Encyclopocalypse Dispatch #20
Vincenzo Natali's Splice now a novelization! John C. Foster invites you to Hate House! Renee DeCamillis' The Bone Cutters now available! 3 new audiobooks released!
January was a blur, right? It’s just about February and we have been getting our 2024 release calendar almost all filled in. Hard to believe we are never lacking in projects for all of you to enjoy.
I want to reiterate that we have set up a portal page for Press and Reviewers. If you are either of those, please feel free to sign up. There are so many services to use, but they’re all scattered all over the web. We are trying to keep all communication and announcements in-house as much as possible. This is exclusive to those with dedicated websites, podcasts, YouTube channels and print magazines.
Press, sign up here.
Reviewers, sign up here.
Welcome to the Encyclopocalypse Dispatch.
NEW TITLE ANNOUNCEMENTS & PRE-ORDERS
Splice: The Novelization by Claire Donner
Based on the original screenplay by Vincenzo Natali, Antionette Terry Bryant, and Doug Taylor
Release Date: August 20, 2024
Pre-order Links: Trade Paperback | Mass Market Paperback | eBook
Cover Designs by: Stephen Imhoff (Trade Paperback) and Aleksey Rico (Mass Market)
Last week, the legendary Fangoria announced our first original novelization release of 2024. This has been in the works for over 2 years and we’re excited that it’s finally making it’s way to your bookshelves!
Splice: The Novelization was penned by Claire Donner (the online branch director of the Miskatonic Institute of Horror Studies), based on the script by Vincenzo Natali, Antionette Terry Bryant, and Doug Taylor. Claire brings a breadth of knowledge on the genre: programming lectures on thematically-related subjects for Miskatonic, delivering papers on The Amityville Horror as well as The Entity, and contributing essays for the recent Severin releases of the Michele Soavi films The Church, The Sect, and Dellamorte Dellamore.
“Claire has injected renewed life into SPLICE with the kind of personal voice and veracity that Alan Dean Foster applied to his famous novelization of ALIEN.” Vincenzo Natali says. “Her exploration of the secret thoughts and desires of the characters accomplishes something that a film never can do, especially in the case Clive and Elsa’s hybrid creation, Dren, who expresses her otherness and vulnerability in way that is truly heart-wrenching. It’s a wonderful companion to the film, and is in many ways its own self-actualized and independent creation.”
Claire Donner, a huge fan of the film herself, had this to say: “Vincenzo and his co-writers, Antoinette Terry Bryant and Doug Taylor, went far beyond the usual themes of hubris and its consequences with their story about a patchwork family formed in a lab and torn apart by their private fears and desires.”
When adapting Splice, Claire wanted to make sure she honored the story by expanding on its themes and characters, “Splice is a strange and challenging film even among the many Frankenstein mutations that have accumulated over the last 200 years and change. The film inspires the same simultaneous attraction and repulsion as its mutant star, and translating it into prose required a great deal of care and understanding. Splice wisely leaves much of its characters' inner conflicts to the imagination. I tried to speak for Elsa, Clive, and Dren in a way that honors the original vision, inviting you into their inner lives while maintaining the sense of mystery and ambiguity that can haunt even the closest relationships.”
Mark Alan Miller, President of Encyclopocalypse calls the novelization, “A match made in heaven’s laboratories.”
Sean Duregger, Managing Editor of Encyclopocalypse, is proud to bring this very personal project over the finish line. “I adore Splice,” he states. “It’s one of my favorite films. During a rewatch, I had the realization that there were so many elements of the story that could be expanded in novel form. Motivations and creative decisions that were ambiguous (and wrongly criticized in some of the reviews) that could be interesting to dive into. It’s clear that a woman should be the one to expand these themes and really dive into the source material. Claire went above and beyond any expectations I had going in. This adaptation is something very special!”
Synopsis:
Geneticists Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast are on the verge of a revolutionary breakthrough when they are forced underground by a closed-minded world, fearful of tampering in God's domain. There in the shadows they create Dren, a hybrid born of beast and man whose potential exceeds their wildest dreams...but Dren becomes their worst nightmare when she grows too strong to contain, too smart to control, and too seductive to resist.
From the subversive imagination of Vincenzo Natali, SPLICE is a story about human nature: the universal qualities that bind us, and the aberrations that set us apart. This Frankensteinian fable of freak science and found family explores the pain of difference, while revealing our surprising kinship with the uncanny.
Hate House by John C. Foster
Release Date: May 21, 2024
Pre-order Links: Paperback | eBook
Cover Design by Derik Hefner
John C. Foster came to use with a very cool Paranormal Mystery/Thriller that we’ve been chomping at the bit to release. We’re proud to announce we finally have a release date that’s right around the corner! Hate House kicks off our Summer Slate and is available to pre-order now.
Synopsis:
Reclusive investigator Megan French is lured from isolation by a mysterious client who wants her to investigate the infamous Hate House. Too late, she discovers Hate House isn't a job, it's a trap. Gaslighted and manipulated, French is caught in an elaborate revenge plot seeking to unbalance her mind before framing her for a horrible crime.
As French unravels the plan, she uncovers a wider world of the ultra wealthy who treat people as nothing more than pieces on a game board.
