book.
Gaston Glew, the first pickle to attempt an escape from a life on Pickled Planet which will inevitably end in suicide, brings his pickled disease everywhere he goes. He lands, by accident, in the maple syrup sea off of Pancake Island, where everyone is intoxicated with a terrible, vacant happiness. Except Fanny Fod, the most beautiful pancake girl ever created who lactates maple beer and guards a terrible secret.
It takes an author of supreme vision and unending empathy to write a character so selfish and narrow-minded. Read this book for its weird story, its horrible characters, its amazing language or its really awkward door-sex scene. Just read this book.
January 10, 2014
What just happened?
March 11, 2012
The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island was one of those books where I stop and think - that's odd. I have not had that feeling since Ass Goblins of Auschwitz. But of course they are the same author. Ass Goblins still tops my WTF meter but The Pickled Apocalypse is second place. Where do I start?
There is violence and sex. If they were human it would not be anything more than what you will find on cable. But they are not human and these characters have abilities that are enhanced. Such as beer from pancake breasts and strange maple syrup defecating beasts that are locked in seclusion and don't forget orgies involving syrup secreting doors, a pancake and a pickle.
That is what I like most about Bizarro books and their authors, anything goes. Cameron Pierce delivers on the strange and bizarre. That's not where he stops though. There is a real story underneath all the wackiness. A pickle looking for happiness and an pancake seeking to find more out of life than happiness. Pierce offers the idea that someone could be living in a emotional paradise but still lacking substance. It is when we experience sadness, happiness can truly be measured and appreciated. Pierce dives in to some heavy things in this book. It is the complete absurdity of the characters that we can measure the realness of life in this story.
There is violence and sex. If they were human it would not be anything more than what you will find on cable. But they are not human and these characters have abilities that are enhanced. Such as beer from pancake breasts and strange maple syrup defecating beasts that are locked in seclusion and don't forget orgies involving syrup secreting doors, a pancake and a pickle.
That is what I like most about Bizarro books and their authors, anything goes. Cameron Pierce delivers on the strange and bizarre. That's not where he stops though. There is a real story underneath all the wackiness. A pickle looking for happiness and an pancake seeking to find more out of life than happiness. Pierce offers the idea that someone could be living in a emotional paradise but still lacking substance. It is when we experience sadness, happiness can truly be measured and appreciated. Pierce dives in to some heavy things in this book. It is the complete absurdity of the characters that we can measure the realness of life in this story.
July 2, 2017
What a weird little tale about a sad pickle and a happy pancake. This is a tale of Gaston, a very depressed pickle living on a very depressed pickle planet. He wants more to life than the sadness and misery of the pickles. So he journeys until he finds the happiest place in the universe, the pancake planet. There he tries to fit in but fails. He does fall in love though and with that, happiness and sadness collide into the ultimate apocalypse.
June 25, 2020
I don’t know what I expected.
August 3, 2010
While Cameron Pierce’s Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island bills itself as a tragedy for people who eat food, I imagine that those living on total parenteral nutrition would still find plenty of things tragic and more than a few things darkly humorous. Throughout the story, it feels like Pierce was until now the only person fully aware of how pickles are among the most depressed of foods from wallowing in murky green brine, as opposed to the happiness of warm and fluffy pancakes and their maple syrup. While this may very well be the case, that former lack of discovery on the part of the reader is definitely rectified by the book’s end.
