#not gore but very brutal threat and implication at end

[amethystpath-writes]

“The Deadly Call”

When I was in 7th or 8th grade, I wrote a terribly horrific story in my writing competition. I did comp again my freshman year of high school and am now considered one of the greatest writers in my state- which is pretty cool! This is a rewritten version of what I wrote at my first competition! 

TWs in the tags. Please, please, please heed them before reading!!

******

When I was a small child, about four years old, my mother passed away from an illness that couldn’t be treated, and my father became an alcoholic. Cliché, right? Well, late me make it even more so. My father was always angry; yelling at me for anything that came to mind. I often stayed in my room and listened to music- my favorite way of coping. When I wasn’t in my room, I was usually running down streets asking everyone I saw for pocket change so I could buy food for myself. Da didn’t work, and he didn’t need to since his brother, my uncle, was too kind for his own good.

At fifteen, I moved in with my best friend- if you could call us best friends. We didn’t talk much, but her family was caring and took me in when they heard what my living situation was like. If they knew what I did now, I’m not even sure they would kick me out, but they’d be displeased.

I’m sixteen now, and I gamble most nights. Most of those I gamble with are adult men with tattoos covering every inch. There are a couple of scrawny fellows who got kicked out of their homes for drug addictions and whatnot. Some are pretty women you’d never expect to see in such places. I’m probably the biggest oddball, being a kid and all.

Gambling is a bit dangerous, as you probably already know. The tattooed guys aren’t as scary as most people think. They’re actually pretty sincere for the most part, but every now and then you have one of them who gets pissed off they lost. I barely made it out this one time- one of the guys threw a beer bottle at my head: not nearly as scary as my father though. I made it out alive.

Tonight, I only recognize two people. A woman with black hair a purple streak. She has a pretty piercing in her nose- one of those studded jewels. Guess that’s not really a ring though. The other is one of those scrawny thirty-year olds who got kicked out by their parents. I’ve seen him a few times, usually in the crowded bars where no one pays attention to what’s going on around them. Everyone else is new, though, including the host. He looks a little familiar, but it’s probably just the beard. Lots of men have brown bushy beards.

The basement here is stingier than the others. Most of them have windows at the very top, just above ground level, or there’s otherwise a hole dug outside of the house to allow for a window for ventilation. I’m pretty sure the bearded man made the basement himself though, didn’t think about how much he was killing himself with all the smoke trapped in here. You can hardly see the warm, dim lights through all the smoke.

**

I have managed to win by some miracle. There’s a chorus of grunts and ‘aw man’s’, but no one objects. Rules were put in place that wouldn’t have even allowed for cheating, so I’ve won fair and square. There have been other times in my gambling career that others have questioned my honest win. There was one time we had a coin flip between myself and the guy who challenged me. I picked tails; he picked heads. I won the coin toss and won the money. It was a big pot, several hundreds of dollars, and when I got back to the house, I didn’t even have a place to put it discreetly.

“Kid, I got another pit going on tomorrow night for winners of the last month.” It’s the bearded man. I glance back at him as I’m headed towards the door, but shrug. Hosts don’t usually hold multiple pits within the same month. It gathers too much attention. If I had realized he already held one, I wouldn’t have come today.

“Nah, it’s alright. I should be heading back home. It’s getting cold out and it’s a long walk.” I go for the door again, but Beardy speaks up again.

“You sure? There’s a lot in the pot. You’re looking at several thousand in a night. If it’s the roster you’re worried about, I got it downstairs. You can come with me to look.”

Several thousand? That amount of money…I could pay my friend’s family back for all that they’ve done for me. Maybe I could even put my dad into rehabilitation, ween him away from the alcohol. It’s not too late for that, right?

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I’ll have a look.”

**

Well the basement hasn’t changed since I left it before. It’s just as smoky- that’s what happens when you don’t have windows in a basement you smoke in. I’ll probably develop lung cancer from being in here, but…but if there’s a chance I can help my father and repay my friend, I have to take it, right? Several thousand dollars is more than any jobless sixteen-year-old can ever hope for.

“Right down here, kid.” The bearded man is several steps below me and disappears to the left of the stairs. The roster is probably in that little storage closet he has on the other side of the room.

I finish walking down the stairs, my foot landing on the stone flo-

My bottom lands on the stairs behind me, my head bouncing off a stair above me. Only thinking of the pain that has erupted in my skull, I sit up with a hand held to my head. There has to be a bruise there already, but before I can check for one, something wraps around both of my ankles and I’m dragged forward, head thunking a second and third time before finally landing on the floor. My eyes flutter open and closed too slowly and I can’t tell what I’m looking at. My vision is blurry. I don’t even know what happened? Where am I again?

The blinks are becoming longer.

I think I’m about to pass out.

My head hurts.

What is that above me?

I don’t think I can keep my eyes opened anymore.

**

As I open my eyes, I don’t recognize where I’m at. The panic takes a moment to set in as my vision clears. It’s then that I take a large breath, probably the largest as I’ve ever taken.

My feet act on their own- or at least try to, but they’re caught on something. I can’t think. I can’t think. Why can’t I move my feet?

Some amount of sense is finally knocked into me and I look down at a pair of wrapped ankles. I’m in the bearded man’s basement. I’m still in his basement and my legs are tied. And my hands are tied. And there’s something in my mouth and the corners of my lips hurt and my hair is stuck to my face and and and-

“Iris, it is, right?”

My heart is beating too fast. Too fast. I squeeze my eyes shut. If I just close them then it means none of this is real, right? If I close my eyes, then this all becomes a daydream. If I close my eyes-

“I’m going to cut to the chase,” the bearded man says in my head. It’s in my head, right? I’m not in his basement. I’m not- “I have a coin. Now, last time you and I were in the same room with a coin, you walked away with all the money I was supposed to get to save my daughter’s life.”

What? No. No, no, no,no,nononononono. It can’t be him. This can’t be the same guy. But it is. But it is the guy, the one who challenged my win so long ago.

“I already took what you earned last night, but you have a better prize I want. So, it’s going to go like this…”

I jump, eyes flying open as I push myself back, a cold touch on my neck. He’s knelt now, an arm stretched out. So, it’s his hand. It’s his hand on my neck. I don’t like it. I don’t want it there. Please get off. Please get off me. Please get off. Please. Please. Please.

