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Musclebound Mario book cover
Musclebound Mario
2014
First Published
3.67
Average Rating
150
Number of Pages

Marcus is a socially awkward, steroid-ridden bodybuilder who happens to be the biggest fan of the first Super Mario Bros. game...ever. His toilet seat lifts to reveal a Mario head. A picture of Shigeru Miyamoto, the inventor of the game, sits atop his TV. Now, clad in a Mario-printed outer and underwear, he ventures to a three-day social gathering of rabid Mario fanatics. He dreams of finding long-lost brothers and sisters, of being able to talk to people who understand him. But forging life-long connections isn't easy at a gathering lorded over by a living yet pixelated King Mario who keeps a silent and submissive Princess at his feet. Marcus is banished, and it seems all hope is lost until, via a combination of miracle and conscious choice, he becomes Musclebound Mario and enters the Mushroom Kingdom. 8-bit enemies are powerless against Musclebound Mario's supernaturally swollen muscles and clenched fists larger than human heads. But it seems his arrival has unraveled the very fabric of the Kingdom itself. Worlds are squished together. Villains are hybrid patchworks, all in a trance. And no longer is the goal to save a Princess, but a Prince. So he travels through strange worlds far removed from the characters and levels of the One True Game. Not easy for a man uncomfortable with things greater than 8-bits. But if order is to be restored to the kingdom and to the one thing he's never known—himself—then a hero he must play. From master of bizarro fiction, Kevin L Donihe, comes a surreal satire for video game fans and weird fiction junkies.

Avg Rating
3.67
Number of Ratings
21
5 STARS
19%
4 STARS
38%
3 STARS
33%
2 STARS
10%
1 STARS
0%
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Author

Kevin L. Donihe
Kevin L. Donihe
Author · 12 books

I am a writer man. Currently, HOUSE OF HOUSES, SHALL WE GATHER AT THE GARDEN?, OCEAN OF LARD (co-written with Carlton Mellick III), GRAPE CITY, and THE GREATEST FUCKING MOMENT IN SPORTS are my books from Eraserhead Press. I've had a lot of short fiction published since 1995. Biggest short fiction credit = a story in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF LEGAL THRILLERS, published by Carroll and Graf in the US and Constable and Robinson in the UK. I also edit BARE BONE, an anthology series for Raw Dog Screaming Press. A story from the first issue was reprinted in THE MAMMOTH BOOK OF BEST NEW HORROR 13. Also, quite a few stories (including five in #9, and four apiece in the three previous issues) have received honorable mentions in THE YEAR'S BEST FANTASY AND HORROR. I do not eat chimpanzees.

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