The story sets itself up for two worlds to collide as the maple-beer-lactating Fanny W. Fod of Pancake Island tires of constant happiness, and Gaston Glew of Pickle Planet tires of the constant sadness perpetuated by the Eternal Plight of the Pickle. When Gaston’s parents steal the celebration of his Sad Day by committing suicide, his immediate distancing from sadness allows him to use both of their corpses as fuel for the rocket ship he had been working on. With a big collection of garlic spiders and jars of brine chowder, he blasts off into space and encounters space ghosts (without talk shows, sadly), then finds nothing else in his waking hours. His autopilot, however, eventually sends him crashing into a golden sea of maple syrup watched over by a cheerful, whistling, mustachioed sun whose favorite dirty word happens to be “suicide.” And, the sun forewarns, the sad-born Gaston is not a welcome being in the happy paradise of Pancake Island. After Gaston ignores the sun’s warning – among doing other things – he ends up on the actual island part of Pancake Island, and from there finds that his and Fanny’s star-crossed destiny is going to be more destructive than he ever intended, being unaware of the title. From Gaston’s arrival onward, Pickled Apocalypse feels like an anti-breakfast commercial written to be broadcast by aliens for instilling distrust in pancakes, pickles, and the sun. If Pierce just happens to be one of those aliens then his simple and accessible writing style, his attention to character development, and the occasional food-related violence and/or sex do his propaganda a great deal of good.
Before digging out a fork and knife to make some cuts, I'll first say that some of the following criticisms may be out of the picture by the time you pick up a copy because I read an earlier draft by the author. If they have already been resolved, then it only means that Pickled Apocalypse has been polished to a syrupy shine because all good that has been said still stands.
(So...) Pierce's propaganda may be tarnished a little by Fanny’s initial, seemingly-moronic acceptance of Gaston’s lies and the later unsubtle warning of “By the way, X, don’t go to Y” which, paraphrased, appears somewhere other than the warning Gaston got from the sun. The fact that it’s yet another plot point does not help the instant reaction of “Now X character will go to Y location and Z big thing is going to happen. I get it.”
All in all, however, Pickled Apocalypse is an impressive gallery of grotesque things happening in saccharine locations that fulfills the tragedy angle it was going for as the reader becomes sympathetic to Gaston’s want for just a little bit of happiness and watches it all crumble. Highly recommendable to prepare yourself for Pierce’s eventual conquest of the world via garlic spiders and pickles and otherwise recommendable for being a fun and engaging read.
The story sets itself up for two worlds to collide as the maple-beer-lactating Fanny W. Fod of Pancake Island tires of constant happiness, and Gaston Glew of Pickle Planet tires of the constant sadness perpetuated by the Eternal Plight of the Pickle. When Gaston’s parents steal the celebration of his Sad Day by committing suicide, his immediate distancing from sadness allows him to use both of their corpses as fuel for the rocket ship he had been working on. With a big collection of garlic spiders and jars of brine chowder, he blasts off into space and encounters space ghosts (without talk shows, sadly), then finds nothing else in his waking hours. His autopilot, however, eventually sends him crashing into a golden sea of maple syrup watched over by a cheerful, whistling, mustachioed sun whose favorite dirty word happens to be “suicide.” And, the sun forewarns, the sad-born Gaston is not a welcome being in the happy paradise of Pancake Island. After Gaston ignores the sun’s warning – among doing other things – he ends up on the actual island part of Pancake Island, and from there finds that his and Fanny’s star-crossed destiny is going to be more destructive than he ever intended, being unaware of the title. From Gaston’s arrival onward, Pickled Apocalypse feels like an anti-breakfast commercial written to be broadcast by aliens for instilling distrust in pancakes, pickles, and the sun. If Pierce just happens to be one of those aliens then his simple and accessible writing style, his attention to character development, and the occasional food-related violence and/or sex do his propaganda a great deal of good.
Before digging out a fork and knife to make some cuts, I'll first say that some of the following criticisms may be out of the picture by the time you pick up a copy because I read an earlier draft by the author. If they have already been resolved, then it only means that Pickled Apocalypse has been polished to a syrupy shine because all good that has been said still stands.
(So...) Pierce's propaganda may be tarnished a little by Fanny’s initial, seemingly-moronic acceptance of Gaston’s lies and the later unsubtle warning of “By the way, X, don’t go to Y” which, paraphrased, appears somewhere other than the warning Gaston got from the sun. The fact that it’s yet another plot point does not help the instant reaction of “Now X character will go to Y location and Z big thing is going to happen. I get it.”
