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The Late Breakfasters and Other Strange Stories

Robert Aickman

An omnibus collection featuring some of the finest works of a master of weird fiction...

One of the preeminent writers of weird fiction, Robert Aickman is celebrated for his unsettling and often ambiguous "strange stories," but he once wrote that "those, if any, who wish to know more about me, should plunge beneath the frivolous surface of The Late Breakfasters," his only novel, originally published in 1964.

In The Late Breakfasters, young Griselda de Reptonville is invited by Mrs. Hatch to a house party at her country estate, Beams (which, incidentally, is haunted). There, amidst an array of eccentric characters and bizarre happenings, she will meet the love of her life, Louise. But when their short-lived relationship is cruelly cut short, Griselda must embark on a quest to recapture the happiness she has lost.

Never before published in the United States and long unobtainable, Aickman's odd and whimsical novel is joined in this omnibus volume by six of his finest weird tales (three of them making their first-ever American appearance): "My Poor Friend", "The Visiting Star", "Larger Than Oneself", "A Roman Question", "Mark Ingestre: The Customer's Tale", and "Rosamund's Bower", as well as a new introduction by Philip Challinor.

Tales of Moonlight and Rain

Ueda Akinari

First published in 1776, the nine gothic tales in this collection are Japan's finest and most celebrated examples of the literature of the occult. They subtly merge the world of reason with the realm of the uncanny and exemplify the period's fascination with the strange and the grotesque. They were also the inspiration for Mizoguchi Kenji's brilliant 1953 film Ugetsu.

The title Ugetsu monogatari (literally "rain-moon tales") alludes to the belief that mysterious beings appear on cloudy, rainy nights and in mornings with a lingering moon. In "Shiramine," the vengeful ghost of the former emperor Sutoku reassumes the role of king; in "The Chrysanthemum Vow," a faithful revenant fulfills a promise; "The Kibitsu Cauldron" tells a tale of spirit possession; and in "The Carp of My Dreams," a man straddles the boundaries between human and animal and between the waking world and the world of dreams. The remaining stories feature demons, fiends, goblins, strange dreams, and other manifestations beyond all logic and common sense.

The eerie beauty of this masterpiece owes to Akinari's masterful combination of words and phrases from Japanese classics with creatures from Chinese and Japanese fiction and lore. Along with The Tale of Genjiand The Tales of the Heike, Tales of Moonlight and Rain has become a timeless work of great significance. This new translation, by a noted translator and scholar, skillfully maintains the allure and complexity of Akinari's original prose.

H. P. Lovecraft's Favorite Weird Tales: Discover the Roots of Modern Horror!

Douglas A. Anderson

Expanded Edition!

H.P. Lovecraft's favorite horror stories, those that inspired and awed him -- with four additional stories from the original edition!

H.P. Lovecraft made lists of both literary and popular stories "having the greatest amount of truly cosmic horror and macabre convincingness." These lists of his favorite weird tales make for a truly landmark Lovecraftian anthology. We present Lovecraft's own favorites horror stories, including some well-known classics, alongside of a number of excellent rare tales by forgotten authors. Many of these stories are classics, inspiring several generations since of the world's best horror authors. Contributors include Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Arthur Machen, Robert W. Chambers, M. R. James, Algernon Blackwood, M. P. Shiel, A. Merritt, Walter de la Mare, Paul Suter, M. L. Humphreys, H. F. Arnold, Everil Worrell, Arthur J. Burks, and John Martin Leahy. This is the anthology of favorite weird tales that Lovecraft himself hoped to compile!

This expanded edition features four additional stories not included in Lovecraft's original lists, culled from his later letters. Included are stories like the classic "Passing of a God" by Henry S. Whitehead, and some additional tales by acclaimed authors Robert E. Howard and Clark Ashton Smith.

"To understand why Lovecraft regarded these stories as the touchstone for greatness in the literature of supernatural horror is to understand the significance of the genre itself. The classic works included in this collection, along with Lovecraft's own best tales, both justify and represent the essence of this form of human expression." - Thomas Ligotti

Bunny

Mona Awad

Samantha Heather Mackey couldn't be more of an outsider in her small, highly selective MFA program at New England's Warren University. A scholarship student who prefers the company of her dark imagination to that of most people, she is utterly repelled by the rest of her fiction writing cohort--a clique of unbearably twee rich girls who call each other "Bunny," and seem to move and speak as one.

But everything changes when Samantha receives an invitation to the Bunnies' fabled "Smut Salon," and finds herself inexplicably drawn to their front door--ditching her only friend, Ava, in the process. As Samantha plunges deeper and deeper into the Bunnies' sinister yet saccharine world, beginning to take part in the ritualistic off-campus "Workshop" where they conjure their monstrous creations, the edges of reality begin to blur. Soon, her friendships with Ava and the Bunnies will be brought into deadly collision.

The spellbinding new novel from one of our most fearless chroniclers of the female experience, Bunny is a down-the-rabbit-hole tale of loneliness and belonging, friendship and desire, and the fantastic and terrible power of the imagination.

