One of the perks of reviewing books is that I always have a stack of them to work through sitting on my desk. Another perk is since nobody is supervising me most of the time I don’t have to read them in the order that I am supposed to. Every once in awhile a title catches my eye and it somehow mysteriously works it way up to the top of the stack. Yeah, Man-Eating F*cks is a prime example of that.
I was already familiar with David Owain Hughes, another of the UK horror writers slowly doing the whole British Invasion thing to horror publishing, through the countless short stories he has in various anthologies. He is also the author of one of the single most disturbing novels I have read titled Wind up Toy. (Also well worth a read if you want your horror dipped in Kink and S&M) So, I knew going into this that I needed to put on my big boy pants and be prepared for the blood and chunks of other bodily fluids and parts to paint the walls.
Only to find that Man-Eating F*cks isn’t just another forgettable splatterpunk book where you come away more shocked than entertained. There is actually a solid story at the heart of this, a solid story with fully fleshed characters that you come to know and care about even as a lot of them get dismembered and so on. It has historical references to real events and quite a few plot lines that interweave to tell the tale. All that being said, no need to worry that the plot gets in the way of the splatterpunk mission, plenty of blood and gore will splatter the interior screen of your imagination as you read this.
There is only so much I can tell you about the plot without spoiling some of the twists and turns, also I want you to go into this fresh without preconceived notions about what is going to happen. No, trust me on this one and just buy the damn thing, sit down and read it, take a shower and rub on some hand sanitizer and then pass it on to a friend.
Don’t know what they put in the water in the UK but it seems that lately, it has become a hot bed for great new voices in horror. Whatever it is I hope they keep up because I have been wallowing in some amazing reads lately. Well done Mr. Hughes, don’t get any therapy stay sick and keep putting out more books.
Man-Eating F*cks gets Five Bananas boys and ghouls.
Discover David Owain Hughes’ Man-Eating F*cks for yourself at Amazon!
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