Review
“That was twenty years ago. Why are you bringing it up now?” - Frank LegumeMan present us finally, after one hell of a wait for an Australian edition, with Tales Of Sin And Madness by Brett McBean. The North American edition having sold out within days of release. I think I've been waiting something like three years for this collection so was dropping everything to get my McBean on after a lengthy gap from the Author's last novel. The collection covers the length and breadth of Brett's career, a collection that I am calling the best release of an Author's body of work thus far this century. If you like the stories of Clive Barker, circa Books Of Blood, Shaun Hutson, or Richard Laymon, then you are going to love yourself some Tales Of Sin And Madness. Let's get reading and dive in between the covers. I don't normally do this up front, but just have to mention the excellent package LegumeMan have created. It's simply stunning kids, and thankfully a move away from the gaudy covers that horror books normally come wrapped in. The sort that will have older folk moving away from you on public transport when they see it. The cover of Tales Of Sin And Madness is like crimpled paper, with the artwork and titles in what you would imagine a preliminary concept would be presented in during a brain storming session, i.e hand drawn and penciled. Excellent stuff, and speaking directly to the “madness” in the collection title. Sort of put me in mind of Alice Cooper's “Stephen” concept for some reason, which naturally lead to a couple of CDs (Welcome To My Nightmare and Along Came A Spider) going on the player as I write this. To the stories themselves, which is after all why you are reading this. The collection contains twenty one stories ranging across Brett McBean's writing career. If you have the North American edition, lucky bugger that's a collectors item already, then you may also want to double dip here as clearly the Australian edition contains six more stories. See we rock, and thankyou LegumeMan for giving locals bragging rights. The collection contains the first story Brett saw published right up to recent tales of chaos through 2010. So if a McBean fan then this is must have stuff. Tales of Sin And Madness shows an Author prepared to get down into the blood and guts of splatter punk, rock on with traditional horror themes, touch bases with Tales From The Crypt style irony, but also to hit the sometimes deeper waters of psychological dark musing. If there is one thing the collection points out, then that would be the range Brett McBean has as a Writer and exactly why his books are goobled up by a voracious fan base. If you like to dabble with the dark genre, always a dangerous thing to do as you might just find yourself pulled into it's vortex, then this collection is like a Whitman's sampler. There's about something for everyone with none of those dud fillings that hamper Cadbury's milk tray selections. Without the confectionary angle, I'm simply pointing out that you can feel safe in the knowledge that even if the dark genre thing isn't your normal reading matter on a weekly basis that you will find a number of tales that you will rock to. In particular I would point to Christmas Lights that shows McBean is able to mix it with good effect in mainstream literature. For the horror connoisseur lock and load baby, Tales Of Sin And Madness delivers on that dripping red stuff like a Voorhees family member at a Counsellor convention. Besides your zombie tale, The Beautiful Place is one of the best Aussie zombie outings you are ever likely to run across (should that be shamble across?), there's some pretty harrowing ghost stories (a personal fav, Amanda's Gift rocks), revenge yarns that wouldn't be amiss on the pages of Tales From The Crypt, more psycho killer than a season of Dexter can throw your way, and one of the best Insane Asylum stories you are ever likely to find lurking on your bookshelf. There's no weak leak, Brett McBean is a strong writer and this collection highlights that. What's really cool is Brett includes a footnote after each story giving the reader the genesis of the story, I'm a big fan of that approach. While I would like to highlight the stories I consider “best of breed” that might be a bit silly in this instance as I would be mentioning all 21 stories in the collection. Tales Of Sin And Madness is such a strong collection that you really wont run across a single story that lets the home team down. I enjoyed each and every tale, scorching my way through the collection at record pace. The wait has definitely been worth it, McBean's collection lives up to the hype coming out of North America, and arguably isn't being hyped enough. One of my favourite collections rivalling the best from Australia and overseas. Brett McBean can be found lurking on the net right here where he keeps his legion of fans informed of what's going down. To score a copy of Tales Of Sin And Madness head on over to LegumeMan Books and the collection can be yours for a highly acceptable $23.95 (inc postage).
ScaryMinds Rates this read as ... Yes it's that good!
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