Review - More Bloody Horowitz

The Eulogy (From the Publisher):
The No. 1 bestselling creator of Alex Rider gives horror a whole new look in this mischievous collection of macabre tales, presented in an exciting new, larger format.
Stories of ultimate revenge, from freshly sold human meat and uncontrollable robots, to life-sucking MP3 players and reality TV where death is the penalty – all told with dark humour and gruesome relish, and made even more fiendish by retro illustrations, chilling facts and a puckish message from the author. This is Anthony Horowitz at his most wicked.

The Epitaph (In a Nutshell): Short stories in a graphic novel format; plenty of characters meeting gruesome ends and packed full of dark humour.

Dearly Departed, 
We are gathered here today to discuss More Bloody Horowitz by Anthony Horowitz. When I was first introduced to this, it was by somebody who knew how much I liked Darren Shan. She opened it up to the first story, and - lo and behold! It was entitled 'The Man Who Killed Darren Shan'. The idea of a hugely popular author writing about the death of another hugely popular author is hysterical to me, and you can really tell Horowitz relished writing it. Apparently one of Darren Shan's characters in the Demonata series is based on Horowitz (the character's name was Antoine Horwitzer... um, yeah, bit of a similiarity) and the character died a gruesome death, so Horowitz thought he'd return the favour - and then some!

All of the stories in this are that special combination of jaw-dropping horror and dark hilarity, and I had such a great time reading them. I must admit, I'm not normally much of a short story reader, but the format these are presented in, complete with illustrations at the start, double columns to a page, and a crossword in the center really perked up the short story format for me - I really think all short stories should be presented like this!

Of course, it helped that the stories themselves were compulsively readable. My standout favourites were 'Bet Your Life' about a popular gameshow with a twist, and also 'SheBay', about a girl who gets sold online by her parents. But all the stories are fantastic - there's not a dead one in the bunch!