Continuiamo a scoprire i contenuti della nuova raccolta di racconti 'DANZE ERETICHE - HORROR EXPERIENCE' in uscita a Dicembre 2015, in formato eBook.
Una delle opere che saranno pubblicate in questa raccolta  è il racconto inedito 'CAROUSEL RAISER'  di Paolo Di Orazio, firma storica dell'Horror Italiano, che affiancherà opere inedite in italiano di autori del calibro di Ramsey Campbell, Richard Laymon, Poppy Z Brite, Lisa Morton e Gary Braunbeck.
L'incipit del racconto.

(da 'Carousel Riser'  di Paolo Di Orazio).

«Abbiamo sfidato le leggi del Signore, siamo fuggiti dallo Stato della Chiesa e dagli invasori austriaci, dato pace a morti e vivi di tutta Italia, commosso il cuore dell’Europa tra montagne, orsi e lupi, solcato le onde furiose dell’Atlantico tra gorghi, piovre giganti, pesci assassini, scogliere taglienti come denti e coltelli.» Dall’alto del suo teatro semovente, snodato in tre carrozze trainate da dodici stalloni scozzesi, il conte Branzini recitava l’approdo a New Orleans in un megafono di latta senza vergognarsi né dell’epica di gesta inventate, né dell’enfasi con cui sputava parole e saliva. «Ed ora, siamo qui, brava gente. Siamo qui per portarvi lo spettacolo più importante della commedia umana, lo spettacolo che vi farà ridere e piangere, o tutt’e due le cose contemporaneamente. Uno spettacolo cui partecipare con animo in festa o nel dolore più imponente, perché questo è l’unico, il solo e originale, inimitabile Branzini’s Medical Show.»
Le grandi torce sulla sommità dei carri disposti a semicerchio scaldavano il suo sermone e lo illuminavano di leggenda tra lapilli volanti in una notte di torrida estate, mentre con la voce roca dal petto gorgogliante di catarro parlava a un pubblico in ascolto sotto le stelle a occhi sgranati, fra l’incredulo e l’eccitazione. Qualcuno era attratto dalla bocca, dai suoi denti inscritti nel cono d'ombra del megafono, e perdeva bocconi del racconto ma non la magia di quel momento che sembrava introdurne uno più esaltante.
Il fisico robusto del conte, medico chirurgo venuto su a carne cruda fiorentina ed erbe scelte, ancora portava nelle ossa l’umido di due mesi di navigazione. Ma la stanchezza, Branzini, ormai poteva posticiparla a un’altra vita: il suo spettacolo era appena cominciato.
Il caldo estivo della Louisiana ignorava l’abbigliamento in nero del ricco italiano. La giacca, i pantaloni, la camicia e il suo corpetto di tessuti pregiati, lana e seta, erano incollati alla sua pelle come una maledizione. Sapevano di zolfo, sapevano di cadavere, di terra, mare, salsedine, manzi e cavalli, agnelli arrostiti su un fuoco, brillavano di grasso, lo rendevano una specie di scarafaggio con la tuba, e la lunga barba a punta faceva da pettorina per la saliva dei suoi discorsi e dei suoi pasti. La camicia era il prologo di una storia infinita: bianco carta quando il conte fuggì da Ancona il 18 maggio 1866, giallo avorio quando sbarcò due anni dopo nella baia di Saint Louis, ovvero pochi giorni prima di quel debutto in pubblico a New Orleans. Era enormemente eccitato. Il suo primo medical show nella Nuova Terra aveva inizio. Finalmente avrebbe trovato, contrariamente a quanto avvenuto in patria natia, comprensione, fama e gloria,  (...)

 
Estratto dal primo capitolo del romanzo 'The BigHead' di Edward Lee, che sarà pubblicato in esclusiva, in lingua Italiana, nel 2018, da Independent Legions, in formato cartaceo ed eBook. Da uno dei più grandi maestri dello Splatterpunk e dell'Extreme-Horror, The BigHead, pubblicato per la prima volta da Overlook Connection Press nel 2000, è considerata una delle opere più disturbanti di tutti i tempi, dalla quale è stato tratto il film 'BigHead', sopra potete vedere il trailer.