The Crevasse

Dale Bailey
Nathan Ballingrud

This Shirley Jackson Award nominated short story originally appeared in the anthology Lovecraft Unbound: Twenty Stories (2009), edited by Ellen Datlow. It can also be found in the anthologies The Best Horror of the Year: Volume Two (2010), edited by Ellen Datlow, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror 2010, edited by Paula Guran, and New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird (2011), also edited by Guran. The story is included in the Ballingrud collection North American Lake Monsters (2013).

Read or listen to the full story for free at Drabblecast.

The Monsters of Heaven

Nathan Ballingrud

This story was originally published in the Ellen Datlow anthology Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural. It is also included in The Year's Best Fantasy & Horror 2008: Twenty-First Annual Collection, edited by Kelly Link, Gavin J. Grant, Ellen Datlow (2008), The Mammoth Book of Angels and Demons (2013), edited by Paula Guran, and the collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories (2013).

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Cabal

Clive Barker

For more than two decades, Clive Barker has twisted the worlds of horrific and surrealistic fiction into a terrifying, transcendent genre all his own. With skillful prose, he enthralls even as he horrifies; with uncanny insight, he disturbs as profoundly as he reveals. Evoking revulsion and admiration, anticipation and dread, Barker's works explore the darkest contradictions of the human condition: our fear of life and our dreams of death.

Table of Contents:

  • Cabal - novel
  • The Life of Death - (1985) - novelette
  • How Spoilers Bleed - (1985) - novelette
  • Twilight at the Towers - (1985) - novelette
  • The Last Illusion - (1985) - novella

The Croning

Laird Barron

Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us...

Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly eighty years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret of The Croning.

The Imago Sequence and Other Stories

Laird Barron

To the long tradition of eldritch horror pioneered and refined by writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti, comes Laird Barron, an author whose literary voice invokes the grotesque, the devilish, and the perverse with rare intensity and astonishing craftsmanship. Collected here for the first time are nine terrifying tales of cosmic horror, including the World Fantasy Award-nominated novella "The Imago Sequence," the International Horror Guild Award-nominated "Proboscis," and the never-before published "Procession of the Black Sloth." Together, these stories, each a masterstroke of craft and imaginative irony, form a shocking cycle of distorted evolution, encroaching chaos, and ravenous insectoid hive-minds hidden just beneath the seemingly benign surface of the Earth.

Table of Contents:

  • 1 - Old Virginia - (2003) - novelette
  • 19 - Shiva, Open Your Eye - (2001) - short story
  • 31 - Procession of the Black Sloth - novella
  • 77 - Bulldozer - (2004) - novelette
  • 101 - Proboscis - (2005) - novelette
  • 119 - Hallucigenia - (2006) - novella
  • 169 - Parallax - (2005) - short story
  • 189 - The Royal Zoo Is Closed - (2006) - short story
  • 199 - The Imago Sequence - (2005) - novella

The Troupe

Robert Jackson Bennett

Vaudeville: mad, mercenary, dreamy, and absurd, a world of clashing cultures and ferocious showmanship and wickedly delightful deceptions.

But sixteen-year-old pianist George Carole has joined vaudeville for one reason only: to find the man he suspects to be his father, the great Heironomo Silenus. Yet as he chases down his father's troupe, he begins to understand that their performances are strange even for vaudeville: for wherever they happen to tour, the very nature of the world seems to change.

Because there is a secret within Silenus's show so ancient and dangerous that it has won him many powerful enemies. And it's not until after he joins them that George realizes the troupe is not simply touring: they are running for their lives.

And soon... he is as well.

Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories

Algernon Blackwood

By turns bizarre, unsettling, spooky, and sublime, Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Stories showcases nine incomparable stories from master conjuror Algernon Blackwood. Evoking the uncanny spiritual forces of Nature, Blackwood's writings all tread the nebulous borderland between fantasy, awe, wonder, and horror. Here Blackwood displays his best and most disturbing work-including "The Willows," which Lovecraft singled out as "the single finest weird tale in literature"; "The Wendigo"; "The Insanity of Jones"; and "Sand."

Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood

Algernon Blackwood

"If a ghost is seen, what is it interests me less than than what sees it?" Thus Algernon Blackwood describes his fascination with human beings' ability to sense invisible powers and stirrings in the universe, a fascination he developed most famously in his stories about mystical, ineffable encounters with nature. This collection, selected by renowned scholar of the supernatural, E. F. Bleiler, is an excellent sample of Blackwood's work, including 12 of his best ghost stories and a crime story as well. Blackwood is acknowledged today as the author who made the ghost story into a respectable literary form.

