I picked up Raising Demons for Fun and Profit at ICON 34 this year. It was from a small publishing house in Cedar Rapids called Sam’s Dot Publishing. Partially, I picked up the book to look at the quality of print but also because it had a pretty next cover on it. The book itself is a collection of short stories by a single author, Mark McLaughlin, with some additional writers on some of the stories.

The book itself was a quick read, about an hour stretched out over a day. I could read a few stories then set it aside.

Reading the bio of the page seems like Mark McLaughlin is a rather successful writer. Regular columns in genre-specific places, winner of awards, but overall, I felt the stories were unfinished. They had a rough edge to them that I didn’t really warm up to. I could see where someone would like it, but it wasn’t my style of writing.

I also felt like if I submitted a story like this, it would have been rejected.

The stories themselves were pretty good, though my favorite is The Monsters of Enlightenment. That was an amusing story and made it worth the price of the book. There were other stories I didn’t care for and some that were just… eh.

Though, with a title of Raising Demons For Fun And Profit, you would think there would be more demon stories, but there wasn’t. It was mixed pretty evenly between strange, zombies, demons, and random monsters. With a title like that, I would expect there to be more demons than that, and probably a few more stories about profit. The back of the cover really has nothing to do with the stories inside; that didn’t help.

The only other thing that set me off on the book was the typography. It was not organized very well and the visual appearance of the book needed a bit of help. Things that can be fixed, but it was jarring. And, that is also something that most people will never care about, just me.

Is it worth the $12.95 cover price? I don’t think so. I enjoyed reading it, but I was also glad I finished it. It wasn’t a book I’d love. If I had a friend to share the book, it might be worth it but it doesn’t really make me want to get up and buy another of his books.