“I’m sticking with my guess from last time; heads. And I’m sticking with that guess”- he laughs and I can feel my hands shaking behind my back- “because what I want from you isn’t money anymore. My daughter is already dead. You killed her when you took that money from me in our first pit together. I want your head for hers. I can’t give you a brain tumour, but I can certainly do you something worse.”

The hand retreats from my neck, but I wish- oh God- I wish it would have stayed. I wish he would have never moved his hand. I wish I wasn’t here. I wish I was with my father. I wish I could hold a picture of my mom.

“I sharpened this while you were passed out. Didn’t mean to do that, by the way.” I can’t stand this. I can’t look. That knife- machete- whatever it is- I can’t…I need to get out. I need to- but I can’t move. I can’t move. I can’t move! “I was just trying to catch you by surprise so I didn’t have to deal with you struggling, but this actually worked out kinda better.”

“Mph!” I can’t talk. I can’t beg him. Can’t beg for my life. Can’t tell him I have a lonely father and a friend and family that care about me. Can’t tell him- can’t tell him anything.

“Right, well, I think it’s time for the toss. Heads, I get yours. Tails, I’ll flip again.” How can he smile at me like this?

How can he- can he- can he…I can’t think. I need out. I need out. Please let me go. Please let me go. I’m sorry. I’m sorry your daughter died. I didn’t know. I didn’t know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Please let me go.

“Would you look at that.”

He holds the coin up to my eyes and I can’t help the whimper in my throat, can’t help the stronger cries, and the impossibly more shaking hands of mine. I can’t breathe. I can’t. This isn’t happening. This is not happening to me.

“Heads on the first try. Chin up sweetheart, unless you want me to take a couple hacks at your pretty neck.”

I scream.

[gamergate-news]

Women and games yes. Women and game facing conflict and adversity? DON’T YOU DARE!! Am I crazy or is this the Guybrush Paradox in action?

The Last of Us, a video game released to critical acclaim in 2013, follows a man’s journey, along with his adolescent female charge, through a post-apocalyptic, zombie-infested world. The game, though popular with critics and gamers alike, is characterised as extraordinarily graphic and rife with edgy, gritty and often gruesome themes and images — it is, after all, the apocalypse. Both central and peripheral characters meet brutal — and in some cases, egregious — ends, all in the name of entertainment and painting a vivid and violent world.

In the past couple months, Naughty Dog studios, the company responsible for the first The Last of Us, has confirmed the sequel is in its final stages pre-release. Then, on October 30, the studio posted a sample cinematic from the upcoming The Last of Us Part II. There is no better word for this short sequence than graphic. Viewer discretion is advised.

The Cinematic

In it, a female cult leader — we have to assume — orchestrates the torture and near-hanging of two other female characters, including a particularly grotesque sequence in which one woman has her arm pulverised by a hammer. In the end, the timely entrance of a young man saves the two, and more vivid hammer action follows. The gaming community, for its part, reacted with mixed reviews and impressions.

Some lauded the The Last of Us Part II’s trailer as a gritty masterpiece, praising the lifelike graphics and realistic staging of the fight scenes, the palpable gore, and shiver-inducing destruction of human bodies, as really evoking the apocalypse for viewers. Others have lashed out at Naughty Dog for going too far in this direction, brushing up against the region of gore-porn in place of a substantive and sensitive storyline. Many viewers commented on the targeting of female characters in The Last of Us Part II’s in-game cinematic as a ploy for easy thrills.

Whatever your opinion of the first game and this recently released cinematic, the outrage at female suffering in video games is nothing new. For the past decade, the feminist movement has taken a keen interest in the overtly male-dominated area of gaming. While the presence of women has skyrocketed in gaming in recent years, the industry still caters to an overwhelmingly male population.

Casual Cruelty

Anita Sarkeesian is a known name in the gaming community. She first rose to the public spotlight during the height of the Gamergate attacks in 2014, in which a loosely organised group of gamers targeted prominent female players and commentators. During this period, Sarkeesian, along with other vocal figures, received threats of death, rape and other deeply troubling actions. The Gamergate posters claimed to be combating expanding progressiveness and feminism in the video game community.

Sarkeesian, for her part, has written extensively on the topics of female objectification in video games. In many ways, these personal attacks served to underline her commentary on the male domination of the industry and the dangerous implications and echo-chamber effects of such an isolated population. One of Sarkeesian’s most-debated areas of writing is the explicit and continued use of casual cruelty on incidental female characters.

“Enforcing the expendable image of these women carries a massive and terrifying implication of its own.”

It is one thing for the female body to be put on display in a playable — quite literally empowered — fashion. Games like Mortal Kombat and League of Legends, though featuring well-endowed female characters in uniformly revealing outfits, allow these characters to be played and utilised in the same capacity as any male characters. Though the distortion of the female body in these games carries its own set of problems, these characters appear on a fundamentally even field as any other characters.

For Evil Purposes

Given this, Sarkeesian’s focus has drifted to narrative-driven games. In them, female characters are often relegated to marginal and unplayable roles and are subject to aggression and violence on the part of male antagonists as a means to drive the storyline and elicit a natural emotional response from the player. Cinematics such as those found in The Last of Us II potentially fall into this category.

In Sarkeesian’s estimation, there is no more straightforward way of demonstrating who is righteous and who is evil than by causing violence to incidental female characters. Male gamers fall prey to the age-old tropes of chivalry and feeling a deep, guttural reaction when exposed to female harm. This type of response is warranted when characters gradually develop over the course of a storyline and are tragically ripped from us. However, Sarkeesian says this is rarely the case.

Instead, the inconsequential female characters appear as simple tools to advance the storyline and accentuate the depravity of certain — typically male — characters. Game developers seem to have this all down to a science and will usually target female sex workers or women in otherwise compromising positions — the social “throwaways.” Enforcing the expendable image of these women carries a massive and terrifying implication of its own.

Aesthetic

However, female objectification manifests in another, hugely popular video game trope. In this, the typical “sexiness” of women portrayed in video games since the genesis of story-driven titles is mixed with violence as a means to evoke an edgy and dangerous but aesthetically pleasing world.

Instead of using specific and active instances of violence against women to evoke an emotional response, certain games utilise casual violence as a sort of game aesthetic. These titles portray women’s suffering as set pieces for certain stages of the game and allow the player to indulge in certain fantasies vicariously. From the exotic dancers of Grand Theft Auto to the trailer for Hitman: Absolution, women appear framed in demeaning and deadly ways for the benefit of the player.