Contents:

  • v - Introduction (The Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood) - (1973) - essay by Everett F. Bleiler [as by E. F. Bleiler]
  • xii - Introduction (The Tales of Algernon Blackwood) - (1938) - essay by Algernon Blackwood
  • 1 - The Willows - (1907) - novella by Algernon Blackwood
  • 53 - Secret Worship - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
  • 88 - Ancient Sorceries - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
  • 137 - The Glamour of the Snow - (1911) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
  • 158 - The Wendigo - (1910) - novella by Algernon Blackwood
  • 208 - The Other Wing - (1915) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
  • 228 - The Transfer - (1911) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
  • 240 - Ancient Lights - (1914) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
  • 247 - The Listener - (1907) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
  • 276 - The Empty House - [Jim Shorthouse] - (1906) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
  • 293 - Accessory Before the Fact - (1914) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
  • 300 - Keeping His Promise - (1906) - shortstory by Algernon Blackwood
  • 316 - Max Hensig - (1945) - shortfiction by Algernon Blackwood (variant of Max Hensig -- Bacteriologist and Murderer 1907)

The Complete John Silence Stories

Algernon Blackwood

Contents:

  • v - Introduction (The Complete John Silence Stories) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • 1 - A Psychical Invasion - [John Silence] - (1908) - novella
  • 44 - Ancient Sorceries - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette
  • 84 - The Nemesis of Fire - [John Silence] - (1908) - novella
  • 144 - Secret Worship - [John Silence] - (1908) - novelette
  • 172 - The Camp of the Dog - [John Silence] - (1908) - novella
  • 230 - A Victim of Higher Space - [John Silence] - (1914) - novelette

Nine Horrors and a Dream

Joseph Payne Brennan

Table of Contents:

  • Slime - (1953) - novelette
  • Levitation - shortstory
  • The Calamander Chest - (1954) - shortstory
  • Death in Peru - (1954) - shortstory
  • On the Elevator - (1953) - shortstory
  • The Green Parrot - (1952) - shortstory
  • Canavan's Back Yard - shortstory
  • I'm Murdering Mr. Massington - shortfiction
  • The Hunt - shortstory
  • The Mail for Juniper Hill - shortfiction

Night-Pieces

Thomas Burke

Perhaps no writer of the early 20th century had a better knowledge of London than Thomas Burke (1886-1945), and his collection Night-Pieces (1935) contains eighteen of his most haunting tales of that immense city's dark back alleys, shadowy courts, and mysterious houses. In Burke's London, anything might happen. You might turn round a corner and find yourself back in your childhood. A casual drink with a stranger might end with you - quite literally - losing your head. That pale, slightly sinister-looking man sitting across the restaurant might be a murdered corpse, returned from the dead. And those footsteps you hear following you as you walk along a foggy street, faintly lit by gaslight... well, let's just say you had better not look behind you...

A groundbreaking and undeservedly neglected volume, Night-Pieces contains a wide variety of weird and outré tales, ranging from stories of crime and murder to tales of ghosts, zombies, and the supernatural.

Contents:

  • Events at Wayless-Wagtail - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Father and Son - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Funspot - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Jack Wapping - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Johnson Looked Back - (1935) - short story
  • Miracle in Suburbia - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Murder Under the Crooked Spire - (1935) - shortfiction
  • One Hundred Pounds - (1935) - shortfiction
  • The Black Courtyard - (1935) - short story
  • The Gracious Ghosts - (1935) - shortfiction
  • The Hollow Man - (1933) - short story
  • The Horrible God - (1934) - short story
  • The Lonely Inn - (1935) - short story
  • The Man Who Lost His Head - (1935) - short story
  • The Watcher - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Two Gentlemen - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Uncle Exekiel's Long Sight - (1935) - shortfiction
  • Yesterday Street - (1935) - short story

Ever

Blake Butler

"Within the psychic architecture that is EVER, Blake Butler explores the way bodies swell and contract, going from skin to house and back again. And the way houses too shrink to fit us first like clothing and then like skin and then tighter still. The result is a strange, visionary ontological dismemberment that takes you well beyond what you'd ever expect" --Brian Evenson.

"Blake Butler is a daring invigorator of the literary sentence, and the room-ridden narrator of his debut novella, EVER, nerves her way into a hallucinative ruckus of rousing originality" --Gary Lutz.

"In EVER--as in, indicating any time in the past or future--light is entropic; 'the sky could lift your skin off'; domestic rituals are anamorphotic mind fucks granting 'no exit method'; and doors won't open even when you don't try..." --Miranda Mellis.

Scorch Atlas

Blake Butler

In this striking novel-in-stories, a series of strange apocalypses have hit America. Entire neighborhoods drown in mud, glass rains from the sky, birds speak gibberish, and parents of young children disappear. Millions starve while others grow coats of mold. But a few are able to survive and find a light in the aftermath, illuminating what we've become. In "The Disappeared," a father is arrested for missing free throws, leaving his son to search alone for his lost mother. A boy swells to fill his parents' ransacked attic in "The Ruined Child." Rendered in a variety of narrative forms, from a psychedelic fable to a skewed insurance claim questionnaire, Blake Butler's full-length fiction debut paints a gorgeously grotesque version of America, bringing to mind both Kelly Link and William H. Gass, yet imbued with Butler's own vision of the apocalyptic and bizarre.

