Five novels for "Something Is Killing the Children" fans

Tobias Carroll is the managing editor of Vol.1 Brooklyn. He is the author of the short story collection Transitory and the novel Reel.

At Tor.com he writes:

There’s a lot to like about the comic book series Something Is Killing the Children, beginning with its ominously-named protagonist Erica Slaughter and proceeding from there. The series—written by James Tynion IV and illustrated by Werther Dell’Edera—follows Erica, part of a secret society of monster hunters, as she deals with terrifying eldritch beings around the country. A Hollywood Reporter article published earlier this year called it “one of the biggest titles not published by DC or Marvel”—and announced that a Netflix adaptation is in the works.

Carroll tagged five novels in which "you may find monsters of mysterious origin and secret societies abounding with internal tensions—or some combination of both." One title on the list:

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enríquez

I’ve raved about this book in this space before, and I’m going to do it again here. Our Share of Night has plenty going on—including allusions to a host of real-life atrocities that took place in Argentina in the second half of the 20th century. But Enríquez adds another element to that—a cult-like secret society that utilizes people with psychic abilities to give themselves power. The power dynamics both within and surrounding this group propel much of the tension of this novel, which begins with a father and a son on the run from the group that seeks to use both of them for its own ends.

Of the Order—the secretive organization in this novel—Enríquez said in an interview, “They are related to power in general, so whatever the politics are, they are near them. They are transnational, let’s say.” That power allows for a kind of omnipresence, but it also creates a fraught power dynamic—one that makes for gripping reading.

Read about the other entries on the list at Tor.com.

--Marshal Zeringue