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The Earworm Inception
A food truck craze involving human cannibalism. A Texas Governor who obsessively listens to Rebecca Black right before every state execution. A chainsaw factory that plays Ozzy Osbourne for its welding robots. An ex-girlfriend drunk-dialing from Kandahar, where she's starting a Shakey's Pizza restaurant chain. And an endless search to find the right mix of prescription medication to stop the memories of a bizarre past.These mad stories make up the latest by Jon Konrath, a collection of 20 flash fiction narratives that cross between metafiction and experimental prose, telling grim and absurd fast-paced tales about Konrath's life in a twisted fashion.
134 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
3 people are currently reading
78 people want to read
About the author
Jon Konrath
37 books88 followersJon Konrath is an American author born in 1971. He grew up in Indiana and studied computer science and English at Indiana University. After college, he worked as a software developer and technical writer, but eventually turned his attention to writing fiction.
Konrath is the author of several books, including "Rumored to Exist," "Thunderbird," and "The Earworm Inception." His writing is known for its unique blend of humor, absurdism, and surrealism, often blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
In addition to writing, Konrath is also an accomplished photographer. He currently resides in California.
Konrath is the author of several books, including "Rumored to Exist," "Thunderbird," and "The Earworm Inception." His writing is known for its unique blend of humor, absurdism, and surrealism, often blurring the lines between reality and fantasy.
In addition to writing, Konrath is also an accomplished photographer. He currently resides in California.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
September 1, 2014
Konrath's stories read a lot like my dreams -- sick, twisted, and probably suggestive of all sorts of undiagnosed psychiatric issues. The difference here is that, while I've rarely been able to capture the same kind of madness on paper, Konrath succeeds in blending even his most surreal notions with just the right amount of logic necessary for storytelling.
Now, I'm not suggesting that he draws his material from a star-speckled journal on his nightstand or anything so lame as that. Quite to the contrary, I suspect that Konrath's imagination runs at its least inhibited when he's wide awake and typing these completely whacked, uproarious stories.
While some are more even-keeled than others, most of them are rank with the funky interminglings of free association and realism -- unexpected bedfellows, to say the least. There's probably not many writers capable of telling tales like these with a face as straight as Konrath's, but whenever such seemingly opposite approaches come together as well as they do in The Earworm Inception, it usually makes for pretty interesting reading.
Each of its 20 pieces represents a scattershot slice of life, exposing myriad indecencies and absurdities through the perspective of our comically troubled narrator(s). The late-night phone conversation with a certain Texas governor ("Ten Reasons Rick Perry Isn't Getting the New Amazon Tablet") is probably worth the price of admission alone. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to watch an OJ-esque police chase featuring R. Kelly in a stolen Oscar Meyer Wiener wagon ("I Believe I Can Flee the State"), then consider it icing on the cake. There's no shortage of either cake or icing in this deliciously oddball collection, so readers with a sweet tooth for that kind of thing won't mind overdosing on the fistfuls of candy-coated pills suggested within.
For more Konrath:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
Now, I'm not suggesting that he draws his material from a star-speckled journal on his nightstand or anything so lame as that. Quite to the contrary, I suspect that Konrath's imagination runs at its least inhibited when he's wide awake and typing these completely whacked, uproarious stories.
While some are more even-keeled than others, most of them are rank with the funky interminglings of free association and realism -- unexpected bedfellows, to say the least. There's probably not many writers capable of telling tales like these with a face as straight as Konrath's, but whenever such seemingly opposite approaches come together as well as they do in The Earworm Inception, it usually makes for pretty interesting reading.
Each of its 20 pieces represents a scattershot slice of life, exposing myriad indecencies and absurdities through the perspective of our comically troubled narrator(s). The late-night phone conversation with a certain Texas governor ("Ten Reasons Rick Perry Isn't Getting the New Amazon Tablet") is probably worth the price of admission alone. If you've ever wondered what it would be like to watch an OJ-esque police chase featuring R. Kelly in a stolen Oscar Meyer Wiener wagon ("I Believe I Can Flee the State"), then consider it icing on the cake. There's no shortage of either cake or icing in this deliciously oddball collection, so readers with a sweet tooth for that kind of thing won't mind overdosing on the fistfuls of candy-coated pills suggested within.
