“. . . I cracked a joke. Maybe I am losing it.”

When Dexter tries to kick Rick Grimes and his community out of the prison, his buddy Andrew accidentally lets in a new swarm of zombies. A mysterious woman arrives seeking shelter, Michonne, upsetting the community with disastrous results.

The Walking Dead: The Heart's Desire is the fourth volume in Robert Kirkman's zombie filled horror graphic novel series

TITLE:

THE WALKING DEAD: THE HEART’S DESIRE

WRITER:

by Robert Kirkman

ARTISTS:

by Charlie Adlard (penciler, inker)
Cliff Rathburn (gray tones)

SERIES:

The Walking Dead — Vol. 4
Reprints The Walking Dead comics #19-24

PUBLISHER:

Image Comics

GENRE:

Graphic Novel (collection), Horror Fiction, Psychological Fiction, Suspense

DESCRIPTORS:

Horror, Zombies, End of the World, Survival, Psychological Studies, Life and Death, Disaster, Prisons, Criminals, Trust, Love, Leadership, Suicide

CHARACTERS:

Rick Grimes, A Kentucky police officer who wakes up from a coma to find the world overrun with zombies.
Tyreese, An African-American father who swings a mean hammer.
Michonne, A mysterious African-American woman who survived alone among zombies for a long time.
Lori Grimes, Rick’s wife who loves him but doesn’t always agree with his ideas.
Carl Grimes, Rick’s son.
Glenn, A young Asian-American teenager and camp scavenger.
Dale, A older man who recently lost his wife. He owns an RV which is the camp’s primary shelter and rescued Amy and Andrea.
Andrea, Amy’s sister, rescued by Dale.
Carol, A young mother who is somewhat troubled in these troubling times.
Sophia, Carol’s daughter.
Alan, A middle-aged man, Donna’s husband and father of Ben and Billy.
Ben, Alan and Donna’s son.
Billy, Alan and Donna’s son.
Otis, A hunter who is living with Hershel for safety.
Patricia, She seems like a nice person and is Otis’ girlfriend.
Hershel Greene, Former veterinarian and now a farmer where his family lives in some safety.
Maggie Greene, Hershel’s younger daughter.
Billy Greene, Hershel’s youngest son.
Dexter, In prison for murder.
Andrew, In prison for drugs — he has since cleaned up because there are no drugs left.
Axel, In prison for armed robbery.

SUMMARY:

Now that the prison compound has been cleared out and a serial killer put to death, Rick suddenly finds himself facing an armed Dexter who tries to force the community out. Unfortunately, Dexter’s pawn, Andrew, left the door open to cell block-A in his quest to get guns for Dex which lets in a fresh flood of zombies.

The Walking Dead Book Two is the first volume in Robert Kirkman's zombie filled hardcover horror graphic novel seriesAs the battle to survive rages on inside the complex, Otis finds himself overwhelmed by the sheer number of zombies outside the gates when nobody lets him in. Luckily, a strange woman named Michonne comes to his aid with a sword.

After the furor died down, Rick lets Michonne in the community if she gives up her weapon and the two zombies which she keeps on a chain. She immediately dispatches the undead “companions”. Once inside, she alienates some people and bonds tightly with Tyreese — so much so that he and Carol break up.

There is something not quite right with Carol and her reaction spins out of kilter until she tries to kill herself. This leads to a bloody confrontation between former friends Rick and Tyreese.

What is a common event in pre-zombie life — infidelity and a relationship breaking up — turns into a destructive upheaval that may claim lives and will lead to a change in the structure of the community as a whole.

APPEAL:

This book starts out with a quick tense pace as Dexter threatens to kill people unless they leave and then slows down to a steady trot as the consequences of several actions finally come home to roost. This will set the stage for a shift in direction for the community in general and Rick in particular. The ending speech sends off the graphic novel with a powerful bang . . . and an important realization.

The Walking Dead Compendium One is the first volume in Robert Kirkman's zombie filled trade paperback horror graphic novel seriesThis is definitely a character driven book. Kirkman spends the most time with Rick as we watch him grow and mature into a role he never wanted. But the people around him are not slighted. The ensemble is large and changing as people die or leave but they each present their story and some characters change before our eyes.

