Tales of the Space South, by a trio of pseudonymous writers collectively known as XXX Perimental Linguist XX Xtraordinary, is a Web Serial Novel centered around a war hero turned Serial Killer named Dickarus McChink.
Dickarus is divided by his desire to do good, and his bioengineered drive to murder. He wanders the streets of New Birmingham, the capital of the racist planet-state of Space Alabama, which is governed by the disgusting Jerkass Lord George “Foreman Grill” Birmingham, a.k.a. Lord BirmBirm.
The story begins with the meeting between Dickarus and a mysterious vagrant girl named Melissa. After being forcibly separated, Dickarus drags the sardonic bystander Mickles Overstreet into the story, who eventually delves into his own Dark and Troubled Past to help Dickarus get revenge against the tyrant that turned him into a monster. The story eventually diverge to having three main characters; Dickarus, Mickles, and Melissa, who each traverse their own stories that occasionally interweave. A cast of characters, including the psychopathic Fedora’d Fantom, the wildly insane Kelpo, and the comedically headstrong poindexter known as Spec-Ops come to play in a plot of political intrigue and personal redemption that transcends genre and challenges, if not outright blasphemes against, norms of writing.
Tales of the Space South can be found here
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The novel began serialization in November of 2015.
Tales from the Space South contains examples of:
- Alien Geometries: One of the things Space God Allah preside over is geometries that failed to become Euclidean (as in tried and failed.)
- All in the Eyes: At the end of their first meeting, Melissa sees Dickarus look back one last time with eyes described as “fluorescent lights in the dark.” It could just be the author’s admittedly strange writing style, or knowing McChink it’s very possible that his eyes actually glow.
- Ax-Crazy: While not all the time, Dickarus definitely seems to have flashes of this, at times murdering, raping, and otherwise visiting general heinousness upon the people around him.
- Body Horror: Dickarus McChink is this, having multiple alien limbs grafted onto him at some point in the past. What we know based on what the authors have written: He has one or more tentacles, at least one of which is in the place of an arm, insectoid legs covered in chitin, and at least some of his body apparently has a carapace.
- The Corruption: There’s hints that the Stuarts may become this.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: The poor man that’s set upon by Exo-Ukrainians. Actually, everyone that participates in that particular race riot seems to encounter one of these. In addition, the mewlcat that Dickarus rapes to the verge of death, which he and Mickles later have for dinner.
- Deep South: The whole thing is set in the Space South, centered around Space Alabama and specifically New Birmingham, which from what we’ve seen is racist, barbaric, bloodthirsty, impoverished and vile.
- Grand Theft Me: What the Stuarts seem to do to poor little Dingo Appletree. It’s not clear how long they’ve been inside him, but they’re pretty clearly an outside entity that was introduced to crush his psyche and acquire his body.
- Horrifying the Horror: The Stuarts do this to the Fedora’d Fantom when he shows up at their home. The Fantom is an essentially invisible sociopath who commits murder and incites bloody riots for shits and giggles, but even he is freaked out by the Stuarts. And for good reason.
- Meat Puppet: Dingo Appletree’s body, after the Stuarts break his mind and take control.
- Serial Killer: Dickarus, sometimes. He doesn’t seem to be entirely in control of his own actions, and it’s heavily hinted that something else is influencing him or causing his behavior. Also, possibly the Fedora’d Fantom.
- Serial Rapist: Dickarus, again. We only see it once, with him brutalizing a poor mewlcat, but he hardly seems a stranger to it.