All in all, however, Pickled Apocalypse is an impressive gallery of grotesque things happening in saccharine locations that fulfills the tragedy angle it was going for as the reader becomes sympathetic to Gaston’s want for just a little bit of happiness and watches it all crumble. Highly recommendable to prepare yourself for Pierce’s eventual conquest of the world via garlic spiders and pickles and otherwise recommendable for being a fun and engaging read.
July 9, 2012
It takes a special sort of writer to craft a fairy tale that works for adults. In Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island, Pierce has woven a finely crafted fairy tale that works on several different levels at once, making it a delight to read no matter what level of depth you’re looking for.
The story revolves around a pickle, Gaston Glew, who comes from a planet where happiness is entirely unknown. There are no birthdays, only “sad days,” and suicides are not only common, but expected. Gaston decides to act, breaking the existential cycle of malaise that binds him by building a rocket and taking off for parts unknown, driven by the motto of his favorite TV character Captain Pickle who advises everyone to “unchain yourself from this briny fate, oh pickled prisoner.” In doing so, he ends up on pancake island, a joyous place of constant celebration. It is here when the philosophical underpinnings of Pierce’s story begin to shape the narrative: can something that knows nothing but misery and horror survive in a place where happiness is omnipresent? Can it survive him?
The book is incredibly fun to read, and Pierce’s simple prose belies his ability to talk about deep matters. On the surface, this is simply a fun fairy tale, with a romantic subplot straight out of Romeo and Juliet and a lot of fun imagery. If you feel like diving into the meat, however, there’s a lot happening here that’s worth thinking about. Is the Cuddlywumpus symbolic, or is he just awesome? Does Fanny Fod (the most beautiful pancake in the world) lactate maple beer because it’s weird and unsettling, or because she’s an integral part of the world Pierce has created? Sure, Cameron Pierce can shock (he proved that with his previous book Ass Goblins of Auschwitz) but he can also rip open the underbelly of the human condition using very simply and elegant storytelling techniques.
The characters are fun, the plot and setting are a joy, and much to my surprise, the ending is quite beautiful in a way, and certainly earned. Occasionally, things enter the plot and almost immediately disappear without much exploration (like the history of the races appearing in the book, for example), but this is a minor quibble. Instead of raising dramatic plot questions, those things become added set pieces, and help the reader see the world that Pierce is trying to create. You don’t have to be interested in food to love this book, and it’s a quick and delightful read. Perfect for those new to the bizarro genre, lovers of adult fairy tales, or anyone just looking for a great commuter book. You won’t regret the sweet, sweet taste of Cameron’s maple syrup.
The story revolves around a pickle, Gaston Glew, who comes from a planet where happiness is entirely unknown. There are no birthdays, only “sad days,” and suicides are not only common, but expected. Gaston decides to act, breaking the existential cycle of malaise that binds him by building a rocket and taking off for parts unknown, driven by the motto of his favorite TV character Captain Pickle who advises everyone to “unchain yourself from this briny fate, oh pickled prisoner.” In doing so, he ends up on pancake island, a joyous place of constant celebration. It is here when the philosophical underpinnings of Pierce’s story begin to shape the narrative: can something that knows nothing but misery and horror survive in a place where happiness is omnipresent? Can it survive him?
The book is incredibly fun to read, and Pierce’s simple prose belies his ability to talk about deep matters. On the surface, this is simply a fun fairy tale, with a romantic subplot straight out of Romeo and Juliet and a lot of fun imagery. If you feel like diving into the meat, however, there’s a lot happening here that’s worth thinking about. Is the Cuddlywumpus symbolic, or is he just awesome? Does Fanny Fod (the most beautiful pancake in the world) lactate maple beer because it’s weird and unsettling, or because she’s an integral part of the world Pierce has created? Sure, Cameron Pierce can shock (he proved that with his previous book Ass Goblins of Auschwitz) but he can also rip open the underbelly of the human condition using very simply and elegant storytelling techniques.
