If the premise isn’t interesting enough, the layout of the story changes along with the protagonist. The print starts out in a type of handwritten scrawl. As Mitchell’s transformation progresses, so does the typeset from handwriting to type to schematic layout. All of this is followed by chapters serving as prologues for the lives touched by Mitchell’s life in some fashion. What is most interesting is the chapter comprised entirely from other sources, ranging from reviews, articles, other books, and a paraphrased line from an e-mail between friend and author. What is most important about all of this, the story is able to hold its own, built with a foundation almost as strong as the main character.

Even though the story is oddly similar to another major release within the last year, the two books could not be any more different. Ross’s As a Machine and Parts is darker, more literary, and technically sound when it comes to the format. As is usually the case with Max Barry’s writing, Machine Man is well written and entertaining, but it hardly sinks its teeth into the reader the way that As a Machine and Parts does. Ross is easily the powerhouse here. His characters stay with you. Even turning into a machine, Mitchell is more human, he’s a rounder character, more real. Ross’s writing doesn’t allow you to question the possibilities. You don’t have the time to wonder if this story were real. The sharp dialogue and poetic narrative either pulls you along for the ride or lays you to waste in a euphoria of grotesque domestic fiction.

The only drawback, and perhaps this is just a minor complaint, is the length. Although As a Machine and Parts is dubbed a novella, the story is far too rich. There’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. However, you’re still left wanting, there’s room for more. The book is a complete story, but there’s room for so much here, and so when the final page is turned, you’re left with the satisfaction of time well spent. But the empty breeze inside of you, that nagging whine in the back of your head that it is over all too soon gets too loud to ignore.

Release Date: December 15, 2011
Order: HERE
Official Website: HERE

“Same old bullshit.”

Whether the visit with mom and dad was a nonsensical waste of time spent watching the clock until it was time to run for the airport gates is unclear, because as you progress from chapter to chapter, the first page of this story continues to ring true. If you aren’t reading about the things that the main character has done to women, you’re reading what he would be doing to various women that he sees as he walks the streets of L.A. This leaves the main character standing alone in the rain, looking into the sky, trying to figure out how he can stick his member in a cloud’s ass, rather than screaming at god, questioning why he’s such a flat character. Seriously, that’s about it. He thinks with his penis, and that’s the story.

To The Average American Male‘s benefit, the language is short, amusing, and timely, allowing for the pages to progress along at a rather painless pace. And the narrator is a witty, sarcastic, ass, allowing for his inner-thoughts to entertain you, as he thinks up graphic ways to punish his girlfriend while she’s being obnoxious. However the possibility that you’re reading someone’s blog just out of college, still attempting to relive those nights in the fraternity is, more and to the point, a higher probability than someone sitting at home saying, “I want to write a book about this guy…” No one wants to write a book about this guy. He’s a one-note superficial misogynist and his only redeeming quality is that he willingly gives to the poor and homeless.

Release Date: March 13, 2007
Order: HERE
Official Website: HERE

1. Deftones – Eros – Prior to bassist, Chi Cheng, getting into an accident and slipping into a coma that he has yet to defeat, Eros was in the works and was due to come out in the spring of 2009. Since his accident, the album was scrapped, a fund raising tour resulted, followed by Diamond Eyes. Eros was being described as the both “the most aggressive” and “the most experimental.”

2. Brand New – Fight Off Your Demons – Nine demos leaked prior to The Devil & God Are Raging Inside Me that were referred to as an album called Fight Off Your Demons (the name of the band’s current website). Since the leaks, the album has fragmented into portions of other songs such as “Untitled #8″ being reworked and mastered as “Sowing Season (Yeah!)” and “Untitled #6,” also known as “Mamas,” later became “Luca.” A number of others became songs we we’ve come to know and love on The Devil & God…, Daisy, and other assorted singles and B-Sides. However, as I’m a huge Brand New mark, I’d love to also hear what that album would have sounded like.

3. Finch – World of Violence – What was supposed to be the band’s third full album following their self-titled EP, has been lost due to “broadened musical pallets [sic],” also the reason for the band’s final termination. A number of the songs that were to be on this album were performed life and mastered for a digital re-issue of the band’s EP, Finch.

4. My Chemical Romance – N/A – The album was due to be the follow-up to The Black Parade, and it was promised to be a stripped down punk album. Gerard Way was throwing around names of influential bands like The Stooges and The Misfits. They swore they’d drop the make-up and costumes, that they were getting back to the music and away from the drama and stage presence that made them who they were. And then they trashed it in favor of Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, 53 minutes and 56 seconds of audible garbage.

5. Fiona Apple – Extraordinary Machine – Released on October 4, 2005, Extraordinary Machine was Apple’s third album, and the follow-up to When the Pawn… It was to mark her return after a hiatus of years when the singer/songwriter had moved to Los Angeles and wasn’t inspired to write any further. The album was also to serve as a distraction for Jon Brion, long-time Apple producer and friend, who had recently split with Mary Lynn Rajskub, an actress featured in Punch-Drunk Love, a movie he was scoring. Apple began writing and working with Brion on the album. It was then halted, rewritten and rerecorded without Brion for more of a mainstream appeal, working with Brian Kehew of The Moog Cookbook, Mike Elizondo, and ?uestlove of The Roots.