Ecco cosa scrivono Jack Ketchum, John Skipp e Douglas Clegg di Edward Lee e del romanzo The BigHead: 

"Edward Lee is to horror novels what Spain and S. Clay Wilson were to Underground Comics over twenty-five years ago --funny, evil, perverse as it is humanly possible to get...and gleefully outrageous about it. I'd say we got us a whole new sub-genre goin' here, boys and girls -- splatterspunk!
-- Jack Ketchum, Award-Winning author of Off Season, The Girl Next Door, and Red

Never have I been so ashamed of myself for laughing so hard at something so utterly depraved!
-- John Mason Skipp, co-author of Light at the End, The Bridge, and Animals.

A demented Henry Miller of horror. Sexually revolting, outrageous, disgusting, THE BIGHEAD is the sickest piece of fiction I've ever read!
-- Douglas Clegg, author of Goat Dance, Children's Hour, and The Halloween Man.








The BigHead di Edward Lee
Chapter One

The Bighead licked his chops and tasted the dandy things: blood and fat, pussystink, the salt-slime of his own semen that he’d just slurped out’a the dead girl’s bellybutton. His bone had split her pussy right open; weren’t no fun humpin’ redneck pussy when yer rod were going in an’ out of a busted cervix an’ posterior wall. No sir. Girls ’round these parts, purdy as they was an’ few of ’em as he’d seed, they was just never big enough. No one were big enough fer The Bighead.
They called him The Bighead, on account of the congenital hydrocephaly, not that The Bighead hisself would ever know what fuckin’ congenital hydrocephaly was, nor, a’corse, would he know what a cervix ’er posterior wall was. His head were about the size and shape of a watermelon, big an’ bald, with big lopsided ears like squashed potato buns. Rumor was Bighead’s mama had up and died right off when she’d dropped him, and further rumor attested that The Bighead’s crooked awl-sharp teeth had et hisself the rest of the way out when the goin’s got tough. Bighead believed it. ’Corse, they coulda called him Bighead fer another reason too, that reason bein’ the 14-inch pecker ’tween his legs. Fourteen inchers, no lie, and wider than a reglar fella’s forearm. Rumor had it he’d been hard whiles bein’ born. Yessir, poppin’ a big stiffer ’fore he’d even et his way outa his mama’s cunt.
Bighead believed it.
He squeezed out the last’a his cocksnot, hauled up his overalls, and finished ettin’ the dead gal’s brain. Human brains, by the way, tasted kinda like warm salty scrambled eggs, fer those’a ya who didn’t know. The Bighead liked ’em just fine, he did, and he liked the liver too. Good eats they was. He also liked chewin’ on a little tittie-meat whiles he was lopin’ around the woods, the way a reglar fella chawed backer.
But it weren’t just poon that Bighead was searchin’ fer. He hadn’t had much, n’fact, just a stray here’n there back when he’n his grandpap had lived all those years back in The Lower Woods. The Lower Woods, Grandpap had called ’em. Livin’ back here, Bighead, in The Lower Woods, we ain’ts gotta worry ’bout The World Outside.
The World Outside?
The Bighead had always wondered ’bout that, ’bout what it was, ’cos he never knowed. He always wanted ta, though, but Grandpap told him The World Outside were just an evil place fulla bad folks, an’ they was far better off here. But now Grandpap was dead…
And The Bighead figgurt it were high time he gotta move on, got out’a the darkness’a The Lower Woods and inta this Outside World. See, after Grandpap had up’n died, Bighead got this itchin’ in his soul, an’ he couldn’t quite figger it, he couldn’t. It were almost like he was bein’ summoned by this here Outside World, same way trout were summoned up the lake durin’ breedin’ time, same way a starling were summoned by the call of another starling, like that. So it seemed ta Bighead, though he weren’t too smart in a lotta ways, that it was The World Outside that were callin’ ta him, that were summonin’ him.
Yes indeedy, somethin’ were callin’ The Bighead, fer shore. Maybe it were the voice’a God, or the whisper of his predesterination. He didn’t rightly know.
But The Bighead knowed this:
Whatever it was, he were shorely gonna find out.

Continuiamo a scoprire i contenuti della nuova raccolta di racconti 'DANZE ERETICHE - HORROR EXPERIENCE' in uscita a Dicembre 2015, in formato eBook.
Una delle opere che saranno pubblicate in questa raccolta, tradotta in Italiano per la prima volta, è il racconto 'TESTED' (2006) di Lisa Morton, opera vincitrice del Bram Stoker Awards 2006. Lisa Morton, scrittrice, saggista e sceneggiatrice, chiamata 'La Regina di Halloween', è Presidente della Horror Writers Association, e durante la sua carriera ha vinto per ben 6 volte il Bram Stoker Awards, oltre a diversi altri prestigiosi premi e nominations.
L'incipit del racconto, in lingua originale:

(da 'Tested'  di Lisa Morton).

