The Atlas of Hell: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud is a collection from Nathan Ballingrud. Originally published under the title Wounds, this edition uses the author's preferred title and includes new material. The author takes us on a tour of the outskirts of Hell, starting with a shady book dealer forced by a mob boss to track down a low-level thug who may have come into possession of an infernal atlas and ending on Hell's shore with a group of cannibal diabolists intent on dining with the Devil himself. In between, we travel to a small town to visit the daughter of a recently-deceased alchemist, we are given a behind-the-scenes peek at a ghoulish sea-side carnival, creep through a city that has become a literal hell-mouth, and take a trip to New Orleans to watch a bartender struggle with the emptiness he finds inside himself. Nathan Ballingrud shows us the horrible beauty and the beautiful horror where our everyday lives overlap the border of Hell.
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