For more Konrath:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...
March 25, 2012
The Earworm Inception is like that awesome metal band you discovered in 11th grade that nobody had heard of and everybody you let listen to it thought it was amazing because you were all cranked up on cheap speed at that age. At least that’s what it is to me… A rare gem in the endless Amazon catalog that nobody will ever hear of or read.
But if ever does get popular, I’m gonna feel like a totally before-my-time hipster that let people borrow the book and fall in love with it one at a time. Just like that metal band in high-school, only with less speed this time.
But if ever does get popular, I’m gonna feel like a totally before-my-time hipster that let people borrow the book and fall in love with it one at a time. Just like that metal band in high-school, only with less speed this time.
March 27, 2013
The Earworm Inception is a collection of about twenty gonzo-nutty short stories wherein Jon Konrath displays his signature techno-nerd cynicism and subversive humor through a writing style where plot and other traditional storytelling devices are sacrificed to the gods of hyperbole, factual distortion, mashed-up pop culture reference, and free association in order to give modern consumer culture the blistering satirical spanking it deserves.
The devil’s in the details. A Subway shop run by Abraham Lincoln and Helen Keller (for the purpose of financing their speed metal band), R. Kelly steels an Oscar Mayer weinermobile and flees down the interstate for televised OJ-style public consumption, a lobotomized Wendy's team member sports Dave Thomas tattoos all over her forearms, games of Russian roulette are played for yuletide fun on Christmas, the patronage of “Taco Bell sports bars” and “combination laundromat/bait shop/mini-McDonolads,” Crispin Glover as the President, and the increasingly popular yousnuff.com, just to name a few.
For more Konrathian shenanigans, go read the book.
The devil’s in the details. A Subway shop run by Abraham Lincoln and Helen Keller (for the purpose of financing their speed metal band), R. Kelly steels an Oscar Mayer weinermobile and flees down the interstate for televised OJ-style public consumption, a lobotomized Wendy's team member sports Dave Thomas tattoos all over her forearms, games of Russian roulette are played for yuletide fun on Christmas, the patronage of “Taco Bell sports bars” and “combination laundromat/bait shop/mini-McDonolads,” Crispin Glover as the President, and the increasingly popular yousnuff.com, just to name a few.
For more Konrathian shenanigans, go read the book.
February 24, 2013
This book has all the bizarre fun I've come to hope for from Konrath. I think we aren't truly able to contemplate how messed up contemporary life is until we extend our trends to their extremes and twist that reflection back upon ourselves. Konrath does that, and does it well. I can't wait for his next book.
June 15, 2012
REVIEW ALSO ON: http://bibliomantics.com/2012/06/12/b......
The majority of the stories in this collection, which are written in super short flash fiction, feature strange characters in an even stranger universe intriguingly similar to our own. They also seem to revolve around author Jon Konrath, called Kon by his close-friend (in the novel) Rick Perry and the strange circumstances that revolved around his life semi-fictional life. Everyone in these tales are marked with unique character traits, hilarity, and popular culture references galore. In a word: bizarro. (NOTE: The Earworm Inception is currently available for free on the Kindle!)
Half the stories are titled like “Big Bang Theory” episodes, from “The Chainsaw Baron Prophecy”, to “The Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test Manifesto”, “The Chapman Protocol Conundrum”, “The MovieFone Snuff Film Agenda”, and the titular “The Earworm Inception”. Still others read like newspaper headlines, such as: “Nancy Grace Shit-fits and why you should start learning how to make soap and ammunition” and “40% of all UFO sightings that lead to anal coring of cattle take place on a Monday or Friday”. The titles will have you laughing, and the stories will keep you reading.
We are initially introduced to this parallel world in “The Chainsaw Baron Prophecy”, which revolves around a copy editor who gets high on mass amounts of fiber (Metamucil, not a name for a fancy new drug) and builds robots. The goal is to build a robot who can play Ozzy’s “Crazy Train”, which is tied into a specific childhood memory of robots and Black Sabbath.
