1 Series

A fleet of SUVs park outside an abandoned apartment block in the besieged Aleppo, off loading groups of ISIL terrorists who storm a building. No one is there, except one man, the Syriacide blogger, and treacherous, blood thirsty and merciless killers. He is desperate to escape, as he tries to save himself from live gun battles. But how to do this is poses the greatest challenge of his life? "Syracide is a book that focuses more on building tension than on prose, and drags the reader on a ride that doesn't ease up until the very end. We start with the immolation of a holy man and the violence only escalates from there. Written in a very real and journalistic style, Mulvihill takes us on a trip through a hell that feels all the more real for the direct and simple style that he writes in. The prose reminds me of Crane or Thomas Harris, straightforward and without frills. Yet it is this home brewed style that makes the horror palpable, and gives life to scenes of almost utter depravity. The story functions as the blogged notes of an unnamed writer who is living in Syria and watching the deterioration of Aleppo into religious anarchy and politically motivated violence. We see everything from the writer's perspective, which alternates between journalistic aloofness and existential ponderings about the nature of suffering and evil. Our narrator documents the demolishing of Aleppo, all while dodging insurgents and burying the bodies of loved ones in a futile attempt to inject some dignity into the chaos. The plot is very bare, and focuses on our narrator's attempts to record how the lives of his friends and family are affected by the disintegration of order in the middle east. Interviews and slice-of-life meanderings give way to extremely intense scenes of violence and horror as everything descends into madness, eventually forcing the narrator to leave the middle east altogether.  Mulvihill has captured something very real here, something that is both human and exceedingly horrific. This book is less of a story in the traditional sense, and more a wake-up call to the west about what its imperialistic tendencies and interference in foreign affairs have wrought. None of us is as civilized as we think we are, and the reality of social decay is always just around the corner. Overall, I think those who can stomach the violence and engage with the book's break-neck pace will find some real gems in the narrative." Andrew Hodges Horror Novelist

Post-Perestroika has visited Russia and Tobias the Muscovite is out of work and looking for just about anything to make ends meet. He moves to a remote outpost in Vodka Valley, Siberia, where his duty is to guard a plot of land for oil and gas exploration by The Rusky Company. At first isolated, cold, lonely, and feeling alienated, he has gradually grown accustomed to and even accepted by this remote wilderness. Little does the young watchman know that at night he is sleeping above a buried secret more hostile than Siberia's weather. Just beneath the surface gurgles the mouth of Hell, waiting to be opened and spew forth. Privy to the secret, an unholy band under Asmodeus, demon leader of dark forces, and Ethagoria Nebsonia, master of the Siberian Vampires, have taken up residence in this land. Their influence has caused humans to change in Vodka Valley. People have become more strange, indifferent, envious, greedy, and violent towards one another. The Devil prowls Vodka Valley looking for the ruination of souls, and expects the dark legions to plan and wreak havoc on an apocalyptic scale. But, thanks to the local Russian Orthodox Church's resurrection from the ruins of the communist regime and the revival of spirituality, the Devil may not have the last word in Vodka Valley.

The Taxidermist is Hatching by Michael Mulvihill "Sheridan Le Fanu, Charles Maturin, Bram Stoker… These are probably all names of Irish horror writers I used to know. Now I know one more writer coming from the Land of Erin – Michael Mulvihill. I've recently read his collection of short horror stories, "The Taxidermist Is Hatching". Reading it, you're about to delve into the darkness to face all morbid creatures imaginable – vampires, werewolves, ghosts. The modern Dublin is described by the author in such a creepy way that the London of Jack the Ripper springs instantly to my mind. Most of the stories are brief like flashes of a raving maniac's knife in the pale moonlight. The endings are so abrupt that you have the feeling you've been walking in your sleep and then suddenly woken up finding yourself standing on the edge of an abyss. A very uncomfortable feeling really. But this is what horror stories are for. Some images from the stories stuck to me for days. (Read "Phenom Venom Rat Vampire" and find that brilliant fragment about the micro-chip. It will really make you paranoid.) The realistic stories like "Drop" have even a bigger impact upon the reader. Explore many dimensions of human experience with "The Taxidermist Is Hatching" Oleg Hassanov, Horror Novelist, Editor and producer of "Horror Without Borders"