2015, Hopeless Books, pages 4-11 BLACK HOUSE ROCKED, A Hopeless Books Split Single: Stories by Paul Bingham and Emril Krestle

Salvatore, the dirt bag cigarette scrounging vampire, is, to date, my favorite fictional vampire. This appealingly atmospheric short by Emril Krestle is the opening act for Paul Bingham's novella, which I will be reading in May, Odin willing. I really like the fact that such a feral creature as a vampire is depicted as the more appropriately homeless guy than some moneyed mastermind.

I believe this is a preview pdf to a print book published under Ann Sterzinger's hopeless books label, and am not certain of a publication date as I was staring at Ann's picture when I received the email it was attached to, and it wiped my mind clean—well, clear.

Emril' style strikes me as a combination of Robert E. Howard's atmospheric's and Phillip K. Dick's quirky insights into the human condition. I can't give away much for a short, but to note that Emril handled the exposition of light, texture, and flight with a snarky-edged sensual clarity that actually had me cheering Salvatore on as an antihero for the alienated heart—like Andy Nowicki writing Batman for a death row audience. There are European settings, but of a decaying nature that evokes the best in Stoker, not of the vapid modern genre.