Cover every orifice. Comet Press’ new collection SICK THINGS: AN ANTHOLOGY OF EXTREME CREATURE HORROR is making a beeline for the soft contents of your body—and it doesn’t care one bit where it makes its grand entrance, orbital sockets or otherwise. Rest assured this violation will be painful, given the tight confinements of our fallible frames of flesh—but anything less than a full-on ass-rape would probably seem insufficient in the eyes of editrix Cheryl Mullenax.

MEG: HELL’S AQUARIUM by Steve Alten (Tor, pb, 512 pp, $9.99)

For this fourth novel in his blood-drenched MEG saga, Alten brings us not just one live Carcharodon megalodon, the giant, prehistoric antecedent of today’s Great White Shark, but seven of them: Angel, her ex-mate Scarface, their five daughters (Belle, Lizzy, Mary Kate, Ashley, Angelica). That’s one hungry horde. Alten also serves up a large cast of lunchable humans—many named after die-hard fans of his books who nabbed this honor in website contests by promising to promote Alten’s work. That’s marketing genius! However, a slight silliness does set in whenever Alten introduces a “character” and we get a graph recounting their (presumably true) background—and then they die two pages later or we otherwise never hear of them again.

Edited by P.N. Elrod (pictured), famed author of the VAMPIRE FILES series, DARK AND STORMY KNIGHTS (St. Martin’s Press) is a collection of nine horror/supernatural tales focusing on the modern-day warriors who keep humanity safe from the nightmarish monsters lurking in the shadows. But don’t let the title lead you to expect the long-haired, bare-chested “knights in shining armor” from your grandmother’s romance novels.

Expect nothing less than raunchy humor and unrelenting gore from THE LOVING DEAD: THE ULTIMATE ZOMBIE LOVE STORY by Amelia Beamer (pictured), out this week from Night Shade Books. What was supposed to be a fun costume party thrown by two housemates unfortunately ends up as the early stage of an undead plague.

Are you a magician, inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft? Would you rather be summoned for jury duty to Azathoth’s Court over the People’s Court? Do your nightly prayers consist of “Ph‘nglui mglw‘nafh Cthulhu R‘lyeh wgah‘nagl fhtagn”? If you answered “Yes” to any or all of these questions, nonfiction occult writer Donald Tyson’s (pictured) newest addition to his extensive Lovecraftian repertoire, THE 13 GATES OF THE NECRONOMICON: A WORKBOOK OF MAGIC (just out from Llewllyn Publications) will make a great addition to your library.

Adam Garrett is a hard-nosed homicide detective whose life changes forever when he discovers the dismembered body of a wealthy college student at a landfill. Examining the corpse, he notices a bizarre symbol and the ominous number 333 carved into her flesh. As Garrett investigates the case further, he is visited by Tanith, a mysterious witch who draws him into a dangerous world of the occult and satanic worship. With all the evidence pointing to Jason Moncrief, a troubled misfit and singer in a Goth band, and more murders lurking on the horizon, Garrett must take matters into his own hands and solve the case before its too late.

Anyone who reads their fair share of short stories and novellas knows that, among the foremost fundamentals of good storytelling thrown out the window, character development is usually first to go. As they’re shorter forms than the standard novel, their authors are often all too quick to jump into the action, leaving us with flat, two-dimensional characters whose personal predicaments and perils we couldn’t care less about. Thankfully, this is not the case in the four stories laid out in the remarkably character-driven FOUR NAILS IN THE COFFIN, by author/screenwriter Mark Wheaton (pictured).