God Laughs When You Die

by Michael Boatman

"A host of drug dealers meets a foe they cannot kill. The president accidentally invites demons into the country and watches the pope turn into a sabertooth tiger. A man, dead since 1920, lives again in present day Los Angeles to satiate a malevolent goddess. These tales by Michael Boatman will disturb, terrify and traumatize you. Boatman grabs you by throat and drags you kicking and screaming through his prose. With a dash of Lansdale and a smattering of Martin's Wild Cards, the tales within inhabit the dark and nasty side of our souls, and throughout Boatman infuses it all with a keen wit and an eye for detail. And when he lets you up to breathe, like God, you might just find yourself laughing. This is the sort of stuff I like to read as the bells sound midnight."--Paul Haines, award-winning author of Doorways for the Dispossessed

"Boatman's debut collection will knock you down and kick you in the teeth. Alternatingly hysterical, grotesque, bizarre, and fantastic, Boatman's collection is a must-read for anyone itching to get their hands on fresh new fiction that pulls no punches."--Ronald Damien Malfi, author of The Nature of Monsters and The Fall of Never

"Michael Boatman writes like a visitor from hell. Someone out on short term leave for bad behavior. I love this stuff. He's one of the new, and more than promising, writers making his mark, and a dark and wonderful mark it is."--Joe R. Lansdale

Genres: Horror, Fiction, Anthologies

148 pages, Paperback

First published October 23, 2007

Reviews

[Marisol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Boatman is a comic book and pop-culture Geek. Anyone who knows me well enough knows that he already earned points based on that fact alone.
I don't normally read horror because it doesn't have the same effect on me as watching horror so this is now one of few horror works I'm glad I took the time to read. The writing flows with the dark sense of humor required to enjoy the strange tales and the artwork included with each story just adds to my idea of Boatman's verbal story-telling skills (which I have always thought was important when sitting down to write. If you can't tell the story verbally - don't bother writing it down. But that's just me.).
The only speed bumps I encountered may have more to do with me as a reader than Boatman as a writer; short stories that leave the reader hanging. I know there are those readers who enjoy the suspense and the hours of speculation that follow; I'm just not one of them.
I recommend this book to those of you who can answer trivia based on years of B-Movies and comic books; it won't disappoint. To those of you not into horror; you can enjoy this books as well for it other merits.

[S. Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An attempt at a collection of splatterpunk stories - with a Foreward by David J. Schow, no less! - most of the stories in this collection either miss the mark or come awfully close, but could have used a bit more polish, especially when to comes to pacing and delivery. Not a bad attempt, but the bad art scattered throughout doesn't help.

[Kandachamy Vijayakumaran · Rating 3 out of 5]

An extremely different style of writing with incredible themes and plots unseen. It was a stimulating experience to find writing can stretch this far.

[Samuel Sammy]

The strangeness of this tale makes me feel like it was a bad idea sticking with it to the end.

[Logan Berrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun book, I read it in a couple hours yesterday.
Over the top comedy/horror in the genre(whose name I loathe) of "splatter punk". Illustrations cheapen the entire read-next time, use an actual illustrator, instead of a drunken 3 year old. Also, a more fastidious editor would be beneficial, and make the presentation that much more professional.

Apropos of the actual quality of the writing, I was happy to support a book written by a person of color featuring people of color in a genre that desperately needs greater representation of nonwhite folks. The last great character of color to be featured in a horror novel was in Brian Keene's "Dead Sea."

Confidential to the author(in the unlikely event he sees this: Keep writing horror Boatman, hopefully you'll get picked up by a bigger publisher that can give your work the editing and presentation it deserves.

[Heath Lowrance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boatman's got style and vision. The vast majority of the stories in GOD LAUGHS WHEN YOU DIE are wildly inventive and unpredictable, cleanly written and forceful. Some of them will make you a little... uncomfortable. While the subject matter is deadly serious, there's a strange undercurrent of bleak, bleak humor here as well, the kind of humor you cling to when faced with ugly truths that can't be denied.

The only thing keeping this from a 5 star review was the somewhat messed-up formatting. But despite that, I'm looking forward to more from this author.

[Fishface · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to have this when I saw the title. It's a very gritty and unpleasant set of short stories about all kinds of desperate people in desperate situations, taking desperate measures. My favorite, "the Drop," concerns two men in a rowboat trying to kill each other, as a carnivorous mermaid waits below to see how it will come out. The stories were written by TV and movie actor Michael Boatman, who always seemed so laid-back and nonabrasive to me. Who knew?

[Daniel R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun collection of extreme violence, nasty horror, freaky superheroics, funky death matches and more. Actor Boatman has the right sense of humor for horror. Includes an introduction from David J. Schow. Fans of old school Schow, Lansdale & Richard Christian Matheson will find much to enjoy here.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've enjoyed Michael Boatman the actor but this collection of his horror tales was somewhat uneven. There were a few good stories so I wasn't sorry I read it but it doesn't make me want to seek out more.

[SFReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

http://www.sfreader.com/read_review.a...

[Jeffrey Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun, intense read. Not for the weak of heart.