Literature throughout the decades has often made use of social turmoil and disaster, be it fact or fiction, as a backdrop for dramatic prose. In Margaret Mitchell’s GONE WITH THE WIND, the backdrop was the American Civil War. In John Steinbeck’s THE GRAPES OF WRATH, it was the Great Depression. In today’s media, it’s…zombies! The undead have not only raided movie theaters the world ’round, they’ve invaded your local bookstore as well—and not those mindless monstrosities you see shuffling from the self-help section to the adjoining café with a hardcover copy of some spineless, Oprah-sponsored MD tucked under one arm.
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SUICIDE MACHINE, the cleverly written new novel by Mike Watt (pictured), follows Tanith Godwin, demon slayer—and lesbian!—as she discovers that even if you have a centuries-old warrior inside you, it doesn’t protect you from the everyday bullshit of human life.
When it comes to marketing horror movies, the world has changed for the worse. Today, a film sinks or swims based on its on-line presence or how “viral” it becomes. Shame that—because studios, and in turn filmmakers and audiences, seems to be oblivious about just how effective and powerful a damn good movie poster can be. Today it seems all people want—or at least all people get—is nameless, faceless, generic, namby-pamby Photoshop shrugs and designer dropout fodder.
Despite Stephen King’s notoriety for producing elephantine novels with the physical heft and dimensions of cinder blocks, most fans would agree that the breezier format of the novella has framed some of King’s finest writing. “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption” and “The Mist” are two of the more celebrated examples on King’s shorter-form résumé, and with the release of his new collection FULL DARK, NO STARS, Fango was anxiously hoping this fresh batch of stories might recall some of the greatness that marked those earlier works.
WEREWOLF HAIKU (HOW Books) is the third poetic meditation on famous monsters (the first two books in the series dealt with zombies and vampires) from writer Ryan Mecum (pictured), presented entirely in the Japanese style of 17-syllable doggerel. Mecum’s premise is that WEREWOLF HAIKU functions as a journal belonging to a nameless mailman/frustrated poet.
SHREDDER, a new e-book by Garry Charles (pictured), packs plenty of monsters and viscera into its uncompromisingly brutal tale of killers-for-hire stumbling into the bloody path of a merciless creature. A deadly cat-and-mouse game is played between the unstoppable monster and the ruthless assassins.
THE HORROR! THE HORROR! (Abrams ComicArts) showcases the artwork and stories of the pre-Code horror comics of the 1950s. Edited by Jim Trombetta, this extensive collection provides a detailed history of the era when horror and government censorship clashed.
Dark, erotic urban fantasy—that’s how Erica Hayes (pictured) categorizes her Shadowfae Chronicles. POISON KISSED (St. Martin’s Press), the third of the series, is all of these things, but it’s also full of lovely language and bizarre imagery.