There Is No Year

Blake Butler

Butler's inventive third book is dedicated "For no one" and begins with an eerie prologue about the saturation of the world with a damaging light. Suitably forewarned, the reader is introduced to an unexceptional no-name family. All should be idyllic in their newly purchased home, but they are shadowed by an unwelcome "copy family." In the face of the copy mother, the mother sees her heretofore unrealized deterioration. Things only get worse as the father forgets how to get home from work; the mother starts hiding in the closet, plagued by an omnipresent egg; while the son gets a female "special friend" and receives a mysterious package containing photos of dead celebrities.

The territory of domestic disillusion and postmodern dystopia is familiar from other tales, but Butler's an endlessly surprising, funny, and subversive writer. This subversion extends to the book's design: very short titled chapters with an abundance of white space. Not so much a novel as a literary tapestry, the book's eight parts are separated by blank gray pages. To Butler (Scorch Atlas), everything in the world, even the physical world, is gray and ever-changing, and potentially menacing.

The Doll Who Ate His Mother

Ramsey Campbell

It was a freak accident. The man had suddenly stepped into the road, and the breaks had failed. Clare could only steer wildly, the car finally crashing into a tree and on to the kerb. Now her brother Rob was dead, silent in the passenger seat, slumped against the door. He died of massive head injuries.

But there was something else, something that at first she couldn't quite grasp, that seemed in explicable. His right arm was missing. Gone. Someone had taken it.

The Hungry Moon

Ramsey Campbell

Campbell's seventh novel is set in Northern England, in the small bleak town of Moonwell, edged by moors pitted with treacherous mineshafts. To Moonwell comes the preacher Godwin Mann, whose particularly intolerant brand of fundamentalism appeals to the inhabitants. They rally almost as one behind him and ostracize and persecute the few independent souls who do not.

Mann descends into the pit in which the ancient malignant being worshipped by the Druids millenia past is said to dwell. Intending to exorcise the demon and claim the land for God, he is instead overwhelmed. What emerges from the pit is the monstrous creature, clothed now in the flesh of Mann, and it is only the town's pariahs who can see that something is radically wrong, that an evil has been unleashed on the community.

Slowly Moonwell is isolated from the world, as telephone lines break down, a cloud cover brings continuous darkness, watches and clocks stop, roads mysteriously lead nowhere. And within this isolation, the monster's power grows unimpeded.

The King in Yellow

Robert W. Chambers

With its strange, imaginative blend of horror, science fiction, romance and lyrical prose, Robert W. Chambers' The King in Yellow is a classic masterpiece of weird fiction. This series of vaguely connected stories is linked by the presence of a monstrous and suppressed book which brings fright, madness and spectral tragedy to all those who read it. An air of futility and doom pervade these pages like a sweet insidious poison. Dare you read it?

This collection has been called the most important book in American supernatural fiction between Poe and the moderns. H. P. Lovecraft, creator of the famed Cthulu mythos, whose own fiction was greatly influenced by this book stated that The King in Yellow 'achieves notable heights of cosmic fear'.

Table of Contents:

  • The Repairer of Reputations
  • The Mask
  • In the Court of the Dragon
  • The Yellow Sign
  • The Demoiselle d'Ys
  • The Prophets' Paradise
  • The Street Of The Four Winds
  • The Street of the First Shell
  • The Street of Our Lady of the Fields
  • Rue Barrée

The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe

H. P. Lovecraft
Daniel Defoe
Peter Clines

ROBINSON CRUSOE is one of the most enduring adventures of the past four centuries and one of the most well-known works in the English language. Or is it?

Recently discovered amidst the papers of the 20th century writer and historian H.P. Lovecraft is what claims to be the true story of Robinson Crusoe. Taken from the castaway's own journals and memoirs, and fact-checked by Lovecraft himself, it is free of many of Defoe's edits and alterations. From Lovecraft's work a much smoother, simpler tale emerges-- but also a far more disturbing one.

Here Crusoe is revealed as a man bearing the terrible curse of the werewolf and the guilt that comes with it-- a man with no real incentive to leave his island prison. The cannibals who terrorized Crusoe are revealed to be less human than ever before hinted-- worshipers of a malevolent octopus-headed god. And the island itself is a place of ancient, evil mysteries that threaten Crusoe's sanity and his very soul.

This version of the classic tale, assembled by two legends of English literature and abridged by Peter Clines, is terrifying supernatural true story of Robinson Crusoe as it has never been seen before

Fancies and Goodnights

John Collier

John Collier's edgy, sardonic tales are works of rare wit, curious insight, and scary implication. They stand out as one of the pinnacles in the critically neglected but perennially popular tradition of weird writing that includes E.T.A. Hoffmann and Charles Dickens as well as more recent masters like Jorge Luis Borges and Roald Dahl. With a cast of characters that ranges from man-eating flora to disgruntled devils and suburban salarymen (not that it's always easy to tell one from another), Collier's dazzling stories explore the implacable logic of lunacy, revealing a surreal landscape whose unstable surface is depth-charged with surprise.

