 “I still think she could do better than some lumber sexual vegan nut job!” If you haven’t figured out that John Palisano has a wicked sense of black humor by the time you hit this line, which comes fairly early on in his new novel, Night of 1,000 Beasts, well, don’t worry, there’ll be dozens more opportunities for you to catch up. I read Palisano’s Ghost Heart a few years back, and became an immediate fan thanks to his relatable characters and smart, well-crafted prose. Night of 1,000 Beasts reminded me that Palisano is not only a gifted creator of unique concepts, he is superbly talented at fleshing those concepts out and seeing them through to the end. I’m not sure if I knew there was a sub-genre of horror that Night of 1,000 Beasts would fit so seamlessly into prior to attending my first Rhode Island Comic Con several weeks ago. A young man came by the row of tables featuring the Association of RI Authors—of which I was a part—and, after seeing the horrific pig mask I’d brought along to signal the types of books convention-goers would be presented with if they came over to say hello (a pig mask that would actually have been quite at home in Palisano’s novel) began chatting horror with me. “What types of horror do you like?” I asked. “I’m a big fan of nature revenge horror,” he replied. My brain instantly jumped from, Nature revenge horror? What the hell is nature revenge horror??? to WAIT! I know what nature revenge horror is! It’s John Palisano’s super fun new novel! Excited to have established such a fresh example of this fan’s favorite sub-genre, I wrote John’s name and book title down and handed it to the young man. “Check this out,” I implored him. “You will NOT regret it.” So what can I say about this tale, which details the longest night of the century and the liberties a certain population of beasts are granted in order to exact revenge on humans for the preceding ninety-nine years, without giving away too much of its charm? Like with Ghost Heart, 1,000 Beasts’ characters are indeed relatable, the prose undoubtedly smart. But how about I provide a few casually selected images from the text for you to consider? Just to give you a teensy taste (vegan, of course) of what Palisano has in store... Have you ever heard of a fox that wears a young woman’s skin like a perverse fur coat? How about lobsters that boil people alive? Maybe you’ve witnessed a group of Pitbull-esque beasts turn the tables on a former star athlete indicted for dog fighting? Are you getting the picture yet? Good, because Palisano paints it clearly, and with clean, broad strokes. Are you intrigued? You should be. There is no shortage of brilliant imagery in this book. I read this delightful novel in print and listened to the audiobook narrated by Scottie Calif, and I can recommend either medium; Calif does a fantastic job bringing Palisano’s more chuckle-inducing moments to life. It can feel trite for the reviewer of a written work to claim that they can see that work on the silver screen, but in this case, Palisano’s characters, setting, and storyline lend absolute credence to this proclamation. As I told the enthusiastic horror fan at RI Comic Con, check out Night of 1,000 Beasts. You won’t regret reading this nature revenge horror novel, and you won’t forget it either. Praise for Bram Stoker Award-Winning Author JOHN PALISANO “Possessing a firm grasp of tradition but with his vision clearly focused on the future, John Palisano is exactly the type of writer horror needs right now: bold, brave, imaginative and unflinching.” —Bentley Little John Palisano's short fiction has appeared in many places. Check out: Dark Discoveries, Horror Library, Darkness On The Edge, Lovecraft eZine, Phobophobia, Lovecraft eZine, Terror Tales, Harvest Hill, Halloween Spirits, the Bram Stoker Award® nominated Chiral Mad, Midnight Walk, Halloween Tales, and many other publications. NERVES was his first novel. He is working hard on its sequel, as well as many other upcoming works. His non-fiction has appeared in FANGORIA and DARK DISCOVERIES, where he's interviewed folks like Robert Englund, director Rob Hall, and Corey Taylor from Slipknot. Currently, DUST OF THE DEAD, his first book from Samhain Publishing, arrived in June 2015 with GHOST HEART on February 14, 2016, with NIGHT OF 1,000 BEASTS to come in the very near future. His work has been cited by the Bram Stoker Award® four times. "Available Light" was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award® in 2013. "The Geminis" was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award® in 2014. "Splinterette" was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award® in 2015. "Happy Joe's Rest Stop" was nominated and won the Bram Stoker Award® in 2016. John's had a colorful history. He began writing at an early age, with his first publications in college fanzines and newspapers at Emerson in Boston. He's worked for over a decade in Hollywood for people like Ridley Scott and Marcus Nispel. He's recently been working as a ghost-screenwriter and has seen much success with over two dozen short story sales and his novel NERVES continues gaining critical and reader acclaim. There's more where that all came from. You can visit him at www.johnpalisano.com where you can learn about the artist and his upcoming projects.  Christa Carmen is a writer of dark fiction, and her short stories have appeared in places like Fireside Fiction Company, Unnerving Magazine, Year's Best Hardcore Horror, Outpost 28, DarkFuse Magazine, and Tales to Terrify, to name a few. She has work in Lycan Valley Press Publications' all-female horror anthology, Dark Voices, and her debut fiction collection, Something Borrowed, Something Blood-Soaked, was released in August 2018 by Unnerving. Christa lives in Westerly, Rhode Island with her husband and their ten-year-old bluetick beagle, Maya. She has a bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in English and psychology, a master's degree from Boston College in counseling psychology, and she's currently pursuing a Master of Liberal Arts in Creative Writing & Literature from Harvard Extension School. Christa works at a pharmaceutical company as a Research & Development Packaging Coordinator and at a local hospital as a mental health clinician. When she's not writing, she is volunteering with one of several organizations that aim to maximize public awareness and seek solutions to the ever-growing opioid crisis in southern Rhode Island and southeastern Connecticut. You can visit her website, GoodReads page, Amazon Author page, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 
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