Some Concerns From Gamers

This phenomenon is a slippery one to pin down: What constitutes excessive violence or humiliation on the part of non-player female characters, and what is reasonably accepted as a game aesthetic? There are arguments to be made that eliminating female-directed violence from games contributes to an unrealistic worldview for players.

Violence against women does exist in the real world and can be found more graphically in certain locations than others. To keep the escapist roots of video games alive, perhaps disallowing specific scenarios or areas is not the best way forward.

Further, enforcing the notion that bad guys participate in violence against women has its benefits, for all the weak story writing such tropes contribute to. If nothing else, studios still rely on the moral indignation players feel when experiencing violence against women, normalising how unacceptable such action is.

Anonymity

The real problem, it seems, is the portrayal of the characters targeted. They are anonymous, inconsequential to the story and simply introduced for the brief, unconscious reaction they elicit from the player. Video games struggle horrifically — for the most part, at least — to meet the Bechdel Test, which is a measure of gender depiction in media. The test only includes three rules: there must be at least two named female characters, those women must talk to each other, and they must talk about something other than a man. The majority of movies and video games alike do not meet this simple criteria, and that is simply lazy. Female anonymity is lazy. This technique does not do justice to the women of our world — or of any world these games are meant to create.

MEANWHILE.....

Does anybody remember that scene in heavy rain when you had to cut off your own finger?

I guess all this is okay RIGHT?

Just saying we do a lot of WAY more horrible things to MALE PROTAGONIST in video games WAY more often.

We also allow them to be very despicable characters and do very despicable things. Spec Ops the Line “white phosphorus” scene and Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 “no Russians” Mission come to mine.

But that’s just my opinion.

[thewyrdwritere]

The Spider

The Spider by Leo Carew My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Spider book two of Leo Carew’s Under the Northern Sky trilogy finds the young Black Lord Roper triumphant as a military leader, having defeated the Sutherner armies, his Anakim rival Uvoren and cementing his leadership over the Anakim. However, actions have consequences, not all Anakim are pleased, a disgruntled ally hides a ruthless ambition and not all Anakim relish military conquest. But Roper isn’t done with the Sutherners. Hell bent on revenge Roper sets out on a mission to find new allies to accomplish his goal of destroying the Sutherner capital and securing all of Albion for the Anakim. The Spider begins with a tragedy at the Haskoli, the brutal training school that produces the Anakim legionnaires. Unable to investigate himself, Roper leaves an Inquisitor and two guardsmen to find an assassin and the answers to the identity of the shadowy manipulator Ellengaest. The Haskoli narrative is an interesting addition, the new characters make a curious team, showing some quirks of character and culture that add a lot more depth to the general militarised Anakim society. The Haskoli narrative initially seems like an exciting murder investigation that has huge implications for the series but as it progresses it also expounds upon Roper’s psychological background and the brutal training of the Haskoli shows why, as a product of this system, determination is Roper’s most defining trait. Sadly the Haskoli narrative does not live up to its initial promise and ends up doing the characters something of a disservice and with the Ellengaest's identity very much signposted seems like a missed opportunity. Roper’s determination and its effect on his decision making is the main impetus for the overall narrative, it is his decision to utilise the conniving Vigtyr and not reward his efforts that instigates the events at the Haskoli to tragic effect. Roper also makes the decision to invade and conquer Suthdal with the help of the monstrous giant Unhieru another set of decisions that The Spider does well to imply will have disastrous ramifications for the Anakim. As his wife Keturah points out, Roper is ‘Thoughtless’ and has yet to crack the balance between being a military leader and being the Black Lord. As the immense stress of campaigning in Suthdal brings Roper to breaking point The Spider does a good job of highlighting Roper’s internal struggles that pit his Haskoli training and determination against the realities of leadership and the consequences of his decisions. It is good character development. Above all the latent threat of the Krpytea’s judgement hangs over Roper’s actions and it is left abstrusely off stage what Jokul and the Krpytea have decided about Roper’s leadership. It makes The Cuckoo (book 3) that much more of an interesting proposition. Roper’s decision to enlist the giant Unhieru is perhaps the most intriguing aspect of The Spider. As a species the Unhieru are more of a true anthropological experiment than the Anakim were in The Wolf. There is something truly threatening and sinister about Unhieru physiology and culture, their giant size, hidden intelligence and pure psychosis of their ‘other-mind’ coupled with their ability to instil terror mark them out as a unique addition to the fantasy bestiary. Roper’s interaction with the Unhieru is filled with torturous challenges, excessive gore and menace and Carew’s depictions evoke Goya’s ‘Saturn Devouring his Son’ mixed with Grendal. Yet this is as nothing to the violent promise of an unnamed Unhieru clad in monstrous chain mail clanking a giant axe across cobbled streets. The Unhieru depicted in gory bloodletting are truly terrifying and Roper’s decision to send arms and armour to these beasts will surely have bloody ramifications for the Anakim … Another reason why The Cuckoo (book 3) will be a must read. Not to be forgotten are the Suthdal characters. Bellamus the Spymaster is back to his conniving best twisting Anakim and Suthdal both to secure his ends. As a character Bellamus is more rounded out showing some loyalty and care to friends and even morals in a quandary over the use of a devastating weapon. Bellamus makes quite a nice juxtaposition with Roper. Convenient timing keeps Bellamus from making a fateful decision and unlike Roper Bellamus abdicates responsibility and guilt for his actions. The fact that Bellamus arguably ends The Spider closer to absolute power, armed with a more intimate knowledge of Roper and the Anakim and unburdened with any self-reflective guilt probably means yet more disastrous ramifications….A third reason way The Cuckoo (book 3) is brimming with epic potential. The addition of new characters and fresh perspectives fill The Spider with some much more needed balance and depth than The Wolf. The improvements in character and motivations coupled with an expansion of the anthropological details bring a more visceral lucidity to the clash of cultures immersing the reader in a world that is on the brink. Overall The Spider is something of a scene setter, despite his efforts and success Roper is almost besieged by latent threats and The Cuckoo is shaping up to be quite the quite the conclusion to the series. View all my reviews

[aion-rsa]

Top New Horror Books in July 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

There’s so much to look forward to in our speculative fiction future. Here are some of the horror books we’re most excited about and/or are currently consuming…

Join the Den of Geek Book Club!