As Ben fought the wheel of the spinning Lexus, his chest pinned beneath the inflated airbag, his wife screaming from the passenger seat, everything was slowed down and magnified. He could see every tree picked out in the gliding headlights, he was deafened by the shriek of the tires on the rough asphalt, he felt a sharp snap as an axle was sheared beneath him, and one thought kept repeating in his head: Please God don’t let me be crushed please God don’t let there be blood please –
And then the car was still and it was over.
In that first second, as the flow of time returned to its normal speed, Ben looked down at himself. The airbag had already deflated and he was covered with a residue of white dust, his neck hurt and he couldn’t seem to stop shaking, but he was whole. He started to call out, “Angie,” then turned his head (a small eruption of pain) to look at his wife.
There was blood on her head from where a pine branch had smashed through the windshield, and her eyes weren’t open.
“Angie! Angela! Honey -!”
 She didn’t answer. She didn’t even move.
 Ben tried to reach for her and got tangled in his harness. He was struggling to release it when the sound came: An agonized bellow, a moan too deep and savage for any animal he knew.
He froze until the sound finished, then looked around frantically. The car had come to rest in a ditch by the side of the road, just below the shoulder. They were at a slight angle, tilted towards the car’s right side, and he could only see part of the roadway and the relentless rain forest. The sound had come from his left, behind the car. Whatever had made that noise was just a short distance behind them. (...)

Continuiamo a scoprire i contenuti della nuova raccolta di racconti 'DANZE ERETICHE - HORROR EXPERIENCE' in uscita a Dicembre 2015, in formato eBook.
Una delle opere che saranno pubblicate in questa raccolta, tradotta in Italiano per la prima volta, è il racconto 'A GOOD, SECRET PLACE' (1993) di Richard Laymon 
L'incipit del racconto, in lingua originale:

(da 'A Good, Secret Place'  di Richard Laymon)
The new kid came up the Street from the house where Eddie and Sharon used to live. We'd seen him once before, the day he moved in. Even from a distance, we'd wanted nothing much to do with him. For starters, he couldn't have been older than about twelve. For finishers, you could tell he was a dork.
So there we were, Jim and I, playing catch in mu front yard on one of those really fine summer nights just at dusk. The neighborhood was so quiet about the only sound was the hardball smacking into our mitts. And this new kid came strolling up the Street.
It was pretty obvious what he had in mind. He was wearing a mitt.
Not just any mitt - a first baseman's glove. Have you ever noticed that the real dopey kids of this world Always use a first baseman's glove? I think it's because they're scared of the ball. A big leather scoop like that let's go for it without getting too close.
Anyway, he didn't come onto the lawn. He sayed at the edge of the street, off past Jim's side, and watched us. We pretended he wasn't there (...)

Continuiamo a scoprire i contenuti della nuova raccolta di racconti 'DANZE ERETICHE - HORROR EXPERIENCE' in uscita a Dicembre 2015, in formato eBook.
Una delle opere che saranno pubblicate in questa raccolta, tradotta in Italiano per la prima volta, è il racconto 'DUTY' di Gary Braunbeck, opera vincitrice del Bram Stoker Awards nel 2003. L'incipit del racconto, in lingua originale:

(da 'Duty'  di Gary Braunbeck)

Mom woke up just as the priest was giving her Last Rites.
(Is this part of the penance? you asked of the Guests. Isn’t it all? was their reply. Smug fucks.)
For six days she’d lain unconscious in the ICU at Cedar Hill Memorial Hospital, kept alive by the ventilator which sat by her bed clicking, puffing, humming, buzzing, measuring her blood, inspiratory, and baseline pressure, waveform readouts showing the fluxes of tracheal and esophageal pressure, proximal pressure at 60 to + 140 cmH2O, 1 cmH2O/25 mV, output flow at 300 to 200 LPM, 1 LPM/ 10 mV, the whole impressive shebang running smoothly at maximum system pressure of 175 cmH2O, the ribbed tube rammed securely down her throat into her lungs, ensuring that she continued to breathe at the acceptable rates of 250 milliseconds minimum expiratory time, 5 seconds maximum inspiratory time.  Details.  Specifics.  Minutia.  Like the other tube, the one running out of her nose into the clear container hanging on the other side of the ventilator; this tube is emptying her lungs of the blood filling them, but you’ve noticed, haven’t you, that there’s much more than blood flowing through the tube; there are flecks of things, black flecks, some tiny, others so big you’re surprised they don’t clog the flow, and when these flecks are released into the container they swirl around with an almost deliberate precision, dancers executing masterful choreography, and you remember a phrase spoken by one of the EMTs: circling the drain.  Yes, that was it: when they’re about to lose a victim, the EMTs say that they’re swirling the drain.   That’s what the black flecks are portraying in your mother’s blood, and for a moment you wonder who would compose the music to this ballet; more likely Mahler than Copland, you’re willing to bet.  Drain-Swirl of the Black Flecks.  Like the title of a bad 50's horror movie, the kind you used to watch with Dad on Friday nights when you were a child and there was no sibling to compete for his attention. (...)

