I don’t use the word “mindfuck” lightly, but Carling Talbot’s debut with Forest City Pulp is a mindfuck of a novel.

Even the book’s very existence takes some explaining. Unchained Melody features characters from cal chayce’s All the Fine Hungers, with permission from cal chayce. The author of Melody’s story in Unchained Melody also appears in the pages of Unchained Melody. Wait, so is that cal chayce? Who’s Carling Talbot then?

Like I said, mindfuck.

It’s not the first time Forest City Pulp books have cross-pollinated characters, and even authors, and it probably won’t be the last. Soon we’re going to need a name for the larger FCP universe. The FCPniverse? Ehhh that sounds dirty.

Anyway, here’s a much better description than my rambling:

When Melody stumbles upon an old manuscript her boyfriend wrote, she can’t help but notice the similarities with her own life. But Sunny never finished the story, so she never finds out what happens to the badass character who may or may not be based on herself.

Sunny agrees to finish the fictional tale of a troubled girl in a world gone mad. But before Melody can read the rest, she comes into trouble of her own: she’s becoming unchained from reality, getting occasional glimpses of another world. To fix it, she’ll need the help of a quirky scientist who’s halfway across the country, and along the way to see him, she’ll combat gangsters, get to know her friends better, and struggle to understand the make-up of reality itself.

Unchained Melody is the authorized sequel (of sorts) to cal chayce’s All The Fine Hungers, where Melody, Sunny, and Chuck first fought elite cannibals. Now they’re struggling against more existential threats, in an entirely different author’s world.

An often meta tale, it would be wise to strap yourself in securely before taking the journey, and hold your god-helmet on tight!

Get Unchained Melody on Amazon.com or Amazon.ca.

P.S. You can’t copyright a song title.