Top New Horror Books In July 2020

Survivor Song by Paul Tremblay 

Type: Novel Publisher: William Morrow/Titan Books Release Date: July 7

Den of Geek says: The latest from the master of sad horror Paul Tremblay is one of his best yet. It is however, disturbingly prescient. Following an outbreak of fast acting rabies, hospitals are short of PPE and citizens are on lockdown. But when Doctor Ramola’s heavily pregnant best friend Natalie is bitten, the two must go on a perilous journey to save her unborn child. It’s gorgeously written, very moving and a little bit disturbing during a pandemic.

Publisher’s summary: A riveting novel of suspense and terror from the Bram Stoker award-winning author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts.

When it happens, it happens quickly.

New England is locked down, a strict curfew the only way to stem the wildfire spread of a rabies-like virus. The hospitals cannot cope with the infected, as the pathogen’s ferociously quick incubation period overwhelms the state. The veneer of civilization is breaking down as people live in fear of everyone around them. Staying inside is the only way to keep safe.

But paediatrician Ramola Sherman can’t stay safe, when her friend Natalie calls, her husband is dead, she’s eight months pregnant, and she’s been bitten. She is thrust into a desperate race to bring Natalie and her unborn child to a hospital, to try and save both their lives.

Their once familiar home has become a violent and strange place, twisted into a barely recognisable landscape. What should have been a simple, joyous journey becomes a brutal trial.

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Type: Novel Publisher: Gallery/Titan Books Release date: July 21

Den of Geek says: Stephen Graham Jones is being touted as the next big thing in horror circles and while he’s had more than 20 books published it’s likely this will be his big breakout hit. The Only Good Indians follows a group of Blackfeet Native Americans who are paying the price for an incident during an Elk hunt a decade ago. Social commentary, a supernatural revenge plot and an intimate character study mix in this literary horror with something to say which brings genuine chills.

Publisher’s summary: Adam Nevill’s The Ritual meets Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies in this atmospheric gothic literary horror.

Ricky, Gabe, Lewis and Cassidy are men bound to their heritage, bound by society, and trapped in the endless expanses of the landscape. Now, ten years after a fateful elk hunt, which remains a closely guarded secret between them, these men and their children must face a ferocious spirit that is coming for them, one at a time. A spirit which wears the faces of the ones they love, tearing a path into their homes, their families and their most sacred moments of faith.

The Only Good Indians, charts Nature’s revenge on a lost generation that maybe never had a chance. Cleaved to their heritage, these parents, husbands, sons and Indians, these men must fight their demons on the fringes of a society that has no place for them.

Malorie by Josh Malerman

Type: Novel Publisher: Del Rey/Orion Release date: July 21

Den of Geek says: This is the sequel to Bird Box, the brilliant horror-thriller which spawned a not-that-great Netflix movie that was nonetheless extraordinarily successful. The original imagines a world populated by monsters – if you look at them you instantly lose your mind and harm yourself or others. The sequel finds Malorie and the two children years later – the kids are now teens who’ve never known a world other than the one behind the blindfold while Malorie still remembers the world before it went mad. A character study as well as a tense, paranoid horror story, this is one of the most anticipated horrors of the year.

Publisher’s summary: The much-anticipated Bird Box sequel

In the seventeen years since the ‘creatures’ appeared, many people have broken that rule. Many have looked. Many have lost their minds, their lives, their loved ones.

In that time, Malorie has raised her two children – Olympia and Tom – on the run or in hiding. Now nearly teenagers, survival is no longer enough. They want freedom.

When a census-taker stops by their refuge, he is not welcome. But he leaves a list of names – of survivors building a future beyond the darkness – and on that list are two names Malorie knows.

Two names for whom she’ll break every rule, and take her children across the wilderness, in the hope of becoming a family again.

Top New Horror Books In June 2020

Devolution by Max Brooks 

Type: Novel Publisher: Century  Release date: 06/16/2020

Den of Geek says: If anyone’s going to make a book about Bigfoots (Bigfeet?) not only genuinely very scary but also entirely believable it’s Max Brooks. The author of widely acclaimed World War Z weaves a found journal, snippets of interviews and the odd real life example together to tell the story of the remote eco-community of Greenloop who is isolated after a volcanic eruption and faces a deadly new threat brought on by changes in the ecosystem. It’s a cautionary tale, and a sometimes satirical fable of the dangers of underestimating nature.

Publisher’s summary: As the ash and chaos from Mount Rainier’s eruption swirled and finally settled, the story of the Greenloop massacre has passed unnoticed, unexamined . . . until now.

But the journals of resident Kate Holland, recovered from the town’s bloody wreckage, capture a tale too harrowing – and too earth-shattering in its implications – to be forgotten.

In these pages, Max Brooks brings Kate’s extraordinary account to light for the first time, faithfully reproducing her words alongside his own extensive investigations into the massacre and the beasts behind it, once thought legendary but now known to be terrifyingly real.

Kate’s is a tale of unexpected strength and resilience, of humanity’s defiance in the face of a terrible predator’s gaze, and inevitably, of savagery and death.

Yet it is also far more than that.

Because if what Kate Holland saw in those days is real, then we must accept the impossible. We must accept that the creature known as Bigfoot walks among us – and that it is a beast of terrible strength and ferocity.

Part survival narrative, part bloody horror tale, part scientific journey into the boundaries between truth and fiction, this is a Bigfoot story as only Max Brooks could chronicle it – and like none you’ve ever read before.

The Secret of Cold Hill by Peter James  

Type: Novel (paperback) Publisher: Pan; Main Market edition Release date: 06/25/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the follow up to 2015’s The House on Cold Hill, a supernatural thriller from multi-award winning British crime writer Peter James. It’s a modern take on a classic ghost story set in the Sussex countryside – the sequel sees the haunted Georgian mansion of the first book destroyed and new houses built in its place, where new families face malevolent forces from the past. 

Publisher’s summary: From the number one bestselling author, Peter James, comes The Secret of Cold Hill. The spine-chilling follow-up to The House on Cold Hill. Now a smash-hit stage play.

Cold Hill House has been razed to the ground by fire, replaced with a development of ultra-modern homes. Gone with the flames are the violent memories of the house’s history, and a new era has begun.

