[Review] - The Big Book of Blasphemy

Edited by Regina Garza Mitchell and David G. Barnett

This will be my last anthology for a while, as there are none left on my to-read pile.  This one comes all the way from Sanford Florida's Necro Publications.
Anthologies are tough to assess, as they are made of separate, individual pieces but I will try.  There are 30 stories in here, and my absolute favorites are these four:

"Scriptures" by Edward Lee.  Not surprisingly gross fun from the master
"Jesus or Jacob?" by Ali Seay.  A heartbreaker
"Wailing and Gnashing of Teeth" by Ray Garton.  One of my favorite stories from Garton.
"Selling Salvation" by Ryan Harville.  One of the few writers in the anthology that I'd never heard of.  But that's the beauty of these right?

I've said before that most anthologies don't work for me because of the presence of "filler stories."  This anthology avoids this pitfall (mostly).  I'd say that at least half of the stories are really top tier stuff.  Although there are a few stories that lower the overall quality of the whole, I'm really tempted to grade this one on a curve because it was definitely one of the better anthologies that I read last year.  I'm impressed with quite a few new-to-me writers in here and I will be looking out for further releases from these writers. These would include:  Ali Seay, Ryan Harville, Jacqueline Mitchell, Matthew Warner, and Eddie Generous.  I've got my eye on you!

Grade:  C

Review by Jason Cavallaro
jcavallaro42@gmail.com
Twitter:  @pinheadspawn

I received this book from the publisher for review consideration.