Book Of The Dead - Edited By Skipp & Spector (1989) 8/10

For my first novel review i've chosen The Book of the Dead edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector. The book is a collection of short stories based on the universe created by George A. Romero's Dead films. There's even a forward written by the man himself.

Within these pages we have mostly splatterpunk authors like David J. Schow, Joe R. Lansdale, Robert M. Mcammon and more. There are also submissions by non-splatterpunks like Stephen King, Edward Bryant, Ramsey Campbell etc. Most of the stories here are very creative and disgusting. Graphic depictions of gore and decompostions abound so this one isn't for "passive" horror fans but more for "active" or extreme horror fans. This was my first introduction to most of these authors, though i was already a big fan of Lansdale. The more I read, the more i liked as the stories get progressively better with the first few being medicore. I have to say that this is an excellent resource for intellegent extreme horror writers. There is also a second book of the dead which hopefully i'll get my hands on soon. Both books however are out of print but can be found on Amazon.com and Half.com etc very inexpensively.

8/10