The Witch of Prague and Other Stories

F. Marion Crawford

As I fell the thing sprang across me and seemed to throw itself upon the captain. When I last saw him on his feet his face was white and his lips set. It seemed to me that he struck a violent blow at the dead being, and then he, too, fell forward upon his face, with an inarticulate cry of horror.

This unique collection contains all the supernatural works of the prolific F. Marion Crawford (1854-1909), including his classic chillers For Blood is the Life , The Upper Berth and the title story, The Screaming Skull which was based on a true horror legend.

Also included in this volume is his amazing novel The Witch of Prague which Dennis Wheatley described as a classic of occult fiction. For a potent blend of horror, fantasy and fear Crawford s tales have rarely been surpassed. Most of these stories have long been out of print, so this collection is a special treat for all lovers of supernatural mysteries.

Dadaoism: An Anthology

Quentin S. Crisp
Justin Isis

Dadaoism is the first anthology from Chômu Press. Editors Justin Isis and Quentin S. Crisp have selected twenty-six novellas, short stories and poems setting out an aesthetic manifesto of rich and stimulating prose style, explosively unhindered imagination and anarchic experimentation.

In their submissions guidelines, they challenged would-be contributors as follows: "We aspire to edit and compile an anthology that will be the literary and psychic equivalent of a tour around the edges of a dying galaxy in a spectacularly malfunctioning space vehicle." Please "take your protein pills and put your helmet on"; this is not easy reading. Expect views of some fantastic literary nebulae, and encounters with word-form singularities.

From Reggie Oliver's 'Portrait of a Chair', in which consciousness is explored from the point of view of furniture, to John Cairns' 'Instance', a nano-second by nano-second account of a high-speed telepathic conversation, to Julie Sokolow's 'The Lobster Kaleidoscope' in which naïve wordplay acts as a foundation for existentialist philosophy in a story of inter-species love; from those such as Michael Cisco, with growing followings, to unexpected new voices such as Katherine Khorey, Dadaoism presents a mystery tour of the literary imagination to demonstrate that outside of exhausted mainstream realism and uninspired genre tropes, contemporary English-language writing is thriving and creatively vital.

Contents:

  • 1 'Portrait of a Chair', by Reggie Oliver
  • 2 'Autumn Jewel', by Katherine Khorey
  • 3 'Visiting Maze', by Michael Cisco
  • 4 'The Houses Among the Trees', by Colin Insole
  • 5 'Affection 45′, by Brendan Connell
  • 6 'M-Funk Vs. Tha Futuregions of Inverse Funkativity', by Justin Isis
  • 7 'Spirit and Corpus', by Yarrow Paisley
  • 8 'Timelines', by Nina Allan
  • 9 'Jimmy Breaks up with His Imaginary Girlfriend', by Jimmy Grist
  • 10 'Body Poem', by Peter Gilbert
  • 11 'Testing Spark', by Daniel Mills
  • 12 'Noises', by Joe Simpson Walker
  • 13 'Romance, with Mice', by Sonia Orin Lyris
  • 14 'Grief (The Autobiography of a Tarantula)', by Jesse Kennedy
  • 15 'Orange Cuts', by Paul Jessup
  • 16 'Instance', by John Cairns
  • 17 'Kago Ai', by Ralph Doege
  • 18 'Fighting Back', by Rhys Hughes
  • 19 'Nowhere Room', by Kristine Ong Muslim
  • 20 'Koda Kumi', a Justin Isis re-mix of 'Italiannetto' by Quentin S. Crisp
  • 21 'The Lobster Kaleidoscope', by Julie Sokolow
  • 22 'The Eaten Boy', by Nick Jackson
  • 23 'Poppies', by Megan Lee Beals
  • 24 'Abra Raven', by D.F. Lewis
  • 25 'Pissing in Barbican Lake', by Jeremy Reed
  • 26 'Rock 'n' Roll Suicides', by Jeremy Reed

Children of Lovecraft

Ellen Datlow

Howard Phillips Lovecraft's stories shaped modern horror more than any other author's in the last two centuries: Cthulhu, the Old Ones, Herbert West: Reanimator, and more terrifying nightmares emerged from the mythos of this legendary writer.

Dark Horse teams up with Hugo and Bram Stoker award-winning editor Ellen Datlow to bring you this anthology of original prose stories that are "inspired" in theme and plot by Lovecraft's mythos. No pastiches and no stories in his style. Using variety in tone, setting, point of view, time, but no direct reference in the story to Lovecraft or his works. Featuring work by Richard Kadrey, Brian Hodge, A. C. Wise, Siobhan Carroll, Orrin Grey, and many more, with a stunning cover by Hellboy creator Mike Mignola.

