Evil Takes on Many Forms
This is something Rachael Daniels, a lowly careworker, is about to find out… personally. Because something is roaming the streets of the city where she lives, something with a taste for human blood: sweet, red blood. Something that can be anything it wants to be. Soon Rachael will learn that not even friendly faces can be trusted. And as she makes her way across that city at night on an errand of mercy, she discovers that this creature will definitely have none for her.
A modern, urban reworking of a classic tale, RED puts the horror spin on an old favorite. If you dare to open these pages, you’ll find a terrifying trip into the unknown courtesy of British Fantasy Award Nominee Paul Kane, author of Touching the Flame, Signs of Life, The Lazarus Condition, Arrowhead and Dead Time (adapted by Steve ‘30 Days of Night’ Niles as New Year’s Day for the Lionsgate/NBC television show Fear Itself, directed by Darren Lynn Bousman – SAW II-IV).
Introduction by New York Times bestselling author Tim Lebbon (The Everlasting, Fallen).
Cover art by Dave McKean, designer/director of the Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask, and illustrator for Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book.
70 page 6X9 paperback
ISBN: 978-0-9799673-5-1
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*Note: The digital edition does NOT include the introduction by Tim Lebbon.
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Praise:
“Paul Kane’s writing has a style and elegance… he’s a first-rate storyteller.” ~ Clive Barker, author of Abarat, Books of Blood, and writer/director of Hellraiser
“I’m impressed by the range of Paul Kane’s imagination. It seems there is no risk, no high-stakes gamble, he fears to take… Kane’s foot never gets even close to the brake pedal.” ~ Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story, Mr. X, Lost Boy Lost Girl, and In the Night Room
Excerpt:
Sitting on a bench, he surveyed the shoppers on this busy Friday afternoon. In the old country, he could have just picked one off as they walked by, but populations had dwindled where he used to operate so very long ago, mainly due to his antics – it had to be said. And trackers wishing to make a name for themselves had come looking for him back in those days. For their insolence (there was no greater hunter than him, he was the king), he’d sent them away with their tails between their legs – if indeed he’d left them with any tail at all. But all good things came to an end, and when he was forced to move on, he found it was actually a blessing in disguise. It was a big, wide world out there. And who was going to notice what he was up to when mankind took such great joy in doing the very same thing to itself, time and time again? The perfect playground.
The perfect hunting ground.
Review by Barbie Wilde (Female Cenobite on Hellbound: Hellraiser II and contributing author to the Hellbound Hearts anthology):
“What Big Teeth You Have!”
“The Better To Eat You With, My Dear!”
Sex and violence run like scarlet, subterranean rivers beneath the surface of many iconic fairy tales and Little Red Riding Hood is no exception. A young girl loses her way in a dark forest and meets a Woodsman and then a Wolf. They both ask her questions and give her advice, but who is friend and who is foe? She arrives at Grandma’s house, only to find her beloved Nan in the belly of the beast, literally. What happens after Red Riding Hood’s unfortunate discovery of a Wolf in Grandma’s clothing is not definitive: in various versions of the fairy tale she either escapes unscathed; or she’s eaten by the Wolf; or she’s cut out of the Wolf’s stomach by the helpful Woodsman. But whatever the final dénouement, it’s always bloody, it’s always violent, and someone always ends up dead. And this is what people read to their kids as a bedtime story! No wonder human beings are so fascinated by horror. We’ve all been indoctrinated from a very early age.
In RED, Paul Kane’s very modern take on a centuries’ old tale, Red Riding Hood is Rachel Daniels, a pretty young woman with a big heart and a terrible taste in men, who undertakes a mission of mercy to take some medicine to an old lady who lives on a council estate in a bad part of town. She meets a few disaffected youths on the way, which is threatening enough, but something else is stalking her – a creature that is snuffling out the familiar scent of an adversary from the distant past and who is eager to taste the blood that was denied to it all those years ago.
From RED’s shocking first chapter through wicked twists and turns to the end, the story surprises, intrigues and beguiles you. Paul Kane’s taut, muscular, yet descriptive prose conjures up disturbing images in your mind that you won’t be able to dislodge for months. Kane’s writing is frighteningly realistic. Not only are you there with Rachel for every moment of her ordeal, but you also inhabit the shape-shifting monster’s mind — privy to his motivations and his side of the story. RED is a beautifully visceral, dark tale and if any novella was ripe for a film adaptation, it’s this one.
