Ellis's Reviews > Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

Nathan Ballingrud writes some deeply disturbing, epically gory shit and I think that's just great. This collection contains my beloved "Skullpocket" which is somehow better than I remember every time I read it, and "The Visible Filth," thank god not as flat out terrifying the second time around but still one of my very favorite horror stories ever (also now a movie on netflix that I will never have the spine to actually watch). The only dud is "The Diabolist," nice in that it sets up the concept of the Love Mills but ultimately never quite gets there. But oh boy let me tell you about "The Butcher's Table," a five-star read all on its own, the most supremely messed up pirate yarn to ever grace this reader, and the masterfully grotesque culmination of all of Ballingrud's musings on love and Hell. Just superb.