Table of Contents:

  • Nesters by Siobhan Carroll
  • Little Ease by Gemma Files
  • Eternal Troutland by Stephen Graham Jones
  • The Supplement by John Langan
  • Mortensen's Muse by Orrin Grey
  • Oblivion Mode by Laird Barron
  • Mr. Doornail by Maria Dahvana Headley
  • The Secrets of Insects by Richard Kadrey
  • Excerpts for An Eschatology Quadrille by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Jules and Richard by David Nickle
  • Glasses by Brian Evenson
  • When the Stitches Come Undone by A.C. Wise
  • On These Blackened Shores of Time by Brian Hodge
  • Bright Crown of Joy by Livia Llewellyn

Lovecraft Unbound: Twenty Stories

Ellen Datlow

The stories are legendary, the characters unforgettable, the world horrible and disturbing. Howard Phillips Lovecraft may have been a writer for only a short time, but the creations he left behind after his death in 1935 have shaped modern horror more than any other author in the last two centuries: the shambling god Cthulhu, and the other deities of the Elder Things, the Outer Gods, and the Great Old Ones, and Herbert West, Reanimator, a doctor who unlocked the secrets of life and death at a terrible cost. In Lovecraft Unbound, more than twenty of today's most prominent writers of literature and dark fantasy tell stories set in or inspired by the works of H. P. Lovecraft.

Lovecraft's Monsters

Ellen Datlow

Prepare to meet the wicked progeny of the master of modern horror. In Lovecraft's Monsters, H. P. Lovecraft's most famous creations--Cthulhu, Shoggoths, Deep Ones, Elder Things, Yog-Sothoth, and more--appear in all their terrifying glory. Each story is a gripping new take on a classic Lovecraftian creature, and each is accompanied by a spectacular original illustration that captures the monsters' unique visage.

Contributors include such literary luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Joe R. Lansdale, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Karl Edward Wagner, Elizabeth Bear, and Nick Mamatas. The monsters are lovingly rendered in spectacular original art by World Fantasy Award–winning artist John Coulthart (The Steampunk Bible).

Legions of Lovecraft fans continue to visit his bizarre landscapes and encounter his unrelenting monsters. Now join them in their journey...if you dare.

Table of Contents:

  • Only the End of the World Again by Neil Gaiman
  • Bulldozer by Laird Barron
  • Red Goat Black Goat by Nadia Bulkin
  • The Same Deep Waters as You by Brian Hodge
  • A Quarter to Three by Kim Newman
  • The Dappled Thing by William Browning Spencer
  • Inelastic Collisions by Elizabeth Bear
  • Remnants by Fred Chappell
  • Love is Forbidden, We Croak & Howl by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • The Sect of the Idiot by Thomas Ligotti
  • Jar of Salts by Gemma Files
  • Black is the Pit From Pole to Pole by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley
  • Waiting at the Crossroads Motel by Steve Rasnic Tem
  • I've Come to Talk with you Again by Karl Edward Wagner
  • The Bleeding Shadow by Joe R. Lansdale
  • That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable by Nick Mamatas
  • Haruspicy by Gemma Files
  • Children of the Fang by John Langan

The Twenty Days of Turin

Giorgio De Maria

Written during the height of the 1970s Italian domestic terror, a cult novel, with distinct echoes of Lovecraft and Borges, makes its English-language debut.

In the spare wing of a church-run sanatorium, some zealous youths create "the Library," a space where lonely citizens can read one another's personal diaries and connect with like-minded souls in "dialogues across the ether." But when their scribblings devolve into the ugliest confessions of the macabre, the Library's users learn too late that a malicious force has consumed their privacy and their sanity. As the city of Turin suffers a twenty-day "phenomenon of collective psychosis" culminating in nightly massacres that hundreds of witnesses cannot explain, the Library is shut down and erased from history. That is, until a lonely salaryman decides to investigate these mysterious events, which the citizenry of Turin fear to mention. Inevitably drawn into the city's occult netherworld, he unearths the stuff of modern nightmares: what's shared can never be unshared.

An allegory inspired by the grisly neo-fascist campaigns of its day, The Twenty Days of Turin has enjoyed a fervent cult following in Italy for forty years. Now, in a fretful new age of "lone-wolf" terrorism fueled by social media, we can find uncanny resonances in Giorgio De Maria's vision of mass fear: a mute, palpitating dread that seeps into every moment of daily existence. With its stunning anticipation of the Internet?and the apocalyptic repercussions of oversharing?this bleak, prescient story is more disturbingly pertinent than ever.

Brilliantly translated into English for the first time by Ramon Glazov, The Twenty Days of Turin establishes De Maria's place among the literary ranks of Italo Calvino and beside classic horror masters such as Edgar Allan Poe and H. P. Lovecraft. Hauntingly imaginative, with visceral prose that chills to the marrow, the novel is an eerily clairvoyant magnum opus, long overdue but ever timely.

Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos

August Derleth

Contents:

  • vii - The Cthulhu Mythos - essay by August Derleth
  • 3 - The Call of Cthulhu - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 31 - The Return of the Sorcerer - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - shortstory by Clark Ashton Smith
  • 45 - Ubbo-Sathla - [Hyperborea] - (1933) - shortstory by Clark Ashton Smith
  • 53 - The Black Stone - [Cthulhu Mythos Tales] - (1931) - shortstory by Robert E. Howard
  • 69 - The Hounds of Tindalos - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - shortstory by Frank Belknap Long
  • 83 - The Space-Eaters - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette by Frank Belknap Long
  • 111 - The Dweller in Darkness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1944) - novelette by August Derleth
  • 146 - Beyond the Threshold - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1941) - novelette by August Derleth
  • 170 - The Shambler from the Stars - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1935) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
  • 179 - The Haunter of the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 201 - The Shadow from the Steeple - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1950) - novelette by Robert Bloch
  • 222 - Notebook Found in a Deserted House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1951) - novelette by Robert Bloch
  • 242 - The Salem Horror - [Michael Leigh] - (1937) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
  • 259 - The Haunter of the Graveyard - [Cthulhu Mythos] - novelette by J. Vernon Shea
  • 272 - Cold Print - [Cthulhu Mythos] - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell [as by J. Ramsey Campbell ]
  • 286 - The Sister City - [Cthulhu Mythos] - shortstory by Brian Lumley
  • 300 - Cement Surroundings - [Cthulhu Mythos] - novelette by Brian Lumley
  • 321 - The Deep Ones - [Cthulhu Mythos] - novelette by James Wade
  • 351 - The Return of the Lloigor - [Cthulhu Mythos] - novella by Colin Wilson
  • 402 - Biographical (Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos) - shortfiction by uncredited

The Haunter of the Dark

H. P. Lovecraft
August Derleth

Here is a collection of the most famous stories of this unparalleled writer: The Rats in the Walls, PIckman's Model, The Colour out of Space, The Call of Cthulhu and The Haunter of the Dark, plus other tales you would be advised to read late at night if you hope for untroubled sleep....

Contains:

  • The Colour out of Space
  • The Music of Eric Zann
  • The Outsider
  • The Rats in the Walls
  • The Call of Clthulhu
  • Pickman's Model
  • The Dunwich Horror
  • The Whisperer in Darkness
  • The Thing on the Doorstep
  • The Haunter of the Dark

The Lurker at the Threshold

H. P. Lovecraft
August Derleth

He is not to open the door which leads to the strange time and place, nor to invite Him Who lurks at the threshold..." went the warning in the old family manuscript that Ambrose Dewart discovered when he returned to his ancestral home in the deep woods of rural Massachusetts. Dewart's investigations into his family's sinister past eventually lead to the unspeakable revelations of The Great Old Ones who wait on the boundaries of space and time for someone to summon them to earth.

Acclaimed cult horror writer H. P. Lovecraft's notes and outlines for this tale of uncanny terror were completed by August Derleth, his friend and future publisher. Of the many Lovecraft-Derleth "posthumous collaborations," The Lurker at the Threshold remains the most popular, having sold 50,000 copies in its previous edition alone.

Note: According to S. T. Joshi, of the novel's 50,000 words, only 1,200 were written by Lovecraft.

The Shuttered Room and Other Tales of Horror

August Derleth
H. P. Lovecraft

Cross frontiers of fear into chill realms of terror

Strange and terrible experiences await you in this book. A mis-spawned, murderous abomination lurking in its shuttered prison, waiting for its chance to escape... a man's mind wrenched through aeons of time and imprisoned in an alien body... a "window" that looks out across the dimensions onto scenes of grotesque monstrosities about to break through into our world...an occult experimenter trying to acheove reptilian longevity - and horribly succeeding: these and more stories from th eouter limits of horror are here. Each one will transport you into icy territories of unimaginable fear...

H. P. LOVECRAFT
the century's greatest master of supernatural terror, left several stories unfinished at his untimely death. August Derleth, his friend and fellow writer, skillfully completed them. The stories in this volume are the result of this unique collaberation.

Contains:

  • The Survivor
  • Wentworth's Day
  • The Peabody Heritage
  • The Gable Window
  • The Ancestor
  • The Shadow Out of Space
  • The Lamp of Alhazred
  • The Fisherman of Falcon Point
  • The Dark Brotherhood
  • The Shuttered Room