Primo momento d'incontro, vi aspettiamo tutti a Milano domenica 11 ottobre, alle ore 1600,  al Festival del Libro Fantastico Stranimondi. Durante il panel 'Dead Men Talking - Horror and Weird Visions', condotto da Alessandro Manzetti e Paolo Di Orazio, presenteremo il nostro piano editoriale 2016/2019, che conta oltre 15 titoli cult di grandi maestri dell'horror e dello splatterpunk internazionale, opere mai pubblicate in Italiano di Richard Laymon, Ramsey Cambell, Poppy Z Brite, Edward Lee, Charlee Jacob, John Skipp, Craig Spector, David Schow e un altro grande maestro appena salito a bordo del nostro catalogo con un fantastico romanzo inedito in Italia, che annunceremo a Stranimondi.
Sito web per info

Iniziamo a scoprire i contenuti della nuova raccolta di racconti 'DANZE ERETICHE - HORROR EXPERIENCE' in uscita a Dicembre 2015, in formato eBook.
Una delle opere che saranno pubblicate in questa raccolta, tradotta in Italiano per la prima volta, è il racconto 'THE ENTERTAINMENT di Ramsey Campbell,
L'incipit del racconto, in lingua originale:

(da 'The Entertainment'  di Ramsey Campbell)

By the time Shone found himself back in Westingsea he was able to distinguish only snatches of the road as the wipers strove to fend off the downpour. The promenade where he’d seen pensioners wheeled out for an early dose of sunshine, and backpackers piling into coaches that would take them inland to the Lakes, was waving isolated trees that looked too young to be out by themselves at a grey sea baring hundred of edges of foam. Through a mixture of static and the hiss on the windscreen a local radio station advised drivers to stay off the roads, and he felt he was being offered a chance. Once he had a room he could phone Ruth.  At the end of the promenade he swung the Cavalier around an old stone soldier drenched almost black and coasted alongside the seafront hotels.
There wasn’t a welcome in sight. A sign in front of the largest and whitest hotel said NO, apparently having lost the patience to light up its second word. He turned along the first of the narrow streets of boarding houses, in an unidentifiable one of which he'd stayed with his parents most of fifty years ago, but the placards in the windows were just as uninviting. Some of the streets he remembered having been composed of small hotels had fewer buildings now, all of them care homes for the elderly. He had to lower his window to read the signs across the roads, and before he’d finished his right side was soaked.  He needed a room for the night – he hadn’t the energy to drive back to London.  Half an hour would take him to the motorway, near which he was bound to find a hotel. But he had only reached the edge of town, and was braking at a junction, when he saw hands adjusting a notice in the window of a broad three-storey house. (..)

Domenica 11 Ottobre, alle ore 16, durante il Panel 'DEAD MEN TALKING - HORROR & WEIRD VISIONS, presentato da Alessandro Manzetti e Paolo Di Orazio, all'interno della convention Weirdiana di  STRANIMONDI, Festival del Libro Fantastico (Milano, 10/11 Ottobre 2015) , sarà presentato il piano editoriale 2016/2019 di Independent Legions.
Per informazioni per partecipare a STRANIMONDI, rimandiamo al sito ufficiale del Festival.

Sul sito Filmhorror.com è consultabile la recensione della raccolta di racconti 'I SOGNI DEL DIAVOLO - SPLATTERPUNK GLORY'. Dalla recensione: (...) "I sogni del Diavolo -   Splatterpunk Glory è un'antologia pregevole, composta da storie originali ed estreme, ricca di idee e immagini che vanno oltre l'archivio mentale del "già visto".  Storie che senza questa apprezzabile iniziativa editoriale non avremmo mai conosciuto." (...)
Leggi la recensione su Filmhorror.com   Acquista il libro su Amazon.