They Had Goat Heads by D. Harlan Wilson

Title: They Had Goat Heads
Author: D. Harlan Wilson
ISBN: 0982628129 (isbn13: 9780982628126)

D. Harlan Wilson returns with another ferociously mindbending collection of short fiction. Masked in absurdity, these stories reveal the horrifying an...mBlBlurb: D. Harlan Wilson returns with another ferociously mindbending collection of short fiction. Masked in absurdity, these stories reveal the horrifying and hilarious faces of everyday life. Wilson tells of egg raids, hog rippers, monk spitters, fathers who take their children to pet stores to buy them whales, sociopaths who threaten to clothesline eternity, and the simple act of the story itself becoming a means of repetitive, endless torture. Put on your goat head, hop in your hovercraft, and take a ride with a juggernaut of modern imaginative fiction.

Review: It's extremely rare that I genuinely dislike a piece of fiction. So why did I dislike They Had Goat Heads? I think the answer lies in the definition of fiction.

Plot. Characters. All that jazz. In these short stories, the elements of fiction are barely discernible. The moment some semblance of plot begins to pop up, it's killed instantly by a random slew of profanity or nonsense. This weird hybrid between bad poetry and schizophrenic prose is "repetitive, endless torture" to sit through. Don't waste your money.

I'm going to two-star this one because the story "Quality of Life" managed to save it for a moment.

The Reformed Vampire Support Group

Hey guys. Jeanette here. Before I delve into this book, let me explain a little more about how things work here.

If a book was published by a small press or self published, we'll include all the info-whatsits, the isbn, a buy link, etc. If it was by a large press and we just read it for shits and giggles, we're not doing all that crap.

The second thing I should explain is I'm totally baked and I was baked throughout my reading of Catherine Jinks's The Reformed Vampire Support Group.

Basically, this book is about a bunch of vampires who have renounced their bloodsucking ways and try to live in peace with humans--but you won't find any sparkling shirtless guys here. Jinks's vampires are dead and gross, sick all the time, and uber depressing. I almost put the book down because the narrator was so depressing in the beginning. I mean, how interesting can it be to read about a bunch of vampires complaining to each other in a Tuesday night support group?

Things picked up, though, after one of the group is murdered by a slayer. That kick-starts a chain-reaction of chases, fight scenes, werewolf dog fights, violent fangings, and vampire mischeif. There are so many plot twists and I don't want to spoil them all, but...yeah.

If you like high-action things and you're a kid or teenager and you don't mind a lack of romance and you have a large attention span and you hate Twilight, this is the book for you.

...That's really all I feel I can type right now.