Of the titles in the series so far, this one seems to resonate throughout the story as people’s heart’s desire is either thwarted or met and the consequences range beyond one’s expectations.

While this is a story that uses a zombie trope to reveal certain truths about the human condition, The Heart’s Desire makes its most startling revelation yet.

NOTES:

This is a black and white comic with greytones.

The Walking Dead Book Two reprints The Walking Dead comics #13-24 in a 304 page hardcover edition.

The Walking Dead Compendium One reprints The Walking Dead comics #1-48 in a 1088 page trade paperback extravaganza.

READALIKES:

If you like the zombie-filled stories in The Walking Dead, you might enjoy some of the new zombie stories written by Max Brooks. He started with the concept of the oral history and took it to a post zombie war setting. His first zombie book was a humorous riff on the once popular survival guides called The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead. He followed it up with his powerful World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. You can get a history of zombies through the ages in The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks. Finally you can check out The Zombie Survival Guide Deck: Complete Protection from the Living Dead.

Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead: The Heart's Desire is a horror graphic novel series about a zombie filled world

The Walking Dead: Summaries

Part 1 — The Walking Dead: Days Gone Bye — A Masterful Zombie Graphic Novel
Part 2 — The Walking Dead: Miles Behind Us — Miles of Zombies
Part 3 — The Walking Dead: Safety Behind Bars — Safety with Zombies
Part 4 — The Walking Dead: The Heart’s Desire

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Today we finish our look at the bestsellers at the Horror Mall, here are the bestselling preordered horror books and related items for February 2010.

Horror Mall’s Bestselling Preordered Books for February 2009

  1. Clickers III: Dagon Rising by J. F. Gonzalez and Brian Keene
  2. By Bizarre Hands Rides Again by Joe R. Lansdale
  3. 51 Fiendish Ways To Leave Your Lover by Lisa Mannetti
  4. The Woman by Jack Ketchum
  5. Moonchild by Aleister Crowley
  6. Blood and Gristle by Michael Louis Calvillo
  7. The Thief of Broken Toys by Tim Lebbon
  8. I Am Providence: The Life And Times Of H. P. Lovecraft by S.T. Joshi
  9. Hallowe’en In A Suburb & Others by H.P. Lovecraft
  10. Monster Town / The Butcher of Box Hill by Logan Savile

Bestselling Preordered Books: Detailed Information

Clickers III: Dagon Rising is a damp new horror novel by J. F. Gonzalez and Brian Keene available at the Horror Mall

Clickers III: Dagon Rising

Author: Gonzalez, J. F. and Brian Keene
Cover Art: Dave Kendall
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 244pp.
Pub. Date: April 27, 2010
Publisher: Delirium Books

They thought it was over, but the second wave was only the beginning.

In the aftermath of the Clickers and Dark Ones’ siege and a coup against an insane President, America rebuilds. Change has come, and a better future is promised to all. But promises can be broken and there may be no future at all because deep beneath the ocean, a new terror awaits.

Dagon, god of the Dark Ones, is waking up . . . and if humanity doesn’t stop him, then mankind will face extinction.

Trapped on a South Pacific Island, the cast of Clickers and Clickers 2: The Next Wave join forces with a mysterious group of occult agents to face off against the Clickers, the Dark Ones, Dagon and an all-new threat — the deadly obsidian Clickers. The stakes have never been higher. Dagon is rising… and humanity will fall.

Clickers III: Dagon Rising — It’s more giant monster carnage and B-movie fun as only J. F. Gonzalez and Brian Keene can bring you.


Horror Mall
By Bizarre Hands Rides Again is a reprinted and expanded collection of horror short stories by Joe R. Lansdale available at the Horror Mall

By Bizarre Hands Rides Again

Author: Joe R. Lansdale, Joe R. Lansdale
Art: Alex McVey
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Short Story Collection
Page Count: 300pp.
Pub. Date: June 15, 2010
Publisher: Morning Star

By Bizarre Hands was Joe R. Lansdale’s first short story collection and is held by many to be the most important horror collection published in the eighties, some have argued that it the best collection published since Ray Bradbury’s Dark Carnival in 1947. Regardless, the importance of this work and its effect on the genre, even to this day, cannot be underestimated.

