Mantids by Ron Dakron, ISBN 978-0930773-861

Mantids is an update of the world's oldest novel—Petronius's Satyricon—with a twist. In Satyricon, the hero can't get an erection; in Mantids, the narrator can't get rid of one. Combine his Viagra overdose with an invasion by mutant female praying mantids and a scuzzed-out, speed-tweaker Astoria, Oregon locale—add biting comedy, a warrior heroine and stir into a B-movie plot stew—and you have a classic Dakron novel, chock full of sardonic prose and more fun than a barrel of junkies.

"I was sucked into Ron Dakron's prose and the world he created. I read the rest of the book in one sitting because he had created a world I found interesting.

This is clearly a book better than the sum of it's parts. I do recommend that you check it out and ... let yourself get sucked into the tale Dakron is weaving."

"The publisher's blurb describes Ron Dakron's Mantids as 'an update of the world's oldest novel -- Petronius's Satyricon.' Now, I'm sadly lacking in a classical education and had to rely on the Wikipedia entry on the Satyricon, but I had some trouble seeing the similarity between the two stories. Likely this has to do with Mantids being about 1/10th the size and Dakron pared down the original to the bare essentials: erections and giant bugs.

The book tells the story of the end of mankind through Mantid Apocalypse, as told by a slacker douche-bag of a grunge rocker named Chad. Thanks to his razor sharp focus on his own problems, he does not notice civilization falling around him. Once he manages to overdose on Viagra, he can't even think of anything but his own dick. As he tells the story, he continually excuses his lack of awareness on whatever his problem of the moment happens to be. As a tiny spoiler, I will point out that he does not overcome these flaws and save mankind.

While I found the fact that the main character was such a worthless jerk annoying, I'm not sure that the book could have worked otherwise. The real star of the book is not the narrator but the writing. Dakron is a poet and his skill with words makes this book shine. He pulls all of your senses in while describing a world awash with giant, man-crazy, killer mutant bugs who think like the humans they once were. How can you not respect that level of skill?

There's probably some deeper analysis of Chad that could be done, his reasons for what he did, his guilty asides about Lola's fate, his lack of self awareness, and so on, but who cares? Read this book for the prose and not the likability of the protagonist. Plus, Mantids is short enough that you can dive in and experience Chad and then get out before it sticks.

"Get this: somewhere in the skuzzier regions of Astoria, Oregon a failed musician is afflicted with a permanent erection while having to contend with human-sized preying mantises, which include the hero’s own wife. She’s the indirect cause of his erectile dilemma, as downing four Viagra pills is the only way he can have sex with her. Apparently there’s an alien invasion afoot that causes people to morph into cannibalistic bugs, with the protagonist one of the few remaining humans...although he’s not sure if he isn’t hallucinating the whole thing (neither are we!).

The guy’s main objective, of course, is to find a way to make his stiffy go down before it rots off, leading to a desperate jaunt through an already trippy landscape rendered even more so by the mantid infestation. Apparently this book was patterned after Petronius’ Satyricon, the world’s oldest novel, with Astoria standing in for ancient Rome and a protagonist who stands in direct contrast to Petronius’ impotent hero.

I’d expect nothing less from Ron Dakron, a writer I’ve grown fond of over the years. His stand-out novels include the eccentric thriller infra, about a dreamlike trek through Europe, and Hammers, a satiric account of people metamorphosing into hammerhead sharks. Dakron favors heavily self conscious, slip-streamy prose (particularly in his second novel Newt, which I haven’t been able to get through), yet his is among the very small cadre of experimental fiction whose substance actually matches its style.

Mantids isn’t the best of Darkon’s books (infra gets that distinction), but is the most user-friendly: it’s short and fast moving, and contains a linear narrative with a beginning, middle and end.

Dakron has also lightened up on the experimentation. Yes, his prose is still quite self conscious, and not everyone will have patience with lines like "that skin husk next to the fridge, the split splattered body that her new bug self popped out of--its ripped back still oozing gray biomuck, the limbs tangled into a skin pretzel--whoa!" But the book is lively and funny, with a spot-on portrayal of the Pacific Northwest punk subculture amid all the insanity--and really: perverted sex, punk rock, Viagra, mutant insects, cannibalism, perpetual erections...what more could you possibly want?"

"Insects were never thought of by anyone as 'sexy'. "Mantids" takes a look into the love life of the mantis, and a certain male of the species who can't seem to get enough due to a certain pill . . . . Making no acclaims to being highbrow, Dakron draws from many sources in order to provide his readers with a side-splitting adventure that'll give anyone the much needed laugh they deserve in life. "Mantids" is a must for humor readers seeking something with a twist."