Reign Of Fire From Hart’s Asphalt Hell Slaps Hard

My initial review of Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell read like a Hallmark Christmas Card.  So now I need to review it like the bat out of hell that it is.

Gabriel Hart, for the lame motherfuckers that tend to ignore writers not attached to lipstick lesbian agents crying razorblade tears of rom coms and political correctness, can bring a short story to its knees like no other writer in the business.  No, he did not pay me to say that and probably won’t acknowledge me for saying it.  He may be surprised that after all these years I’m STILL saying that considering it’s been a while since we’ve enjoyed each other’s company.  I had reviewed this a while ago, back when I allowed writers to follow me on Twitter, but that’s another discussion entirely.

Many lame head crotch scratching readers ignored this book.  That’s why this, and so many great books, don’t get their due.  Jimmy Fallon wasn’t holding this drunk off his ass reading a cue card telling the eight people that still watch NBC late at night to go out and get it.  Wendy Williams never brought him on the show for cocktails and asked him how was his book doing.  The book slaps and slaps hard it does.

Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell takes a shit all over the short story market it’s been missing for decades. This beautifully masterminded mind fuck of a collection is exactly what we need, something that gives Rod Serling wings in purgatory.  This shit is like Twilight Zone but with the scariness at times of The Outer Limits, the terror of Tales From The Darkside but the sheer ending style in some cases of Tales From The Crypt.  The people living their shit lives in Fallout From Our Asphalt Hell are not for the weak of heart; these motherfuckers are terrible people doing equally as fucked up crimes against humanity bullshit shit on others and standing on personal morality to do it. Gabe always balances perfectly the rich and poor bastards, the working laborer assholes and the corporate shill shitheads, deer in the headlights styled musicians and space enthusiasts, bitches that revel in abuse and the odd entrepreneur that would sell his grandmother’s rectum to a transplant firm if he could get a dollar.

The first story, a classic throwback homage to the sinful origins of corporate America, lets you know the type of bitch slapping cautionary tale trip that would make the Cryptkeeper get serious enough to stop laughing.  I mean, there is some seriously fucked up moral compasses going on in this book that add to the just desserts conclusion the characters get. Hart’s genius is featuring fuck tales with twists worthy of season three of The Twilight Zone alongside ingenuously bastard tales of illegal inclination from illicit ill-gotten gains. Participation medals aren’t what we think they are no more than black pit bulls are the spiritual little brother to the American werewolf that has never seen London. In this magnificent collection you’re going to love knowing that lady luck’s on the rocks and ice is melting fast. You won’t get enough of glam bands learning the definition of humble the hard way.

The beauty of it is that we’re perfectly okay with that.

The non-stop roller coaster ride Hart takes us on will never feel stale, boring or recycled; though it will definitely take you back to the golden era of The Twilight Zone, Tales Of The Unexpected, Tales From The Crypt, The Outer Limits, and Night Gallery you will never read the same story twice in this collection. And we’re okay with that too since that was some of the best short story anthology storytelling that has ever been amassed into modern culture. Gabriel Hart has earned his place amongst the titans of short story storytelling in crime, horror, science fiction, and speculative fiction. This collection should be his coming out party as one of the greatest short story writers of his generation.