By Bizarre Hands Rides Again is a must have collection for any genre enthusiasts library.

With By Bizarre Hands Rides Again you’ll have all the classic tales that made up the original along with several new entries and a brand new introduction by the author.

Book is limited to only 300 signed and numbered copies. Cover art and illustrated by Alex McVey.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction by Lewis Shiner
  • New Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale
  • King of Shadows
  • Starlight, Eyes Bright
  • Morning, Noon, and Night
  • Not From Detroit
  • Fish Night
  • The Pit
  • Duck Hunt
  • By Bizarre Hands
  • The Steel Valentine
  • I Tell You It’s Love
  • Letter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches
  • Boys Will Be Boys
  • The Fat Man and the Elephant
  • Hell Through a Windshield
  • Down by the Sea Near the Great Big Rock
  • Trains Not Taken
  • Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back
  • The Windstorm Passes
  • Night They Missed the Horror Show
  • On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks

Horror Mall
51 Fiendish Ways to Leave Your Lover is a humorous horror book filled with laughter and vengeance by Lisa Mannetti and available at the Horror Mall

51 Fiendish Ways to Leave Your Lover

Author: Mannetti, Lisa
Illustrations: Glen Chadbourne
Format: Trade Paperback Edition
Type: Horror and Humor
Page Count: 118pp.
Pub. Date: February 2010
Publisher: Bad Moon Books

“Revenge is a dish best served cold.”

Yeah? Sez who?

If you prefer your vengeance served scalding hot with a side order of steaming gore 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave Your Lover is the how-to guide you’ve been waiting for. Come on now. Vengeance has fueled some of the greatest plots in classic literature. Why should reality be any different?

Why hold back?

Let’s face it — the world is full of ex-lovers, current lovers and soon-to-be-ex-lovers who soooo have it coming to them. Now you can spice your life up with a generous helping of venom, and forget all that “living well is the best revenge” malarkey.

Revenge is the best revenge.

Bram Stoker Award-winning author Lisa Mannetti’s hilarious guidebook (replete with helpful illustrations by the celebrated artist Glen Chadbourne) will walk you — step by step — through the ghoulishly delicious process of getting over, getting on and getting even.


Horror Mall
The Woman is a new erotic horror novel by Jack Ketchum available at the Horror Mall

The Woman

Author: Ketchum, Jack
Cover Artist: Caniglia
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 300pp.
Pub. Date: August 30th, 2010
Publisher: Infernal House

The Woman is the powerful story of the last survivor of a feral tribe of cannibals who have terrorized the east coast from Maine into Canada for years now.

Badly wounded in a battle with police, she takes refuge in a cave overlooking the sea.

Christopher Cleek is a slick, amoral — and unstable — country lawyer who, out hunting one day, sees her bathing in a stream. Fascinated, he follows her to her cave. Cleek has many dark secrets and to these he’ll add another.

He will capture her, lock in his fruit cellar, and tame her, civilize her. To this end he’ll enlist his long-suffering wife Belle, his teenage son and daughter Brian and Peg, and even his little girl Darlin’, to aid him.

So the question becomes, who is more savage?

The hunter or the game?


Horror Mall
Moonchild is a horror novel about a war between magical traditions by Aleister Crowley available at the Horror Mall

Moonchild

Author: Crowley, Aleister
Cover Artist: Hans Memling
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 350pp.
Pub. Date: May 1st, 2010
Publisher: Arcane Wisdom
Original Pub: 1929 (Hardcover — Mandrake Press)

Moonchild is a novel written by the British occultist Aleister Crowley in 1917.

Its plot involves a magical war between a group of white magicians, led by the protagonist Simon Iff, and a group of black magicians over an unborn child. It was first published by Mandrake Press in 1929.

