Massacres and More!

     Way back in January, I mentioned a book called the Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror 2010.  My favorite story in the collection was called Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre by Seth Fried and reading it brought me to order his first collection of short stories The Great Frustration.  Mr. Fried has a talent for mixing a laconic voice with deeply disturbing (in the best possible way) material and his overtly amusing subject matter masks a much darker commentary.
     In addition to Frost Mountain Picnic Massacre (a town returns year after year to a picnic that proves consistently disastrous), some real standouts in the collection are The Frenchman, about how the indiscretions of childhood stick with us, and Misery of the Conquistador, told in the lament of a gold-hunting conqueror but featuring a merciless commentary on our capitalist socio-economic structure. 
     Incidentally, Mr. Fried also has a highly entertaining website, which you can check out here.