Well, the first review of Bones Are Made to be Broken is in and the verdict is…

“Every tale has one thing in common: Anderson’s ability to craft a compelling, thought-provoking, dark and beautifully heart-breaking story displaying the darkest depths of the human soul.”

– Thomas Joyce, This Is Horror

…really fucking good.

Oh, man, I needed that today.  Joyce goes through the stories and gives a decent rundown on them; I find it funny that “Baby Grows a Conscience”, one of the oldest stories in the collection (it was originally published in 2011, written in the summer of 2010), gets such notice.  Not funny in a bad way, and it’s not like the more recent stuff–the title novella,  or “All That You Leave Behind”–doesn’t get some love, but my earliest stuff, even though written only a few years ago, feels so alien to me.  When I decided to include it, I took it through a superficial rewrite–people who might have the original issue of Necrotic Tissue where “Baby” first appeared might notice the differences–but the initial read-through was like reading a story by someone else.

I’ve said this before, but it’s also my wife’s favorite story.  And it has the distinction of me remembering exactly where I was when I wrote the opening line that Joyce singled out (“It was easier to hold a gun to a little girl’s head than Richie thought”)–during a break from conducting a writer’s workshop at a little convention.  So, y’know, there you go.

You can read the review here.  Also, pre-order the book–in either trade paperback, eBook, or super-snazzy-expanded-and-deluxe hardcover here.

Illustration by Pat R. Steiner, design by Michael Bailey

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In other news…

What the ever-loving fuck just happened?

Tons of ink and bandwidth are being used to answer this question about the election.  I have no answers–just railing, snarling, enraged snark that I won’t bother reciting here, leaving that to others. (Although I will say one thing–man, fuck my homestate of Pennsylvania.  The running joke for years was that, between Pittsburgh and Philly was Alabama and this was the only thing either city could ever agree on.  Who knew how fucking true that joke-that’s-not-a-joke was.)

No, I won’t put forth my own Monday-morning-quarterbacking because, right now, it all seems fucking pointless and out-of-place here.  Besides,  I’m a straight white dude; in the American game of life, I’m like a kid at a bowling alley who’s got the bumper-rails on the lane and one of those nifty-ass slides to push the bowling ball I’m too small to throw myself. This election, if all that was promised and threatened comes to fruition, would do more harm to those I love and cherish and respect than to me.  And that fucking sucks, man.

Also, I have a daughter, five years old, and I was grooving on the idea that she was going to know that a woman president wasn’t just “possible”, but reality.  I really, really liked the idea.

Now?

I only have this to hold on to, and I’m holding on to it like Rose in the movie Titanic (when she held onto the door, not Jack, because we all saw how holding onto Jack turned out–and, yes, I’m depressed that I know the names of these characters even though I haven’t seen the flick in 20 years):