In “The Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test”, we get the distinct impression these stories operate in the same world, particularly because of a mention of fiber as a drug being treated by pharmacies like our world’s Robitussin or Claritin. The protagonist works in a fireworks store in the desert, and through his inner ramblings we learn about an Amish/Rastafarian cult that believes Jesus will return in 1987 to create a new TV network to compete with ABC, NBC, and CBS, a Boba Fett enthusiast making a replica Slave I, and a rise in cannibalism. After the cupcake and food truck craze went away, it was replaced by cannibalism, a telling story considering all the cannibalism in the news lately. Jon Konrath is obviously a psychic author.
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Canine Nutrasweet Poisoning” is the title of the story, but also the title of the story the story is about. Yeah, that makes sense. It’s a story in a story that shares the same title, much like Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, but without the adultery. The author of the story in the story is obsessed with Nabokov and masturbation metaphors, and through it we learn all about President Crispin Glover. Celebrity is incredibly important in this alternate world. Yes, even more than ours, a world in which you can have no talent and still be famous.
“The Chapman Protocol” revolves ar0und a man being interviewed by his medical insurance company for a new diagnostic port on his liver to keep his “Check Liver light” from going on. The patients writes instruction manuals for Weapons of Mass Destruction, and once met the inventor of the lethal injection at an Evel Knievel themed Rosh Hashanah party. In the less strange story, “Nancy Grace Shit-fits and why you should start learning how to make soap and ammunition”, the news is peppered with stories like: “Children abducted for FarmVille related death rituals!”, and the motto of the world is: when in doubt, blame Julia Roberts. Particularly for the dumbing down of America and five Bring it On movies.
Since everything needs to have a zombie story these days (which I’ve discussed in other anthology reviews), “The 15-Minute Rule of Pizza No Longer Applies Post-Zombie Apocalypse” is there to fill in that gap. However, in Konrath’s world, zombies haven’t really stopped our flow of ideas, nor the world’s forward momentum. There is still the internet, pizza delivery men, and we still have our same old lifestyles, there’s just the added addition of zombies in the world. People will still mooch money off you, and “CSI” will still perpetuate the stereotype that zooming and enhancing on something will actually work.
“Dredging the Holiday Nostalgia” and “I Believe I Can Flee the State” are both pop culture-centric pieces, the former dealing with a school for gifted pyromaniacs who always watch the “Christmas movie”, Surf Nazis Must Die and the latter focused on R. Kelly. After stealing an Oscar Meyer weinermobile, possibly after peeing on an undercover officer, the world watches the high speed chase and our narrator auditions for a spot in Abe Lincoln and Hellen Keller’s speed metal band.
Anyone not a fan of former presidential hopeful Rick Perry will love this “humanizing”, AKA he’s your typical gun toting conservative, story entitled, “Ten Reasons Rick Perry Isn’t Getting the New Amazon Tablet”. In the tale, our author talks to his zine buddy Rick Perry who calls him late one night, having been doing drugs and signing death warrants all night. The story is an inner look at the life of the Texas Governor, who is looking for a tablet to store all his pornography on. Pornography, don’t leave home without it.
If you’re into time travel, “Bozo R. Budd John Wayne Gacy Dwyer and the Inevitable Meltdown of Mets Pitching” is the story for you. From the discussion of alternate universes and a time traveling tax, we get to wonder just what “Hitler’s Next Nazi American Hair Stylist” and “Nazi Youth Do the Funniest Things” would be like.
“Why I do not subscribe to Hallucinogenic Aficionado” brings back Dr. Doom (still not that Dr. Doom) and discusses the side effects of drugs. You know those commercials: may cause dry skin, constipation, stroke, or death- in this world, drugs side effects include killing the homeless and necrophilia. Don’t worry, it’s in all the commercials. Also, you may have inappropriate dreams about Tom Arnold after sex reassignment surgery.
Finally of note, is “The Earworm Inception”, which wins the award for best quote in the collection. “Dude, you took quite a blow there… You’re lucky you’re really an android and this entire existence is really an alternate reality for a Marvel Comics reboot that never happened.”
