Joey Madia, New Mystics Reviews

 (2011, Burning Bulb Publishing, ISBN:9780615535791, BurningBulbPublishing.com) By Joey Madia There are lots of West Virginias. To some it’s the redneck, backwards in-bred core of Appalachia. To others it is home to the powerhouse football and basketball teams of WVU (Go Mountaineers!), while, to legions of John Denver fans, it is “Almost Heaven,” an outdoor mecca of whitewater rafting, biking, and hiking. In the five years I’ve been here I’ve seen a little bit of all of these pictures of West Virginia, and many more. The frontier spirit is alive and well, as are lots of examples of innovation and the ongoing controversy over coal, natural gas, and “fracking.” I’ve also noticed in my time here that West Virginia fascinates writers, whether natives or transplants like myself. Sooner or later, you just have to write about the place. Rich Bottles Jr., a Pennsylvania native and “bizarro” author, is one of those whose fascination with all things West Virginia manifests...

(2011, Burning Bulb Publishing, www.burningbulbpublishing.com) by Joey Madia This ambitious collection of over 50 “bizarro” tales, edited by West Virginia authors Rich Bottles Jr. and Gary Lee Vincent, is divided into three sections: Horror, Sci-Fi/Fantasy, and Erotica. There are many definitions for the ever-evolving genre of “Bizarro,” including one in the book, although I define it simply as taking graphic violence and erotica a little further than the mainstream would and then, once it’s there, pushing it just a little further. The potential problem with this approach is that the violence and erotica wind up at times as being the whole point of the work, and there is no story; no craft. To the editors’ credit, there are few stories in this collection that fall into that trap and they stick out like a severed, rotting, puss-running thumb that had previously been up to no good in someone child’s back end (see how Bizarro works?). In this reviewer’s opinion, the strongest...