This anthology was a Down Syndrome charity effort, as was Chiral Mad its predecessor. These charity things can be somewhat dodgy in that there is a lot of "emerging talent" in the new stories and many of the A-list talents supply reruns. This collection however exceeded my expectations and actually got better as the book went on.

Fortunately for me I had only previously read one of the retreads, but there were only four out of 28 stories.

Advertised as psychological horror I would characterize this as plain contemporary horror, contemporary weird, a pretty wide array of stories, from the grim to the just bizarre. There are even a few ghosts thrown in but these too are of a decidedly modern ilk. There are no happy endings. I only thought two stories (out of 28) were weak, in being somewhat naive in plot and execution. Everything else was three or four star material, a few I would call five star. The book starts off with a bang and you never really get a letdown stretch.

My copy is a print on demand trade paperback and it has a few issues, an above average number of typos, missing words, etc. The usual reliance on machine proofreading errors. Not horrible, just noticeable. Somewhere along the line the ink jet printer got a little thirsty and left a number of pages with fuzzy gray instead of black letters. The entire font and layout left the book looking like something you printed out on you laser printer. Still, I'm a content kind of guy with this sort of thing so I didn't take down the rating for this kind of thing.

The cover art is fabulous but it still comes out looking like a textbook when you put it on the shelf.

After all this, I loved it.

Cesare's debut novella recently re-released by Deadite Press is an enjoyable homage to the cannibal exploitation flicks of the late 70s/early 80s. Following a small film crew as they make their way to a cursed Caribbean island, Cesare effectively develops his cast of characters in a speedy fashion before putting them in harm's way.

Though it ends up being quite a bit different to those cannibal films I referenced earlier, Tribesmen is an effective shocker and a hell of a debut book. I've read Cesare's latest (which was excellent) and now having read his first, I'm very much looking forward to chasing down everything he's written in between.

Originally, I was going to rate this as a 3.5 star read, but since finishing it, certain scenes have stayed with me, bumping it to a straight 4 star effort.

4 Entitled, Slimy Directors for Tribesmen.

With thanks to Kate at Kitty Horror for the book lend!

You all have probably heard me talking about The Wicked or Ugly as Sin by James Newman. (If you haven't, they're awesome books and you should check them out.) I recently had the opportunity to talk to the guys who published these two books for Shock Totem: K. Allen Wood and John Boden. 

If you are looking for a way to spend your holiday gift card, these guys can point you in the right direction. They even have holiday issues of their magazine available. To learn more about them click here: Shock Totem Interview.

I have created a TBR list of horror. It's varied--classic and new, men and women, novels and short stories. The only common denominator is that I haven't read these particular works yet--and I ain't getting any younger, so it is time to begin, Gentle Reader.

Wanna play? http://booklikes.com/apps/reading-lists/267/horror-expansion

Nonexhaustive list of authors included:

Dan Simmons

Clive Barker

Joyce Carol Oates

Shirley Jackson

F. Paul Wilson

Richard Matheson

Harlan Ellison

Greg Chapman

Simon Clark

Bentley Little

Angela Carter

Chuck Palahniuk

Joe R. Lansdale

John Collier

Douglas Clegg

Ramsey Campbell

John Shirley

David V. Schow

Caitlin R. Kiernan

Poppy Z. Brite

Christa Faust

Graham Masterton

Robert W. Chambers

Elizabeth Massie

Kathe Koja

John Farris

Graham Joyce

Michael Slade

Fritz Leiber

Charles Beaumont

T. E. D. Klein

Peter Straub

Neil Gaiman

Gregor Xane

Jonathan Carroll

Steve Rasnic Tem

John Skipp

Francesca Lia Block

H. P. Lovecraft

Saki

21. Human-Machines.   Used purchase, cyborgs. 

22. Berserker Man by Fred Saberhagen.   Used purchase, turning into a machine, relevant to my interests. 

23. Machines That Kill.   An anthology edited by Saberhagen.   Used purchase.  Relevant to my interests. 

24. The Black Hole by Alan Dean Foster.  Used purchase.  I was told this would be relevant to my interests. 

25. Memoranda by Jeffrey Ford.   Gregor Xane suggested this.   Plus, it was on the 'money goes to Shirley Jackson awards' shelf.   

26. Gamification/C-Monkeys for Keith Hollihan.   Interconnected flip book.   Sandra Katsuri, I believe, practically gave this to me for my last dollars because she loves it, and I'm a good Chizine customer.   (Sandra is one of the co-publishers, and I just found out that she writes poetry when googling her to make sure I spelt her last name properly.   And I like her poetry!)

27. Haxan by Kenneth Mark Hoover.   Because I throw my money at Chizine, and they feed me books. 

28. The Door in the Mountain by Caitlin Sweet.   Because the Chizine books.  I must has all, plz. 

29. Kabu-Kabu by Nnedi Okorafor.   Because this is supposed to be fantastic!

30. The Emerald Burrito of Oz by John Skipp and Marc Levinthal.   On a shelf for a dollar, with a sign front the dealer begging us not to force him to carry all the paperbacks and hardcovers home.   And I've been kinda secretly hoping to read this one, but waiting not crazy about the price and the fact that I'm not familiar with Skipp's co-author.   But one dollar?   Yes, plz.