So, do you like a story where the protagonist(s) overcome a huge obstacle or obstacles to win the day, save the friend or romantic interest, and grow as a person? If you answered yes, then boy howdy did you come to the wrong review today. Ich Will is the opposite of all of that. A part of liking what you read/watch is first knowing what you are getting yourself into. While I had a very brief description given of the story, I soon learned that I still didn’t have much of a clue. And you know what they say about knowing things:

The title Ich Will is taken from the Rammstein song of the same name. The story is centered around Adrian, a person who is suffering through some terrible first-world problems; mainly, his parents aren’t able to support him financially with college due to his father having a stroke. So instead of living at home and having to face his ailing father on a daily basis, he opts to –gasp—get a job serving fast food! I can’t say much for myself, though, as I swore to never work in the fast food industry, so I’m not one to talk about first-world anything.

This is your God.

Between Adrian’s mundane job at McDonald’s…oops I mean MacDonnell’s, and his well-to-do friend Nathan gaining scholastic ground where Adrian believes he deserves it more, he begins to lose what sanity he might have left and begins plotting to take matters into his own hands. Following the philosophy of The Eternal Return from Nietzsche (look it up, I’m not into philosophy enough to properly explain it), he feels confident that doing what he plans to do is in fact an act that’s ultimately good and he will be rewarded for it. I won’t get into what his plans are because where’s the fun in that?

Adrian is not a likeable person. If any of you do like him or feel you can relate to him, I’m very worried about you. My initial notes describing him are as follows: so far Adrian is a whiny little bitch who thinks anyone who is different than him is scum. Basically a normal guy. Also pretty racist. While that description is still fairly accurate, there is more to him than that. The author Axl Barnes brought out quite a number of emotions in me regarding Adrian, ranging from pity to annoyance to outright anger at one point. Very few characters in the many books I’ve read over the years have elicited such varied responses in one story. So kudos to Mr. Barnes there.

If the Eternal Return is true, it’s not inconceivable that Nietzsche might one day read Ich Will

One of the more noticeable aspects of the novella is the descriptive daydreams and hallucinations that Adrian has throughout. I came to think that were Ich Will to be made into a film, those scenes, if not the whole movie, would have to be filmed by David Cronenberg, as he came immediately to mind when reading them. They were very surreal and graphic, and someone should send that man a copy of the novella.

While I wasn’t digging what I was reading at first, my opinion changed by the end of the story. It delves into some real life horror, like the horror of watching a loved one withering away from a debilitating sickness, the depression of the life you so badly wanted being just out of your reach, and it’s also quite possibly an accurate look inside the mind of a budding psychopath. Was he truly God as he thought he was? You make the call!

If you want to check it out for yourself, you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Scribd, to name a few places. It’s only a buck for the e-book, and at 113 pages, it will take up very little of your money and time. What have you got to lose?

Gravedigger Glen can be found on twitter reading Nietzsche and eating a Big Mac.

You can check out more of Axl’s work on his blog.