Speaking of Eirik Gumeny\u2014he was an old Cracked.com<\/em> comrade<\/a>, a great speculative fiction writer, and good dude. Atomic Carnival Press is entirely his brainchild. He was taken from us too soon a couple of years of back, and indie lit is lesser for it. Monica Rodriguez took the mantle of this anthology up, and I’m so grateful to her for doing so. Pre-order Eat The Rich <\/em>here!<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Okay, let’s get to a book that’s actually out in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What I’ve Been Reading This Week<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n A book that my friend Tommy Beanbags bought for me and shipped to my house with a handwritten note signed “- T. Beanbags,” which made me laugh a whole lot. The note now lives with the book, Beans. A book that refuses to ever explain why or how any of this is happening, and is all the scarier for it. A book that taught me that you can butcher rats and get hallucinogenic highs by eating venomous spiders (I, uh, will not <\/em>be verifying or even testing this info). A book that has characters imagining the Midwest as some kind of holy place, which, well. Some parts of it, for sure. I’m talking, of course, about Edge of the Known Bus Line<\/em> by James R. Galpinski. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Edge of the Known Bus Line <\/em>by James R. Gapinski<\/strong>: so listen what’s happening is this our narrator gets on the bus for work, right? She works in a deli. The bus, however, switches to Out Of Service. Instead of letting everyone off, the bus’s destination is now Out Of Service. <\/em>Passengers are forced off the bus at gunpoint and left stranded at Out Of Service, a wasteland where people eat rats, bugs, spiders, and even dead people2<\/a><\/sup>. No one has names: our narrator befriends a woman wearing a tarp whom she names Tarp Lady. Tarp Lady’s boyfriend is a guy with a condom wrapper eye patch that the narrator nicknames Condom Eye. A fellow passenger, a regular on the narrator’s bus route who stares at her ass all the time, becomes Ass-Starer. We learn there are a couple of cult\/gangs: the Chicago Faction, who believes that one day a bus destined for Chicago\/O’hare will come and take them away, the Pittsburgh Faction, who seem about as relevant as the Pittsburgh Steelers, and the Cleveland Faction, who lives in the hills, eating spiders and having visions of Cleveland. Our narrator studiously tries to avoid being in any faction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A few elements combine to make this book really great: 1) Out Of Service is a truly messed up place that is inescapable\u2014the bus will not take you back, the mountains are unforgiving, anyone who ventures into the tunnel where the bus disappears only ever seems to come back out of the tunnel. It’s purgatorial. Some people have been there for nearly a decade. 2) our narrator, a working class woman who has survived and won’t really talk much about a troubled marriage, takes it all more or less in stride. I mean, she’s trying to escape, she’s trying to undermine the authority of the Factions, and she’s trying to stay alive. But there’s no crying, no woe-is-me. It’s almost like just a shitty day at work, except it’s upwards of a month3<\/a><\/sup>that she spends in Out Of Service. 3) Nothing is ever explained. I don’t want to spoil the ending, but there’s no “here’s why Out Of Service exists, here’s what it’s a metaphor for, here’s the Dark God behind it” or whatever. The novel ends, satisfactorily, but not with any new information. That might be the most unsettling aspect. You are not in control of your own life, no matter how mundane your commute. Things just happen <\/em>to people. There’s not much you can do about it. Except try to stay alive. Eat rats if you must. <\/p>\n\n\n\n LINKS!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Something to listen to while you browse? Hey, new DOMi & JD BECK out last week! I’ve listened through a couple times, and need to do another pass through with headphones. First impression is that I do<\/em> really like it\u2014there’s more singing and less minimalism than the previous one, but it feels like growth rather than overextension. It’s just more to wrap my head around than expected. Their first album is something I think anyone can easily get into. This one takes a few more listens. Still, I feel lucky to get to watch these two musicians grow. They’re both like 23 or something *looks it up* <\/em>okay the internet is inconclusive, but they might both be younger than 23. Goddamn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"book](\"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/image.png\")
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