Judy Comeau reviewed on Tomb of Dark Delight 'The Monster, the Bad, and the Ugly' by Paolo Di Orazio and me, and 'The Beauty of Death' Anthology, edited by me. Excerpt of the review:

I’m devoting this Halloween to Italian horror. What would horror be without all of those great Dario Argento and Mario Bava films—I can’t think of better Halloween viewing! And now horror fiction has its own new Italian master, Alessandro Manzetti, award-winning poet/author/editor whose work I’m recommending as the perfect Halloween fiction treat for dark minded Readers.

THE MONSTER, THE BAD AND UGLY AND OTHER STORIES by Alessandro Manzetti and Paolo Di Orazio
I just love that the title of this anthology of dark tales references the Italian Western film that made Clint Eastwood famous, because I love horror and I love Westerns. Author/artist Paolo Di Orazio contributes both art and fiction to this delightful book, striking just the right tone with both. Alesandro Manzetti is talented poet as well as a prose writer, and his lyrical approach to the horror tale makes for an exquisite storytelling. This marvelous collaboration contains tales that range from graphic horror to dark psychological terror. Allesandro Manzetti opens the antho with a shocking and gory tale of The Battle of Little Big Horn, a battle that is fought yearly on the supernatural plane by a weary Custer, raised from the dead to fight again and again in “Long Hair’s Inferno.” Paolo Di Orzio has written perhaps the penultimate pregnant woman’s nightmare in his story, “The Incubator.” And there is more—much more! Whether the tales are about serial killers, prostitutes, or evil personified, each tale is beautifully crafted and entirely entertaining. This is a worthy volume of stories from Allesandro Manzetti and Paolo Di Orzio that readers of dark fiction will enjoy. Bravo!

THE BEAUTY OF DEATH edited by Alessandro Manzetti and Jodi Renee Lester
This is a huge anthology both literally and figuratively speaking, weighing in at nearly 700 pages of dark fiction created by a stellar group of both established and upcoming practitioners of terror tales. Most of the stories have never been published previously, and there a few superbly selected reprints from Shane McKenzie, Ramsey Campbell, Poppy Z. Brite, Alesandro Manzetti, Del Howison, Maria Alexander, and the inimitable Peter Straub. Monica O’Rourke opens the anthology with her trademark mixture of terror and humor, followed by a bleak dark fantasy by Thersa Matsuura, which is an indication of the depth and breadth of the style of tales that follow. Each of the stories followed the broad theme of this anthology summed up in the title, and death arrives in these pages in all manner of guises, exposing the terror, the beauty, and often the hilariously funny facets of the final moments of life faced by each of us. Lisa Morton exposes the daily horrors experienced by caretakers of the aged in “In the Garden.” The tables are turned on a group of hunters stalking a dangerous mythical creature in Daniele Bonfanti’s “Game”. Famed gore master Edward Lee grosses us out again in a gleefully vicious excerpt from “White Trash Gothic.” Bruce Boston and Marge Simon have created a poetically chilling reinterpretation of a beloved children’s fairy tale in “Cold Finale.” Kathryn Ptacek’s “The I of the Beholder” is a chilly but exquisitely touching story of an isolated young woman who struggles to make sense of her separation from her world and from herself. Although the voice and subject matter of each story is quite different, the result of the stories taken as a whole is cohesive and satisfying as a volume. THE BEAUTY OF DEATH is perfect Halloween reading.

​Read the review on Tomb of Dark Delight

Qualche foto dell'edizione italiana di Eden Underground, opera vincitrice del Bram Stoker Award, appena pubblicata da Cut Up Publishing, illustrata dalle magiche chine di Giampaolo Frizzi. Il libro (prenotabile su Amazon) è in vendita in anteprima a Lucca Comics and Games 2016, e sarà disponibile in libreria, fumetteria e sugli stores online a Novembre 2016.

Disponibile da oggi su Amazon SHANTI - EXTREME VERSION (Independent Legions Publishing), edizione integrale speciale, illustrata, in formato cartaceo, del romanzo 'Shanti - La Città Santa' , comprendente, rispetto all'edizione standard, circa 80 pagine tagliate dall'editing originale dell'opera (per contenuti estremi), il racconto inedito 'Il Giardino delle Delizie, 15 illustrazioni interne di Julian Mandel (foto erotiche artistiche originali degli anni '20 e '30), nuova illustrazione di copertina di Daniele Serra e nuova illustrazione di quarta di Giampaolo Frizzi.  280 pagine, oltre 100 pagine di contenuti extra rispetto all'edizione standard  del romanzo.
Pubblicazione consigliata a un pubblico adulto.
​Acquista la tua copia su Amazon.

