Haunting Skies

A child ought to be the person everyone is trying to protect. In the premise of Haunting Skies, she is also the person who could make survival possible, at a horrifying cost. Claire and Derek are fleeing an alien occupation with their daughter Elisa, who is possessed by Satan. Their proposed rescue involves taking her to the alien mothership and turning Hell loose on the invaders.

We picked this for the collision between a parent's instinct and a desperate plan. What happens when the danger inside your family becomes the weapon everyone else wants to use? The alien invasion supplies the scale, but that question gives the premise a human point of pressure. Saving humanity and keeping your child safe may no longer mean the same thing.

Then there is Father Kang, the Italian exorcist willing to broker the bargain. His inclusion brings a knowingly outrageous streak to the setup. Bachini's background in filmmaking and martial arts, and his own description of writing horror with gallows humor, help explain the appeal he is aiming for: supernatural dread with action and a taste for the excessive.

This is a pick for the reader who sees aliens, demons and a reckless exorcist in the same sentence and wants to know how that can possibly work. Expect a premise built around frightening experiments, possession and an apocalyptic gamble. The question worth following into it is who gets to decide what a rescue is allowed to cost.