In some ways, it could be described as a stereotypical boys' book as it is full of swearing, penis-references, flailing body parts and spoof shoot-em-up scenes with alien creatures and definitely isn’t for those offended easily, but the story as a whole and the creatures within it are so far beyond anything done before that it is also in no way stereotypical.

This description of the story is in itself inefficient as the book is so bizarre and weird it is somehow beyond any accurate description. The story focuses around the main character 'David Wong' (not his real name) and his penis-obsessed friend John who both unwittingly take the drug 'soy sauce' which, rather than killing them like it has other people, has the permanent effect of enabling them to see creatures from another hell-like world for which they are landed with the job of saving their 'undisclosed' town and the Earth, from take-over. This makes the story very clever and the reader therefore has no clear idea of what is truth and what is not when they start reading, setting them up very nicely for the question they all want to know - does John die at the end? This lack of trust, along with the weird simultaneous mix throughout of horror and humour is what makes the book truly scary. The writer, going under the persona of the main character 'David Wong', makes clear from the start of the book that no one can be trusted not even himself, even telling us that parts of the story have been elaborated or made up. If you mixed 'Ghostbusters' with 'Shaun of the Dead' and added some abnormal fantasy drugs into the mix then you’d almost be in the right genre for this story. Can these two stop the oncoming horror in time to save humanity? No.

What it gets instead is John and David, a pair of college dropouts who can barely hold down jobs. Suddenly, a silent otherworldly invasion is underway, and mankind needs a hero. But some who come back are no longer human. On the street they call it Soy Sauce, it is a drug that promises an out-of-body experience with each hit, and lets users drift across time and dimensions.

John Dies at the End by David Wong