And, read a diary from the witch trials!
A few things caught my eye in the world of horror literature, so I’ll begin with the latest from camp Stephen King.
Yes, the man’s got a new novel on the way called “11/22/63” which Simon & Schuster will release on November 8. This is another 1,000 page opus from the man, who’s last novel “Under the Dome” was well over that page count (I thought it was pretty damn good, too).
Here’s the official synopsis from StephenKing.com: Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the studentsâa gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunningâs father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk.
Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insaneâand insanely possibleâmission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jakeâs new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s lifeâa life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.
On March 15, Jovanka Vuckovic’s “Zombies!: An Illustrated History of the Undead” hits shelves. I believe this was the first big project Vuckovic took on after she departed from “Rue Morgue Magazine,” and if you’ve followed her writing you’re probably just as excited as I am to see what she’s got in store for this book.
The crunch from St. Martin’s Griffin: The zombie phenomenon is unique in Western popular culture. From its origins in the voodoo beliefs of Haiti, it has become a key ingredient in today’s cinema, popular literature and comics. With one simple premise that the dead rise again to feast on the living and turn them into zombies, the undead have inspired a huge variety of artists to explore ideas of survival, morality, fear, humor and horror. ZOMBIES! is the first book to take a wide look at the whole phenomenon, from low budget cult movies to long-running comics and best-selling humour novels. With stunning imagery, and an authoritative and entertaining text from one of the worlds most distinguished experts on the genre, plus a foreword by master of horror George A. Romero, this tome will appall and delight the reader in equal measure.
Turning to non-fiction, MSNBC has an article about a 17th-century witch trail journal which is now available to read online in its entirety.
Source: Ryan Turek, Managing Editor
