Toast.x2

The self publishing industry is a whole lot like Goodwill, the Salvation Army, or any other second hand thrift depot. You dig through the refuse looking for gold, sometimes running into a half eaten sandwich in the process, or cutting yourself on a chipped teacup. There are times when the digging really pays off. You locate the missing piece of a rare set you collect, or something so bizarre that you fail to have the words to accurately describe your findings. The Peeling Trilogy caught my attention amid the detritus of self published muck. Being a trilogy of short novella about the end of the world, it took an approach that was unusual. As with King and McCammon, a global erasure of human life is in process. Fingers are being pointed, countries are being blamed. The opening was well built, showing the onset and progress of a disease as it melts away the flesh of a man, bubbling and stripping it away until bone glistens under loose gore. The mind though, beneath the pain...

Dear Andersen Prunty, recently you and I began to officially court each other. I cannot say that all of our dates have been positive, but they have all been memorable. At first I was hesitant. I mix well with the strange, but your genre, Bizarro Fiction, is still fairly new to the recognized literature scene as anything more than inappropriate. At first, I didn’t want to fully embrace you, but was bothered by the possibility of you passing me by.. Many times I have picked up The Beard and considered perusing it… Some how, you talked me into lowering my guard. Before I knew it you were poking me in my head orifices with your dirty body parts. I was disturbed. Then I was into it. then I was disturbed again. More specifically: Billed as a collection of Horror stories, your work [ Bury the children in the yard ] was not appropriately labeled. Horror it was not, colorful and frequently brilliant, and disturbingly “spermy” at some points? All of the above are true of it. You...