{"id":4776,"date":"2016-10-07T13:55:17","date_gmt":"2016-10-07T17:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/?p=4776"},"modified":"2016-10-07T13:55:17","modified_gmt":"2016-10-07T17:55:17","slug":"book-review-i-can-taste-the-blood-edited-by-john-f-d-taff-and-anthony-rivera","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monsterlibrarian.com\/TheCirculationDesk\/book-review-i-can-taste-the-blood-edited-by-john-f-d-taff-and-anthony-rivera\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: I Can Taste The Blood edited by John F.D. Taff and Anthony Rivera"},"content":{"rendered":"

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I Can Taste the Blood <\/a>\u00a0<\/em>edited by John F.D. Taff and Anthony Rivera<\/p>\n

ISBN-13: 978-1940658728<\/p>\n

Grey Matter Press, 2016<\/p>\n

Available: Paperback, Kindle edition<\/p>\n

This anthology contains five stories, or “visions”, all written with the same title: I Can Taste the Blood<\/em>. The editor gathered five authors, each presenting a unique take on the phrase, which originated from graffiti in the bathroom of a dive bar, which read \u201cI can taste the blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first vision, by Josh Malerman, is the story of Rab, a traveler who begs for help at the home of Madmannah, Sammi, and their child, Aart. It is a windy night when the desperate traveler knocks on their door and demands shelter for a short time. At the encouragement of their visiting friends, they admit the stranger into their home. Rab then tells them the story of how he came to be in their humble abode, what is chasing him, the horrors that he faced in this person\u2019s presence\u2026 and what he has done. Everything is not as it seems with the traveler, or with the entity pursuing him.<\/p>\n

The second vision, by J. Daniel Stone, is one of violence, underground snuff films, and heroin. Bok can\u2019t escape the clutches of Laurenz, an elderly German man with a taste for extreme violence who creates films to feed his urges. Bok discovers, through his lover Jared, that the old German\u2019s films hold a transformative contagion. As a warning, this story is extremely explicit in its depiction of bloody violence, snuff film material, and sex.<\/p>\n

Joe Schwartz presents a vision of a man who earns his keep as a hired strong-arm for someone known simply as Caretaker. The man and his partner, Joe, kidnap a young woman as she leaves her home. We get a series of short memories of crimes he has committed when he first started in the \u201cbusiness,\u201d and snapshots of his personal life. As the story returns to the present, and the kidnapped woman, things don\u2019t quite go as planned for the dastardly duo.<\/p>\n

Erik T. Johnson\u2019s vision tells of Canny, who is trying to cope with his strange mother and her death\u2026 I think. I read and reread this story a few times, and I\u2019m still not sure what to make of it. It reads like a stream of consciousness piece, and Canny\u2019s thoughts are incredibly disjointed. There are subtle, perhaps too subtle, connections between his thoughts. At times I felt like I should be getting more from this story than I was, but things just weren\u2019t connecting for me. I will say it is very poetic, and there is a lot of rich imagery in this story. Just be prepared for an exercise in attempting to follow a lost man down the rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

The final vision in the anthology, by John. F.D. Taff, is probably my favorite out of the anthology. Merle, a divorced father of one, lives in the small town he was raised in, where he knows everyone and everyone knows him. One evening at the local bar, his friend, Gun, points out a bandage on his arm. Merle doesn\u2019t remember giving blood, but the alcohol he loves so much tends to make him forgetful. Things change that night, when the two men venture to the VFW for the weekly spaghetti dinner. Merle gets very sick, and experiences disturbing and hyper-realistic hallucinations. What happens to him in the following days is enough to make anyone crazy. He struggles with his illness, he sleeps for days on end, his ex-wife is a constant nag, and all he wants to do is see his daughter. Oh, and his hands are growing teeth.<\/p>\n

I Can Taste the Blood <\/em>is an incredible anthology, full of nightmare fuel. I don\u2019t recommend it for squeamish readers, though. There are times where the material delves into uncomfortable themes, or it just gets gross. If you don\u2019t like transgressive dark fiction, this won’t be your cup of tea. If you do, dig in. You won\u2019t be disappointed.\u00a0Recommended.<\/p>\n

Contains: blood, gore, sexuality, torture, rape, body horror<\/p>\n

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Reviewed by Lizzy Walker<\/p>\n