SUPERHEROS,
ELDRITCH GODS,
AND THE END OF THE WORLD…
Adam always keeps his powers in check. As the world’s only superhero, he must know his limits. Defeat the master criminal, repel an army, stop a natural disaster, but never let himself go too far.
Until Syangnom.
The world has grown accustomed to the feats of its only superhuman. Adam’s wife, Sara, a celebrated journalist and periodic hostage, regularly reports his exploits, and the agents of Extra-Judicial Affairs handle all the legal issues.
But when Adam becomes enraged in the reclusive regime of Syangnom, he leaves 14 million people dead and the world recoiling from the destruction he has wrought.
Now Adam’s wife Sara and EJA Agent Pia Mercado must track down the conspiracy behind Adam’s breakdown and discover the otherworldly source of his powers. Their search will bring them face to face with supervillains, eldritch gods, and the mysterious figure who defends Chicago from the shadows, the armored hero known only as No One.
If you’re looking for an all new read before Halloween,
then grab a copy of No One Can Save Us today at:
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More From Author Kendall R. Phillips:
Coming October 16th…
A revised and expanded edition of this popular book that traces the cultural history of the American horror film by focusing on individual films that helped to define or redefine the genre from Dracula (1931) to Get Out (2017).
This book examines thirteen films that redefined the notion of cinematic horror and influenced the films that followed: Dracula (1931), The Thing (1951), Psycho (1960), Night of the Living Dead (1968), The Exorcist (1973), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), The Silence of the Lambs (1991), Scream (1996), The Sixth Sense (1999), The Blair Witch Project (1999), Saw (2004), and Get Out (2017). Carefully situating each film in relation to the history of the genre and the cultural contexts in which it emerged, the book explains why certain horror films create a connection with a wide audience.
Since the publication of the first edition in 2005, the horror genre has become even more culturally prominent and commercially successful. The genre has also shown rapid development, and several prominent trends have emerged in the 21st century. This edition includes two additional chapters that focus on Saw (2004) and Get Out (2017), as James Wan’s Saw helped to launch a highly successful franchise as well as the subgenre of “torture porn,” while Jordan Peele’s Get Out inaugurated a broader cultural conversation about the power of horror narratives to interrogate systems of ideology and oppression.
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“An illuminating history . . . it’s clear that the right story can still terrify us; A Place of Darkness is a primer on how the movies learned to do it.” —NPR
Horror is one of the most enduringly popular genres in cinema. The term “horror film” was coined in 1931 between the premiere of Dracula and the release of Frankenstein, but monsters, ghosts, demons, and supernatural and horrific themes have been popular with American audiences since the emergence of novelty cinematographic attractions in the late 1890s. A Place of Darkness illuminates the prehistory of the horror genre by tracing the way horrific elements and stories were portrayed in films prior to the introduction of the term “horror film.”
Using a rhetorical approach that examines not only early films but also the promotional materials for them and critical responses to them, Kendall R. Phillips argues that the portrayal of horrific elements was enmeshed in broader social tensions around the emergence of American identity and, in turn, American cinema. He shows how early cinema linked monsters, ghosts, witches, and magicians with Old World superstitions and beliefs, in contrast to an American way of thinking that was pragmatic, reasonable, scientific, and progressive. Throughout the teens and twenties, Phillips finds, supernatural elements were almost always explained away as some hysterical mistake, humorous prank, or nefarious plot. The Great Depression of the 1930s, however, constituted a substantial upheaval in the system of American certainty and opened a space for the reemergence of Old-World gothic within American popular discourse in the form of the horror genre, which has terrified and thrilled fans ever since.
“[A] fascinating read.” —Sublime Horror
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About Author Kendall R. Phillips
Kendall R. Phillips is a Bram Stoker nominated author who writes about horror, public memory, and popular culture. He writes and teaches in upstate New York.
For more information, please visit:
https://www.kendallrphillips.com/
And don’t forget to follow him on Twitter (X), Instagram, & Bluesky, and “Like” his Facebook page!
