When he was a child, Franklin Pierce witnessed the death of his siblings at the hands of a candy woman with pink cotton candy hair. Since that day, the candy people have become his obsession. He has spent his entire life trying to prove that they exist. And after discovering the entrance to the underground world of the candy people, Franklin finds himself venturing into their sugary domain. His mission: capture one of them and bring it back, dead or alive.
Cannibals of Candyland is an erotic horror story for the bizarro reader from the mind of Carlton Mellick III. Dark, disturbing, and absurd; this isn't the board game version of candy land you used to play as a kid.
This work provides examples of:
- Artificial Limbs: Jujub replaces both of Franklin's legs with candy prosthetics.
- Artistic License – Biology: The Candy People apparently evolved through natural mutation their candy physiologies from their cannibalistic ancestors over the course of a few generations to better catch and capture their prey. The absurdity of such a fact is later pointed out by Franklin.
- Artistic License – Linguistics: The title refers to the Candy People as "Cannibals". While they do eat people, the Candy People aren't human themselves, so they technically aren't cannibals.
- Bright Is Not Good: The Candyland Cannibals are brightly coloured, which helps to lure children for them to eat.
- Child Hater: Franklin despises children, mostly due to being tormented by a pre-teen bully who extorts money from him under threat of otherwise accusing him of being a child molester.
- Clown Species: A race of clowns with candyfloss hair live underground and eat children.
- Half-Human Hybrid: Some time after Franklin and Jujub have sex, she lays a giant, chocolate Cadbury egg. By the end of the book, it hatches - the egg's yolk made of gooey caramel, revealing a human baby with jellybeans for eyes.
- Ludicrous Precision: Franklin's synthetic brain lets him estimate weights and quantities to within a few decimals.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Franklin has his limbs removed with various bits of his flesh removed and replaced with candy molds across his whole body. Franklin is not screaming in agony the whole time though, simply describing the gangrenous flesh lining his ribcage as like "ants crawling all over him." This can be explained away given his robot brain.
- Monster Clown: The inhabitants of Candyland are monstrous clowns who eat children.
- My Brain Is Big: Franklin had his mind digitally transmitted into a mechanical brain that he replaced his own brain with. He can open his skullcap in order to "let it breath", the hinges becoming stuck open later on.
- Polyamory: Franklin's wife openly cheats on him, sharing her lover with her live-in mother.
- Rule-Abiding Rebel: Jujub is opposed to the way men and women of the Candy People are indoctrinated towards becoming dominants and submissives, respectively, from an early age, and is determined to live as a dominant in spite of being a woman. However, she refuses to question the system of dominants and submissives in itself.
- Sexy Jester: As you can see in the page image, the antagonist is a sexy clown girl.
- Sword Cane: Franklin carries one, and ultimately uses it to good advantage.
- Theme Naming: The Candy People are each named after a type of candy or a flavor (Jujub, Root Beer Float, Black Licorice, Wedding Cake, etc).
- They Have the Scent!: The Candy People give off a natural pheromone that attracts children to them, usually pertaining to a sweet scent people associate with candy. Jujub for example smells strongly of strawberries. Franklin uses these pheromones to help dull the pain of his own stripped, rotting flesh.
- Whale Egg: The clown people hatch from giant Cadbury Cream Eggs.
- Who Names Their Kid "Dude"?: Franklin ponders why his parents named him after one of the worst and saddest American presidents, surmising that they either viewed him as an unwanted tragedy, or just picked the most handsome president without doing any more research than that.
