For a group of short stories written over a period of several years for unrelated reasons, "The Crawling Abattoir" wouldn't seem a like candidate to have a theme, but it does: the hilarity of horror. The funny side of agony. Hit me with your torture-shtick From the desperation of a lonely necrophile deeply frustrated by unrequited corpse-love; to a really rotten clown's long drawn-out discovery that success comes only after paying his dues in multiple broken bones, lacerated kidneys, lots and lots of blood and more; and to the horrible, horrible, (really horrible) misfortunes of Little...

HYMN: a song in praise to God, or gods. UNDERBELLY: the underside of an animal; an inferior or concealed part of something. Staple these two ideas together in dark unnatural congress and you get something like a mime with Tourette's Syndrome, shouting random obscenities at a little girl on the street. You get men (and a heavily tattooed, bodily-modified woman named Godiva - rowrrr ) who just aren't right in the head, but who are allowed to roam the streets with razors and drivers licenses and ferrets like they're normal, church-going people, singing normal, church-going songs, right up until...

To sleep, perchance to dream... And in dreaming lies the danger With Martin Mundt as your dangerous Dream Master, in the 27 tales within, you'll visit places dark and places strange. You'll live dreams both oddly hilarious and eerily heart-wrenching. From a couple with a fetish for fireworks to a tower of words that reaches to the sky and beyond... from a dominatrix with a perverted parrot to a triptych of El Pollo tales of fowl revenge... from an ex-girlfriend who'd make Kathy Bates' character in Misery seem like a good time girl to a Lovecraftian descent into the darkest magic... These...