The first time I read "Zod Wallop," I had just graduated from high school and was working away the summer before my transition to freshman status at Ball State at the local public library. I saw it on the shelf, mentally asked, "What the hell is this?", took it home, and read through it in two days. After I returned it, I never saw a copy come through again, and for a while I had forgotten about it.

Then, several years ago while working at the bookstore, a paperback with an odd title caught my eye. "Resume With Monsters." The author? One William Browning Spencer. I knew that name from somewhere...a quick Internet search identified him as the guy who wrote "Zod Wallop" and the flames of my desire to read this book again were fanned with the literary equivalent of a blacksmith's bellows. God, did I want me some "Zod Wallop."

The universe, of course, said "screw you" and left me utterly Zod-Wallopless for years. On Monday of this past week, I found a copy of it and began reading again. I wasn't disappointed, and "Zod Wallop" was well worth the wait.

I know I've got you intrigued already. With a title like that, who wouldn't be? WTF is a Zod Wallop anyway, and why would anyone write a book about one? This is a perfectly normal reaction. Allow me to assuage all your fears.

Zod Wallop is the title of a book. Yes, I know "Zod Wallop" is the title of the book, but in this case I'm not being facetious. Harry Gainesborough wrote and published the very successful childrens' book "Zod Wallop" in the aftermath of the worst tragedy of his life. What no one except he knows is that there is another version of Zod Wallop, a darker, more disturbing "author's cut" if you will. Written while he was a patient at Harwood Mental Hospital on the advice of one of his therapists, the original Zod Wallop is anything but a book for kids. Harry penned it in an effort to assuage the personal demons that were plaguing him after his daughter Amy drowned in a tragic accident, and by the end of the book, everyone is dead and the world is in ruins. Upon his release from the hospital, he published the critically-acclaimed version that his agent is begging him to sell the film rights for so that he can get his name back into the public's eye. Harry isn't interested; despite the fact that his books are as popular as Rowling's "Harry Potter" series is in this reality, all he wants to do is spend his days in a drunken stupor and do his best to forget the worst day of his life.

Reality has other plans, and chief among them is Raymond Story.

Raymond is middle-aged, slightly-overweight, and the very definition of a man-child (think Zach Galifianakis with a moustache instead of a full beard) who has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. Raymond spent some time with Harry during his stay at Harwood, and unfortunately for Harry (and pretty much everybody else in the world), Raymond has also read Zod Wallop. The real Zod Wallop. The version no one else was meant to read. In fact, he's got the only copy of it in his possession. He's noticed that many of the characters are patterned on himself and several of his fellow inmates, and he's managed to convince not only himself but a few other patients (and his pet monkey) that Zod Wallop is more than just a book. For Raymond Story, Zod Wallop is a Bible, an instruction manual from the prophet himself (in the form of Harry Gainesborough) telling them just what to do in order to prevent a dark force of evil from coming to power and taking over the world. Now that they're all seeing visions of nightmarish creatures and signs of the dark intrusion breaking into their reality, Raymond and his crew have broken out of the hospital and are headed on a cross-country trip to find Harry so that together they can unite their powers and stop the evil Lord Draining from taking over Florida, the rest of the United States, and eventually the world.

Harry would swear that Raymond, Rene, Allen and Lord Arbus (the aforementioned trained monkey) are all insane, until he too starts to witness things that seem to indicate that the fabric of reality is coming apart. Before long, he begins to understand that he has to use his knowledge of the original Zod Wallop to help Raymond on his mad(?) quest. And he also starts to suspect that Raymond's new wife Emily, a wheelchair-bound and badly brain-damaged inmate of the asylum who can't even feed herself without assistance, might be the most important member of the whole fellowship. On the other side of the coin, there are some members of a couple of pharmaceutical firms who are very interested in getting their hands on Harry, Raymond and the rest of the gang because they were the unwitting test subjects of some powerful drugs during their stay at Harwood, and it's time for them to collect some samples and test results. Psychosis, after all, was one of the potential side-effects...

Honestly, "Zod Wallop" is just a bad-ass example of what a true mindscrew the fantasy genre can be. Forget your cliched dragons and wizards and elves: Zod Wallop eats them for breakfast by presenting an utterly compelling story set in the real world with characters who are larger than life (even if all of them might be certifiably insane). Spencer writes great, convincing dialogue, especially for Raymond who firmly believes that he is the hero in the epic mythology unfolding all around him and is in the unenviable position of having to convince Harry of the same thing. Spencer also has a commanding grasp of comic absurdity and timing in much the same way that Douglas Adams did. From the opening scene of Raymond's wedding (which takes place in the middle of a tremendous downpour and is crashed by the staff of Harwood since nobody exactly got permission to leave the hospital) to the events that unfold and develop as the motley group makes their life-changing road trip to Florida, Spencer makes the absurd seem perfectly acceptable while tinging everything with the right amount of paranoia, darkness, and reversals of fortune to keep readers guessing right up until the very end.

I loved "Zod Wallop." I loved the premise, the doubts, the distractions, the red-herrings, the dialogue, the characters, the absurdities, and the questions it raised. If anything, I loved it more reading it some fifteen years later than I did the first time, and that's truly saying something. No matter what, "Zod Wallop" leaves an impression with you that you won't be able to shake for days or (in my case) even years.

But don't take my word for it. See for yourself. Just do it before the Ralewings get you...