Sick. SickER. SickEST: The Bastard Collection

Ok, so I gave this book 5 stars because this is some sick s***!!! I love it despite all the grammar errors because this book just had it all. Initial sympathetic main character, wild violent sex, and cannibalism. Thank you for making me pick up a book again. By the way, I am a female and I don't get disturbed that easy. I am always trying to find the next best horror movie or book. Thank you Mr. Shaw for such a fantastic book ...and if you need a proofreader.... Let me know lol.

This book is disturbing. I have not read a lot of splatterpunk yet, so perhaps this is standard fare. I loved being disturbed. This brought me far out of my comfort zone and I think that's a good thing.

GREAT book, such a good read! Definitely recommend !

Siiiiick! This is a fun read but can be a little repetitious in spots. With that said, I love horror books and this one is definitely horrific

Best-Different Worst-Wasn't what I expected.

-- Sick B*stards --No memory. No past. No names.Father, mother, sister, brother – these are the „names“ they reached an agreement.The family lives barricaded in a house. Reinforce their identity on one picture – their whole past seems to be a picture. No one can remember, what happens, who they are, where they’re from – a nuclear bomb is what they said. But outside doesn't wait the nuclear winter, but the sun… birds… and these creatures. Mutants, hunters… whatever they are: they’re bringing the death!Into the house waits the surviving; the price is not payable anymore since a long time. Surviving at all costs.Survive as a woman.Survive as a man.Survive as a human being – whatever that still means – except of drinking… and eating!Four people without a past in a house, which transforms more and more to a prison and the one question: is out there a future – and the answer, who you are?”Sick B*stards” is experienced from the perspective of the brother (son). This ego-perspective offers stylistically the possibility of a more intense experience of the action – and Matthew Shaw knows how to handle it. He doesn’t hesitate, does not allow an acclimatization period, doesn’t let the happenings slowly be effective to the reader, but throws him without warning in the cold floods.Even the pictures that Shaw spends are obscene, they’re not living ‚cause of perversion, but despair. Sometimes I felt remembered for Josh Malerman’s „Bird Box“.You are alone. You don’t doubt, but survive; and judge yourself!The language chances in an absolutely realistic setting between protective sterility and passionate abasement.The end maybe isn’t that surprising you’ll hope, but you may not forget, that this is just the first of three parts (Part 1: ”Sick B*stards”; Part 2: ”SickER B*stards”; Part 3: ”SickEST B*stards”). And finally the end closes the circle of this first part – but not finishes it.”Sick B*stards” is one of the books, which needs to be understood. It’s not about splatter and gore, not sex and violence – Shaw created a kind of psychodrama, a morbid Coming-of-Age-Novel, whichs sick origin rots in the development of an increasingly grotesque self-disclosure.Every (good) author has its own style: Shaw is „dry“. He does not provide dripping fiction, no excessive obscenity or fragile dystopia – he just lets it happen. Less merciless, but just with no emotions, he steers a steam-roller unstoppable onto the reader, but not with the intention to roll over him, but to let him feel the getaway; not to hunt, but to urge with the uncertainty, if there is a possibility to escape – if there is anything like the option to escape or if it’s the last delusion of hope.Yeah, Shaw is „dry“…-- SickER B*stards --In principle, if you’re reading a sequel, it’s recommended to have been read the previous book – at Matt Shaw’s ”SickER B*stards” is even a must!Here I can’t and won’t speak of a sequel (in the classical sense), but of a second part! Indeed a sequel continues the story, it also has an autonomy. A „part“, on the other hand, belongs to something, is a piece of it, so it is interdependent and interacts with the other part – just like in the case of ”SickER B*stards”.Strictly speaking, ”SickER B*stards” even goes a step further and provides the link between ”Sick B*stards” and ”SickEST B*stards”, but this does not belong here.”SickER B*stards” welcomes the reader directly in the „family“ – father, mother, sister and brother. But this time John knows about himself, his true life and being – or at least what he was once upon a time…John continues the game, but now less as an actor, as a director. The cameras no longer make his life a playground, but he feeds the world with his will!What was a desperate