Southern Gods by John Hornor Jacobs
Bull Ingram is a very big fellow. He’s a former Marine who is still a little raw from the war like most men in the early 1950s. Bull works as paid muscle and his primary job is finding people who owe his employers money. When he finds them, he “convinces” them to pay back their debts. He is very good at his job. A folk music dealer wants Bull to locate a mysterious blues man by the name of Ramblin’ John Hastur. Hastur’s music has strange effects on those who listen to it, and Bull’s new employer wants him found. The job leads Bull down a strange and violent path through the underbelly of the 1950’s American South.
John Hornor Jacobs sets a furious pace in Southern Gods. It doesn’t let up till you hit the epilogue. I was sent an audio copy of this from Brilliance Audio, and I was so desperate to keep reading the story tha... Read More
More books by John Hornor Jacobs
The Twelve-Fingered Boy — (2013-2015) Publisher: Fifteen-year-old Shreve Cannon doesn’t mind juvie. He’s got a good business dealing contraband candy, and three meals a day are more than his drunk mother managed to provide. In juvie, the rules never change and everyone is the same. In juvie, Shreve has life figured out. Then the new fish shows up. Jack’s a quiet kid. Small. Cries himself to sleep too. He’s no standard-issue titty-baby, though. There’s his hands — more specifically his fingers, all twelve of ’em. And when he gets angry, something weird happens. The air wavers. You feel a slight pressure in your chest. And then… well, best take cover. Jack isn’t the only new face in juvie. There’s Mr. Quincrux. Quincrux has an unusual interest in Jack and Shreve, and it quickly becomes clear that innocent bystanders aren’t going to get in his way. So Jack and Shreve bust out. On the lam, they quickly discover that Jack has abilities — hell, superpowers — that might just give them a fighting chance against Quincrux, if they can stay alive long enough to figure them out.
The Incorruptibles — (2014-2015) Publisher: In the contested and unexplored territories at the edge of the Empire, a boat is making its laborious way up stream. Riding along the banks are the mercenaries hired to protect it – from raiders, bandits and, most of all, the stretchers, elf-like natives who kill any intruders into their territory. The mercenaries know this is dangerous, deadly work. But it is what they do. In the boat the drunk governor of the territories and his sons and daughters make merry. They believe that their status makes them untouchable. They are wrong. And with them is a mysterious, beautiful young woman, who is the key to peace between warring nations and survival for the Empire. When a callow mercenary saves the life of the Governor on an ill-fated hunting party, the two groups are thrown together. For Fisk and Shoe – two tough, honourable mercenaries surrounded by corruption, who know they can always and only rely on each other – their young companion appears to be playing with fire. The nobles have the power, and crossing them is always risky. And although love is a wonderful thing, sometimes the best decision is to walk away.
Stand-Alones:
Fierce as the Grave: A Quartet of Horror Stories — (2011) Publisher: These four tales deal with the unquiet dead in all its various forms. From ghosts to vampires, zombies to vengeful spirits, these stories take you from a soft-apocalyptic future where computers are symbiotic creatures burrowing into your skin, to a post-apocalyptic world where cowboys round-up zombies for slaughter. You’ll witness vampires hosting the birthday party of the century in an antebellum mansion in the old south and a young boy beginning to understand that the evil he does will come back to haunt him. Includes the stories “Verrata,” “Heaven of Animals,” “Bone China,” and “Sneaking In.”
This Dark Earth — (2012) Publisher: So you survived the zombie uprising. Now what? The land is contaminated, electronics are defunct, the ravenous undead remain, and life has fallen into a nasty and brutish state of nature. You need: food, water, weapons. Welcome to Bridge City in what was once Arkansas — part medieval fortress, part Western outpost, and the precarious last chance for civilization. A ten-year-old prodigy when the world ended, Gus is now at fourteen a battle-hardened young man. Gus designed Bridge City to protect the living few from the shamblers always at the gates. Now he’s being groomed by his physician mother, Lucy, and the gentle giant Knock-Out to become the next leader of men. But an army of slavers is on its way, and the war it wages for the city’s resources could mean the end of survival as we know it. Can Gus be humanity’s savior? If he is, will it mean becoming a dictator, a martyr, or maybe something worse than even the zombies? Grab a sturdy headknocker, strap on some Kevlar, and prepare to shape the future of humankind.
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John Hornor Jacobs has worked in advertising since the mid 1990s, played in bands, and pursued art in various forms. He is also, in his copious spare time, a novelist, writing horror, crime, and rough and tumble fantasy. He is also the co-founder of 
