Chris Hallock

I described Eyes to See—the first book of Joseph Nassise’s “Jeremiah Hunt Chronicles”—as a travelogue of the macabre. In that story, the Bram Stoker-nominated author set his protagonist’s horrifying encounter with a shape-shifting specter in the city of Boston. In doing so, he created a map of terrifying encounters set in some of Boston’s most famous areas. In Nassise’s follow-up, King of the Dead, he takes his readers down south to sweltering New Orleans.

Shane Stadler’s Exoskeleton is a harrowing debut novel that explores the ancient, albeit still used tactic of torture. Torture has historically been employed by those in or seeking power to bend the will of those they subjugate. In the hands of barbaric groups, it’s an exercise in mindless brutality. In so-called progressive societies, torture has been used as a tool of experimentation to achieve a purported higher purpose. No matter the justification, its ultimate purpose is inflicting terror.

When you imagine survival in the wake of a zombie apocalypse, is there musical accompaniment? Surely you've got the perfect song or album queued up in your head for fighting off bands of roving zombies. Now what if that music was the cause of the apocalypse in the first place? Instead of a bite, what if the zombie plague spread through sound itself? This is the intriguing concept explored by author Anthony J. Rapino in his unique zombie book Soundtrack to the End of the World.

Me'ma and the Great Mountain comes to me lovingly hand-bound by author and illustrator Lorin Morgan-Richards. It's the writer's foray into dark fantasy, his antidote to overly sanitized stories that shelter children from life's harsh realities. The book is a heroic quest set against the backdrop of destructive colonialism, as a young girl is forced to flee her village home in the wake of greedy settlers mining in the nearby mountains.

The world is on fire

How do you view human nature? Do you take the optimistic view that a little good resides in everyone? Do you side with pessimists who expect the worst in people, even in the best of situations? In a world overflowing with senseless violence, it’s a challenge to hold the optimist’s outlook. Can anyone really deny that human beings are responsible for most of the evil shit in the world? Would a little extra love, or perhaps a better economic situation, have made any difference in extinguishing wicked tendencies?

Aaron Thomas Nelson's action/horror graphic novel Marlow has the distinction of being the first comic I've ever read in a digital format. I've been adverse to it since the inception of e-books, and especially when it comes to the comic medium. I still don't like it, but I sucked it up, and made a pleasant discovery along the way; I was able to get down and dirty with each panel, able to blow them up and still retain a high resolution image. This allowed me to get very intimate with the violent, corrupt world that Nelson and illustrator Matthew Reynolds created.