Although much of Cold Hill Park is still a construction site, the first two families move into their new houses. For Jason and Emily Danes, this is their forever home, and for Maurice and Claudette Penze-Weedell, it’s the perfect place to live out retirement. Despite the ever present rumble of cement mixers and diggers, Cold Hill Park appears to be the ideal place to live. But looks are deceptive and it’s only a matter of days before both couples start to feel they are not alone in their new homes.

There is one thing that never appears in the estate agent brochures: nobody has ever survived beyond forty in Cold Hill House and no one has ever truly left…

Top New Horror Books In April 2020

The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires

Type: Novel Publisher: Quirk Books Release Date: 04/07/2020

Den Of Geek says: The latest novel from Grady Hendrix is set in the same world as his masterful horror My Best Friend’s Exorcism, this time focusing on the wives and mothers of Charleston, South Carolina. Occupied with looking after their families and keeping up appearances, one group of women have to step up and fight when a charismatic stranger comes to town. A modern vampire novel packed with heart (and gore) this is another hit from one of the most exciting horror writers around.

Publisher’s summary: Steel Magnolias meets Dracula. A haunting, hair-raising, and ultimately heartwarming story set in the 1990s, the novel follows a women’s true-crime book club that takes it upon themselves to protect their community when they detect a monster in their midst. Deftly pitting Dracula against a seemingly prim and proper group of moms, Hendrix delivers his most complex, chilling, and exhilarating novel yet. 

With Grady’s unique comedic timing and adoration of the horror genre, The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is a pure homage to his upbringing, the most famous horror book of all, and something we can all relate to – the joy of reading. 

Eden By Tim Lebbon

Type: Novel Publisher: Titan Books Release Date: 04/07/2020

Den of Geek says: From the author of The Silence (which is basically A Quiet Place, published several years before A Quiet Place came out) comes another eco-horror which sees pollution and climate change force humanity to create locked off zones which are off-limits to people. Eden follows a group of adventurers who break the rules and enter one of the zones where nature has taken hold and begun to rebel. Should appeal to fans of Bird Box and Annihilation.

Publisher’s summary: In a time when Earth’s rising oceans contain enormous islands of refuse, the Amazon rainforest is all-but destroyed, and countless species edge towards extinction, the Virgin Zones were established in an attempt to combat the change. Off-limits to humanity and given back to nature, these thirteen vast areas of land were intended to become the lungs of the world. 

Dylan leads a clandestine team of adventurers into Eden, the oldest of the Zones. Attracted by the challenges and dangers posed by the primal lands, extreme competitors seek to cross them with a minimum of equipment, depending only on their raw skills and courage. Not all survive. 

Also in Dylan’s team is his daughter Jenn, and she carries a secret – Kat, his wife who abandoned them both years ago, has entered Eden ahead of them. Jenn is determined to find her mother, but neither she nor the rest of their tight-knit team are prepared for what confronts them. Nature has returned to Eden in an elemental, primeval way. And here, nature is no longer humanity’s friend. 

Eden is a triumphant return to the genre by one of horror’s most exciting contemporary voices, as Tim Lebbon offers up a page-turning and adrenaline-fuelled race through the deadly world of Eden, poignantly balanced with observations on humanity’s relationship with nature, and each other. Timely and suspenseful, Eden will seed itself in the imagination of the reader and continue to bloom long after the last page. 

The Wise Friend By Ramsey Campbell

Type: Novel Publisher: Flame Tree Press Release date: 04/23/2020

Den Of Geek says: The latest from British horror legend is a mystical tale of the occult which hints at the monstrous. Campbell is regarded by many as one of the most important horror writers of his generation. Influenced by H P Lovecraft and M R James, and influencing many horror writers who came after him, he’s published more than 30 novels. His latest sounds like a treat.

Publisher’s Summary: Patrick Torrington’s aunt Thelma was a successful artist whose late work turned to- wards the occult. While staying with her in his teens he found evidence that she used to visit magical sites. As an adult he discovers her journal of her explorations, and his teenage son Roy becomes fascinated too. 

His experiences at the sites scare Patrick away from them, but Roy carries on the search, together with his new girlfriend. Can Patrick convince his son that his increasingly terrible suspicions are real, or will what they’ve helped to rouse take a new hold on the world?

The Book of Koli – The Rampart Trilogy, Book 1, By M.R. Carey

Type: Novel Publisher: Orbit Release date: 04/14/2020

Den of Geek says: This is the first book in a new trilogy by M.R. Carey who wrote excellent zombie novel The Girl With All The Gifts. This is an eco-horror/sci-fi which sounds like Tim Lebbon’s Eden in reverse – in Carey’s book it’s everything outside a small village that’s a threat – and both books are aimed at fans of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy. Little surprise that horror writers are turning their attention to the environment in these frightening times and in Carey’s careful hands (there was an element of nature evolving in Girl With All The Gifts) this should be a new world worth visiting.

Publisher’s summary: EVERYTHING THAT LIVES HATES US . . . Beyond the walls of the small village of Mythen Rood lies an unrecognisable landscape. A place where overgrown forests are filled with choker trees and deadly seeds that will kill you where you stand. And if they don’t get you, the Shunned men will. Koli has lived in Mythen Rood his entire life. He believes the first rule of survival is that you don’t venture too far beyond the walls.

He’s wrong.

The Book of Koli begins a breathtakingly original new trilogy set in a strange and deadly world of our own making.

Top New Horror Books In March 2020

The Deep by Alma Katsu

Type: Novel Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons Release date: 03/10/2020

Den Of Geek says: A ghost story set against the backdrop of the sinking of the Titanic is a strong premise to set out with, from a writer who has good form with mixing horror with history after The Hunger which centres around The Donner Party, a group of pioneers in the middle of the 19th century, some of who resorted to cannibalism when their group got stranded. Alma Katsu is an author who “Makes the supernatural seem possible” according to Publishers Weekly, and the weaving in of real people with this creepy sounding tale of a nurse who survives the Titanic only to meet another passenger who couldn’t possibly have made it out is highly appealing.

Publisher’s summary: This is the only way to explain the series of misfortunes that have plagued the passengers of the ship from the moment they set sail: mysterious disappearances, sudden deaths. Now suspended in an eerie, unsettling twilight zone during the four days of the liner’s illustrious maiden voyage, a number of the passengers – including millionaires Madeleine Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim, the maid Annie Hebbley and Mark Fletcher – are convinced that something sinister is going on . . . And then, as the world knows, disaster strikes.

