Max Is Not A Fish

What sort of plucky yet reluctant hero can battle his way through a story filled with mafia bosses under the age of thirteen, hipster jazz musicians part of an ancient conspiracy to control the fates of men, and an artificial intelligence born from the rotting corpses of the city’s dead animals?

Max Keller has been a will-worker since early childhood, and has always used his ample supply of magic to look like a total badass while enriching himself in the process. But great power comes at great cost, and he is as unpredictable and crazy as every other will-worker in the city is, something which his vampire-slash-cat housemate is quick to remind him of along with the fact that the rent is still overdue. Always eager for more money to waste on his non-existent but growing crystal figurine collection, Max jumps on the chance of a lifetime when he hears of a hidden stash of money left behind by a now dead bank robber. But things  turn complicated when a young woman starts following him around, having learned of his abilities and wanting to know more about them.

What follows is a strange and bewildering trip for the both of them, as they uncover more about the true nature of magic than either could’ve ever hoped for.

Description: Max Is Not A Fish is a quirky and  surreal urban-fantasy tale where nothing makes sense and that never stops moving deeper into the realm of the absurd. Buying magic supplies requires a trip through a wormhole located in the back of an abandoned van that looks exactly like the one from the A-Team, and everyone knows the best way to get in touch with a friend is by poking a dead rat on the street.

The fourth wall is broken down on the very first page, and never quite gets rebuilt the way it's supposed to. It remains a ruined structure throughout the story, as Max engages the reader in dialogue while battling his enemies. A curse, he calls it, of the transcription spell used to put the story to paper; one that allows the tale no other form than that of a deranged noir-style narration.

Excerpt:

Whatever the truth of the matter, the kid has a reputation for being a ruthless little genius whose age doesn't seem to serve as a handicap to any degree. Yeah, he's definite night-terror material, but right now he's just lining up his first shot of the evening while asking a relatively harmless question at the same time.

“You don’t mind if we putt while Alonzo here breaks this idiot’s fingers, right?”

I give a light shrug, not caring too much if the man whose head is locked in a washing-machine style grip experiences a little pain. It's one of those little details I tend to gloss over; there just so happens to be an oversized bodyguard next to Vincent, dragging a sobbing man along with him. There's the smell of piss in the air too, but I can't tell if that's part of the decor or something produced by fear and terror.

“Cool, guy owes me a lot of money and for some silly reason he thought I’d go easy on him,” Vincent says. “Just because I still watch Saturday-morning cartoons doesn’t mean I’m soft.”

The kid hits one of the windmill's revolving arms, causing his good mood to instantly go down the drain.

“For fuck’s sake, did I not tell the technicians to take care of that problem? Did I not tell them that Alonzo?”

The oversized man's head bobs up and down as he breaks one of his victim’s fingers, eliciting a shriek of pain that fortunately does not drown out the awesome muzak being piped through the speakers set up around the course.