A LITTLE HELP FROM MY FIENDS

Michael McCartys A Little Help from My Fiends truly shines. His collection of short stories is a lovingly created, watered with blood and harvested at the peak of ripeness kind of work. The approach to the collection is so fresh that -- were it a steak -- you would note still a bit of warmth and even a faint pulse. You see, each story in this collection is co-authored with another excellent storyteller. Mark McLaughlin, Terrie Leigh Relf and Dave Miller, to name a few, make appearances. Each short story is prefaced with a few words that identify the co-author, point to an interesting tidbit of the tales creation, and never fail to show McCarty lauding the co-author while remaining modestly in the background. -- Sylvia Cochran_,