A Kindle Explosion

Hoo-boy, there’s lots of good short story collections and novellas just out at the moment, aren’t there? It seems that we’ll have a dry spell of a month or so when nothing of note comes out, and then—whammo—all the stuff we want to read hits at once and next thing you know you’ve fallen waaay behind.

Here are some superior collections that have seen the light of day just in the last few weeks. I’ve tried to be very selective here about the ones that are absolute must-reads. Let me know if I’m missing any gems, okay?

A few weeks ago, Keith Rawson released his collection THE CHAOS WE KNOW. Brilliant and brutal stuff. My review for it is here.

Nigel Bird and Chris Rhatigan edited the comprehensive PULP INK, which I only just reviewed a couple days ago. That’s here.

And speaking of Nigel Bird, his new one is called SMOKE. Haven’t read it yet, but looking forward to it. Nigel is one of my favorites.

Luca Veste, the fella putting together the upcoming anthology OFF THE RECORD, has just released LIVERPOOL FIVE.

The long-awaited collection from Patricia Abbott, MONKEY JUSTICE, is out as of today.

Edward Grainger (David Cramner) has just released the second volume of killer Western tales featuring Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles in, appropriately enough, THE ADVENTURES OF CASH LARAMIE AND GIDEON MILES, VOLUME TWO.

The always concise and remarkable Katherine Tomlinson hits us with her new collection JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE.

The latest in Paul D. Brazill’s DRUNK ON THE MOON series comes from Richard Godwin, and it’s called GETTING HIGH ON DAISY.

And Jason Michel of PULP METAL has put together a “best of” from that twisted e-zine, called LAUGHING AT THE DEATH GRIN.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. Anybody else? Regardless, I can tell you that each one of these is bound to be well worth reading. Enough good stuff to see you right through the Halloween season, at least…

Kindle-fied Review 5: THE CHAOS WE KNOW, by Keith Rawson

Keith Rawson writes with fire and fury, taking a sledgehammer to your comfort zones and exposing you to all manner of ugliness. And he also never mixes metaphors the way I just did.
THE CHAOS WE KNOW is an amazing and disturbing collection that drags you down (quite willingly) into the bowels of human suffering. Rawson’s characters are meth-heads, corrupt cops, pervs, trannies, cannibals. The earliest stories in the book are more like snippets, really, slice-of-life bits that serve as appetizers for the more fully fleshed out stories later. Rawson’s style is bold and aggressive and raw. We need more writers with balls like this.
Only one negative comment, and it has nothing to do with Rawson’s abilities as a writer: some typos and formatting issues that would occasionally pull me out of the story, especially toward the second half of the book. But these weren’t near enough to spoil the experience. THE CHAOS WE KNOW heralds the arrival of a major talent.