escape in the first part, becomes a sick obsession in the second part! You experience the change of the obscenity of the first part to the primitiveness of finality. In a way you can speak here of a struggle between reality (the actual world outside the experiment, John now knows about) and existence (the „Here“ and „Now“ of life, in which John becomes the „brother“).The journey, which seemed to be finished in the first part, now shows its end as the beginning – the beginning of the demise. Shaw created here an escalating conflict, which, as an essence, bleeds the pure delusion.What was previously a grotesque celebration, is now the pure dedication to decay!Matt Shaw closed the circle with ”SickER B*stards”. Where he let the reader experience a constant abstraction of self-disclosure in ”Sick B*stards”, he concretizes the selection of morbidity in ”SickER B*stards” – and releases it!-- SickEST B*stards --When it’s time to call something a small stroke of genius?For ”SickEST B*stards” you might almost be tempted to choose these words.”SickEST B*stards” represents the final novella to Matt Shaw’s sick journey – and relativizes infinity to a eternal finiteness.Shaw changes the perspective from John to his „mother“ (so finally not his mother, but „Kelly Dethlefs“)! And that’s what makes the thing so awesome, as ultimately disgusting.Finally you’ll find yourself in the first part (”Sick B*stards”) again:this abhorrent devotion, which appears to be the only way through the assumed finality.”SickEST B*stards” seamlessly follows ”SickER B*stards” and makes the nightmare incarnate to a final reality. The reader is no longer confronted (”Sick B*stards”), no longer attacked (”SickER B*stards”)… actually he’ll get ignored; it does not need any more active action – we are lost!The complete escalation of the second part impels itself in the abyss of hell: it will never end, because it must begin forever – it will never die, because it never has lived – it will never be good, because it was never evil …The will to survive as the absolution of knowledge – knowledge as a metamorphosis to delusion.Just as Matt Shaw has closed the circle with ”SickER B*stards”, he has filled it with ”SickEST B*stards” – to the signum of resignation.-- Sick. SickER. SickEST: The Bastard Collection --Sick – Sicker – Sickest.The increase suggests it: these three books simply belong together! And so I can only recommend to everyone to buy the book of the same name, „Sick. Sicker. Sickest. The Bastard Collection“, in which all three parts were united.Ultimately, Matt Shaw has created a three-part Coming-of-Age-Novel as a degenerate life-cycle:– The birth”Sick B*stards”– The life”SickER B*stards”– The death”SickEST B*stards”The first part, ”Sick B*stards”, is a prelude, that is closed in itself, but holds the door open to the second part ”SickER B*stards”.The second part, ”SickER B*stards”, comes through this door with a morbid certainty, closes it, and retains the key – in order to enable an escape into the repulsiveness of the flagellation not until the end; the door opens for the third part, ”SickEST B*stards”.The third part, ”SickEST B*stards”, less closes all doors, than opening the one gate – the gate to hell…Sick – Sicker – Sickest…”Sick B*stards” – ”SickER B*stards” – ”SickEST B*stards”…A three-part morbid Coming-of-Age-Novel, a horror-drama, a psycho-Thriller… just sick at all.

I never read matt shaw...i stumbled upon sick b&stards and it cought my attention...im a horror fan and can handle most things as it has nothing to do with pedophillia....i see the warning and i ask you readers what am i about to get myself into

This collection was the first I had read of Matt Shaw after having decided to try him out due to the warnings of "extreme horror, not for the easily offended". I'm very glad that I did, and this trilogy is a great place to start for fans new to Shaw; they give you a good idea of what his novels are like.The books give exactly what they advertise - extreme sex, violence and disturbing scenes.Unlike most trilogies, the middle book is not weaker than the other two: all three stories are fantastic.I read the whole sitting in one night because I just couldn't - and did not want to - put it down.Highly recommended.

The sick trilogy really is sick after reading & enjoying the first part & starting part two I thought it couldn’t get any sicker as the second title suggests but it did & if you like your horror filled with graphic violence, gore & plenty of sex (not of the Mills & Boon varieties) then he did for me Matt Shaw might just tickle your fancy. (Although the on going court case suggests Mr Shaw did nothing of the sort & is denying all charges)