Sex, Drugs & Power Tools

Rating:
Summary: SD&PT by Ed Lee
Review: It's a shame the world is full of too many prudes who can't appreciate a good story involving sex, drugs, and power tools, because Ed Lee is in top form here. This book combines two of Lee's better known novellas from years gone by with a brand new story to make one of the newest additions to my top five favorite of all time list.

First is "Header". I'd heard for years about this Lee story called "Header" and always wondered, "What's a header." I can see now why this story's gained so much recognition. Ed Lee does what not a lot of writers of this type of horror can do--he makes you forget what initially got you into the story--the header--and soon you're involved in the story under that one--the REAL story. Header is a story of desperation and revenge. You come in meeting Travis Tuckton, learning about headers, and soon you realize, Hey that's not even what this story is about. Travis isn't the main character. Who's this cop, Cummings? He's the one to focus on. Header is nothing more than a cop story, turned up to eleven.

Then "The Pig". My only complaint about "The Pig" is the last 15 pages or so. And that's Ed's fault because he did such a great job building everything up, my expectations were high. All Leonard wants is to make his low budget movie and win the Sundance Film Festival, and he knows he can win because his movie, based on his own college-written short story, "The Confessor" is great. So, where does a guy fresh out of prison and with no prospects go to get funding for a movie? Thank God for Rocco who loans him the cash. Well, thank God until Rocco comes back a few days later looking for his money back. To pay the debt, Leonard is put to work, and this is where the story kicks into gear. I read this story in just a couple of days, grabbing whatever free time I could find to get through another couple pages, feeling sorry for poor Leonard and knowing I would never want his job. Remember the movie "8mm"? Same subject matter, but "The Pig" doesn't have Nicolas Cage moping around the screen and boring anyone.

And again, my only complaint here is that, with the kind of buildup Lee gives us here, I was expecting some big action-packed climax, a showdown between Leonard and Rocco (and Knuckles), but Lee chose the "let's give them something they weren't expecting" route and surprised me.

Last is "The Horn-Cranker", a story that should be winning some kind of award for Lee sometime. Dean Lohan, South Dakota Horn-Cranking champion and basic redneck, lives in Seattle now with his "loving" wife. But when his father goes into a coma, Dean has to go back home, where he finds something has been killing children by the dozens. This was my favorite story and a first-class job by Ed Lee. My wife and I were talking about this story last night, trying to decide who would make good cast members for "Horn-Cranker" the movie (I'm sticking by my vote for Bruce Campbell, but then I think he should be in everything), because it seems such a perfect choice for one of those independent horror movies that is able to go beyond what Hollywood will do . This is a story that could take Ed Lee to new heights in his career--well it seems from what I've read that his novel "City Infernal" might just do that, but this story could, too. I hate to use a King comparison when reviewing another horror writer, but this time I have to. because reading "The Horn-Cranker" it was like Lee has taken the best elements of a Stephen King novella, the stuff that makes King's novellas the great things they can be, and given them new strength, new life, and new intensity, to make the perfect combination of horror and humor in a long time.

There's a different level of energy to these stories that I don't often see in horror anymore. Some of today's horror seems more interested in style over substance, while some horror seems more concerned with what's going to gross out the reader. But Ed Lee's on a different plain from the rest of us and there's nobody else who does what he does quite like him. He's quickly proving, with each new book I read from him, that he's just a step or two above what the rest of us are doing these days.

Rating:
Summary: 3 FOR 3
Review: Necro Publishing does it again by teaming up 2 old Lee novellas, "Header" and "The Pig", while adding a new one, "The Horn-Cranker", in for good measure. Edward Lee goes 3 for 3 with this collection. For hardcore horror fans only. You've been warned.

Rating:
Summary: 3 FOR 3
Review: Necro Publishing does it again by teaming up 2 old Lee novellas, "Header" and "The Pig", while adding a new one, "The Horn-Cranker", in for good measure. Edward Lee goes 3 for 3 with this collection. For hardcore horror fans only. You've been warned.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the faint of heart
Review: Sex, Drugs & Power Tools is a collection of three lurid, hardcore, sex and violence turbocharged horror novellas by Edward Lee in the tradition of the most infamous pulp fiction. The novellas include: Header; The Pig; and The Horn-Cranker. Not for the faint of heart, these sensationally written, mesmerically compelling, extensively vicious thrill rides of the mind fully and completely capture the reader's total attention with hideous intensity. Highly recommended -- but not for the squeamish.