Sausagey Santa by Carlton Mellick III
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
If there’s one thing that you should take away from Sausagey Santa by Carlton Mellick III, it’s probably that you should never marry a woman named Decapitron because she will annihilate you.
“Sly Guy” Matthew Fry is in such a predicament. He marries a dominatrix who calls herself Decapitron, who is also into ultimate fighting by night (you can guess what her signature move is just by her name). But now it’s Christmas Eve, and their family is together to share in her Christmas traditions, which included the telling of the true story of Santa. You see, King Kringle was actually an evil man who hated children and the Baby Jesus, so after several acts in accordance with this hatred, he is cursed to live forever and spread joy to children on Christmas, which is a living Hell for him. He tries to kill himself several times, but he can’t die, and the elves being master worksmen simply repair him. Finally, he thinks he’s found a way out by jumping into a meat grinder. While the elves are perplexed for a couple of days, they finally just stuff Kringle’s meat paste into sausage balloons, reassemble him into a reasonable human shape, and put him back to work. Over time, he learned to enjoy his task, and became known as Sausagey Santa, or Santa for short.
And that’s just the beginning of the story. Things get a lot more complicated when Sly Fry learns the story is true. And Frosty is involved. And there’s a kidnapping. And a cabbage suit. And zombies.
This novel was actually really awesome. I loved this take on the Santa story, and found myself laughing quite a few times, particularly at the way Santa talks like pirate (and laughs like one, as opposed to the traditional “Ho ho ho!”). Great action, great sense of humor, and great at turning conventions on their heads.
A complaint I typically have with a lot of Bizarro books is the ending. That is not the case with this story. The ending was perfect, not necessarily wrapped up nice and neat like a Christmas present, but still perfect for the tone of the story.
If I do have a complaint, it would be two things. The kids were…okay, but frankly felt a little off. Don’t get me wrong, they fit well into the story, and yet it felt like they could use more development or have a couple of them removed altogether. The second is the villain. The only development or characterization we get is background info told by Santa and the elves. He doesn’t have much of a character himself. The old saying goes that an audience will hate a good villain, but love a great one. But this one I was nearly indifferent to and simply had a presence to develop the heroes, and had no real character himself, which was disappointing giving how clever his concept is otherwise.
So break out the television cake, put on those chainsaw angel wings, and fry up some oysters. This one is a good, if only minorly flawed, ride.
Sausagey Santa by Carlton Mellick III earned 4 fried oysters out of 5.
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