Necro Publications

Here's what people are saying about
DEAD CATS BOUNCING:

“It’s one of the most bizarre premises for an anthology I’ve ever heard of. Take an impressive collection of horror authors including Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Tom Piccirilli, Yvonne Navarro, Charlee Jacob, David Niall Wilson, and Brain Keene, give them a dead cat to play with, and see what they come up with. What tha fuck? DEAD CATS BOUNCING is alternately weird and profound, silly and sad, senseless satire and social commentary.

Gerard Houarner sets the tone with the title piece about a cat sacrificed to the Egyptian feline goddess of vengeance, Bastet, daughter of the all-powerful sun god RA. The cat lands in a unique corner of hell where animals who have been sacrificed to gods go, struggling to find his way back to the land of the living. Like all animals that have been sacrificed, go to hell, and come back to life, Dead Cat can talk now and man does he have a lot to say. Bounce.

Dead Cat bounces into the world of Jack Ketchum, into the life of a woman in an abusive relationship who finds more love in a cat that stinks of the grave than in the man who professes to love her. Dead Cat learns to purr again, learns about love. Bounce. Dead Cat lands in the hands of Yvonnne Navarro who lightens the mood with a little kitten love. Dead Cat works his mojo. Bounce. Dead Cat is now in the clutches of Edward Lee torturing one of his domesticated brethren and teaching him a little bit about life on the wild side beneath the noses of his human hosts. The fat “Other Cat” is no longer happy and never will be again; Dead Cat scared the living shit out of it for life. Bounce. Dead Cat joins Brain Keene in a search for peace, winds up at Green Peace mistaken for an animal experiment gone wrong, then to a church where he partakes of a rather savage communion, then to a mountain top where he is sent on a quest to find a name. Bounce. Dead Cat is now center stage at a cat show getting his groove on with the upper-crust in Charlie Jacob’s “Dead Cat On A Hot Tin Eternity”. Bounce.

Weird stories these. I confess I scratched my head more than once while reading this book. Why the hell were all these authors writing stories about an undead cat? What tha Fuck? But once you stop trying to get it and just read the damned thing it’s a pretty enjoyable little ride this uncanny collection takes you on. Some of these stories are indeed great parables. You can definitely pick up one or two things bouncing through hell with a dead cat. But I would not read these fables to children.

DEAD CATS BOUNCING takes us through many different hells, those subterranean and those in our own cities, in our own homes, and in our own minds. Quickly you get the impression that, from the perspective of this ridiculous looking ragged cat with the earrings and bandages and mangy moth-eaten fur, we are the silly ones. Our jealousies and hatreds, our struggles, our discontent. We are alive but not satisfied. This mummified cat with the sex drive of a serial killer is dead as communism and still more content than any of those he encounters. He is at least relentlessly searching for that which will satisfy him rather than accepting his fate. I mean this cat dragged himself out of hell where he had every excuse to give up but he didn’t. He bounced. Don’t you just wish you could fall so far and still land on your feet? Don’t you just wish you could bounce too?

Three book wyrms”

--Wrath James White, FeoAmante Website

“DEAD CAT BOUNCE. Chapbook from Space and Time. Gerard Houarner write. GAK draw pictures. Big success. Get Stoker nomination. Win friends and admirers. Star, they say. Famous, they insist. Other writers want tell Dead Cat stories. Whatever, Gerard and GAK say. Edit new anthology for Bedlam Press. Debut at World Horror Convention. Fun!

Gerard include original “Dead Cat Bounce,” introduction by Dead Cat, new story with Dead Cat, Dead Mouse. Jack Ketchum give Dead Cat woman to protect. Dead Cat get fancy girlfriend from Yvonne Navarro. Mick Farren put Dead Cat in science fiction adventure. Dead Cat get famous cat booty from Edward Lee. Brian Keene set Dead Cat against stupid Greenpeace two-legs. Charlee Jacob introduce Dead Cat to Isis. Gene O'Neill create Dead Cat nemesis, FrankenPup. David Niall Wilson get Dead Cat high on dead catnip. Linda Addison write Dead Cat poem with Dr. Booty. Terry McGarry put Dead Cat through Too Many Hells. Paul Di Filippo put Dead Cat in poem with Mehitabel, cockroach Archy, ghost Clarence. Tom Piccirilli make Dead Cat hero. John Skipp compose Dead Cat rap song. Story. Poem. Song. Whatever. Fun! GAK art fun, too. Like hunt, nap, sex.

You. Buy book. Read stories. Study pictures. Laugh. Gasp. Snarl. Whatever. No eat sand. Purr. But take mouse. Please.

--Garrett Peck, Hellnotes

Here's what people are saying about the original
DEAD CAT BOUNCE:

“Gerard Houarner. Write story. Use minimal language. Make R.C. Matheson seem wordy. You. Read chapbook. Laugh and squirm. Fun. No bounce back to publisher.”

--Garrett Peck, Hellnotes

“On an entirely different plane is DEAD CAT BOUNCE. Subtitled "A Fable To Horrify The Inner Child," it delivers on that promise with a blend of the most bizarre illustrations, the blackest humour, and that uniquely pragmatic and fantastic Houarner is justly famous for. This is a fable with a guffaw and a shudder, never allowing us to move too far from these extremes. DEAD CAT BOUNCE is that book you lend to friends, just to see if you can appall them, the gift that earns you searching glances from everyone else at the party. And it is a well-camouflaged look at that mythical "fairness" of life. Most of all, it is a risk Houarner took that flails wildly but lands solidly on its feet.”

--Lisa Dumond, MEviews, SF Site

“This poignant story manages to mix Don Marquis' Mehitable with Karloff's Mummy in a charming creepy-funny fashion, a tone captured perfectly in numerous B&W drawings by a mysterious artist known only as GAK.”

--Paul Di Filippo, Asimov's Science Fiction, May, 2001

“This is a narrative poem, or perhaps it's a graphic chapbook. Interspersed throughout the whole story are bits and pieces of satire or commentary on humans, religion, process, and other things. The artwork is complementary and perfect in execution. The whole package is quite nicely done and I'd recommend it.”

--Steve Sawicki, The Skeptic Tank, Scavenger's Newsletter

“Very enjoyable. I read it aloud to my wife and she nearly laughed up a lung.”

--Robin Sprigg, writer

“…DEAD CAT BOUNCE, a delightful fable that will horrify your twisted inner child. A strange hybrid of short story and comic book, DEAD CAT BOUNCE defies accurate description. Suffice to say, it is unlike anything done before and wonderfully so. Houarner has created a unique blend of poetry and prose; a literary assault that rolls off the page and picks through your brain like razors.

--Brian Keene, Horror World

“Nice nasty.”

--Bizarre Magazine