Kelly Laymon, Excitable Boys

Published back in 2002 by Freak Press, ' Excitable Boys 'is a collection of the most repulsive and damn right sick stories to thrill the tastes of those who seek such literature. Compiled and edited by Kelly Laymon (none other than Richard Laymon ' s daughter), the idea for the book was the brain child of Kelly ' s after hearing Ryan Harding ' s 2000 entry in the World Horror Convention Gross-Out Contest. The name for the compilation came from Warren Zevon ' s song entitled ' Excitable Boy ' . Sharing similar themes and subject matters, the title seemed somewhat appropriate to Kelly.

The book kicks off with a short introduction from Kelly, entitled ' Take a Tour Through the Sewer ' , where she details how and why ' Excitable Boys 'came about. This four page introduction is an amusing little read and certainly does a good job in whetting the appetite for the tales to come.

First up is Rain Graves ' s twenty-three page short entitled ' Good Care ' . Rain delivers an unnerving tale of inter-family revenge after a boy ' s father unfairly punishes him for his ' insolence 'in the most horrific of ways. As you would guess, the father eventually gets his comeuppance. The story is a good little tale to get the book underway, delivering a sufficient amount of descriptive gore and a general teeth-grinding underlying atmosphere.

Next up is Michael McCarty ' s suitably grim short entitled ' The Constipated Cannibal ' . This super-short, three page tale is preluded by a rather grotesque illustration by Gak depicting what one would imagine would be the end result of a ' constipated cannibal ' . Not a pleasant site!

This delightfully detailed description of a cannibal ' s troublesome bowel movements is wonderfully unpleasant with a well needed slab of comedy curdling the foulness that surrounds this general premise. This is what ' Excitable Boy ' s 'is all about!

Following on from that in the only way these authors know how is Edward Lee with his thirty-four page short entitled ' The McCrath Model SS40-C, Series S ' . This charming tale delivers to the writing world what Hideshi Hino ' s film ' Guinea Pig 2: Flower of Flesh and Blood 'did to the world of motion picture.

Centred around the monstrous evil unleashed by a doctor and his helpers on his two victims, this particularly disturbing tale is possibly the strongest of the entire collection.

None other than the author Brian Keene takes to the stage next with his surreal short entitled ' Full of It ' . This twelve page story involves a group of ex-soldiers who have taken it upon themselves to form a terrorist organisation named ' The Sons of the Constitution ' . We join the tale as they capture a solider who is spying on the group. But their subsequent entrapment and torture of the soldier backfires somewhat when a shocking turn of events lays waste to the entire group.

This surreal tale is waste deep in its unrelenting assault on the reader. Keene delivers a foul story with his tongue firmly in cheek approach to what can only be described as a childishly comical grand finale. For the gross out factor, you won ' t be disappointed with this one.

Typical of Mark McLaughlin. The next entry in the collection is McLaughlin ' s short entitled ' Attack Of The Fifty-Foot Prison Bitch ' . You can always tell when it ' s one of McLaughlin ' s tales by the ridiculous B-Movie-esque title to the work. With his usual, all out surreal and unashamedly crude nature, Mark brings us this self-explanatory titled tale which delivers the all important message that ' radioactivity and prisoners just don ' t mix ' . The mistake was made here, with diabolical and typically revolting consequences.

You know what you ' re getting with a Mark McLaughlin story, so expect the usual surreal, comical, ridiculous and crude, in your face and monstrously over the top b-movie plot line crammed into the least amount of pages possible for such an epic title. This is a non-stop thrill of a ride.

Coming along next is Gavin Williams ' s truly twisted contribution by the name of ' A Heart Full Of Love, A Bowel Full Of Hate ' . This six page abomination is nothing short of all out foul. Williams unleashes an onslaught of non-stop gut-churning gore with its one and only mission " to gross out the reader from start to finish. And doesn ' t the man do that well! Expect a barrage of depravities that Williams has dug up from deep within his obviously twisted imagination.

Outrageously gory and heavily ladled with black comedy, Harding brings to ' Excitable Boys 'another wave of monumental gross-out fun that is one of those shorts that lingers in the back of your mind for a few weeks afterwards.

Last but by no means least we have Geoff Cooper ' s short and sweet entry ' Just Like Chicken ' . This five page contribution is recalling a particularly horrible event that took place at the annual Gross-Out contest at World Horror in Denver.

The book is illustrated throughout (one illustration per story) by Gak, along with a brief passage on each author. This is 135 pages of pure gross-out fun, is put together in a nice little book that is sure to bring a chuckle to almost all lovers of gory splatterpunk pulp. If you ' ve read this far, then this is a book for you!