Spicy Constellation & Other Recipes by Chad Lutzke

So, apparently Chad also writes short fiction well.

If you've read my top ten lists, or my other reviews, you already know I'm a fan of Lutzke's novellas. But before this collection, I'd only read one Lutzke short story: "Guinea Pig Blues" from the Splatterpunk award nominated anthology Splatterpunk Forever. In fact, the only Lutzke book I haven't read yet is his other collection, Night as a Catalyst: A Collection of Dark Fiction. I probably need to fix that now.

There are 12 stories in this collection, but I guarantee you will be able to read it in one sitting. Chad was nice enough to trim every bit of fat off of the stories for us, so the stories hook you early and move along quickly. The story "Four Finger Discount" was my least favorite of the dozen, but this is a minor complaint and probably the result of Lutzke setting the bar so high with the other stories. My three favorite stories were "A Stranger Dream," "The Secret," and "What I Wouldn't Give." I'm talking award-winning-level quality here. Sorry, I don't give plot details, but if you like Chad's other work, you'll like this. And if aren't (yet), this isn't a bad place to start.

Grade: B

Review by Jason Cavallaro

Twitter: @pinheadspawn