Years later and the world is at war. And a survivor of that fateful night, Annie, is working as a nurse on the sixth voyage of the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic, now refitted as a hospital ship. Plagued by the demons of her doomed first and near fatal journey across the Atlantic, Annie comes across an unconscious soldier she recognises while doing her rounds. It is the young man Mark. And she is convinced that he did not – could not – have survived the sinking of the Titanic…

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives in Your Home: A Welcome to Night Vale Novel By Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor

Type: Novel Publisher: Harper Perennial Release date: 03/24/2020

Den Of Geek says: The third novel in the Welcome To Night Vale series, which spun-off the wildly popular podcast of the same name promises more eerie, weird, wistful but wonderful musings delving into the enigmatic character of The Faceless Old Woman and exploring Night Vale’s history. It’s written by Fink and Cranor, the creators of the podcast, and has already garnered widespread acclaim. Fans of Twin Peaks should definitely check out Night Vale.

Publisher’s summary: From the New York Times bestselling authors of Welcome to Night Vale and It Devours! and the creators of the #1 podcast, comes a new novel set in the world of Night Vale and beyond.

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from . . . until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Woman is revealed, as she guides, haunts and sabotages an unfortunate Night Vale resident named Craig. In the end, her dealings with Craig and her history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

Part The Haunting of Hill House, part The Count of Monte Cristo, and 100% about a faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home.

Cursed: An Anthology edited by Marie O’Regan and Paul Kane

Type: Anthology Publisher: Titan books Release date: 03/03/2020

Den Of Geek says: some of our favourite horror writers assemble for this collection of stories surrounding the concept of the curse. Some are updates of well known fairy tales, some are brand new mythologies and all come together in a magical, mythical, mystical collection that should appeal to fans of dark fables and traditional folk horror. Authors include Neil Gaiman, M R Carey, Christina Henry and Tim Lebbon.

Publisher’s Summary: It’s a prick of blood, the bite of an apple, the evil eye, a wedding ring or a pair of red shoes. Curses come in all shapes and sizes, and they can happen to anyone, not just those of us with unpopular stepparents…

Here you’ll find unique twists on curses, from fairy tale classics to brand-new hexes of the modern world – expect new monsters and mythologies as well as twists on well-loved fables. Stories to shock and stories of warning, stories of monsters and stories of magic. Twenty timeless folktales old and new

Top New Horror Books in February 2020

Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

Type: Novel Publisher: Balzer + Bray Release date: 2/4/20

Den of Geek says: Justina Ireland’s Dread Nation was one of the most-talked-about YA debuts of 2018, and for good reason! The story of Black zombie hunters in an alternate Reconstruction-era America is already one of the best premises of all time, and Ireland more than follows through on the promise of kickass, sociopolitically cathartic potential—with Dread Nation, and now with Deathless Divide. (We love this one so much, it’s also on our Top New YA Books of February 2020 list.)

Publisher’s summary: The sequel to the New York Times bestselling epic Dread Nation is an unforgettable journey of revenge and salvation across a divided America.

After the fall of Summerland, Jane McKeene hoped her life would get simpler: Get out of town, stay alive, and head west to California to find her mother.

But nothing is easy when you’re a girl trained in putting down the restless dead, and a devastating loss on the road to a protected village called Nicodemus has Jane questioning everything she thought she knew about surviving in 1880s America.

What’s more, this safe haven is not what it appears—as Jane discovers when she sees familiar faces from Summerland amid this new society. Caught between mysteries and lies, the undead, and her own inner demons, Jane soon finds herself on a dark path of blood and violence that threatens to consume her.

But she won’t be in it alone.

Katherine Deveraux never expected to be allied with Jane McKeene. But after the hell she has endured, she knows friends are hard to come by—and that Jane needs her too, whether Jane wants to admit it or not.

Watching Jane’s back, however, is more than she bargained for, and when they both reach a breaking point, it’s up to Katherine to keep hope alive—even as she begins to fear that there is no happily-ever-after for girls like her.

Buy Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland on Amazon.

The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson

Type: Novel Publisher: MCD x FSG Release date: 2/11/20

Den of Geek says: If it’s good enough for Paul Tremblay, it’s good enough for us! We love a good atmospheric horror read, and The Boatman’s Daughter sounds like it has more atmosphere in one page than most books do in their entirety.

Publisher’s summary:  A “lush nightmare” (Paul Tremblay) of a supernatural thriller about a young woman facing down ancient forces in the depths of the bayou.

Ever since her father was killed when she was just a child, Miranda Crabtree has kept her head down and her eyes up, ferrying contraband for a mad preacher and his declining band of followers to make ends meet and to protect an old witch and a secret child from harm.

But dark forces are at work in the bayou, both human and supernatural, conspiring to disrupt the rhythms of Miranda’s peculiar and precarious life. And when the preacher makes an unthinkable demand, it sets Miranda on a desperate, dangerous path, forcing her to consider what she is willing to sacrifice to keep her loved ones safe.

With the heady mythmaking of Neil Gaiman and the heartrending pacing of Joe Hill, Andy Davidson spins a thrilling tale of love and duty, of loss and discovery. The Boatman’s Daughter is a gorgeous, horrifying novel, a journey into the dark corners of human nature, drawing our worst fears and temptations out into the light.

Read The Boatman’s Daughter by Andy Davidson on Amazon.

The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James

Type: Novel Publisher: Berkley Release date: 2/18/20

Den of Geek says: Who doesn’t love a good creepy motel story? From the author who brought us The Broken Girls, comes another female-driven foray into horror mystery. If you’ve been digging Nancy Drew or love Sharp Objects, there’s more where that came from.

Publisher’s summary: Something hasn’t been right at the roadside Sun Down Motel for a very long time, and Carly Kirk is about to find out why in this chilling new novel from the USA Today bestselling and award-winning author of The Broken Girls.

Upstate New York, 1982. Viv Delaney wants to move to New York City, and to help pay for it she takes a job as the night clerk at the Sun Down Motel in Fell, New York. But something isnʼt right at the motel, something haunting and scary.

