Precocia: The Sixth Circle of Heck
Eleven-year-old brainiac Milton Fauster and his sticky-fingered goth sister, Marlo, face new challenges in the circle of Heck where dead, young overachievers go. Along with drawing the terrifying attentions of pitchfork-wielding demons, a fallen angel assassin, B. F. Skinner, Kali the Destroyer (Heck is an equal opportunity afterlife), and more, the two also find themselves at the center of a plot to transform the world of the living into a rigidly controlled, all-adult society in which joy and joking are criminalized. The pacing lags in spots, but Basye’s rare gift for silly wordplay continues to animate an unusually “scarylarious” series. --John Peters