In a Green Dress, Surrounded by Exploding Clowns and Other Stories

By: Robert Jeschonek

Narrated by: Bill Lord

Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Get ready to have your mind blown! Each of these 15 science fiction and fantasy stories shines a light on another wild world you’ve never seen before. From exploding clowns to killer chickens, you will meet the wildest characters and find a bold new way of looking at life. Forget boring books about the same old star fights. Surf the new wave of tomorrow and leave the "same old" far behind.

Includes 15 stories:

• "In A Green Dress, Surrounded by Exploding Clowns"
• "Monkey Sea, Monkey Do"
• "The First Hollywood Cowboy of the Bropocalypse"
• "In All Your Sparkling Raiment Soar"
• "Piggyback"
• "Fuzzy Duck"
• "Not-So-Fortunate Son"
• "Blackbeard's Aliens"
• "Cock-A-Doodle Die"
• "The Dancing Dead"
• "The Bear in the Cable-Knit Sweater"
• "The Breakout Story of Galaxy's Edge Ten Million"
• "The Little Robot's Bedtime Prayer"
• "The Spinach Can's Son"
• "As If My Every Word Has Turned to Glass"

©2018 Robert Jeschonek (P)2019 Robert Jeschonek

A "Night Gallery" for the Twenty First Century

Do you remember "Night Gallery" as a kid? It was one of my favorite shows growing up. If you like it as much as I did, you'll love this collection of 15 short stories by Robert Jeschonek. Not only does he take you on an all-inclusive trip to Crazy Town, his narrator provides the perfect combination of original character voices to make the ride even more amusing (in a good way, not a Joe Pesci, Goodfellas kind of way). Along the road, you'll meet sea monkeys, cowboys, pirates, screaming meemees, and, of course, clowns. Exploding clowns. Lots of 'em. And a cadre of other characters who do not fail to entertain.

Robert Jeschonek is brilliantly twisted. He paints pictures with words and Bill Lord's narration provides the perfect frame for each story. This book is a hoot! On the surface, it appears to be a series of funny, wry, twisted, and sarcastic short stories. Dig a little deeper and each story seems to be a metaphor for... something. For life, perhaps. Or maybe they're just...stories. Listen to this book and figure it out.

I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

Speculative Fiction at its Best

One of my favorite parts of speculative fiction is the fact that it can be done anywhere in anyway and as long as it's done well it'll be entertaining. This collection exemplifies that fact as some of these stories are bizarre and set in odd ways and yet they're done well enough that they come off exceptionally well. The title story for example is absolutely bonkers, but within context makes perfect sense and is rather entertaining. I could say the same about the rest of the stories in the collection and the narrator does a great job of presenting them.

I received the review code for this audiobook at my request and am voluntarily leaving this honest review.

WOW! I loved this book. One I will listen to again

When I chose this book, I just hoped that the story was at least half as good as the title (probably my all time favorite title). I was not disappointed. The book was even better

This is a collection of fifteen short stories. Many of them were odd, in a "should we get the author some help" sort of way. How does he come up with some of these ideas? Some of them were downright brilliant. Others were simply good. But I think every single one of them made me think, and that doesn't always happen with books anymore, especially audiobooks where you are simply entertained while doing other things like driving or mowing the lawn. Now I am wondering about what happens if Social Media becomes even more powerful and your future depends on the "likes" you get? What would happen if bees or chickens ruled the world? And what would I be willing to give up to give the memories back to my favorite Alzheimer's-stricken author? This last was both beautiful and heartbreaking.

What about the narrator? I was about halfway through the first story before I even thought about the narrator. This was not a bad thing. It was more like you don't notice your favorite pair of jeans as you go through your day. They just fit and let you get on with your daily routine without even thinking about them. Here, the narrator just fits without getting in the way of the story. This does not mean the narrator is bad...quite the opposite, in fact. Once I decided that I needed to pay attention to the narrator for a decent review, I began to notice the absolute mastery of Bill Lord as a narrator. I am guessing that a book like this is a dream come true for a voice artist. Where else would you get to be an intelligent bee, an ex cockfighting rooster, a young woman forced to dance every moment of the day by an unforgiving virus, or even a sentient beef stroganoff? And all were done masterfully.

I was given a list of possible books that I might receive for free in exchange for a fair and unbiased review, and I chose this one based solely on the title. I hit the jackpot this time. After finishing this, I am sure I will listen to it again, which I rarely do with audiobooks. I would have gladly paid for this book and felt I received every penny worth of entertainment.

Apparently Audible likes us to use the following canned phrasing: "I was given this free review copy audiobook at my request and have voluntarily left this review." This is completely true in my case, but their phrasing makes me imagine crazed authors and narrators running around holding guns (or possibly exploding clowns) to the heads of innocent reviewers, forcing them to write reviews of their products. Somehow, I can imagine just such a scene showing up in the second volume of this book. If so, I want a copy of that book, too, and I will gladly pay for it.

Great Narration!

The narrator did a fantastic job at bringing the story to life with his narration. The story did start suddenly, smack dab in the middle of a crowd of clowns (as the title says) which caught me off guard but it's a great long title to listen to in the dark.