Busy Blood.

Busy Blood is a collection of stories by D.F. Lewis and Stuart Hughes and is published by The Exaggerated Press. I love reading Des Lewis' real-time reviews but have to say that a lot of the time I have absolutely no idea what he means (a failure in my understanding rather than in his ability to communicate I hasten to add) so it was with a degree of trepidation that I started reading this book, with a mind to reviewing it, my concerns being that the writing would be so far over my head that I would have nothing insightful to say about it. (That said, it could be the case that I never have anything insightful to say about anything I review...)
Still, life is nothing without a challenge and, having now finished the book, I can say that to some degree my fears were confirmed, there were many occasions when reading one of the stories, or even after having completed it, that my reaction was "what the **** was that all about?" but this is in no way a criticism of the book. Many of Des' reviews communicate the emotions and feelings he experiences when reading rather than straightforward critiques of the stories themselves. Which, after all, is the most important thing. The function of art - in whatever form - is surely to create some kind of emotional response. My emotional response to Busy Blood, and the stories therein, definitely was one of confusion - which was in turn unsettling, which, when you think about it, is exactly what you would want from well written horror.
And this is definitely well written horror. I've banged on about Des Lewis a lot so far in this review but this book is a collaborative effort, the other author Stuart Hughes has written stories I've enjoyed in other publications (most recently in Hersham Horror's Alt-Zombie) and it's a compliment to both him and Des that you can't tell where the joins are. I'm not sure if the two authors wrote individual stories or collaborated within the stories themselves but either way I found it impossible to tell who wrote what, the tone and style of the writing is maintained throughout.
And it's the tone that's the key here. For whatever reason, this is an unsettling (there - I've used the word again so it must be true) collection of stories, disturbing even. It would be easy and superficial to describe them as "descent into madness" tales but they all share a theme of reality shifting and changing around the protagonists, (and not in a good way), of having the most unreliable of unreliable narrators. Many of the stories touch on surrealism - not my favourite style of writing usually - but manage to avoid the pitfalls that many Surrealists fall into of simply writing self-indulgent in-jokes (or bollocks as I like to call them) that are meaningless to anyone but themselves.
Busy Blood is a tricky read, but it's definitely worth the effort. Good writing should engage the brain and that's exactly what this collection does. You may well have to work out your own theories on what the stories are about, it may well be that many of them aren't actually "about" anything anyway. This is a good thing.
Can genre fiction be literary? Yes it can, and Busy Blood is the proof.

The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies.

The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies is edited by DF Lewis and published by Megazanthus Press and is a compilation of twenty stories with a common (loose) theme of containing a horror anthology in its plot, thus allowing a nice play on words to provide the title of this collection.

The stories showcase a wide variety of styles and interpretations of the theme. Perhaps the most interesting of these interpretations is Tree Ring Anthology by Daniel Ausema that uses the pattern of rings in a tree trunk to chart significant events over the course of many years - including a nuclear holocaust and what appears to be the appearance of extra-terrestrial life forms. It's a clever story, beautifully written and even manages a sting in the tail.

A few of the stories left me cold and/or wondering what they were about (not something I'm afraid to admit to!) and a couple were a wee bit too long, almost approaching novella length. A couple (Tears of the Mutant Jesters by Rhys Hughes and Paper Cuts by Nick Jackson) veer a little too close to surrealism for my tastes. Couching a story in a bizarre framework tends to detract from any horror - which is, in my opinion, enhanced by basing the story in reality. Two stories that do this extremely effectively are Horror Stories For Boys by Rachel Kendall and Midnight Flight by Joel Lane, the former an excellent examination of the consequences of childhood trauma.

The two best stories of the collection for me are The Rediscovery of Death by Mike O'Driscoll which uses the classic trope of a haunted/cursed book but does so in a stylish way in a beautifully paced story that leads to a climax that - if not entirely unexpected - is extremely satisfying. Flowers of the Sea by Reggie Oliver follows that story and is my favourite of the collection. A slow burning story it uses a first person perspective from a not entirely sympathetic narrator and conjures up images in its climax that are truly unsettling.

I have to give an honourable mention to Clayton Stealback for his story The Writer. I've known Clayton for a few years now and have enjoyed everything he's written. He very kindly asked me to have a look at the first draft of The Writer before he submitted it which I was more than happy to do. A requirement of submitting for this anthology was to have had a story reviewed by Des Lewis and Clayton qualified because of his story in the Dark Minds anthology. Because of my involvement with the story I feel I can't give an unbiased review of it. It is a cracker though. Really, it is.

All in all this is a strong collection with enough variety of style and subject matter to appeal to the majority of readers. A couple of typos aside (Sophia Lauren? and a couple of instances of words meant to be italicised left underlined as per the original manuscript) it's a high quality product with an amazing cover image.

Whilst not every story worked for me I would still highly recommend The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies.