Friends With Death by James Wright—An apocalyptic horror comedy

Indie Published — Find it at
Amazon.com

Friends with Death, by James Wright is a debut horror comedy novella that follows the Grim Reaper, Death, when he finds himself out of a job as the harvestor of souls because of a zombie apocalypse. He befriends an isolated community of introverts and decides to befriend them, because he's never really had friends and he's sort of lonely. It turns out that the socially awkward introverts have similar degrees of loneliness, so this could be an interesting experiment.

It also turns out that socially awkward moments in a zombie hellscape can be quite funny when delivered in a narrative style that I, for some reason, heard in my head as being told by David Attenborough. Or Wes Anderson. maybe not as quirky as Anderson, but sometimes the inner thoughts and feelings of those characters were presented in a similar deadpan matter of fact way. I will admit, there were a few moments in the story that dragged because of it, but there were also some surpriingly funny tidbits that warranted a nod, a need to highlight some text on my kindle and to mark that text as Nice!

If you are a fan of zombie comedies like Shaun of the Dead or Zombieland, then this read might be for you. If you are a fan of Pratchett or Christopher Moore, and their depictions of Death as a character, then this read might be for you. Either way, check it out. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find.

Blood Bank — A Very Short Review of a book by various horror authors

 

Cover image courtesy of
Blood Bound Books

It took me two years to get through this horror anthology of short stories that was published back in 2022, but that doesn’t make it any less worth your while. So let me justify the length of time.

I don’t give anthologies and short stories, in general, near the love that they deserve,  but they serve an essential purpose in my quest to keep reading — even if it’s only a little bit in a day. The short story anthology is the perfect book to leave on your nightstand when you know you have fifteen or twenty minutes, but you also know that you have to get up in the g*ddamned morning, and investing that time in a full length novel with its potential cliffhangers to push you past your designated lights out time is infeasible. Also, good for that quick dose of reading you might sneak in on a lunch break at work.

So, give the short story anthology some love, world! I was drawn to this horror collection for two reasons: Neil Gaiman, and a charitable cause. Gaiman's contribution, We Can Get Them For You Wholesale, does not disappoint. But there are other horror authors to enjoy here too. I really enjoyed Jeff Strand's First Date, because horror with a healthy dose of humor often gets me. Kristopher Triana's Pictures of a Princess is creepy and disturbing as it tackles obsession, and Mona Kabbani's Cursed Objects hits a nerve with the desire to get even when you've been labeled as an outcast. Patrick Freivald's A Better Hate serves up some poignant Indigenous holiday horror, and The End of Time on Rosewyld Lane, by Jay Wilborn is heartbreakingly excellent.

This short story collection has a number of snippets that you might love, or even hate, but it’s a solid collection of horror, and the proceeds go to a good cause—a literacy program called Read Better, Be Better, out of Arizona.

So, check this anthology from Blood Bound Books out! It encourages reading for everyone, whether it’s in support of reading programs in general or whether it’s just you or me trying to get a little bit of reading in on a daily basis.