Wednesday, March 25, 2015

A CORPUS VILE Primer

CORPUS VILE is my ode to the "weird menace" and "shudder" pulps of the Classic Pulp era, made popular in such publications as THE OCTOPUS and THE SCORPION, and through the prolific writing of such pulp authors as Norvell Page and Hugh B. Cave. 

My serialized CORPUS VILE saga centers around a great metropolis sometime in the late 1930s, a city awakening to a growing horror in its midst, one that will bring its citizens to their knees in terror and pain.  Presiding over the city is a blind mayor who seems to be the focus of the mysterious evil that comes in like the fog, a man beloved by the city's inhabitants, but hamstrung by his inability to see through to the truth of the matter.  Another man tries to help him, the city's ex-District Attorney, once a trusted servant of the people, but now fallen due to corruption and vice.  Together, these two characters will attempt to stave off the creeping horror that infiltrates their home by degrees, and uncover the mystery of two words scrawled in blood at each scene of the evil's progress: CORPUS VILE. 

The series begins with a Prelude, CORPUS VILE: DEATH ON BROADSTREET, which introduces not only the story's main characters, but details the first assault on the city by the mystery villain behind the lurking evil. 

The serialized novel itself kicks off with CORPUS VILE: DEATH IN THE CITY, CHAPTER ONE: THE RED JUDGE, in which the city awakens from the horror of the Prelude a few months later, only to find it never truly ended.  A vigilante also begins his crusade to root out the festering evil, but discovers only more questions, not answers, to the baffling mystery of Corpus Vile. 

The story continues in CORPUS VILE; DEATH IN THE CITY, CHAPTER TWO: RATS IN THE WALLS, in which an attack on City Hall sends the city's blind mayor down a path to terror as his friends and associates begin to die around him.  The new Chief of Police also fends off his own personal attack, and in doing so unearths a horrifying secret, one which may shed some scant light on the mystery of Corpus Vile. 

CORPUS VILE is published quarterly by Pros Se Productions, and available on Amazon as part of Pro Se's Single Shot e-book publishing initiative.  As always, please leave me a review!