The characters are fun, the plot and setting are a joy, and much to my surprise, the ending is quite beautiful in a way, and certainly earned. Occasionally, things enter the plot and almost immediately disappear without much exploration (like the history of the races appearing in the book, for example), but this is a minor quibble. Instead of raising dramatic plot questions, those things become added set pieces, and help the reader see the world that Pierce is trying to create. You don’t have to be interested in food to love this book, and it’s a quick and delightful read. Perfect for those new to the bizarro genre, lovers of adult fairy tales, or anyone just looking for a great commuter book. You won’t regret the sweet, sweet taste of Cameron’s maple syrup.
October 23, 2010
Fantastic fiction fosters a certain kind of melancholic anti-hero, an amoral, luckless mess of a messiah destined to do more harm than good. Now, to the ranks of Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné and Donaldson's Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever comes Gaston Glew, a pickle, narrator of Cameron Pierce's The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island: A Tragedy for People Who Eat Food. Sixteen and hereditarily-depressed, Glew escapes the confines of the pickle planet, launching himself into space in a vehicle built and fueled--literally--via the deaths of his parents. Coming to Pancake Island, Glew proceeds to indulge his every sour whim, romancing princesslike pancake Fanny Fod even as he murders her fellow pancakes with impunity, poisons the environment, and destabilizes the sun, kicking off the titular apocalypse. Strangeness abounds in a world where the fauna includes bacon vultures and an imprisoned cuddlywumpus (the source of all happiness), and the plot wickedly spirals through an absurd--if doomed--landscape toward catharsis. Like a demented children's story for adults, The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island: A Tragedy for People Who Eat Food is inspired weirdness in the Bizarro tradition from the author of Shark Hunting in Paradise Garden and Ass Goblins of Auschwitz.
June 13, 2025
Never in the history of all the universes that might be, has there been a story so human as that of Gaston Glew and his sweet Fanny Fod.
Meet Fanny Fod, a happy but lonely Queen. She is a pancake, and she hails from Zucchini Castle on Pancake Island, where all is right in the world, except... she feels an emptiness. "What is it like to be sad?" She wonders.
A world away, on Planet Pickle, a place where everyone is miserable, lives an unhapoy lass named Gaston Glew. It is his Sad Day, and nothing is going right. "I just want to get out of here," he thinks, as he builds his rocket ship from garlic spiders, nails, and other detritus. "There must be a place where people are Happy!"
Along our journey to who knows where, like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, we encounter all types of brilliant but biizzare creatures. From Bacon Vultures to honey horses - and how could I forget the tethered Cuddleywumpuss - funny things are everywhere, and with Cameron Pierce at the helm, you have to know you are in for a good time. Only he could string together all this nonsense to create a weave so delightful, so compulsive, that even the most no-nonsense reader would be hard pressed to put it down!
Vegitales, eat your heart out!
Meet Fanny Fod, a happy but lonely Queen. She is a pancake, and she hails from Zucchini Castle on Pancake Island, where all is right in the world, except... she feels an emptiness. "What is it like to be sad?" She wonders.
A world away, on Planet Pickle, a place where everyone is miserable, lives an unhapoy lass named Gaston Glew. It is his Sad Day, and nothing is going right. "I just want to get out of here," he thinks, as he builds his rocket ship from garlic spiders, nails, and other detritus. "There must be a place where people are Happy!"
Along our journey to who knows where, like Dorothy on the Yellow Brick Road, we encounter all types of brilliant but biizzare creatures. From Bacon Vultures to honey horses - and how could I forget the tethered Cuddleywumpuss - funny things are everywhere, and with Cameron Pierce at the helm, you have to know you are in for a good time. Only he could string together all this nonsense to create a weave so delightful, so compulsive, that even the most no-nonsense reader would be hard pressed to put it down!
Vegitales, eat your heart out!