NEW RELEASES
PRINT
The Bone Cutters by Renee DeCamillis
“Razor sharp...grabs hold from the get go, and drags the reader through a surreal experience that evokes One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, if written by Clive Barker. A recommended novella.”—Monster Librarian
"It's actually refreshing to be able to enjoy a book so much that you were miffed when it was over. As the debut novella from Renee S. DeCamillis it's a fantastic beginning to what could prove to be a career to watch." —Ginger Nuts of Horror
“I immediately fell in love with Dory, the writing style, the story. This is a terribly heart-wrenching story with a bit of a haunted house/ghost vibe where you’re also being chased by a bunch of crazy people who want to devour your bones. I didn’t want to put this book down.” —Kendall Reviews
Synopsis:
They wear their scars with pride, while Dory tries desperately to hide her own. No matter what she does to cover her wounds, they can still smell her bleed, and they want in—down to the bones.
Dory wakes up in the padded room of a psychiatric hospital with no recollection of how she wound up there. She soon finds out she’s been Blue-Papered—involuntarily committed. She gets sent to the wrong counseling group and discovers a whole new world of psychiatric patients she’d never known existed. At first, she just thinks they’re cutters, all marked by similar scars, but then she finds out those scars are from carving into their own bodies to satisfy their bone-crazy addiction. When they find out Dory’s never tapped into her bones, she becomes their target.
Frightened for her life, she desperately tries to prove to the psych. hospital staff she’s not delusional about these patients wanting to cut her open and get to her bones. The staff doesn’t believe her. They all think she’s crazy. She ends up on the run and fighting for her life, trying to avoid getting “dusted” by The Bone Cutters.
In July we will be releasing the sequel Chisel The Bone. You can pre-order your copy here.
AUDIOBOOKS
The Dead Season: A Charles Ridgeway Novel by Anthony Pignataro
Narrated by Jeffery S. Robinson
The second book in Anthony Pignataro’s hard boiled Hawaiian Mystery series is out now! Narrated brilliantly by Jeffery S. Robinson.
Synopsis:
His best buddy is killed in action and Charley Ridgway has only the man’s knife to remind him of their friendship. Now the knife has been stolen by a beautiful young woman connected to a violent murder, and the former soldier wants the weapon back. Hot on the trail of the thief, Charley’s die-hard principles propel him through underworld intrigues, police troubles, and into the arms of the girl’s seductive mother.
Sequel to Anthony Pignataro’s SMALL ISLAND, the action-packed Maui novel that first introduced listeners to the savvy resort bartender, THE DEAD SEASON likewise presents surprising glimpses of the island paradise … a darker side seldom known to vacationers and other outsiders.
The Dead Season is available now on Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books.
You can also grab Small Island via Audible, Amazon, and Apple Books.
The Gemini Factor by Paul Kane (Book One in the Gemini Series)
Narrated by Harry Singers
Paul Kane’s thrilling supernatural thriller The Gemini Factor was one of the first books we ever published. Now it arrives on audiobook with incredible narration by Harry Singers.
Synopsis:
IT’S A MIRACLE, PURE AND SIMPLE. THE MIRACLE OF TWIN BIRTH.
But in the city of Norchester, being a twin also marks you out as a victim. Because someone is killing them and stealing their body parts. It’s up to Inspector Roy Mason and his Sergeant, Deborah Harrison, to track down the culprit before they can strike again. Their only lead? A man whose own twin was brutally murdered by the killer. A man whose brother is now helping him from beyond the grave.
From the imagination of award-winning and bestselling author Paul Kane (The sellout Hooded Man, Before, Her Last Secret), comes a powerful novel, a supernatural whodunnit unlike any other – in which the very laws of the serial killer procedural are turned on their head. A novel which holds a mirror up to our very souls and asks us just who we are. You might not be quite ready for the answer...
Vicious by William Schoell
Narrated by Adam Blanford
We’ve been on a roll releasing William Schoell’s catalog of Horror Titles on audiobook and we’re pleased to announce that his fan-favorite Vicious (previously known as Bride of Satan) is now on audiobook. Brought to life by Adam Blanford’s fantastic narration!
Synopsis:
The Evil ... It was an obscene evil that could not be quenched with blood or sated with the flesh of its defiled victims. The Terror ... It wormed its way into the human brain, devouring the mind, controlling the body and turning its prey into savage creatures lusting for destruction. The Metamorphosis ... Its only outward sign was the grotesque metamorphosis of its victim's hand into a gnarled four-fingered claw -- a claw whose razor-sharp nails dealt death with the precision of a stiletto. The Search ... It was unconquerable in its mindless violence, supreme in its viciousness, and as elusive as a foul wind.
Only reporters Dorothy Hunter and James Radley even guessed its existence. They had to find it before it grew stronger ... before it grew hungrier ... before it found them.
We hope you find some incredible reads via today’s newsletter. We’re continually pinching ourselves with the quality of the books we get to release.
Thanks for your continued support!
Until next time,
Sean Duregger
Managing Editor, Encyclopocalypse Publications
www.BuyHorrorBooks.com
www.encyclopocalypse.com