Upstate New York, 2017. Carly Kirk has never been able to let go of the story of her aunt Viv, who mysteriously disappeared from the Sun Down before she was born. She decides to move to Fell and visit the motel, where she quickly learns that nothing has changed since 1982. And she soon finds herself ensnared in the same mysteries that claimed her aunt.

Read The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James on Amazon.

The post Top New Horror Books in July 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2Bhu8Di

[culturalgutter]

This month is our annual Switcheroo Month, so Comics Editor Carol is leaving comics behind and writing about the South Korean television drama, Vampire Prosecutor.

“Vampire Prosecutor? Is the vampire a prosecutor or do they prosecute vampires? Or both?” you ask.

“Yes,” I answer.

“Does Vampire Prosecutor take a bite out of crime?”

“…”

“How many vampires would a vampire prosecutor prosecute if a vampire prosecutor prosecute if a vampire prosecutor could prosecute vampire prosecutors?” you ask.

“Just stop,” I say.

A title like Vampire Prosecutor sounds like something that might just be plain fun if produced by the CW, but genre doesn’t mean the same thing in South Korean television. If you come in thinking it’s all fun and vampire prosecution, well, you might be in for an unpleasant surprise. Vampire Prosecutor is fun. There are funny episodes and great banter. It’s cleverly written. But the show’s gore and violence levels are pretty much the same as the gore or violence levels I associate with South Korean cinema, particularly in Vampire Prosecutor‘s second season. Not only do we hear things, with exquisitely ghastly foleying, we see things, too. So Vampire Prosecutor is rated mature for violence, gore, and Det. Hwang Soon-bum’s gross eating. It’s a serious show, though it’s not all gloom. Screenwriters Han Jung-hoon and Kang Eun-sun have a strong understanding of their form and a playful sense of metafiction. And while I imagine Vampire Prosecutor would be sixty-five times better if I spoke Korean and caught all the subtleties of when Det. Hwang drops his honorifics and when he doesn’t, it is already very good.  The show has a nice balance of drama, horor and humor. Not to mention Vampire Prosecutor‘s fascinating fashions. Prosecutor Min Tae-yeon’s fashion is as central as Olivia Pope’s is in Scandal.* Vampire Prosecutor pops his collar and rolls up the sleeves of his jacket. Sonny from Miami Vice doesn’t even understand how much Vampire Prosecutor has to deal with. Vampire Prosecutor Min Tae-yeon has a lot on his plate.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some of Min Tae-yeon’s interesting jackets.

Min Tae-yeon (Yeon Jeong-hun) is a prosecutor in the city of Seoul. He’s been assigned to the “Prosecutor-Police Joint Special Investigation Unit.” The unit is even more awkwardly named in Korean and is a career graveyard according to the older, powerful men who created it. They are not, however, troubled like I am about the justice implications of joining government’s investigatory and prosecutorial arms in one prosecution headed unit. They are kind of corrupt themselves. Min’s team includes junior prosecutor Yoo Jung-in (Lee Young-ah), intern and all-around science and computer guy Choi Dong-man (Kim Joo-young) and Prosecutor Min’s old friend Det. Hwang Soon-bum (Lee Wong-jong). It’s clearly a team that while not explicitly set up to fail is set up to be too small to ultimately succeed. But the team’s supervisor, Chief Prosecutor Yang believes in them. Prosecutor Yoo is determined to do good work. Intern Choi is generally enthusiastic. But Hwang is not happy, because he’s heard that this unit leads nowhere, b had offered to do anything if Prosecutor Min would help him out solving a case and Min did. See, Min is the very Vampire Prosecutor of the title. He was already good at blood spatter analysis, but now that he is a vampire, he can envision the death of a victim precisely. As he stands at the crime scene with only Det. Hwang staying quietly out of the way, he observes the blood spatter rise up and trace its journey backwards into the victim until he sees exactly how the victim died. You might think the visuals were adopted from Hannibal‘s Will Graham, but Vampire Prosecutor aired in 2011. The second season aired in 2012. Hannibal premiered in 2013.

If necessary, Prosecutor Min can take it further and drink a vial of the victim’s blood he obtains from the coroner. Coroner Yoon (Jang Young-nam) thinks he collects blood samples from his cases, but kinda creepily she doesn’t judge him. (Pehaps she watches Dexter). Second season’s Coroner Jo (Lee Kyoung-young) continues giving Min samples, but is more suspicious. When Min drinks the victim’s blood, we follow the blood down his espophagus into his circulatory system, into his brain and finally see the victim’s death as they did. Drinking a dead person’s blood, however, causes a vampire great pain and both Hwang and Min’s source of information and ethically sourced non-dead person blood at the mysterious night club** he goes to try to dissuade him from the practice. But sometimes it’s the only way to catch a murderer.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

But what kind of vampire could be a prosecutor? Does he only take cases in night court? (Stop trying to be funny). Prosecutor Min isn’t your usual Dracula. He’s more like Carmilla. Dracula endured a kind of sleep paralysis during the day and avoided the sun. Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla, however, was only a little sleepy during the day and was unaffected by the sun at all. Unlike Dracula, Prosecutor Min can operate in the daytime and doesn’t burst into flames when exposed to the sun. And unlike Carmilla, he doesn’t experience a strange langor in the daytime. He might even be able to drink wine. In fact, Prosecutor Min has one up on both, he’s perfectly fine during the day. His only real problem is that he can’t take his team out to dinner like a boss should. Hwang understands, but Prosecutor Yoo and Intern Choi see it as strange, although in keeping with his aloof manner.Beyond limiting his capacity for team-building, Min’s vampirism doesn’t interfere much with his ability to perform his duties.

Vampirism aside, the relationship between the prosecutor’s office and the police is one of Vampire Prosecutor‘s creeper elements, as is Min’s tolerance for Det. Hwang’s “old school Seoul” methods. Det. Hwang is a good detective in the sense that he gets results, but his methods involve bullying, threats, violence, sketchy deals and discussions of nose-picking. Hwang bullies and threatens informants and suspects. He hits them and threatens to arrest them for crimes they might not have committed. He breaks and enters as part of his investigation. And he just walks around with food hanging out of his mouth sometimes. I would hope that if there is ever a Vampire Prosecutor 3, Hwang is prosecuted for his many incidents of brutality. Hwang is supposed to stand in for the everyman, not the cool ideal of Prosecutor Min or the hardworking, innovative Yoo or the tech and pop culture savviness of Intern Choi, the youngest member of the team. He’s the old cop who knows Seoul’s dark places like the back of his hand. He’s also the first to lower his speech, removing honorifics and using more intimate forms of address. It gets complicated with his colleagues. He is older than Min, but Min is his boss. He is friends with Min, so offers to “treat him like a younger brother.”