Sinossi del romanzo:  ​Justine e Juliette, rimaste orfane, vengono affidate alle "cure" del collegio Sainte Marie di Madame Desroches, nera matrona transgender di Parigi Sud 5. Le due sorelle diverranno prede e predatrici di un mondo brutale e senza speranza, dove l'unica meta è rappresentata da Shanti, la Città Santa, l'ultima diga della deriva universale. Due destini che si rivelano in una Parigi apocalittica, distopica, con i suoi quartieri bordello e i ristoranti di carne umana, e nel deserto, tra i cantieri e i serragli sub-umani della repubblica Mesoamericana. Una entità, sopravvissuta al tempo, tiene le fila di tutto e regna sul paradiso artificiale di Shanti. Ma la malavita della Nuova Francia, guidata da Big Blue, e la potente multinazionale New Moon Corporation, vogliono mettere le mani sulla Città Santa. Entrano in gioco killer professionisti e giochi di potere, torna in azione la sensuale e letale Kiki Léger, la protagonista del romanzo Naraka.

Dalla prefazione di Alan D. Altieri dell'edizione standard del romanzo:

​(...) Riprendere in una prospettiva decisamente futuristica l'opera inquietante di de Sade, radiografare in una chiave quasi mutagena la sua visione catastrofale dei corpi e delle anime, è più che una sfida narrativa. E' un vero e proprio campo di mine nucleari. No problem. Con “Shanti”, sua inaspettata, spiazzante seconda opera, Caleb Battiago – tornando a turbine urlanti all'universo malefico e affascinante di “Naraka”, suo folgorante esordio, sceglie non solo di non tirarsi indietro da quel campo minato, ma di fare deflagrare ogni singola mina, rimanendo poi ad aspettare il fallout. (...)

Kiki Léger, sensuale e letale killer del mondo horror e distopico di Naraka, protagonista dei romanzi 'Naraka - L'Apocalisse della Carne' e 'Shanti - La Città Santa', è pronta a tornare nell'edizione speciale integrale del romanzo 'Shanti - Extreme Version', che rispetto all'edizione standard comprende 80 pagine tagliate dall'editing dell'opera originale, per motivi di contenuti, il racconto inedito 'Il Giardino delle Delizie' , 15 illustrazioni di Julian Mendel, foto erotiche artistiche degli anni '20 e '30, una nuova illustrazione di copertina di Daniele Serra e una nuova illustrazione di quarta (nell'immagine in anteprima) di Giampaolo Frizzi, in uscita per Independent Legions a fine Ottobre 2016 (edizione cartacea), e ritroveremo Kiki anche nella novella  inedita 'Area 52', che sarà pubblicata da Cut Up Publishing nella prima metà Dicembre 2016 in 'Carne Cruda' (edizione cartacea) contenente anche la novella 'Rastrellamento' di Richard Laymon, tradotta per la prima volta in lingua Italiana.

L'edizione Italiana di Eden Underground, edizione in formato cartaceo, illustrata da Giampaolo Frizzi, in uscita a novembre per Cut Up Publishing (nelle librerie, fumetterie e stores online), è preordinabile sullo store dell'Editore a prezzo speciale e senza spese di spedizione. Preordina la tua copia del libro.
​Il libro sarà presentato a Lucca Comics dal 28 ottobre al 2 novembre.
​Sinossi: ​Cut Up Publishing presenta, nella collana Cartilagini, ideata e curata da Stefano "El Brujo" Fantelli, la prima edizione in lingua Italiana, illustrata dalle magiche chine di Giampaolo Frizzi, della raccolta di poesie dark Eden Underground di Alessandro Manzetti, opera vincitrice del Bram Stoker Award® 2015. Un viaggio surreale, acido e tagliente tra le ossessioni e le aberrazioni del mondo moderno, una mappa dettagliata della costellazione del lato oscuro che materializza luoghi immaginari, storie macabre e perverse, palazzi, strade e vicoli di un reame disperato e depravato che si vendica del mondo a suo modo, materializzando mannaie e seghe elettriche, eserciti di scarafaggi guidati da cannibali demiurghi, moderni berserker, piscine private colme di budella, harem di bambole di silicone, macellerie a cielo aperto, vecchi che danno il cambio a fantasmi, camere a ore con scheletri ammanettati alla spalliera del letto, angeli armati di Kalashnikov, bordelli a cielo aperto, carri armati succhiati dal deserto come caramelle, negozi di pegni con cuori e vagine di seconda mano sugli scaffali, circhi grotteschi e osceni paradisi artificiali.

Crystal Lake Publishing revealed the cover art (ilustration by Daniele Serra) of my new dark poetry collection No Mercy, coming out in June 2017, paperback and digital edition.

My new poetry novella Sacrificial Nights, co-written with Bruce Boston reviewed Herb Kauderer for Star*Line Magazine Fall 2016 Issue.

