3/5.

A silly, gory, ridiculous, funny-at-times, macabre collection of short fiction from Jeff Strand. This was my first foray in to Strand's work, and I enjoyed some of the stories. I did find myself regularly underwhelmed by the climax's of many of them, though, and feel like there could have been more effort put in to that. I like short stories, both as a reader and a writer, and there's some good ones here, but there are some poor ones too. Still, this was an easy and quick read and I had fun with it. ( )

At just under 300 pages, you would not think that Strand would be able to include that many short stories in this collection. And you would be wrong. He has an amazing thirty-three stories in the book. Plus story notes at the end on how and why the stories were written. I always love that extra insight. Strand reaches that number of stories by making some of them are extremely short, like under a page. However, the impact and humor in those stories are just as great as some of the other stories. "Common Sense" is a brief two paragraphs but I laughed out loud at the ending. On the other end of the spectrum, I shared that story with a friend and he thought it was dumb. Obviously I need to change my friends. Or stop sharing my perverted sense of humor with them. If you already like Strand or your sense of humor is off, you'll love this book. And if you do, let me know because I might need another friend or two. My favorites are below.

"Really, Really Ferocious" - An awesome way to start the collection! An old man sics his watch dog on a solicitor.
"Sex Potion #147" - A gypsy helps a young woman improve her sex life but not without a dificult lesson to be learned first.
"Everything Has A Purpose" - You will use what you have been taught.
"Glimpses" - One of the more serious stories with little humor. Select scenes of a couple's life.
"I Hold The Stick" - A man enjoys his job of denying others. I also had this happen recently with my two-year-old. Grrr.
"Howard, the Tenth Reindeer" - A fun addition to Santa and his reindeer.
"Disposal" - An attempt to kill a man goes wrong again and again. ( )

http://www.darkscribemagazine.com/reviews/gleefully-macabre-tales-jeff-strand.ht... ( )