By John Boden 

My first experience with the work of Scott Cole was with his lovely and ridiculously brilliant novelette, Superghost a few years ago.  I have crossed paths with him many times, count him a friend and one of the most knowledgeable folks I know when it comes to obscure horror film, anyway--I always ask when he's going to have a new book out.  This past summer, I got my answer.
Slices is a collection of wildly weird and brutally bizarre stories, some very short.  Written in Cole's wry style where it's completely normal for these surreal shenanigans to be happening.  There are over thirty tales of twisted terror and odd behaviors in here. I loved them all.

Opening with "The Regenerates" in which a man pulls his tongue free from his mouth and it blossoms into a progeny of clones. "Violins For Sale" takes the idea of mishearing something to  a severely twisted and brutal conclusion. In "Cat Tree Summer" a guy on a writing retreat discovers a tree that give cat-shaped fruit. "Horns Up" is primo heavy metal mayhem with lightning and demons.  "The Bigot" delivers a stark and scarring lesson in comeuppance, when a bigoted man awakens in a strange setting with little memory and a reflection that challenges him.

"Slices Of Me" is what a strange one, where a man decides he is delicious and peddles himself to the masses. "Smoke Detector" exposes an alien menace that is right under our noses. "God" concerns an amusement park-type place that is built from the remains of God, after he's found dead.  "Rough Night" takes the common  Fellow-wakes-with-no-memory-of-the-previous-night scenario and boils it down to its barest ingredients for an effective flash piece.
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All of these stories are entertaining and all of them are absurdly weird. Some more so than others. But with Cole's style nothing seems to be weird just for weird's sake.  That just how shit goes down in his head, man. Give it a go. But wear an apron and some gloves, there's a lot of goo in here.
Slices is available from Black T-Shirt Books and Amazon.