The majority of the stories in this collection, which are written in super short flash fiction, feature strange characters in an even stranger universe intriguingly similar to our own. They also seem to revolve around author Jon Konrath, called Kon by his close-friend (in the novel) Rick Perry and the strange circumstances that revolved around his life semi-fictional life. Everyone in these tales are marked with unique character traits, hilarity, and popular culture references galore. In a word: bizarro. (NOTE: The Earworm Inception is currently available for free on the Kindle!)
Half the stories are titled like “Big Bang Theory” episodes, from “The Chainsaw Baron Prophecy”, to “The Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test Manifesto”, “The Chapman Protocol Conundrum”, “The MovieFone Snuff Film Agenda”, and the titular “The Earworm Inception”. Still others read like newspaper headlines, such as: “Nancy Grace Shit-fits and why you should start learning how to make soap and ammunition” and “40% of all UFO sightings that lead to anal coring of cattle take place on a Monday or Friday”. The titles will have you laughing, and the stories will keep you reading.
We are initially introduced to this parallel world in “The Chainsaw Baron Prophecy”, which revolves around a copy editor who gets high on mass amounts of fiber (Metamucil, not a name for a fancy new drug) and builds robots. The goal is to build a robot who can play Ozzy’s “Crazy Train”, which is tied into a specific childhood memory of robots and Black Sabbath.
In “The Wonderlic Cognitive Ability Test”, we get the distinct impression these stories operate in the same world, particularly because of a mention of fiber as a drug being treated by pharmacies like our world’s Robitussin or Claritin. The protagonist works in a fireworks store in the desert, and through his inner ramblings we learn about an Amish/Rastafarian cult that believes Jesus will return in 1987 to create a new TV network to compete with ABC, NBC, and CBS, a Boba Fett enthusiast making a replica Slave I, and a rise in cannibalism. After the cupcake and food truck craze went away, it was replaced by cannibalism, a telling story considering all the cannibalism in the news lately. Jon Konrath is obviously a psychic author.
“What We Talk About When We Talk About Canine Nutrasweet Poisoning” is the title of the story, but also the title of the story the story is about. Yeah, that makes sense. It’s a story in a story that shares the same title, much like Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin, but without the adultery. The author of the story in the story is obsessed with Nabokov and masturbation metaphors, and through it we learn all about President Crispin Glover. Celebrity is incredibly important in this alternate world. Yes, even more than ours, a world in which you can have no talent and still be famous.
“The Chapman Protocol” revolves ar0und a man being interviewed by his medical insurance company for a new diagnostic port on his liver to keep his “Check Liver light” from going on. The patients writes instruction manuals for Weapons of Mass Destruction, and once met the inventor of the lethal injection at an Evel Knievel themed Rosh Hashanah party. In the less strange story, “Nancy Grace Shit-fits and why you should start learning how to make soap and ammunition”, the news is peppered with stories like: “Children abducted for FarmVille related death rituals!”, and the motto of the world is: when in doubt, blame Julia Roberts. Particularly for the dumbing down of America and five Bring it On movies.
Since everything needs to have a zombie story these days (which I’ve discussed in other anthology reviews), “The 15-Minute Rule of Pizza No Longer Applies Post-Zombie Apocalypse” is there to fill in that gap. However, in Konrath’s world, zombies haven’t really stopped our flow of ideas, nor the world’s forward momentum. There is still the internet, pizza delivery men, and we still have our same old lifestyles, there’s just the added addition of zombies in the world. People will still mooch money off you, and “CSI” will still perpetuate the stereotype that zooming and enhancing on something will actually work.
“Dredging the Holiday Nostalgia” and “I Believe I Can Flee the State” are both pop culture-centric pieces, the former dealing with a school for gifted pyromaniacs who always watch the “Christmas movie”, Surf Nazis Must Die and the latter focused on R. Kelly. After stealing an Oscar Meyer weinermobile, possibly after peeing on an undercover officer, the world watches the high speed chase and our narrator auditions for a spot in Abe Lincoln and Hellen Keller’s speed metal band.
