Slap Happy Fun Time

Kyle M. Scott - Protection 5/5                                                                I received a copy of Protection in exchange for an honest review and I wasn't prepared for what I actually read. Kyle has been known for writing in your face splatterpunk. Blood, and total face melting mayhem. Protection has none of this and that's not a bad thing at all. Protection is a creepy little horror novel that escalates slowly and here we get to see a new side to Scott. A kinder gentler Scott that holds back on the gore that he's become known for and gives his readers something totally different. As a parent I could relate to this a lot and the theme of protection is the glue that holds this all together. The question here is simple. How far would you go to protect your children? As a father that's easy to answer and it's a question that I'm sure Kyle himself has asked himself.      This is a novel that keeps you guessing and we get to see Scott actua

     Out Are The Lights - Richard Laymon 3/5                                                              Richard Laymon is by far one of the greatest horror writers you have never heard of. My writing is hugely influenced by him, and no one comes to close to matching his style. When you read one of Laymon's novels you are in for one hell of a ride, and it's easy to see why he has such a large following. I have been waving the Laymon banner for years and have written quite a few reviews of his work. This man was a splatterpunk legend and took horror to a place it needed to go. It was not the typical stuff that seasoned horror fans were accustomed to and they reacted accordingly. You will see tons and tons of bad reviews that dismiss Laymon and call his work shit, but they're idiots. Laymon was a genius and I could write an entire blog telling you why but for now let's just review Out Are The Lights.      I own two version of this and the one above is the Warner

How To Successfully Kidnap Strangers  - Max Booth III  5/5                                                                       Max was gracious enough to give me an advanced reading copy of his latest book in exchange for an honest review, but after reading it I'm not even sure I can be honest. What if I end up kidnapped and shoved in a trunk with a bag full of severed heads? I don't want to be kidnapped because I wrote a bad review. Actually that's the premise of the book and the kidnapping and everything else that happens in Booth's book is a direct result of a sheer panic and indecision. If you're actually using this as a a guide to kidnap people you have serious issues and the book isn't even a guide that you can use,     This is my fourth Booth book and I haven't read a bad novel yet. Max is a solid story teller that refuses to follow any genre and write whatever the hell he wants. That unpredictability is what fuels his novels. You never kn

    In The Trenches - Various Authors 4/5                                                                                                                   I received this anthology in exchange for an honest review and I was intrigued because there are a lot of ways that you could approach it. You could go  all Full Metal Jacket or you could go in the opposite direction and put your best anti-war foot forward. Look at any war and you can pretty much throw out your own opinion on how you feel about war and what it not only does to families, but also the soldiers who are coming home from a war that they may not have believed in or even wanted to fight, We are all affected by war in some way, and we also see that when it comes right down to it war is big business. It can certainly boost or destroy an economy.      I was curious to see just how Verto Publishing approached this. You can offend a lot of people with a book like this so naturally I wanted to see how it played out.

The Splatter House Rules - Jeff O'Brien  5/5                                                             I am a huge fan of O'Brien's and the more I read the more I realize that you can't just dump his books into one category. He brings the punk, DIY aesthetic to his writing and it works. These are books that remind me of those classic B-movies that are full of cheese but have a an interesting plot that holds it all together. Splatter House is a combination of the bizarro/horror hybrid that he's become the master of. His fiction may not be for everyone but it's a blast to read and that's really all that matters. Splatter House is a lot of fun to read.      If you're familiar with slasher films then you'll recognize the plot, but O'Brien throws a few curve balls that keep it from being a straight ripoff and more of an homage. I love that there's a healthy amount cheesy dialogue and gore and like all B-movies you have an underlying

     Shane McKenzie - Wet And Screaming 5/5                                                                 I received a copy of Wet And Screaming in exchange for an honest review and I also feel the need to maybe throw in a disclaimer because this is one of those books that make people a little butt hurt. In this overly sensitive society you can't review a book like this without one. People like to blame everyone else when they're offended and I'm from the school of if you're offended then maybe, just maybe you needed to be offended. You don't need me to tell you that this book is not for the weak. Look at that cover. Shane McKenzie is the kind of writer that writes blackened, gore infested, horror. Think Edward Lee, or Jack Ketchum, and you have a pretty good idea what you're in for. This is the type of splatterpunk that draws a line in the sand and promptly pisses all over it.      Wet And Screaming is a short story collection and what