With Yoo it is even more complicated. She is a younger woman and still his superior. When he mocks her investigative methods in favor of his own, he begins removing honorifics and Korean’s very careful series of polite verb endings because for him, there is an inversion going on between experience, age, gender and who exactly should be speaking up to whom. Later on, there is a cute friendship between the rough-and-ready Hwang and the elegant and reserved Coroner Jo. They try to speak to each other as older and younger brother, but it’s so awkward for the refined Jo that they give up and stay the friends they are.

The series has a nice balance between weekly cases and an ongoing arc over twelve episodes. His first case concerns a copycat vampire killing, resembling the one at the scene where he was bitten. And over the course of twelve episodes, we learn more about the vampire killings and more about how exactly Min became a vampire. Just when you settle into the rhythm of the weekly case, the arc picks up, reminding us that the series’ opening car chase is still on Min’s mind. He pursued a suspect. There was an accident on the highway. And his suspect is stabbed by another man in a baseball cap and plastic rain poncho***, who sets the car on fire with a lighter engraved with sinister European occult symbols. And then Min was bitten. In Vampire Prosecutor, vampires only transform the first victim they bite. Min kept the lighter from the scene of the crim and by the end of Vampire Prosecutor 1, discovers a law firm using the same occult symbols and we are hunting more vampires who went to law school.****

Airing about one year later, Vampire Prosecutor 2 is darker, which is saying something. And Prosecutor Min begins to wear less interesting jackets, after the events of season one. Vampire Prosecutor 2 starts much more harshly than Vampire Prosecutor 1. It opens with a government official being rushed to the hospital after being shot by a sniper during a speech. The motorcade is stopped by soldiers who turn their guns on the motorcade and take the minister. They say that they are taking him to “our hospital.” The hospital turns out to be a secret facility run by a mad scientist who is performing experiments on some poor man kept chained and masked. Informed that the government official must be kept alive, the scientist transfuses blood from the masked prisoner. And as the be-suited men hunting the minister arrive, the minister sits up and hisses, transformed into a vampire himself.

This sequence has a lot of historical resonance. South Korean dictator Park Chung-hee was assassinated in 1979 by a rival faction in the government. In fact, one of his close friends shot him at a dinner in a secure facility.  There was an earlier attempt in 1974, in which Park survived but his wife did not. There is a lot of resonance in this moment and in 2005, Im Sang-soo released his black comedy, The President’s Last Bang, covering the last few hours of Park’s life and the immediate fall-out of his assassination. The President’s Last Bang was intensely controversial in South Korea for its depiction of Park and about 4 minutes of the film were censored—and subsequently shown internationally with a blank screen during the censored footage. This opening scene in Vampire Prosecutor 2 has more resonance with the earlier failed assassination attempt in 1974, when a man fired at the stage while Park was giving a speech celebrating the end of colonial rule in South Korea. In the historical event, the assassin missed Park but killed Park’s wife, Yuk Young-soo. Their daughter, Park Guen-hye was just impeached and arrested for corruption. When Vampire Prosecutor aired, was a representative in the Korean parliament and the leader of the Grand National Party. I can’t say if the arrival of a new, much more politically minded and politically vicious female chief prosecutor, Joo Hyun-ah (Kim Bo-young), is related to Park Guen-hye’s ascension, but it is interesting.

So Vampire Prosecutor‘s secret bunker and draculized government official is not the same, but any event where a government official is shot by other scheming government officials who try to cover it up is resonant. And it sets the stage for a darker and more broadly political Vampire Prosecutor. The second season addresses secrets the Korean government keeps. Secrets that involve torture and hearken back to the days of dictatorship. At the same time, it cuts close again emotionally as Min tries to protect his team. We learn more about Coroner Jo, and he takes in Ji-ae, a little girl who was left at a crime scene.

She is part of the overarching focus on the ways that any crime’s ramifications move through time. We end the season with questions and unresolved issues that will probably never be answered or resolved. And while Vampire Prosecutor 2 was a more fragmented and uneven season than Vampire Prosecutor, I do want to know what happens to Min Tae-yeon and everyone else.

There were rumors that there would be a Vampire Prosecutor 3 and I had hopes, even as Dexter ended and then Hannibal came and went, that there would be another show with blood spatter in its opening credits. I even did some promotion of What We Do In The Shadows and SPL 2 making references to Vampire Prosecutor, but still no Vampire Prosecutor 3. Ultimately, OCN produced a spin-off in 2016, Vampire Detective. I tried, but couldn’t get into it. Vampire Detective Yook San’s casual wear just couldn’t compete with Prosecutor Min’s sharp suits and interesting jackets. But maybe it’s been long enough that I can let Vampire Detective do its own thing. At least it doesn’t have Detective Hwang, though first time I watched, Yook San did have a good friend with gross eating habits. On the other hand, there was at least one instance of a villain with flair.

*Donnie Yen is going to play Vampire Prosecutor in the inevitable Hong Kong television adaptation. He will wear no shirt and grappling will central to his Vampire Prosecutor process. I will also note that someone else who becomes a vampire during the course of the show also begins wearing interesting jackets once he is draculized.

**The first time we enter the mysterious night club where Min goes for information about the man who bit him and murdered his suspect—and gets a glass of blood while he does—there is a song about “camping” in videogames playing.

***I would like to add that I love that this man is terrifying, but not cool. The plastic rain poncho is a great detail.

****POSSIBLE SPOILER: In fact, vampire prosecutor Min might prosecute not only a vampire, but a vampire prosecutor…

~~~

A vampire prosecutor would prosecute as many vampire prosecutors as a vampire prosecutor could, if a vampire prosecutor could prosecute vampire prosecutors, Carol Borden finally says. Vampire Prosecutor and Vampire Detective are both availabla online via Drama Fever.

The Dark Delights and Sharp Suits of Vampire Prosecutor This month is our annual Switcheroo Month, so Comics Editor Carol is leaving comics behind and writing about the South Korean television drama, …