Editors’ note: This review represents the first time the Piece of Shit Book Club™ has been requested to review a book by the author. It must because of our stinging yet positive literary critiques. That, and the boner gags. And here is that book, written by our very own HotBot, an Australian type person who according to our friend SaltySankhala, may just be an internet bot. Stay tuned for the next review in the Piece of Shit Book Club™, when it will be HotBot’s turn to write as she reviews a book assigned to her by the boys. And that book is going to be a genuine, bona fide Piece of Shit™.

The first rule of fairy tales is that you do not talk about fairy tales.

The second rule about fairy tales is that, as the author tells us, the characters live happily ever after.

Pickles and Ponies is, ostensibly, a fairy tale written by an Australian robot cum author, Laura May (try not to get a mental image of the phrase “cum author”). But as the pages pass, it becomes pretty clear pretty quickly that the story is just a cover for the author’s own sexual fantasies.

Our story opens in the land of Raduga, a fairy tale world populated only by princes, princesses, and their bizarre sexual slaves. The story opens with a meeting between Prince Randolph and Princess Christine, as he tries to “steal her cherry”… I don’t want to say what we thought that meant at first because it might be offensive. Lets just assume its an actual cherry and move on.

In the opening of the story, we learn that adulthood is a sickness, caught from “gu-fairies.” Yup. In Raduga there is a bizarre race of creatures called the “gu-fairies”, whose name is certainly synonymous with jizm (this analogy was clearly intended by our author, as she seems to employ an infuriating amount of puns even Piers Anthony would sneer at). The jizz-fairies assault the children, which turns them into adults. After the assault, people wrap themselves up in a little cocoon for a week and then emerge as an adult. The jizz fairies probably represent someone’s first time masturbating, but it isn’t exactly clear. Though I do know that after I first figured out how to help my Lyndon B. run for office, I probably didn’t leave my bedroom for solid  week. The adulthood part is still a question mark. Either way, the jizz-fairies justify what they are doing by saying they didn’t really mean to hurt the kids, and they only did it because they love the children so much.

Indeed. I feel like I’ve heard that excuse before.

We also learn that the special move that Princess Christine uses is “the poke.” I wonder what that means. Here’s a quote; “Randolph had witnessed the power of the Poke many times growing up with Christine, and was committed to making sure his son was an expert in all aspects of poking.”

Indeed. I feel like I’ve heard that somewhere before.

The poke, which it’s hard not to assume refers to banging, functions as a cure-all response to pretty much any obstacle the characters of Raduga face. If there’s a tree in your way, just bang it into sawdust. If a plank of wood is too short, just bang it until it extends to your desired length. If your daughter is depressed, just hire Raduga’s Ron Jeremy to come in and sort her out. While fucking a tree may seem a bit far fetched, keep in mind that in Raduga almost everything from a ship to the ocean itself has some anthropomorphic qualities. Nothing is safe from the poke.

After a bunch of magic, cherry-stealing, and the poking of innocents (mostly, it seems, children) we eventually learn of our main characters. One is Vanya, the Prince of Quite Large and Really Rather Big Fish (if you imagine our author as a female Douglas Adams playing on the floor with My Little Pony dolls, a lot of the themes in this book start to gain some perspective). Due to a curse, he has no emotion. He has assigned to him a horse, named Horse, who is able to talk, and explains Vanya’s emotions to him.

Vanya’s female counterpart is the Princess Melodia of Rather Fish-Like Things. After reading too many fairy tales, she decides to exile herself to a deserted island while awaiting her prince to come rescue her. For some reason, Vanya’s parents decide that if he were to rescue Princess Melodia, he might get his emotions back.

Along the way, he must complete a number of tasks. One involves a witch, from whom Vanya frees a new sidekick named Theo. Another task involves Vanya, Horse and Theo assailing a giant cliff. They receive assistance from Hammy the Hamster. I assume the author got copyright clearance for that one.

Melodia, meanwhile, gets bored and is manipulated into banging a dude every day for the promise of new clothes. Once he starts to find their relationship dull he threatens to start banging new island floozies unless she starts doing it a “new way” by insinuating she is stuck up and not “willing to explore a bit” (italicization is the author’s). Of course the author means anal. This all by a guy who is half-man half-seal, known as a selkie. Whereas I thought this was made up, I found out later that it is actually a real thing. There are actually references in Gaelic mythology to people fucking seals. What. The. Fuck.

If you were hoping for our protagonists to stop fucking seals and horses and whatnot, you will end up disappointed. As Vanya’s quest to save the Princess Melodia continues, he ends up deciding to join a circus for seven years. He abandons his Horse, who starts fucking a sea-horse… who knocks him up. True story.

In spite of all the build up, which seems to be bringing Vanya and Melodia together, this does not come to pass. Instead, Melodia starts banging Theo, and the book ends tragically; the mentally handicapped Vanya left by the wayside while the emotionally stable ride off into the sunset. Vanya gets his heart restored just in time to get dumped, breaking rule number 2: characters live happily ever after.

Although well-written and not a Piece Of Shit™ by our normal standards, it’s hard not to wonder if the author just needed a cheap cover to write a story about sex with seals and horses and getting covered in goo by jizz-fairies. That’s certainly the impression up-front. But past these curtains of spunk sits a window overlooking some interesting themes; feminism, a woman’s role in the world, expectations and fantasy versus reality, isolation and friendship, horses, etc., are all examined from an innocent and very literal perspective, akin to South Park’s social commentary. They are well placed and fitting.

However, at times it feels like the fairy-tale is a vehicle that perhaps hinders the author as much as it aids her, insofar as while it grants the author plenty of maneuverability, it also means that we the readers have a tougher time connecting with characters or empathizing with their jizz-coated tribulations. It IS satire, of course, but she who fights fairies should be careful lest she herself become a jizz-fairy. And so in the end, we’d recommend for May to light some candles, put on some Lionel Ritchie, wrap up in a seal-pelt, and get acquainted with her own gu-fairies. ‘Cause fairy tales are for perfect princesses, and judging by the undercurrents of sexual depravity in her first book, a perfect princess she ain’t.

If you haven’t already caught on, Laura May has a wicked sense of humor – not just by the fact that she submitted her book so we could take the piss out of it.  Grab her book here.

Beau Dashington, Admiral Fartmore, and Peartree

14/11/2014