HebrewPunk by Lavie Tidhar

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Paperback: 978-0-9788676-4-5, $13.95

“The Heist” is an excellent theme setter for this collection. This story has an urban fantasy flavor, only instead of the default setting of the world being based in nature worship-style paganism or Christianity the magic comes from a very distinct Jewish flavor.

Jimmy the Rat (a Jewish vampire), The Tzaddick (an immortal), The Rabbi (a powerful Jewish mystic) and his wickedly constructed golem Goldie come together to take down a mysterious and magical blood bank. Along the way they encounter peculiar versions of zombies and angels and a fortress that will boggle readers with its incredible level of security. It’s the motley crew’s job to break the fortress, to take down the blood bank and of course, collect their fee.

From there HebrewPunk moves to stories focusing on the trio individually.

“Transylvania Mission” pits The Rat against a band of Nazi werewolves searching for Dracula in the hopes of enlisting his help in their war. More could be said, but that, and awesome, sums up this tale.

“Uganda” mixes the Jewish flavor with distinct African ingredients. In this tale it’s the turn of the century and The Rabbi is asked to investigate a tract of land in Eastern Africa which some people hope will become a new Jewish Homeland. Recognized as a mystic by a local tribe, he walks with them, getting a glimpse into the truth of the land, and possibly even the future. While this is a solid, interesting and richly flavored tale it feels unfinished at the end, perhaps because it’s written as if compiled by a third party from multiple sources, a style that lends better to longer works.

Finally comes The Tzaddick in “The Dope Fiend”, a 1920s set tale of voodoo and ghosts and how they surface in the Jewish mythos. Unfortunately this one is the weakest of the four. There are many major secondary characters that move in and out of the story, playing fairly important roles, but there’s a feeling to them as if the reader should know who they are. It’s not, however, guaranteed that they will.

Also a point of discontent with this story is The Tzaddick himself, who often comes off as if being a drug addict is all that he is. While there is a level of realism to this portrayal, in this story it keeps the reader from connecting with The Tzaddick as anything but a drug addict. This, and the previously mentioned crew of secondary characters, overpower the plot itself, as if Tidhar had more fun writing the characters than the story.

Altogether HebrewPunk is a collection that reveals interesting possibilities, especially for the Urban Fantasy genre who should sit up and take notice at how much space there still is in the genre outside the realm of nature based magic systems and romance melodramas.

Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

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Wayside School was a set up to be special from the moment the builders mistakenly built it as thirty one-room floors instead of one thirty-room floor. Luckily this left a lot of extra space for the playground, a playground that Mrs. Jewels’ class rarely gets to play on since their room is at the top of the building.

I remember loving the Wayside books as a kid. Anything and everything could and did happen, from dead rats who are determined to sneak into Mrs. Jewels class, to Mrs. Zorf (who doesn’t exist, and her classroom on the 19th floor which also doesn’t exist) to puns and humorous literal interpretations of concepts. In trying to expand my children’s love of stories I picked Sideways Stories from Wayside School to read before bed each night.

While we enjoyed some stories, like Mrs. Gorf (who turns the kids into apples when they misbehave), Mrs. Jewels (who thinks the class is filled with monkeys because children can’t possibly be so cute) and Todd (a student who just cannot seem to get through a whole day without being sent home, no matter how hard he tries), others were a complete miss. There were some stories I feel we didn’t connect with because my son is a very literal thinker and didn’t “get” the joke.

Being willing to believe anything is important to enjoying the thirty short stories in this book. If your child can suspend disbelief then they’ll love these wacky tales. But if you stall on how unreal the concept of a story is then it’s hard to get past that. Sachar doesn’t suspend disbelief, he assumes you’ve already done that and writes a story about what happens afterwards.

Most of the stories are about three pages long, which lends well to before bed reading. Each is about a different student or teacher, but they all feature a familiar cast of characters which also makes this book good for reading in small bits since each story is like an episode, a whole story on its own but expands the world of Wayside a little bit at a time. The short length of the stories will also help children still learning to read or parents who burnout on books aimed at kids balance the pros of reading together with the frustrations.

