Daryl Gregory

Pandemonium — (2008) Publisher: It is a world like our own in every respect ... save one. In the 1950s, random acts of possession begin to occur. Ordinary men, women, and children are the targets of entities that seem to spring from the depths of the collective unconscious, pop-cultural avatars some call demons. There's the Truth, implacable avenger of falsehood. The Captain, brave and self-sacrificing soldier. The Little Angel, whose kiss brings death, whether desired or not. And a string of others, ranging from the bizarre to the benign to the horrific. As a boy, Del Pierce is possessed by the Hellion, an entity whose mischief-making can be deadly. With the help of Del's family and a caring psychiatrist, the demon is exorcised ... or is it? Years later, following a car accident, the Hellion is back, trapped inside Del's head and clamoring to get out. Del's quest for help leads him to Valis, an entity possessing the science fiction writer formerly known as Philip K. Dick; to Mother Mariette, a nun who inspires decidedly unchaste feelings; and to the Human League, a secret society devoted to the extermination of demons. All believe that Del holds the key to the plague of possession-and its solution. But for Del, the cure may be worse than the disease.

The Devil's Alphabet — (2009) Publisher: Nothing makes you feel more like a freak than your hometown — even when your town is home to monsters. Thirteen years ago, the tiny mountain town of Switchcreek, Tennesse went through the Changes, an epidemic that left hundreds of townspeople dead, and transformed most of the rest into three clades, three alternate forms of human: The Argos, chalk-skinned and twelve feet tall; the hairless, all-female, fast-breeding Blanks; and the bulked out Charlies, some of whom are walking pharmacological factories. The epidemic never repeated, the disease never spread beyond the original victims, and the cause was never found. After the quarantine lifted, the world moved on. Everyone except for Pax Martin. Pax was one of the "lucky" ones, seemingly skipped by the Changes. Sent away from Switchcreek when he was 15, he's coming back for the first time for the funeral of the girl he loved. Pax slowly begins to realize that he knows nothing about his hometown. Each clade has its secrets, and the Changes may not be over. The solutions to these mysteries will change the planet.

Raising Stony Mayhall — (2011) Publisher: Read an excerpt at Daryl Gregory's website. From award-winning author Daryl Gregory, whom Library Journal called “[a] bright new voice of the twenty-first century,”comes a new breed of zombie novel — a surprisingly funny, vividly frightening, and ultimately deeply moving story of self-discovery and family love. In 1968, after the first zombie outbreak, Wanda Mayhall and her three young daughters discover the body of a teenage mother during a snowstorm. Wrapped in the woman’s arms is a baby, stone-cold, not breathing, and without a pulse. But then his eyes open and look up at Wanda — and he begins to move. The family hides the child — whom they name Stony — rather than turn him over to authorities that would destroy him. Against all scientific reason, the undead boy begins to grow. For years his adoptive mother and sisters manage to keep his existence a secret — until one terrifying night when Stony is forced to run and he learns that he is not the only living dead boy left in the world.