Sacrificial Nights contains poems by each of the authors separately and some in collaboration. Most of the poems are long, and they are set in Sacrificial City, a hardcore lawless urban district. The poems build, and some characters reappear from poem to poem. The poems are meant to be read in order, but I would recommend not in one sitting so that the darkness doesn’t overwhelm. There will come a point somewhere after the middle of the book where it will be hard to stop reading. Make sure you have your breath when you get there.
While I expect this book to be nominated for the Stoker and some of the poems to receive consideration for the Rhysling, it is, more than anything, noir, right down to the detective who fears his doom. There are places where fantastical things are implied, but they are generally not nailed down leaving this in the liminal spaces of speculative poetry. I am sure the whole book qualifies as horror. I leave the question of how much of the book qualifies as speculative to those who care to tease out the subtle differences.
I consider this a book of poetry noir, and nothing could be more natural. Noir is an unusual literary movement in that it came from cinema rather than the written word, and this book certainly relates back to that origin. Sacrificial Nights would make a helluva noir film full of strong images and actions. But the funny thing is, one of the hallmarks of noir film and noir fiction is its inherent poetry, the poetry of the mean streets, and a dark poetry of fatalism, betrayal, and a morality far more brutal than anything discussed in clean suburban sermons. Perhaps books such as this are its final destination.
Some of the poetry is straightforward such as this from “Requiem in a Taxi”:

The driver turns to her,
his face like that of her father,
lord of whiskey and punches,
buried now three years
in a loose blue suit.

Some is more figurative such as this excerpt from “Deep in His Coma”:

the head of the future
hissing from a manhole
with the language of a snake,
​
This book is really one story of dangerous streets with many characters: hookers, serial killers, arsonists, hookers, pimps, strippers, hookers, thieves, and psychopaths. There are some graphically violent moments, but the poetry doesn’t dwell on the horrific scenes. It expresses then and steps away leaving the reader to fill in as much or as little detail as she wishes.
There has been much critical discussion through the years of the difference between horror and terror with the first being a physical threat and the latter psychological. I believe there needs to be a similar division in noir between that which dwells in the physical pain and darkness, and that which dwells in the psychological darkness and fear. In the first the worst happens, and then is exceeded. In the second the anticipation of evil, corruption, and betrayal is worse, and the awful reality is almost a relief. Call the first the ‘blacker outside’ school and the key component is that the reality is worse than you ever dreamed. Call the second the ‘blacker inside’ school and its essence is that stewing while waiting for evil to triumph is worse than the arrival of evil.
If Frank Miller had told this story there would have been more pages full of dramatic lighting and devoted to showing the physical pain and real dangers. Boston and Manzetti take it in a different direction sometimes merely implying the real loss and blackness, worrying about the subjective anticipation more than the excesses of some modern noir. This is not to say that the poets avoid the darkest shadows of humanity. Make no mistake: people will die in these poems and you will see it and smell it and feel it.
Noir is always about those who embrace evil, those who succumb to evil, those who attempt to sidestep it, and those lucky few that manage to survive it and find their own space. It celebrates the imperfection of what is wrong in humanity; that the darkness is awful but unable to sweep everyone into its shadow. In “Awakening” the authors write:

He visions the city in flames
and knows he must leave
before it incinerates in the
furnace of its own corruption.
​
The book is designed to introduce the characters and events that will lead up to “Conflagration” which can be seen as eighteen pages of transcendent crescendo in which darkness reaches its event horizon and bursts into flame consuming most of itself, but leaving enough behind for the evil to take root again.
By and large, those readers who like this sort of thing (and I’m one) have a clear idea of what this book is about by now. I consider it exceptional. I could pick a few nits. For example, one early poem and one late stanza are in a different and conflicting verb tense. I eventually just converted them in my head into the verb tense of the rest of the book. But does that really matter?
In the end, as I drive to work I’ll be thinking of Sandoval the detective, and China and Jean-Paul, and maybe visiting them again in the evening. The poem “The Great Unknown” was brilliant end to end over seven full pages. The sustained tension, interest, and fascination of this book amazes to me. Coincidentally, my collection of genre poetry books sits across the tops of two bookcases that hold my noir books. Sacrificial Nights will reside in the bookcase, not on top.
—Herb Kauderer

Dopo Naraka - L'Apocalisse della Carne  e Shanti - La Città Santa sta per completarsi la Trilogia Naraka col nuovo romanzo SAMSARA, dedicato all'ultima delle tre chiavi universali dell'animo umano; dopo aver ereticamente esplorato i recessi della   CARNE (in Naraka) e del SESSO (in Shanti) in SAMSARA sarà sviscerato il sentimento religioso umano: DIO, o meglio, IL MESSIA. L'Illustrazione di copertina è di Saber Core. Il romanzo sarà pubblicato da Independent Legions Publishing a Dicembre 2017, ma l'edizione in formato cartaceo è già prenotabile sullo store dell'editore a prezzo speciale. I lettori che prenoteranno il libro entro il 31 dicembre 2016 parteciperanno all'estrazione di una copia del libro First Tales di Clive Barker, firmato dall'autore. 
Tutte le info sono disponibili sul sito dell'editore.