Look Out For… Dead Boys by Gabriel Squailia

“Dead Boys heralds the arrival of a new and unique voice onto the scene.”

A decade dead, Jacob Campbell is a preservationist, providing a kind of taxidermy to keep his clients looking lifelike for as long as the forces of entropy will allow. But in the Land of the Dead, where the currency is time itself and there is little for corpses to do but drink, thieve, and gamble eternity away, Jacob abandons his home and his fortune for an opportunity to meet the man who cheated the rules of life and death entirely.

According to legend, the Living Man is the only adventurer to ever cross into the underworld without dying first. It’s rumoured he met his end somewhere in the labyrinth of pubs beneath Dead City’s streets, disappearing without a trace. Now Jacob’s vow to find the Living Man and follow him back to the land of the living sends him on a perilous journey through an underworld where the only certainty is decay.

An ambitious debut that mingles the fantastic with the philosophical, Dead Boys twists the well-worn epic quest into a compelling, one-of-a-kind work of weird fiction that transcends genre, recalling the novels of China Miéville and Neil Gaiman.

Why We’re Excited About This Book: There’s something especially exciting about stumbling across a brand new author whose book instantly appeals; Gabriel Squailia is unknown to us at This Is Horror but his debut novel Dead Boys sounds utterly fantastic.

The novel tells the story of Jacob Campbell, a deceased taxidermist who uses his skills in the Land Of The Dead to keep the recently deceased looking alive(ish) for as long as possible. But despite his post-mortem success, Campbell attempts to track down the legendary ‘Living Man’ and see if there is a way out of the absurd existence of the dead. Fictional accounts of the afterlife might be ten a penny but Squailia’s vision of the Land Of The Dead seems genuinely original.

Dead Boys heralds the arrival of a new and unique voice onto the scene; if it can live up to its promise it may well be one of the best debuts of the year.

Dead Boys is out now from Skyhorse Publishing.

Look Out For … Jews vs Aliens

“This promises to be an anthology with an original and interesting twist.”

In Jews vs Aliens, editors Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene have gathered together brand new stories from the light-hearted to the profound, with authors ranging from Orange Prize winner Naomi Alderman to Big Bang Theory writer/producer Eric Kaplan, all asking, for the first time, the question you didn’t even know you wanted answered – what happens when the aliens arrive, only to encounter… Jews?

“If you will it, it is no dream!” as Theodor Herzl said: and no doubt he had just such an anthology in mind. With all proceeds going to charity, Jews vs Aliens and its companion volume, Jews vs Zombies, are the must have anthologies of the year.

Why We’re Excited About This Book: Well there’s the kind of title you don’t see every day.

Jews vs Aliens is an anthology edited by Lavie Tidhar and Rebecca Levene, containing stories by turns profound, funny and plain odd on the theme of… well, you guessed it. The stories promise to explore the connections between speculative fiction and Judaism, so this is shaping up to be an anthology with an original and interesting twist.

And if aliens don’t appeal, then the similarly unequivocally titled Jews vs Zombies is being released as a companion volume. Across the two, the anthologies boast authors such as Rosanne Rabinowitz, Rachel Swirsky, Sarah Lotz and Anna Tambour.

All proceeds go to the charity Mosac, which provides support for abused children. So do some good and get yourself two fantastic looking books into the bargain. What more could you want?

Jews vs Aliens is out on 19 March 2015 from Jurassic London.

Jews vs Zombies is also out on the same day.