The following review was contributed by: JOHN WALSH

To read John's interview with the author click HERE

Anyone who has been obliged to slog through a minimum wage, repetitive drudge job will know the soul-destroying misery that it can entail. While it is theoretically possible to spend the time while the body works with the brain thinking fine and transcendent thoughts, it is much more common for the brain to fester on minor irritations and suspicions that then become overblown into major problems. How much worse this tendency would be when the worker is confronted with phenomena that are definitely eerie, uncanny or plain horrifying.

This is the theme for this slim anthology of thirteen horror stories edited by the noted e-publishing innovator Bob Gunner. The stories revolve around some of the many horrible events that can afflict the poor Joes working in these places. There are plenty of enjoyably horrible situations in which these guys - generally losers and social inadequates of one sort or another - suffer soul-mortifying experiences. Of course, as in most walks of life, it is the vulnerable and the weak that are most at risk. Horror in this case may be taken as a metaphor for the less exciting but more common misery of under-rewarded drudgery.

The Labor Pool was one of Bob Gunner's earliest anthologies under the Cyberpulp label and available through that website. This has been an innovative approach to e-publishing with the website management dealing with distribution and marketing and residual profits divided equally among the contributors. This seems like an excellent way for authors to find a means of publication and also cater for niche markets for those publishers who know their public well enough.

The problems with an anthology such as this is that it is dependent on the quality of contributions received. There will inevitably be a tension between the desire to complete the anthology by accepting as many contributions as possible and standards of quality. Further, the margins on such a publication are slim to the extent that editorial standards can be squeezed - it seems unlikely, for example, that an external editor could be hired to check for inconsistencies, infelicities and even basic errors. It is true to say that this early anthology has not altogether overcome these difficulties.

Nevertheless, The Labor Pool contains a number of cheerfully ghoulish tales of the misery and horrors attendant upon deadend jobs. Fans of horror fiction should certainly enjoy it.