Get ready to Roll...on the Floor!

ZOMBIES, WEREWOLVES, WHORES AND MORE! by Jerrod Balzer (2012 Skullvines Press / 205 pp / eBook)

This collection of mostly humorous horror stories features a lot of bonus material and other surprises...and at times things get very funny.

While I'm biased toward toward the first two stories (a novella and a short originally published by my own small press), I forgot just how funny 'Zombie Bastard' and especially 'Wolf Plugs' are. It's rare for comedic pieces to hold up to reepated readings, but these do and then some.

'More Than a Woman' is a hysterical tale about a bachelor party gone off the deep end after a hooker with Multiple Personality Disorder shows up. 'Bad Church' is a bit more serious but still brings some chuckles. 'No Returns' deals with a prostitute who unknowingly contracts a strange form of venereal disease from a customer who happens to be a zombie (Sweet Moses do I love Balzer's ideas!); arguably the funniest idea yet for an undead outbreak. 'Tom Sawyer's Lost Adventure' features Twain's classic crew battling ghoul-like creatures. It's a lot of fun but not as funny as what preceeds it.

Then we get to the bonus material: first up are the first seven chapters of Balzer's forthcoming novel FEAR THE WOODS, which is a re-vamped/updated version of his novel THE OAK CLAN. Having never read CLAN, this lengthy preview has me looking forward to the finished product. Then there's a couple more mini-previews in the second bonus, further taunting us readers.

The third bonus section (titled "Complete Silliness") begins with a riotous story of a young Antichrist facing off with a hippie (or is he?) in a fast food joint titled 'Armageddon in the Snappy Snack Shack.' Balzer then hits us with a really funny poem before launching into 'The Adventures of Sidney and Rodney,' a laugh-out-loud bizarro fantasy written while the author was on hallucinogenic mushrooms: and if he wasn't, he needs to be committed.

The collection concludes with over 40 pages of entertaining "Shroom Haiku," which range from goofy to weird to LOL to just plain head-scratchingly STRANGE.

ZOMBIES, WEREWOLVES, WHORES AND MORE! is a must read for horror fans who like the funny stuff, and the novel preview shows Balzer has some serious chops when he isn't tripping out.