No. 17 - The Bleeder Collection

by Jesse Dedman

Started: March 25
Finished: March 28

Notes: The author is the editor of the online zine Deadman's Tome, and he's published several of my horror stories over the last couple of years. A while back Jesse asked to read, and then review, one of my novels. Which he did. He reviewed my fantasy novel "City of Rogues," and I thank him for that. During our back-and-forth e-mails, he mentioned to me he had put together a collection of stories, each based upon one of his short stories, "The Bleeder." That's this collection I'm reading now. And I thank Jesse for letting me read it. When I'm finished, I'll let you know what I think below.

Mini review: This struck me very much as a graphic novel, though it is told in prose form. The imagery and the style of writing lend themselves very much to a hardboiled horror tale with touches of vigilante justice, reminding me somewhat of James O'Barr's "The Crow" series back in the 1980s. Dark, bloody and sometimes disturbing, the stories here have their own inner structure, combining and blending words in ways that are archaic and brutal and even sometimes almost nonsensical, but it works. You can feel yourself inside the Bleeder's head, and the pain and torture and numbness that rushes through him. I look forward to more, if it is to come.