Welcome to Litsy!

This was fun! Some of the stories were just meh, but some were great. I think Spores made me squirm the most, but I hate fungi. I even have a hard time when using mushrooms in my cooking. Molds and fungi…😰

I have been on a Hellraiser high this whole week. In the first movie, blood dripped on the floor by Larry allows Frank to come back from hell. In the 2nd, a psychopath gives his patient who thinks roaches are always crawling on him a razor and his blood on a mattress allows Julia (pictured) to come back. The short story shown reminds me of both scenes. It‘s maybe 3 pages long and it is visceral, witchy, and wonderful. Happy Saturday, Littens!!!

Ellen Datlow is the editor of this collection of horror stories with the theme of body horror. Datlow is probably the best editor there is with regard to short stories in the horror or fantasy genres. Her Best Horror of the Year collections are unmatched and I highly recommend them. This book does not disappoint and is full of truly frightening tales. If horror is your thing, you will enjoy this book. Five stars.

Going into this, I thought this was going to be torture and pain rough, but it wasn‘t. Yes, some were gross and I wouldn‘t recommend eating while reading this, but besides one meh story out of 29, they were great. There was a lesbian couple and their daughter at the beginning of a mold apocalypse, a description of a werewolf woman eating of a fat accountant that sounded so sumptuous and delicious, an autopsy whose ME‘s blood sacrifice into 👇🏼

I liked this sentence. From “I‘m Always Here,” by Richard Christian Matheson. Photo is of artist Peter Pavlesnkiy in his artistic form of protest against the Russian government.

In a book of body horror themed short stories, I would never have guessed there would be one about the fashion industry. As someone who watched the first 6 seasons of America‘s Next Top Model back in the day, I was into it. It‘s so satirically scathing, making fun of all the pretentiousness, and yet, it manages to boil it down into a moment of beauty right before that last paragraph that knifes you in the back. Sooo good this story.

Just picked up this anthology of body horror yesterday. The cover looks like something Clive Barker would have done. The table contents is pretty awesome. Read the first story and even though it is about a family being caught at a roach motel and turning into roaches themselves it had a nice little lesson about life. I 🖤 horror.

I enjoyed these stories, though I'm not sure all are body horror and I don't think most of them are especially extreme. There's some gnarly bits, to be sure, but I was expecting worse, or at least a higher level of gnarly consistency.

Speaking of body horror, I have pre-ordered this book and if it's painfully straight and/or custom I am going to be disappointed!