Anyone not a fan of former presidential hopeful Rick Perry will love this “humanizing”, AKA he’s your typical gun toting conservative, story entitled, “Ten Reasons Rick Perry Isn’t Getting the New Amazon Tablet”. In the tale, our author talks to his zine buddy Rick Perry who calls him late one night, having been doing drugs and signing death warrants all night. The story is an inner look at the life of the Texas Governor, who is looking for a tablet to store all his pornography on. Pornography, don’t leave home without it.
If you’re into time travel, “Bozo R. Budd John Wayne Gacy Dwyer and the Inevitable Meltdown of Mets Pitching” is the story for you. From the discussion of alternate universes and a time traveling tax, we get to wonder just what “Hitler’s Next Nazi American Hair Stylist” and “Nazi Youth Do the Funniest Things” would be like.
“Why I do not subscribe to Hallucinogenic Aficionado” brings back Dr. Doom (still not that Dr. Doom) and discusses the side effects of drugs. You know those commercials: may cause dry skin, constipation, stroke, or death- in this world, drugs side effects include killing the homeless and necrophilia. Don’t worry, it’s in all the commercials. Also, you may have inappropriate dreams about Tom Arnold after sex reassignment surgery.
Finally of note, is “The Earworm Inception”, which wins the award for best quote in the collection. “Dude, you took quite a blow there… You’re lucky you’re really an android and this entire existence is really an alternate reality for a Marvel Comics reboot that never happened.”
January 6, 2013
I haven't laughed this much since I read my first Bukowski novel! Although the atmospheric overtones of Bukowski's musings are not present here, Konrath fuses words brilliantly to tell bizarre yet entertaining tales. Already cutting another piece of his "bizarro" fiction pie. Loved every minute of it.
January 31, 2015
This being my second book from Konrath, I am beginning to understand and appreciate what he does more and more. The man is simply brilliant. I wish I could be even a tenth as funny, thought provoking and knowledgeable when poking fun at contemporary human behavior. If I ever tried, it would probably come off like a brainless crony following him around, saying in a tough guy voice, "Yeah, what he said." That is not to say that is all that is happening here is someone raping pop culture. There is an off the wall absurdity that kept me engaged no matter how chaotic things were. Obviously, putting it into words is not easy for me, you should just read his stuff. I can count on Konrath to make me laugh my ass off, while making some very clever observations and the connections between them.
February 5, 2014
Some people are addicted to NyQuil-flavored stuffed crust pizza, but I'm addicted to the stories of Jon Konrath. Here's a guy who's invented his own storytelling form and then injected it with sad humor and a dose of righteous madness. When I saw the title "What We Talk About When We Talk Canine Nutrasweet Poisoning," I disturbed a bus full of Malaysians with laughter that I was trying to hold in. My wife said it sounded like I was choking. Buy this book.
November 29, 2020
What the fuck did I just read? This author is a genius he really is I can't believe this books been on my kindle for 2 years before I decided to read it. This book is like nothing else I've ever read. Reading this book is like doing huge amounts of hallucinogenic drugs and then feel like you're caught in in a marathon of fucked up adult swim episodes. I highly recommend this book it was fucking awesome.
December 24, 2014
Konrath puts the "POP" in culture with enough laughter that would make cracking a rib after an Evil Knivel stunt; jumping over 20 refrigerators being ravaged through by a quarter of Somalia, while riding in a shopping cart. Feel like tickle.
**yea thats my attempt at Pop Culture**
But Konrath is WAY better than that. I wanted to quote so much of this, but I remembered Eddie Murphy's stand up comedy "Delirious" where he says never tell someone else's jokes cuz it sounds like shit.
Just read this you will ROFL, LOL, LMAO and many other laughing fits.
**yea thats my attempt at Pop Culture**
But Konrath is WAY better than that. I wanted to quote so much of this, but I remembered Eddie Murphy's stand up comedy "Delirious" where he says never tell someone else's jokes cuz it sounds like shit.
Just read this you will ROFL, LOL, LMAO and many other laughing fits.
September 26, 2013
Konrath is so weird. I love it. This one is shorter than the other 2 I have, but it was great. I laughed out loud a few times. That's rare.
Read
May 2, 2013This guy!
to-read-and-have
June 8, 2012Free from Amazon
November 7, 2025
Hilarity person(?)ified!! More soon...
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews