Books by Daniel Kraus

Wrath

by Daniel Kraus, Sharon Moalem M.D. Ph.D, Robin Wasserman

Beth was transformed from a nobody to a somebody, but now she's B-list again.

She -- and everybody else -- got played by Kaia, Kane and Harper.

Nobody can comfort Miranda, who feels so betrayed that she's sworn revenge.

Adam is lashing out at anybody who will listen -- or buy him a drink.

And somebody is stalking Kaia; looks like Reed won't stand for sloppy seconds....

Revenge is the name of the game. And for somebody, it's game over.

Wrath

by Daniel Kraus, Sharon Moalem M.D. Ph.D, Robin Wasserman

In a near future where scientific experimentation is exploited for commercial profit, unwisely undersupervised, cutting-edge technology creates a menace that threatens the very fabric of human existence.

Wrath is the story of a genetically enhanced lab rat whose supersized intelligence helps him to engineer his escape into the world outside the lab: a world vastly ill-equipped to deal with the menace he represents. Modified through advances that have aggravated his aggressiveness, and endowed with a rat’s natural proclivity to procreate regularly, Sammy has the potential to sire a rodent army capable of viciously overwhelming the human race.
The key to Sammy’s capture and humanity’s salvation may be ten-year-old Dallas Underhill, whom Sammy temporarily adopts. Sammy himself is scientifically enhanced—with a cutting-edge cochlear implant—by which he discovers Sammy possesses superior skills that allow him to communicate with and direct other rats who have not been modified. But while Dallas and Sammy bond, time is running out for humankind: once Sammy sires his progeny, the exponential proliferation of his kind could spell the end of the world.

Whalefall: A Novel

by Daniel Kraus

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot, Shelf Awareness, and NPR

The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.

Whalefall: A Novel

by Daniel Kraus

A USA TODAY BESTSELLER
Named a Best Book of 2023 by Book Riot, Shelf Awareness, and NPR

The Martian meets 127 Hours in this “astoundingly great” (Gillian Flynn, #1 New York Times bestselling author) and scientifically accurate thriller about a scuba diver who’s been swallowed by an eighty-foot, sixty-ton sperm whale and has only one hour to escape before his oxygen runs out.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

The dive begins well enough, but the sudden appearance of a giant squid puts Jay in very real jeopardy, made infinitely worse by the arrival of a sperm whale looking to feed. Suddenly, Jay is caught in the squid’s tentacles and drawn into the whale’s mouth where he is pulled into the first of its four stomachs. He quickly realizes he has only one hour before his oxygen tanks run out—one hour to defeat his demons and escape the belly of a whale.

Suspenseful and cinematic, Whalefall is an “powerfully humane” (Owen King, New York Times bestselling author) thriller about a young man who has given up on life…only to find a reason to live in the most dangerous and unlikely of places.

Bent Heavens

by Daniel Kraus

“Kraus gets under your skin with brutal, elegant efficiency. Necessarily horrifying, devastatingly timely.”―Kiersten White, New York Times-bestselling author of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein and Slayer

From New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Kraus comes a breakneck, genre-defying YA thriller perfect for fans of Kiersten White, Neal Shusterman, and M. T. Anderson.

Liv Fleming’s father went missing more than two years ago, not long after he claimed to have been abducted by aliens. Liv has long accepted that he’s dead, though that doesn’t mean she has given up their traditions. Every Sunday, she and her lifelong friend Doug Monk trudge through the woods to check the traps Lee left behind, traps he set to catch the aliens he so desperately believed were after him.

But Liv is done with childhood fantasies. Done pretending she believes her father’s absurd theories. Done going through the motions for Doug’s sake. However, on the very day she chooses to destroy the traps, she discovers in one of them a creature so inhuman it can only be one thing. In that moment, she’s faced with a painful realization: her dad was telling the truth. And no one believed him.

Now, she and Doug have a choice to make. They can turn the alien over to the authorities…or they can take matters into their own hands.

On the heels of the worldwide success of The Shape of Water, Daniel Kraus returns with a horrifying and heartbreaking thriller about the lengths people go to find justice and the painful reality of grief.

“Bent Heavens is the darkest, angriest alien horror story that I've ever encountered. Hell. Yes.”―Stephanie Perkins, New York Times-bestselling author of There's Someone Inside Your House

The Shape of Water

by Daniel Kraus, Guillermo del Toro

The 2018 Academy Award's Best Picture of the Year and New York Times-bestselling novel, The Shape of Water.

From visionary storyteller Guillermo del Toro and celebrated author Daniel Kraus comes this haunting, heartbreaking love story.

"[A] phenomenally enrapturing and reverberating work of art in its own right...[that] vividly illuminates the minds of the characters, greatly enhancing our understanding of their temperaments and predicaments and providing more expansive and involving story lines." ―Booklist

It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito―mute her whole life, orphaned as a child―is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day.

Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions…and Elisa can’t keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live.

But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming.

Developed from the ground up as a bold two-tiered release―one story interpreted by two artists in the independent mediums of literature and film―The Shape of Water is unlike anything you’ve ever read or seen.

“Most movie novelizations do little more than write down what audiences see on the screen. But the novel that’s accompanying Guillermo del Toro’s new movie The Shape of Water is no mere adaptation. Co-author Daniel Kraus’ book and the film tell the same story, of a mute woman who falls in love with an imprisoned and equally mute creature, in two very different ways.” ―io9

Praise for The Shape of Water directed by Guillermo del Toro

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Director

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Music (Original Score)

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Production Design

Winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Award for Best Director of a Motion Picture

"With encouragement from critics and awards voters, discerning viewers should make Fox Searchlight’s December release the season’s classiest date movie―for perhaps the greatest of The Shape of Water’s many surprises is how extravagantly romantic it is.” ―Variety

"A visually and emotionally ravishing fantasy that should find a welcome embrace from audiences starved for imaginative escape.” ―The Hollywood Reporter

Awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 74th Annual Venice International Film Festival

The Shape of Water

by Daniel Kraus, Guillermo del Toro

The 2018 Academy Award's Best Picture of the Year and New York Times-bestselling novel, The Shape of Water.

From visionary storyteller Guillermo del Toro and celebrated author Daniel Kraus comes this haunting, heartbreaking love story.

"[A] phenomenally enrapturing and reverberating work of art in its own right...[that] vividly illuminates the minds of the characters, greatly enhancing our understanding of their temperaments and predicaments and providing more expansive and involving story lines." —Booklist

It is 1962, and Elisa Esposito—mute her whole life, orphaned as a child—is struggling with her humdrum existence as a janitor working the graveyard shift at Baltimore’s Occam Aerospace Research Center. Were it not for Zelda, a protective coworker, and Giles, her loving neighbor, she doesn’t know how she’d make it through the day.

Then, one fateful night, she sees something she was never meant to see, the Center’s most sensitive asset ever: an amphibious man, captured in the Amazon, to be studied for Cold War advancements. The creature is terrifying but also magnificent, capable of language and of understanding emotions...and Elisa can’t keep away. Using sign language, the two learn to communicate. Soon, affection turns into love, and the creature becomes Elisa’s sole reason to live.

But outside forces are pressing in. Richard Strickland, the obsessed soldier who tracked the asset through the Amazon, wants nothing more than to dissect it before the Russians get a chance to steal it. Elisa has no choice but to risk everything to save her beloved. With the help of Zelda and Giles, Elisa hatches a plan to break out the creature. But Strickland is on to them. And the Russians are, indeed, coming.

Developed from the ground up as a bold two-tiered release—one story interpreted by two artists in the independent mediums of literature and film—The Shape of Water is unlike anything you’ve ever read or seen.

“Most movie novelizations do little more than write down what audiences see on the screen. But the novel that’s accompanying Guillermo del Toro’s new movie The Shape of Water is no mere adaptation. Co-author Daniel Kraus’ book and the film tell the same story, of a mute woman who falls in love with an imprisoned and equally mute creature, in two very different ways.” —io9

Praise for The Shape of Water directed by Guillermo del Toro

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Picture

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Best Director

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Music (Original Score)

Winner of the 2018 Academy Award for Production Design

Winner of the 2018 Golden Globe Award for Best Director of a Motion Picture

"With encouragement from critics and awards voters, discerning viewers should make Fox Searchlight’s December release the season’s classiest date movie—for perhaps the greatest of The Shape of Water’s many surprises is how extravagantly romantic it is.” —Variety

"A visually and emotionally ravishing fantasy that should find a welcome embrace from audiences starved for imaginative escape.” —The Hollywood Reporter

Awarded the Golden Lion for Best Film at the 74th Annual Venice International Film Festival

The Living Dead

by Daniel Kraus, John Joseph Adams, George A. Romero

“A horror landmark and a work of gory genius.”―Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman

New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus completes George A. Romero's brand-new masterpiece of zombie horror, the massive novel left unfinished at Romero's death!

George A. Romero invented the modern zombie with Night of the Living Dead, creating a monster that has become a key part of pop culture. Romero often felt hemmed in by the constraints of film-making. To tell the story of the rise of the zombies and the fall of humanity the way it should be told, Romero turned to fiction. Unfortunately, when he died, the story was incomplete.

Enter Daniel Kraus, co-author, with Guillermo del Toro, of the New York Times bestseller The Shape of Water (based on the Academy Award-winning movie) and Trollhunters (which became an Emmy Award-winning series), and author of The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch (an Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year). A lifelong Romero fan, Kraus was honored to be asked, by Romero's widow, to complete The Living Dead.

Set in the present day, The Living Dead is an entirely new tale, the story of the zombie plague as George A. Romero wanted to tell it.

It begins with one body.

A pair of medical examiners find themselves battling a dead man who won’t stay dead.

It spreads quickly.

In a Midwestern trailer park, a Black teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family. On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic makes a new religion out of death. At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting while his undead colleagues try to devour him. In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.

Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

We think we know how this story ends.

We. Are. Wrong.

The Living Dead

by Daniel Kraus, John Joseph Adams, George A. Romero

Ideal for fans of iZombie, Colin Morgan, The Walking Dead, iZombie comics, Resident Evil anthology, Evil Dead anthology, and the Joe Hill graphic novel collection A compilation of the best zombie literature of the past 30 years Highlights works by today’s most well-known and respected authors of speculative fiction, horror, and fantasy
Zombies have invaded popular culture, from White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead and from Resident Evil to World War Z. They have become the monsters that best express the anxieties and fears of the modern west. This collection gathers together zombie works by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Poppy Z. Brite, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale. These brilliant minds, and The Living Dead, cover the many types of zombie fiction.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

The Living Dead

by Daniel Kraus, John Joseph Adams, George A. Romero

“A horror landmark and a work of gory genius.”—Joe Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Fireman

New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus completes George A. Romero's brand-new masterpiece of zombie horror, the massive novel left unfinished at Romero's death!

George A. Romero invented the modern zombie with Night of the Living Dead, creating a monster that has become a key part of pop culture. Romero often felt hemmed in by the constraints of film-making. To tell the story of the rise of the zombies and the fall of humanity the way it should be told, Romero turned to fiction. Unfortunately, when he died, the story was incomplete.

Enter Daniel Kraus, co-author, with Guillermo del Toro, of the New York Times bestseller The Shape of Water (based on the Academy Award-winning movie) and Trollhunters (which became an Emmy Award-winning series), and author of The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch (an Entertainment Weekly Top 10 Book of the Year). A lifelong Romero fan, Kraus was honored to be asked, by Romero's widow, to complete The Living Dead.

Set in the present day, The Living Dead is an entirely new tale, the story of the zombie plague as George A. Romero wanted to tell it.

It begins with one body.

A pair of medical examiners find themselves battling a dead man who won’t stay dead.

It spreads quickly.

In a Midwestern trailer park, a Black teenage girl and a Muslim immigrant battle newly-risen friends and family. On a US aircraft carrier, living sailors hide from dead ones while a fanatic makes a new religion out of death. At a cable news station, a surviving anchor keeps broadcasting while his undead colleagues try to devour him. In DC, an autistic federal employee charts the outbreak, preserving data for a future that may never come.

Everywhere, people are targeted by both the living and the dead.

We think we know how this story ends.

We. Are. Wrong.

Trollhunters

by Daniel Kraus, Guillermo del Toro

The book that inspired the Netflix original series Trollhunters, from Dreamworks Animation.

"You are food. Those muscles you flex to walk, lift, and talk? They're patties of meat topped with chewy tendon. That skin you've paid so much attention to in mirrors? It's delicious to the right tongues, a casserole of succulent tissue. And those bones that give you the strength to make your way in the world? They rattle between teeth as the marrow is sucked down slobbering throats. These facts are unpleasant but useful. There are things out there, you see, that don't cower in holes to be captured by us and cooked over our fires. These things have their own ways of trapping their kills, their own fires, their own appetites."

Jim Sturges is your typical teen in suburban San Bernardino-one with an embarrassingly overprotective dad, a best friend named "Tubby" who shares his hatred of all things torturous (like gym class), and a crush on a girl who doesn't know he exists. But everything changes for Jim when a 45-year old mystery resurfaces, threatening the lives of everyone in his seemingly sleepy town. Soon Jim has to team up with a band of unlikely (and some un-human) heroes to battle the monsters he never knew existed.

From the minds of Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus comes a new illustrated novel about the fears that move in unseen places.

Trollhunters

by Daniel Kraus, Guillermo del Toro

The book that inspired the Netflix original series Trollhunters, from Dreamworks Animation.
"You are food. Those muscles you flex to walk, lift, and talk? They're patties of meat topped with chewy tendon. That skin you've paid so much attention to in mirrors? It's delicious to the right tongues, a casserole of succulent tissue. And those bones that give you the strength to make your way in the world? They rattle between teeth as the marrow is sucked down slobbering throats. These facts are unpleasant but useful. There are things out there, you see, that don't cower in holes to be captured by us and cooked over our fires. These things have their own ways of trapping their kills, their own fires, their own appetites."

Jim Sturges is your typical teen in suburban San Bernardino-one with an embarrassingly overprotective dad, a best friend named "Tubby" who shares his hatred of all things torturous (like gym class), and a crush on a girl who doesn't know he exists. But everything changes for Jim when a 45-year old mystery resurfaces, threatening the lives of everyone in his seemingly sleepy town. Soon Jim has to team up with a band of unlikely (and some un-human) heroes to battle the monsters he never knew existed.

From the minds of Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus comes a new illustrated novel about the fears that move in unseen places.

Pay the Piper: A Novel

by Daniel Kraus, George A. Romero

A terrifying tale of supernatural horror set in a cursed Louisiana bayou, from the minds of legendary director George Romero and bestselling author Daniel Kraus.

In 2019, while sifting through University of Pittsburgh Library’s System’s George A. Romero Archival Collection, novelist Daniel Kraus turned up a surprise: a half-finished novel called Pay the Piper, a project few had ever heard of. In the years since, Kraus has worked with Romero’s estate to bring this unfinished masterwork to light.
Alligator Point, Louisiana, population 141: Young Renée Pontiac has heard stories of “the Piper”—a murderous swamp entity haunting the bayou—her entire life. But now the legend feels horrifically real: children are being taken and gruesomely slain. To resist, Pontiac and the town’s desperate denizens will need to acknowledge the sins of their ancestors—the infamous slave traders, the Pirates Lafitte. If they don’t . . . it’s time to pay the piper.

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume Two: Empire Decayed (2)

by Daniel Kraus

From the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling The Shape of Water comes the second and final book in the “utterly riveting” (Entertainment Weekly) epic tale about a murdered teen who is resurrected to walk the earth for more than a century.

Zebulon Finch has faced more violence, lust, and heartbreak than any other seventeen-year-old in history. But nothing can prepare him for what is coming next.

Half a century has passed since Zebulon Finch was gunned down and then inexplicably resurrected to experience a second life. Picking up his tale where he left off, Zebulon heads to Nazi Germany on a top-secret mission. From there he escapes to the shiny new world of the suburbs—a tidy neighborhood hiding dark secrets. He will exchange the pains of this world for what he believes will be peace among the stars. He will march for social change all the way to Woodstock, go raving mad in the desert, and finally exit from humanity the only way he knows how. We first met Zebulon sealed in a tomb beneath the World Trade Center—might he yet crawl from the rubble to discover a different America?

Enthralling and gut-wrenching, The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume Two: Empire Decayed is the conclusion to the epic saga of one young man’s journey down the long road to redemption.

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume Two: Empire Decayed (2)

by Daniel Kraus

From the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling The Shape of Water comes the second and final book in the “utterly riveting” (Entertainment Weekly) epic tale about a murdered teen who is resurrected to walk the earth for more than a century.

Zebulon Finch has faced more violence, lust, and heartbreak than any other seventeen-year-old in history. But nothing can prepare him for what is coming next.

Half a century has passed since Zebulon Finch was gunned down and then inexplicably resurrected to experience a second life. Picking up his tale where he left off, Zebulon heads to Nazi Germany on a top-secret mission. From there he escapes to the shiny new world of the suburbs—a tidy neighborhood hiding dark secrets. He will exchange the pains of this world for what he believes will be peace among the stars. He will march for social change all the way to Woodstock, go raving mad in the desert, and finally exit from humanity the only way he knows how. We first met Zebulon sealed in a tomb beneath the World Trade Center—might he yet crawl from the rubble to discover a different America?

Enthralling and gut-wrenching, The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume Two: Empire Decayed is the conclusion to the epic saga of one young man’s journey down the long road to redemption.

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume One: At the Edge of Empire (1)

by Daniel Kraus

From the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling The Shape of Water comes the “utterly riveting” (Entertainment Weekly) tale of a murdered teen who is resurrected to walk the earth for more than a century.

May 7, 1896.

Dusk. A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down by the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.

His second life will be nothing like his first.

Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.

Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?

“Fearlessly weaving gore, love, philosophy, and social justice issues into one sharp whole” (BCCB), The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume One: At the Edge of Empire is the epic saga of what it means to be human in a world so often lacking in humanity.

The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume One: At the Edge of Empire (1)

by Daniel Kraus

From the coauthor of the New York Times bestselling The Shape of Water comes the “utterly riveting” (Entertainment Weekly) tale of a murdered teen who is resurrected to walk the earth for more than a century.

May 7, 1896.

Dusk. A swaggering seventeen-year-old gangster named Zebulon Finch is gunned down by the shores of Lake Michigan. But after mere minutes in the void, he is mysteriously resurrected.

His second life will be nothing like his first.

Zebulon’s new existence begins as a sideshow attraction in a traveling medicine show. From there he will be poked and prodded by a scientist obsessed with mastering the secrets of death. He will fight in the trenches of World War I. He will run from his nightmares—and from poverty—in Depression-era New York City. And he will become the companion of the most beautiful woman in Hollywood.

Love, hate, hope, and horror—Zebulon finds them. But will he ever find redemption?

“Fearlessly weaving gore, love, philosophy, and social justice issues into one sharp whole” (BCCB), The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch, Volume One: At the Edge of Empire is the epic saga of what it means to be human in a world so often lacking in humanity.

Angel Down: A Novel

by Daniel Kraus

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Blood Sugar

by Daniel Kraus

From the co-author of the New York Times–bestselling novelization of The Shape of Water comes the blood-curdling story of a Halloween night where trick-or-treat becomes life-or-death

In a ruined house at the end of Yellow Street, an angry outcast hatches a scheme to take revenge for all the wrongs he has suffered. With the help of three alienated kids, he plans to hide razor blades, poison, and broken glass in Halloween candy, maiming or killing dozens of innocent children. But as the clock ticks closer to sundown, will one of his helpers—an innocent himself, in his own streetwise way—carry out or defeat the plan?

Told from the child’s point of view, in a voice as unforgettable as A Clockwork Orange, Kraus’ novel is at once frightening and emotional, thought-provoking and laugh-out-loud funny. It’ll make you rethink your concepts of family, loyalty, and justice—and will leave you double-checking the wrappers on your Halloween candy for the rest of your days.
 

“A Stephen King tale told by a pidgin Artful Dodger, it’s a twisted little miracle with a sneaking, beating heart.” —Megan Abbott, New York Times–bestselling author of Give Me Your Hand

Partially Devoured How Night of the Living Dead Saved My Life and Changed the World

by Daniel Kraus

“A stroke of genius! This is the definitive love letter to the film, written with such meticulous passion and demented glee that you feel yourself standing on the set during the shoot.” —Greg Nicotero

A New York Times bestselling author dives into a horror movie classic to examine his favorite film’s importance to our history, culture, and psychology, creating a perfect blend of research and memoir in the vein of Quentin Tarantino’s Cinema Speculation. Daniel Kraus first saw George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead when he was five years old. Through watching it approximately three hundred times since, Kraus discovered the many ways the film is tied to his childhood trauma and how its influence has carried into his adulthood. He couldn’t help but wonder: Are there other admirers of the film out there who feel the same?

Partially Devoured uses a frame-by-frame deep dive into Night of the Living Dead to produce a kaleidoscopic cultural investigation of the film’s importance and to examine the author’s early life of rural isolation and local violence.

Careening from film analysis to rabbit-hole tangents, Partially Devoured will take readers from screaming laughter to the depths of grief, all while illustrating how a beloved genre film has woven itself into so many facets of our lives.

Angel Down

by Daniel Kraus

"The critically acclaimed author of the "crazily enjoyable" (The New York Times) Whalefall returns with an immersive, cinematic novel about five World War I soldiers who stumble upon a fallen angel that could hold the key to ending the war. Private Cyril Bagger has managed to survive the unspeakable horrors of the Great War through his wits and deception, swindling fellow soldiers at every opportunity. But his survival instincts are put to the ultimate test when he and four other grunts are given a deadly mission: venture into the perilous No Man's Land to euthanize a wounded comrade. What they find amid the ruined battlefield, however, is not a man in need of mercy but a fallen angel, seemingly struck down by artillery fire. This celestial being may hold the key to ending the brutal conflict, but only if the soldiers can suppress their individual desires and work together. As jealousy, greed, and paranoia take hold, the group is torn apart by their inner demons, threatening to turn their angelic encounter into a descent into hell. Angel Down plunges you into the heart of World War I and weaves a polyphonic tale of survival, supernatural wonder, and moral conflict"--

The Sixth Nik

by Daniel Kraus

A startling hybrid of the Alien franchise and Ender’s Game, The Sixth Nik is the first sci-fi novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Whalefall and Angel Down.