Moonchild is a novel held in high regard for its magical and occult significance and also for its complex and well written prose.

Aleister Crowley (12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947), born Edward Alexander Crowley, was an English occultist, writer, mountaineer, poet, playwright, yogi, and possible spy. He was an influential member of occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A A , and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) and is known today for his magical writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. He gained notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as “The wickedest man in the world.”

Crowley was also a chess player in his youth, a painter, astrologer, hedonist, bisexual, recreational drug experimenter, and social critic.

This edition will include a long introduction by Don Webb, a noted horror writer and author of Aleister Crowely: The Fire and The Force provides a long introduction to the work with some wit and perhaps some wisdom.


Horror Mall
Blood and Gristle is a horror short story collection by Michael Louis Calvillo

Blood and Gristle

Authors: Calvillo, Michael Louis
Artist: Daniele Serra
Format: Trade Paperback Edition
Type: Horror Short Story Collection
Page Count: 296pp.
Pub. Date: March 2010
Publisher: Bad Moon Books

Blood and Gristle is a collection of twenty screwed up stories paired with twenty exquisite illustrations.

It’s about detachable children, and self worth, and hungry, hungry, garbage disposals. It’s about boxes that shape destiny and Magic Eightballs that don’t. It’s about drugs and devils and everlasting, gnashing teeth. It’s about a crack addicted cardiologist looking for love and a nasty basilisk with a taste for kindergarteners. It’s about life and death, sorrow and fear, madness, faith, and all of the squishy, complicated stuff in between.

So brace yourself, unplug the goopy gray of your brain, and get ready . . . things are about to get very, very messy.


Horror Mall
The Thief of Broken Toys is a playful new horror novella by Tim Lebbon available at the Horror Mall

The Thief of Broken Toys

Author: Lebbon, Tim
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novella
Page Count: 150pp.
Pub. Date: May 15, 2010
Publisher: Chizine Publications

When a father loses his son and his wife leaves him, he cannot tear himself away from the small fishing village where the boy’s memories reside. They’re all he has left.

Thinking that his life is all but over, he takes to wandering the cliffs, carrying broken things that he always promised his son he would fix, but never did. They’re a sign of his failure, and they keep little Toby close.

And then he meets the thief of broken toys, and everything begins to change.

Only the hardcover of this edition of this title will contain the short story “Ollie’s Oswald”


Horror Mall
I Am Providence: The Life And Times Of H. P. Lovecraft is the definitive biography by S. T. Joshi

I Am Providence: The Life And Times Of H. P. Lovecraft

Author: Joshi, S. T.
Format: 2 Volume Limited Hardcover Set
Type: Biography
Page Count: ???pp.
Pub. Date: June 15, 2010
Publisher: Hippocampus Press

In 1996, S. T. Joshi’s H. P. Lovecraft: A Life was published to universal acclaim. Joyce Carol Oates called it the “definitive” biography, and it won the British Fantasy Award and the Horror Write Sers Association Award. But that 1996 edition was abridged from the manuscript that Joshi wrote in 1993-95; in all, more than 150,000 words were cut for space reasons.

Hippocampus Press is proud to present the complete, uncut edition of Joshi’s biography, I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft.

In addition to restoring every word of Joshi’s original manuscript, the entire text has been thoroughly revised and updated in light of the new information on Lovecraft that has emerged since 1996. As such, this book can now truly be said to be the definitive biography of H. P. Lovecraft, written by the world’s leading authority on Lovecraft. Readers will find countless details about Lovecraft’s life and work not included in the earlier edition, along with important updates on new publications by and about Lovecraft in the last 15 years and on Lovecraft’s increasing worldwide reputation. This book constitutes S. T. Joshi’s final word on Lovecraft the man, the writer, and the thinker.

I Am Providence will be published as a limited edition two-volume hardcover set, with Smythe-sewn signatures and illustrated dust wrappers. All Hippocampus Press limited editions are printed on 60# white offset paper, acid free and elemental chlorine free.


