This month I am reviewing a book by Jason M. Tucker. The title of the book is Meat City and Other Stories and it is a collection of short stories that were recently released in paperback by Black Bed Sheet/Diverse Media Books.

This, to me, was an enjoyable collection of short stories to read from the author. The stories were well written and well thought out and a few of them have hung with me since reading the book. The ideas and thoughts that the stories brought forth took root in my imagination and are now flourishing...not wanting to go away.

The story that stuck with me the most was City of a Million Gods. It is a story about the beginning of a religion. In my life religion has always been a dominant topic, and I am sure it has been for most of you as well. This story takes a look at the darker side of a religion as it is beginning to gather it's followers.

Two other stories that I really enjoyed were Meat City and Ballad of the Pale Riders. They are both zombie stories, and they are connected, but there are years separating them in the story line. I always enjoyed it when authors revisited the same places for their stories. After a few stories the reader can imagine the place in their own mind, and in turn I think that allows for a much better story.

There were other stories I liked in this collection as well but I will not tell you about them all. Instead, the last positive thing I will share with you will be what Mr. Tucker did at the end of his book. He included a section with a bit of history about each story and where it came from. I always thought those kinds of things were interesting...how the normal and ordinary can be turned into something creepy and dark.

Now I have come to the negative section of the review. There were a few of the stories that reminded me of other things I have read or seen. That in itself is not so bad because Mr. Tucker's stories were still enjoyable. I find often enough that parts or bits of my own stories remind me of something that somebody else has done before. Still, all in all I would recommend this book. It was a good read even if a small portion of the stories did seem familiar.

www.jasonmtucker.com

http://blackbedsheet.goshopper.net/i/170658/meat-city-other-stories.htm

http://www.downwarden.com/blackbedsheet.htm

Jason M. Tucker lives in San Diego, California, where he works as a fulltime freelance writer and spends more time hunched over a keyboard in a dark room than he does outside with living, breathing humans. His work appears in Shroud Publishing’s anthology NORTHERN HAUNTS, Evil Nerd Empire’s DARC KARNIVALE, a plethora of online magazines such as Marginal Boundaries, and countless other places online and off.

MEAT CITY & OTHER STORIES comes out May 28, 2010 from Black Bed Sheet Books. You can find out more about Jason and his writing at www.jasonmtucker.com.