"Splatterpunk," for all who might not be familiar with this horror subgenre, is dark fiction that tends to be a little on the "wet" side.

Usually this genre features revenge-driven tales that are light on character and plot development, leaving the writers plenty of words to spend on the gore that's to follow, decorating the pages with arterial spray like demented Jackson Pollocks!

Happily for me, this book hits the trifecta, providing all the gore that's mandatory for the genre while strong characters and interesting plots give the material dimension. Within these pages you'll find everything from revenge-driven stories to disturbed (and deeply disturbing!) character pieces to bizarre hellscapes that would make even Clive Barker proud!

As with any collection, some stories I liked better than others, but all are good. Every single author does the splatterpunk genre proud, elevating it to something far more than a simple gore-fest. And believe me, these are authors you are going to want to know more about! Among my favorites here are Michael Laimo, Gregory L. Norris, Chad Stroup, and Allen Griffin.

Also impressive with this book, apart from the quality of the fiction, is the quality of the editing and the overall appearance of the book itself. The cover is great, the interior artwork first-rate. This is my second publication from Grey Matter Press, and once again I found no typos, and the formatting of my Kindle version is flawless, something you would expect from one of the "big six" name-brand publishing houses, but rare among small publishers. And as a reader of anthologies, I truly appreciate the links from the Table of Contents to the actual stories, something you almost never find in ebook formatting of collections like these!

Splatterlands avoids what I consider to be the most common pitfall to this genre, and that is - ahem - overkill. Usually by the halfway mark in any splatterpunk collection, the weapons of death have become so dull that they are nothing more than rubber Halloween props, offering little in the way of thrills or chills.

That's not the case here. With the editors keeping the stories varied yet intense, the death machine keeps churning out the gore with terrifying efficiency. And because they cared enough to stock the machine with real characters, the colors spraying out of that machine become that much more real, too.

If you're new to the splatterpunk scene, this a great way to get your feet "wet." If you're a seasoned splatterpunk veteran, don't let all my talk of 'character' and 'plot' turn you away. Trust me, the added depth only makes the gory bits better, and you don't have to wait around in any of these stories to get to the gory stuff!

But I do have a (bloody) bone to pick. They got the subtitle all wrong. Grey Matter Press didn't simply 'reawaken' the splatterpunk revolution.

They reinvented it.