November 21, 2019
Eine sehr skurrile und bizarre Geschichte. Aber auch stellenweise ziemlich witzig, wenn man sich die ganzen Szenarien vorstellt 😂
Hat mir gut gefallen und ist schnell zu lesen. Hat ja nur 84 Seiten 😂
Hat mir gut gefallen und ist schnell zu lesen. Hat ja nur 84 Seiten 😂
March 2, 2019
There’s bizarro, then there’s BIZARRO. This book is the latter.
March 27, 2023
3.5/5
Some pretty intriguing allegories. Happiness and sadness. Weirdo fever dreams. Pickles n pancakes. Neat
Some pretty intriguing allegories. Happiness and sadness. Weirdo fever dreams. Pickles n pancakes. Neat
February 9, 2025
You are free!
March 26, 2025
Weird but funny read at the same time.
December 2, 2021
Zu einem anderen Zeitpunkt hätte mir das Buch vielleicht besser gefallen, aber momentan fand ich diese abgedrehte Geschichte über eine eingelegte Gurke und einen Pfannkuchen einfach nur lächerlich und albern. Manchmal passt es einfach nicht.
October 31, 2013
I can see some people looking at the cover for The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island by Cameron Pierce and saying, “Aw! That's so cute. What could be more innocent than a pickle and a pancake falling in love?” To those people I say, “You haven't read Cameron Pierce before, have you?”
This story is what I would imagine someone would come up with if they had an acid flashback while staring into their refrigerator. It involves a pickle named Gaston Glew from the Pickled Planet, a planet who people and very environment exist in an eternal briny sadness. Gaston Glew is not satisfied being stuck in sadness and believes that happiness, or at least not-sadness, must exist somewhere in the universe. So he leaves his planet and crashes on Pancake Island, a world where everyone is eternally happy and is the last happy place in the universe. While Gaston Glew falls in love with Fanny Fod, a beautiful pancake who is responsible for the world's happiness, things end up going from bad to worse for our heroes.
As one would expect from Cameron Pierce, there's sex and violence without apology in this book, although it is toned down a little from some of his other works I've read. The prose is excellent and flows like rich maple syrup. The character are likeable if tragic in a way, and even though Gaston Glew can occasionally come off as a bit of a phallus (word changed to get through censorship scanners; you know what I mean), he's still identifiably flawed.
Some might focus on the book's commentary on social norms as they relate to depression and happiness, and, yes, I can see this. It could easily be argued the Pierce is putting an almost childish veneer on a story about being trapped in sadness and depression, but how those in persistent states of happiness can act like complete idiots, and a search for a happy medium. After all, the only characters who actually achieve anything in this story are those who suffer from at least some sadness, while the characters who are eternally happy do nothing but dance and act like idiots. It's simple, but in its own way it works.
Occasionally, logic needs to get thrown out the window for the sake of the story, such has how Gaston Glew's rocket boosters actually work. However, if you've read Pierce before, you'll expect him to play with physical rules a little bit. I mean, this is a book about living pickles and pancakes, so how realistic can it actually get? Still, it does stretch the limits in suspending disbelief a few times, even for a story that runs on cartoon physics.
Overall, it's a good story with bizarro elements that's comparatively tame but definitely not innocent. With serious flawed but identifiable characters and easy, smooth prose, I feel comfortable giving this one a recommendation.
The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island by Cameron Pierce earns 4 pints of maple syrup out of 5.
This story is what I would imagine someone would come up with if they had an acid flashback while staring into their refrigerator. It involves a pickle named Gaston Glew from the Pickled Planet, a planet who people and very environment exist in an eternal briny sadness. Gaston Glew is not satisfied being stuck in sadness and believes that happiness, or at least not-sadness, must exist somewhere in the universe. So he leaves his planet and crashes on Pancake Island, a world where everyone is eternally happy and is the last happy place in the universe. While Gaston Glew falls in love with Fanny Fod, a beautiful pancake who is responsible for the world's happiness, things end up going from bad to worse for our heroes.