Sloppy Seconds by Wrath James White

Aptly named, Sloppy Seconds is a collection of stories, brutal and stomach turning, first birthed by intimidating, infamous gross out man Wrath James White primarily for the WHC Gross Out contest. Having read Jeff Strand’s contributions in Gleefully Macabre Tales and White’s collaboration with Maurice Broaddus, Orgy of Souls, I thought I knew what I was getting into.

First up is the story that started it all, “Morbid Obesity”. Calling it the tale of a cannibalistic, necrophiliac fat- fetishist sums it up nicely.

Promising sinister things, next is “Panty Pudding”. Ageism doesn’t seem to exist in this tale of man’s obsession with an ancient crack whore’s underwear, and the bits that hide within them.

My favorite story, “Alive” is (hilariously, offensively) wrong from the first line–”Johnny was a cannibal with an insatiable appetite for human flesh… and he just happened to work at an abortion clinic.” Absolutely not a story for the easily offended (but then, neither is any book that’s a collection of stories from a gross out contest) if it helps Johnny does get what’s coming to him.

“Felching the Worm” could be an episode of Jackass gone terribly wrong. A man’s love for his dog goes farther than even other horror writers would dare it to go. I have to admit, I had to read this one fast to make it through.

Next up, “Gigolo Crackwhore” a one night stand of a story about a male crackwhore in a leper colony.

Finally comes “Hurting Him”, a brutal, violent tale that pushes the limits of scientific possibility and will make most horror writers feel normal. A revenge tale to top all others “Hurting Him” is a disturbing ode to human rage.

Despite what one might think of these tales, even if this is the only exposure they’ll ever have, White’s gore and nausea-inducing prose is window dressing, the flash that garners the attention. There’s more to all these stories than festering sores and bodily fluids. Some are over the top, sick humor. And some are startling looks at the nature of humanity’s attraction to that which means only destruction. Most of all, these stories aren’t just gross, they’re good, perfectly paced tales with melodious word choices, fierce and tight pacing despite the path they take far past “extreme”.

Saint-Germain: Memoirs by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

Saint-Germain: Memoirs collects two short stories, two novelettes and a novella, each focused on different slice of the remarkable life of the immortal Count Saint Germain…

The rest is at MonsterLibrarian.com.

Webs of Discord by Jason Sizemore

Being a fan of a writer doesn’t guarantee that you can collect every story they put out. Collections are a fine opportunity to get stories you may have missed.

Webs of Discord is Jason Sizemore’s first collection. Chapbook sized, it features four previously published stories and one original to this collection. It focuses on a theme of love and features several different angles on the theme.

The first story, “Bright Lights” focuses on family love and the corruption there of. It also focuses on the difficulties of dealing with loved ones coming home from war.

“The Haunting of Hollis Higgins” is about romantic love, and the forces working to bring it into being, or shatter it. This story takes a more darkly humorous tone than the others in the collection.

“Milton, the Christmas Fairy” proves that love isn’t all bad and that Sizemore isn’t all science fiction and horror. A fantasy fairy tale with a traditional pagan twist it follows a lowly seasonal fairy as he tries to earn the right to be with his human love.

“Breaking Up is Hard to Do”, the most chilling story in the collection, is about a man whose loss of sex life from his wife’s rejection is a worse problem than he could ever imagine. Sizemore uses miscarriage, the love of a mother for her child, and the desire of a man for his wife in sinister, creepy ways making this story one for the horror fans.

“The XX Agent”, the chapbook’s original piece, is also a horror tale, reminiscent of Starfish by Steve Parker from Issue 5 of Apex Digest. The dark, hedonistic world of the yakuza is the focus, though this story is about the illegal sex trade, a malefic home for unwanted Chinese girls, not a black market for fish. Another one for the horror fans, this tale tells of the strange impulses and actions that love spurs.

Webs of Discord is available through Apex Publications and www.apexbookcompany.com