5 Stars

Many of my friends are writers. Some of them trust me enough to let me read their work fresh from the oven. There is nothing better than a fresh-baked story all warm and gooey in the middle. I prefer mine with a nice malty beer or as their corruption of me continues unabated, a bit of scotch on the rocks.

In the past week or so three of them have handed me things that made me want to run screaming. Not because they were awful. Rather because I was full of awe when I finished each.

The problem with these works (2 short stories and 1 novella) is that I can't tell you about them. I can't tell you to go buy them at any price. I can't forward them to everyone I know and say, "Whatever else you were doing just now, Stop! You have GOT to read this. Now!". I can't buy them as holiday presents for my best friends.

It isn't like I've got one really talented friend churning out all of this great stuff while the rest of my writer friends are sucking eggs, incapable of writing a decent fortune cookie let alone putting out a few thousand words coherently. I think that might be a little easier to deal with. No, this is three different people all saying, "Here ya go" and handing me a ticking time bomb.

Pardon my language, but the only response I seemed able to generate when I read these was, "Fuck! Yes!" They were THAT good. So I've decided that if I ever start doing critiques or reviews of things my top rating will be if something is FuckYesable. I'll have to figure out what my other ratings should be. Hmmm.

Oh, and as to the authors in question? Check out these sites for other things that they have already published. Not that I'm naming names or anything.

Keith Dugger
Jason Warden
Paul Cooley

You can follow these guys individually on twitter at @KeithDugger @ShadowCastAudio @paul_e_cooley and @theFiendMaster or you can follow them and the rest of the authors I know at @BrightEyedDyer/TAO .
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