As one would expect from Cameron Pierce, there's sex and violence without apology in this book, although it is toned down a little from some of his other works I've read. The prose is excellent and flows like rich maple syrup. The character are likeable if tragic in a way, and even though Gaston Glew can occasionally come off as a bit of a phallus (word changed to get through censorship scanners; you know what I mean), he's still identifiably flawed.
Some might focus on the book's commentary on social norms as they relate to depression and happiness, and, yes, I can see this. It could easily be argued the Pierce is putting an almost childish veneer on a story about being trapped in sadness and depression, but how those in persistent states of happiness can act like complete idiots, and a search for a happy medium. After all, the only characters who actually achieve anything in this story are those who suffer from at least some sadness, while the characters who are eternally happy do nothing but dance and act like idiots. It's simple, but in its own way it works.
Occasionally, logic needs to get thrown out the window for the sake of the story, such has how Gaston Glew's rocket boosters actually work. However, if you've read Pierce before, you'll expect him to play with physical rules a little bit. I mean, this is a book about living pickles and pancakes, so how realistic can it actually get? Still, it does stretch the limits in suspending disbelief a few times, even for a story that runs on cartoon physics.
Overall, it's a good story with bizarro elements that's comparatively tame but definitely not innocent. With serious flawed but identifiable characters and easy, smooth prose, I feel comfortable giving this one a recommendation.
The Pickled Apocalypse of Pancake Island by Cameron Pierce earns 4 pints of maple syrup out of 5.
September 16, 2022
Another great read by Cameron Pierce.
A bitter-sweet (ha!) tale about the infinite pursuit of happiness and how it seems so, so, so painfully out of grasp and the ways we ruin it once we get there.
Seasoned with a mustachoe'd sun who's favorite word is "Suicide". Honestly, what more can you ask?
A bitter-sweet (ha!) tale about the infinite pursuit of happiness and how it seems so, so, so painfully out of grasp and the ways we ruin it once we get there.
Seasoned with a mustachoe'd sun who's favorite word is "Suicide". Honestly, what more can you ask?
August 18, 2016
Gaston Glew is a pickle and Fanny W. Fod is a pancake. From the very beginning, the reader can tell this book will be bizarre. This story was everything I have and have not imagined about pickles and pancakes. The writing style was curt and to the point and the author spared no details when it came to sticky subjects such as suicide, death, murder, and sex but he did provide a strange perspective: that of a pickle. This pickle was not just any pickle. It was a sad pickle. Did the author choose a phallic vegetable on purpose? Pickles do come with their own associations and prejudices.
As I read the story, I felt like I could smell and taste the sickly sweetness of the maple syrup and the briny sourness of the pickled pancakes and it totally grossed me out! Cameron Pierce effectively captured all my senses in relation to pickles and pancakes, unusual subjects. Pierce has imagined every nook and cranny of these two subjects and then mashed them together in an uncommon storyline that is so bizarre I don’t know what to think. Pierce was able to capture a different perspective with his edible characters, translating death, sadness, and happiness into tangible shaped concepts.
The plot was straightforward, to find Happiness (as a pickle) but the plot seemed wandering and mildly purposeless. I thought the story got a little chatty with the author’s own musings on the subjects of happiness and sadness with too much emphasis placed on the characters’ thoughts and feelings. However, Pierce wrote a wonderfully imaginative story about what could and would happen if pickles and pancakes were alive in a world where unequivocal certainties are not complete realities on Pancake Island.
Pierce’s writing style reminded me of the curiosity of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry mixed with the emotional wanderings of The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein.
Would I recommend this book?
This book is different. If you are not willing to read something bizarre, then I would not recommend this book. Also, the detailed sex scene might be overwhelming for certain readers (even when it’s between two made-up characters: a pickle and a pancake). I enjoyed the book, it gave me some ideas for my own unusual fiction. Also, the author is highly imaginative and I appreciated reading the book just for the odd tidbits of imagination.
