Graphic Content: Redfork by Alex Paknadel and Nil Vendrell

 Being from Kentucky and getting my formal education there, I have always been interested in Appalachian fiction. Many people might dismiss it, particularly its worst examples, as mere “poverty porn,” or fiction where the defining aspect of the characters are their lack of money or opportunities. The better examples of Appalachian fiction are those that look more at why there are few opportunities as well as what keeps people here. There is the constant push and pull of tradition versus progress, but in many of these stories, what has come as a savior to this community, whether religion, industry, or even family, ends up being the villain, the one who keeps a better life for the people of Appalachia just out of arm’s reach. One such clear example of this is the graphic novel Redfork.

Ex-con Noah McGlade has just returned to Redfork, West Virginia, a town where opioid addiction and economic decline have sunk their claws deep into the populace. As he tries to make amends for how he’s hurt others, namely his parents and his own family, he also discovers that another destructive force has come to Redfork. His name is Gallowglass. He seems to be a charming fellow that just wants to help his fellow man, except Gallowglass might not be a man at all. What he is offering to the citizens of Redfork might sound like the answer to their prayers, but it ends up the gateway to a new nightmare. To stop Gallowglass, Noah will have to be the hero he never was before if he wants to save his friends and family.

The graphic novel is full of references to economic hardships and addiction that permeate a lot of Appalachian fiction, but writer Alex Paknadel’s Lovecraftian spin and subterranean horror does give it a gruesome coat of gory red paint, courtesy of artist Nil Vendrell. His monsters are also truly horrific in appearance, but there are also all-too-human monsters. There is some clear symbolism involving Gallowglass and the mining company that has allowed generations of Redfork’s men and women to lose their lives in the mines. All the residents of Redfork, Noah included, are tempted by a Faustian bargain that seems all too familiar to readers of Appalachian fiction: have faith in God and in the company you break your back for. All it will cost is your life above ground.

New Arrival: Dead Silence by S. A. Barnes

 People expect horror stories to be set in Gothic castles, rickety houses, and abandoned amusement parks, but one of the scariest settings for a horror story may be right above our heads. Space is the perfect setting for a horror story; it’s cold, it’s dark, and as the tagline for the movie Alien says, “In space, no one can hear you scream.” Perhaps it is science fiction’s use of space as a place of limitless boundaries and optimism, there seems to be a dearth of horror stories set in the final frontier. S. A. Barnes’s newest book Dead Silence creates a different kind of horror story by setting the classic ghost story in outer space.

Claire Kovalik’s uneventful career leading a beacon repair crew is coming to an end. She’s staring down the barrel of forced retirement and her prospects are as dim as the endless cosmos outside her window. Then her crew comes across the luxury spaceliner Aurora, which was declared lost more than twenty years ago. She and her crew see this as a golden opportunity to make some quick money but exploring the ship reveals something bad is waiting for them in the Aurora. Claire and the rest of her crewmates are hearing strange whispers and seeing words scrawled in blood. The crew and passengers of the Aurora all suffered in their final voyage and Claire and her crew may be next.

The book’s tagline calls it Titanic meets The Shining, but there are a lot of such combinations that can be made like Ghost Ship in space, or Alien meets The Haunting of Hill House. Barnes takes advantage of the Aurora’’s emptiness, employing description and background that give an idea of what the ship was, which makes what it now is all the more terrifying. And Barnes shows it to be a terrifying place, her descriptions serving to establish a claustrophobic, tension-wrought atmosphere. Like any good ghost story, she also has a protagonist with the right kind of psychic baggage that the ship can use against her. Add in some potentially expendable members of her crew and you have a by-the-numbers ghost story that shows space, the final frontier, can absolutely be the final frontier of fear.