Deep into space, far past the triworld outposts, beyond range of the lethal trollbot internet, soars The Sickness: a ship woven from biomatter and capable of reacting to every need of its human crew. Sisilla, a nine-year-old cultist with a brain enhanced by arcane tech known as “niks,” has boarded to investigate the enigma of Fém—a plague-riddled planet that has abruptly gone rogue.

The mysterious crew includes a faceless assassin, a beautiful engineer jigsawed by plastic surgery, a peyote-addicted medic, and—most lethal of all—a rugged, NonModded captain with a score to settle with Sisilla. Other dangers abound. A hacked robot begins to believe Sisilla is its daughter. The Sickness itself is mutating, possibly even pregnant. And the secret of Fém is more horrific than anyone could have imagined. To survive, Sisilla will need to forsake her predetermined fate and embrace the unknown.

Athanasia

by Daniel Kraus

Watchmen meets Unbreakable in the darkly disturbing supernatural tale, ATHANASIA, where the heroic dead bleed power into the ground … only to be unearthed by a down-on-her-luck young woman to unforeseeable consequences.

Some secrets are best left buried.

Forrest Molson is going nowhere. One year out of high school -- and one year into sobriety -- she's working with her father as assistant groundskeeper at Athanasia Cemetery, the final resting place of fallen members of the Dynamic Guild, Venture City's resident superheroes. At her lowest point, Forrest discovers Athanasia's darkest secret. At night, the cemetery soil bleeds a substance created from the spectacular substances that ooze from rotting superheroes. This ooze becomes Forrest's new drug -- and she's intent on using her unpredictable new powers to be judge, jury, and executioner of Venture City's evil citizens. But as she loses her mind to her new addiction, she inches closer to becoming the most evil of all. ATHANASIA is a superhero story seen through the darkest lens.

From New York Times bestselling author Daniel Kraus (The Autumnal, Angel Down, Whalefall, The Shape of Water) and rising star artist Dani!

For fans of the graphic novels Black Hammer (Jeff LeMire/Dean Ormston), Watchmen (Alan Moore/Dave Gibbons), The Crow (James O’Barr +Film), Kingdom Come (Mark Waid/Alex Ross), Batman: The Killing Joke (Alan Moore/Brian Bolland), The Boys (Garth Ennis/Darick Roberson), The Authority (Warren Ellis/Bryan Hitch); the films Darkman, Chronicle, and Unbreakable and the novels Alter Ego (Alex Segura), Secret Identity (Alex Segura),V.E. Schwab’s Villains series (Vicious and Vengeful), and Jennifer Estep’s Elemental Assassin series.

Monster Variations

by Daniel Kraus

FINALLY RE-RELEASING, THIS 15 YEAR ANNIVERSARY EDITION COMES WITH A BRAND NEW INTRODUCTION!

Someone is killing boys in a small town. The murder weapon is a truck, and the only protection is a curfew enacted to keep kids off the streets. But it's summer-and that alone is worth the risk of staying out late for James, Willie, and Reggie.

Willie, who lost his arm in the first hit-and-run attack, finds it hard to keep up with his two best friends as they leave childhood behind. All of them are changing, hounded by their parents, hunted by the killer, and haunted by the "monster," a dead thing that guards the dangerous gateway between youth and manhood. But that's not all: shadowing the boys everywhere is Mel Herman, the mysterious and brilliant bully whose dark secrets may hold the key to their survival. As the summer burns away, these forces collide, and it will take compassion, brains, and guts for the boys to overcome their demons-and not become monsters themselves.

In this chilling and poignant debut novel, NYT bestseller Daniel Kraus deftly explores the choices boys grapple with and the revelations that occur as they become men.

"Utterly unique from the very first line."

-JOSHUA FERRIS, award winning author of Then We Came to the End

"Beneath the terror and the thrills, there is truth in this haunting tale. It pierced my heart straight through."

-LAUREN MYRACLE, NYT bestselling author of the Internet Girls series.