As I read the story, I felt like I could smell and taste the sickly sweetness of the maple syrup and the briny sourness of the pickled pancakes and it totally grossed me out! Cameron Pierce effectively captured all my senses in relation to pickles and pancakes, unusual subjects. Pierce has imagined every nook and cranny of these two subjects and then mashed them together in an uncommon storyline that is so bizarre I don’t know what to think. Pierce was able to capture a different perspective with his edible characters, translating death, sadness, and happiness into tangible shaped concepts.
The plot was straightforward, to find Happiness (as a pickle) but the plot seemed wandering and mildly purposeless. I thought the story got a little chatty with the author’s own musings on the subjects of happiness and sadness with too much emphasis placed on the characters’ thoughts and feelings. However, Pierce wrote a wonderfully imaginative story about what could and would happen if pickles and pancakes were alive in a world where unequivocal certainties are not complete realities on Pancake Island.
Pierce’s writing style reminded me of the curiosity of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry mixed with the emotional wanderings of The Missing Piece Meets the Big O by Shel Silverstein.
Would I recommend this book?
This book is different. If you are not willing to read something bizarre, then I would not recommend this book. Also, the detailed sex scene might be overwhelming for certain readers (even when it’s between two made-up characters: a pickle and a pancake). I enjoyed the book, it gave me some ideas for my own unusual fiction. Also, the author is highly imaginative and I appreciated reading the book just for the odd tidbits of imagination.
May 5, 2011
I won this book at the first-reads giveaway, which got me excited since it's not the kind of book I would pick up at a bookstore, and it's always fun to expand one's reading preferences. Even with all the weirdness, it was a light read and almost felt like a kids fairytale (apart from explicit intimate scenes in the middle). Yet the plot wasn’t shallow: I found myself drawing parallels and making analogies all throughout the book.
On levels of weirdness: there were “nice” weird moments (the whole pickle-pancake love relationship), “funny” weird (getting a wrapped “nothing” as a gift for the 16th Sad Day), “slightly creepy” weird (using mother’s and father’s corpses as rocket boosters), and “totally creepy” weird (murdering the “rocket humping” pancake child).
In a way it’s a book about controversy: wanting to be happy yet despising happiness in others; allowing lies in love; mindless happiness that comes with lack of morale. The all-forgiving and sacrificing nature of love seems to be questioned as well. Yet Gaston’s quest for happiness ends on a somewhat positive note: what seemed like the end, was just a new beginning, the apocalypse turned out to be the much-need liberation.
My favorite quote from the book: “What you were is what a part of you will always be”.
On levels of weirdness: there were “nice” weird moments (the whole pickle-pancake love relationship), “funny” weird (getting a wrapped “nothing” as a gift for the 16th Sad Day), “slightly creepy” weird (using mother’s and father’s corpses as rocket boosters), and “totally creepy” weird (murdering the “rocket humping” pancake child).
In a way it’s a book about controversy: wanting to be happy yet despising happiness in others; allowing lies in love; mindless happiness that comes with lack of morale. The all-forgiving and sacrificing nature of love seems to be questioned as well. Yet Gaston’s quest for happiness ends on a somewhat positive note: what seemed like the end, was just a new beginning, the apocalypse turned out to be the much-need liberation.
My favorite quote from the book: “What you were is what a part of you will always be”.
March 22, 2014
You know, when I was still new to the concept of Bizarro and saw these outlandish covers and even more outlandish titles staring out at me from my Amazon recommendations, I was skeptical. Certainly, I had an admiration for what Eraserhead Press was doing, but I wasn't sure it was going to have the legs it now does. As the years went by and they became stronger, with even more outlandish titles and cover art staring back at me, I had to begin to approach some of their titles with a bit more curiosity and gravitas.
My first impression looking at this cover is that it's a kid's book for adults, and that's not far off the mark. But it's also a well written parable about what happens when people from two vastly different cultures and walks of life come together for the sake of love. Gaston Glew's world is dying. His arrival on Pancake Island seems to usher in a certain portent of doom as his pickled essence seems to infect everyone that comes in contact with him, but not Fanny. Two races died so Fanny and Gaston could become one. Love conquers all. Fin.