Horror Mall
Hallowe'en in a Suburb and Others by H. P. Lovecraft is a horror poetry collection published by Stanza Press

Hallowe’en in a Suburb and Others

Author: H. P. Lovecraft, H. P. Lovecraft
Artist: Virgil Finlay
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Poetry Collection
Page Count: 64pp.
Pub. Date: April 15, 2010
Publisher: Stanza Press/PS Publishing

When the history of fantasy and horror fiction is being discussed, the pulp magazine Weird Tales is inevitably mentioned. Published on low-grade “pulp” paper, Weird Tales was the first newsstand magazine devoted exclusively to weird and fantastic fiction. It ran for 279 issues, from March 1923 to September 1954.

The three most important and influential writers to have their work published in the title were Rhode Island horror writer H.P. Lovecraft; the Texan creator of Conan the Cimmerian, Robert E. Howard; and the California poet, short story writer, illustrator and sculptor, Clark Ashton Smith.

“The Complete Poems from Weird Tales” series collects their verse in the order that it originally appeared in the pages of “The Unique Magazine”.

Table of Contents:

  • Nemesis
  • To a Dreamer
  • Yule Horror
  • The Ancient Track
  • Recapture
  • The Courtyard
  • Star-Winds
  • Hesperia
  • Antarktos
  • The Bells
  • Nyarlathotep
  • Azathoth
  • Mirage
  • The Elder Pharos
  • Alienation
  • To Virgil Finlay, Upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch’s Tale, ‘The Faceless God’
  • Psychopompos
  • The Canal
  • To Klarkash-Ton, Lord of Averoigne
  • Where Once Poe Walked
  • The Messenger
  • The Wood
  • The Lamp
  • Zaman’s Hill
  • Harbour Whistles
  • The Howler

Horror Mall
Monster Town / The Butcher of Box Hill is a hardcover flipbook horror novella collection by Logan Savile

Monster Town / The Butcher of Box Hill

Authors: Savile, Logan
Pseudonym for: Steve Savile and Brian M. Logan
Format: Signed Limited Flipbook Hardcover
Type: Horror Novella Collection
Page Count: 130pp.
Pub. Date: February 14, 2010
Publisher: Bad Moon Books

Monster Town

When down and out Monster Wrangler JD Enron accepts a missing persons assignment from the mysterious blonde with breasts you can ski down, he knows it’s something he’s going to regret.

Especially as the job is going to take him back to Monster Town, the giant prison settlement in the New Mexico desert which houses all of America’s monsters.

Be they Vampires, Werewolves, Gargoyles, Chupacabras, Moth Men, Zombies, Bigfoots or any of the other godless creature to have walked the Earth, Monster Town is the place where they all end up.

And the one place you never want to go . . .

The Butcher of Box Hill

JD Enron is having the time of his life.

As a senior Monster Wrangler for the Brotherhood of the Hand (the clandestine off-shoot of the Catholic church hired by the US government to capture all of America’s monsters), he gets to hunt monsters on a daily basis. And JD really hates monsters.

But when his latest mission takes him to the remote logging town of Box Hill, Montana, in the dead of winter, he soon discovers that not all monsters have fangs.

And that freshly spilt blood looks so very different on snow . . .


Horror Mall

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Return to the Walking Dead

March 9, 2010

Once upon a time I read Robert Kirkman’s first three graphic novel collections in his The Walking Dead series and I was well pleased. I collected additional volumes and put them away where they’d remain in good shape until the day came where I’d return to Rick Grimes’ zombie plagued world and continue reading. . . . only I didn’t.

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Horror Mall’s Bestselling Horror Books for February 2010

March 8, 2010

We continue our look at the bestsellers at the Horror Mall, with the bestselling horror book in February 2010.

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Horror Mall’s Bestselling Horror eBooks for February 2010

March 3, 2010

Today we feature the list of February 2010 digital bestsellers at the Horror Mall.

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Try Several eBooks: The Horror Novels of David Niall Wilson

March 1, 2010

David Niall Wilson is a horror and science fiction author and a former president of the Horror Writers Association.

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