Review: Horror as fine literature
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 07 3, 2012
This book caught me by surprise and really blew my ears back: it's not really like anything I've ever read.It's a nightmare, basically.  One that can lurk on your hard drive or ereader memory and be called up to shiver your timbers any time you're up to it.It could be read as a simple horror gore fest, and some probably will take it that way: a slicer/dicer reel with teddy bears standing in for zombies.  But it's way more than that, a little post-mod package of surreal expressionism that moves with the insidious logic of dreams.  The worst kind of dreams, that don't just scare you, but leave you quivering on the edge of your bed asking the night, "What the HELL was that all about????"And as far as nightmare logic goes,  if you accept that teddy bears bleed, why can't they bleed about anything you can think of?Theinsidious thing about "Teddy Bears and Tea Parties" is that it doesn't deign to have slavering monsters terrorizing the innocents: everybody is scared stiff, everybody is hungry.Another totally subversive psychic depth charge from obviously deeply disturbed S. Boyd Taylor is that all this stems from "the magic coming back".  It's such a stock concept in children's books, especially children's books for grown-ups, that magic is the wonderful thing, that recapturing the lost fairy dust of childhood turns the world into a lovely Pixar Disneyland.  While in actuality, magic cuts both ways.  Children might be more likely to laugh beautifully among the flowers and unicorns, but the are also more likely to awake screaming in the wee hours, with the monsters by no means confined to the closet or under the bed.This is a truly horrible little work, and I mean that in a good way: as much a piece of genius as Dali's mooncloud razor slicing an eyeball.