I should also mention that Cameron Pierce would go on to write Bizarro fiction that was far more involved, way funnier and a great deal more bizarre.
My first impression looking at this cover is that it's a kid's book for adults, and that's not far off the mark. But it's also a well written parable about what happens when people from two vastly different cultures and walks of life come together for the sake of love. Gaston Glew's world is dying. His arrival on Pancake Island seems to usher in a certain portent of doom as his pickled essence seems to infect everyone that comes in contact with him, but not Fanny. Two races died so Fanny and Gaston could become one. Love conquers all. Fin.
I should also mention that Cameron Pierce would go on to write Bizarro fiction that was far more involved, way funnier and a great deal more bizarre.
June 19, 2011
In this wonderful fairy tale like story Cameron Pierce creates a world that is deliciously consumed by imagination. It is simple and yet oh so complicated.
Gaston Glew is a depressed pickle from Pickle Planet, where everything is sad and pickle life ends in suicide. Gaston decides he wants to escape his Eternal Pickle Plight and fleas his planet in search of something more.
He crashes upon Pancake Island the most happy place in the universe and home of pancakes. The sad pickle finds more than happiness on the island Gaston finds himself in love with Fanny Fod the most beautiful pancake in the universe.
Even thought Gaston has found love in the happiest place in the universe can he out run his own Eternal Pickle Plight?
Read and learn what unfolds.
Gaston Glew is a depressed pickle from Pickle Planet, where everything is sad and pickle life ends in suicide. Gaston decides he wants to escape his Eternal Pickle Plight and fleas his planet in search of something more.
He crashes upon Pancake Island the most happy place in the universe and home of pancakes. The sad pickle finds more than happiness on the island Gaston finds himself in love with Fanny Fod the most beautiful pancake in the universe.
Even thought Gaston has found love in the happiest place in the universe can he out run his own Eternal Pickle Plight?
Read and learn what unfolds.
April 25, 2011
Interesting story...Fanny Fod is a pancake,the most beautiful pancake on Pancake Island! Everyone is happy on Pancake Island, sadness is unheard of, except Fanny wonders about it and wishes for it.
Gaston Glew is a pickle who decides to leave Pickle Plant to get away from the sadness as that is all there is in his life and on his planet. Gaston is looking for happiness is it out there?
Gaston arrives on Pancake Island and meets Fanny Fod...can they find balance for each other and their world?
Gaston Glew is a pickle who decides to leave Pickle Plant to get away from the sadness as that is all there is in his life and on his planet. Gaston is looking for happiness is it out there?
Gaston arrives on Pancake Island and meets Fanny Fod...can they find balance for each other and their world?
October 22, 2012
The level of weirdness in this book is pleasantly addictive especially when you have food characters that represents human emotions. The concept/idea works brilliantly even though I find the sex scene hard to digest. It's like the oddest thing I've read in a long time. The book is a quick read but incredibly fun and imaginative. I believe that this book isn't just written for the sake of being weird. Pierce's ability to talk about deep matters without being overly emo or annoyingly angsty made it such an honest story to read. This is one of the many books that I will re-read again.
October 13, 2011
Gaston knows how to crash a party when he lands on Pancake Island, filled with maple syrupy happiness and superficial bliss. Then he encounters Fanny Fod and her secretive Cuddlywumpus. Enter her zucchini castle and discover a love so whacky and satisfying that it will blow up your reality and create a new universe. Ah, to love those blueberry eyes, to delight in those peanut butter lips! Whatta' quick and crazy read.
February 20, 2011
Funny and depressing. Silly and disturbing. Light-hearted and offensive. I don't know what to say. I'm at a loss for words. Except for, you know, those words I just used. I guess I'm saying this book is full of contradictions. Like pickles and pancakes.
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