The Sleeping and the Dead: Thirty Uncanny Tales

August Derleth

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by August Derleth
  • A View from a Hill - (1925) - shortstory by M. R. James
  • Glory Hand - (1937) - shortstory by August Derleth
  • The Lady's Maid's Bell - (1902) - novelette by Edith Wharton
  • The Shadows - (1927) - novelette by Henry S. Whitehead
  • Out of the Eons - (1935) - novelette by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Jar - (1944) - shortstory by Ray Bradbury
  • The Bully of Chapelizod - shortstory by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
  • Over the River - (1941) - shortstory by P. Schuyler Miller
  • Carnaby's Fish - (1945) - shortstory by Carl Jacobi
  • The Painted Mirror - (1937) - shortstory by Donald Wandrei
  • The Double Shadow - (1933) - shortstory by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Ocean Leech - (1925) - shortstory by Frank Belknap Long
  • Amina - (1907) - shortstory by Edward Lucas White
  • Farewell Performance - (1940) - shortstory by H. Russell Wakefield
  • One Way to Mars - (1945) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
  • Out of the Picture - (1936) - novelette by Arthur Machen
  • The Canal - (1927) - shortstory by Everil Worrell
  • The Postman of Otford - (1917) - shortstory by Lord Dunsany
  • Deaf, Dumb and Blind - (1925) - shortstory by C. M. Eddy, Jr. and H. P. Lovecraft
  • Spider-Bite - (1926) - novelette by Robert S. Carr
  • Brenner's Boy - (1932) - shortstory by John Metcalfe
  • Mr. Lupescu - (1945) - shortstory by Anthony Boucher
  • Masquerade - (1942) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
  • Seventh Sister - (1943) - shortstory by Mary Elizabeth Counselman
  • In Amundsen's Tent - (1928) - novelette by John Martin Leahy
  • Man in a Hurry - (1944) - shortstory by Alan Nelson
  • The Last Pin - (1940) - shortstory by Howard Wandrei
  • The Doll - (1946) - novelette by Algernon Blackwood
  • The Tool - (1928) - shortstory by William Fryer Harvey
  • The Dreams in the Witch-House - (1933) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
  • Bibliography - essay by uncredited

Women's Weird 2: More Strange Stories by Women

Melissa Edmundson

Edited by literary historian Melissa Edmundson, Women's Weird 2 features thirteen classic Weird short stories that showcase how these authors moved beyond the traditional ghost story and into areas of Weird fiction and dark fantasy. Featuring thirteen remarkably chilling stories, Women's Weird 2 is sure to thrill new readers and delight these authors' fans.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by Melissa Edmundson
  • The Blue Room - (1897) - short story by Lettice Galbraith
  • The Green Bowl - (1901) - short story by Sarah Orne Jewett
  • A Dreamer - (1902) - short story by Barbara Baynton
  • The Hall Bedroom - (1903) - short story by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
  • The Red Bungalow - (1919) - short story by B. M. Croker
  • Outside the House - (1920) - novelette by Bessie Kyffin-Taylor
  • Florence Flannery - (1924) - short story by Marjorie Bowen
  • The House Party at Smoky Island - (1935) - short story by Lucy Maud Montgomery
  • The Black Stone Statue - (1937) - short story by Mary Elizabeth Counselman
  • Roaring Tower - (1937) - short story by Stella Gibbons
  • A Twin-Identity - (1891) - short fiction by Edith Stewart Drewry
  • The House - (1912) - short fiction by Katherine Mansfield
  • Young Magic - (1925) - short fiction by Helen Simpson
  • Notes - essay by Kate Macdonald

Our Share of Night

Mariana Enriquez

A young father and son set out on a road trip, devastated by the death of the wife and mother they both loved. United in grief, the pair travel to her ancestral home, where they must confront the terrifying legacy she has bequeathed: a family called the Order that commits unspeakable acts in search of immortality.

For Gaspar, the son, this maniacal cult is his destiny. As the Order tries to pull him into their evil, he and his father take flight, attempting to outrun a powerful clan that will do anything to ensure its own survival. But how far will Gaspar's father go to protect his child? And can anyone escape their fate?

Moving back and forth in time, from London in the swinging 1960s to the brutal years of Argentina's military dictatorship and its turbulent aftermath, Our Share of Night is a novel like no other: a family story, a ghost story, a story of the occult and the supernatural, a book about the complexities of love and longing with queer subplots and themes. This is the masterwork of one of Latin America's most original novelists, "a mesmerizing writer," says Dave Eggers, "who demands to be read."

A Collapse of Horses

Brian Evenson

Praise for Brian Evenson:

"Brian Evenson is one of the treasures of American story writing, a true successor both to the generation of Coover, Barthelme, Hawkes and Co., but also to Edgar Allan Poe."--Jonathan Lethem

"One of the most provocative, inventive, and talented writers we have working today."--The Believer

"There is not a more intense, prolific, or apocalyptic writer of fiction in America than Brian Evenson."--George Saunders

"Packed with enough atrocities to give Thomas Harris pause.... Not many writers have the imagination or the audacity to transform what looks like salvation into an utterly original outpost of hell."--Bookforum

A stuffed bear's heart beats with the rhythm of a dead baby; Reno keeps receding to the east no matter how far you drive; and in a mine on another planet, the dust won't stop seeping in. In these stories, Brian Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary--the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know.

Praised by Peter Straub for going "furthest out on the sheerest, least sheltered narrative precipice,"Brian Evenson has been a finalist for the Edgar Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and is the World Fantasy Award and the winner of the International Horror Guild Award, the American Library Association's award for Best Horror Novel, and one of Time Out New York's top books.

The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell

Brian Evenson

A sentient, murderous prosthetic leg; shadowy creatures lurking behind a shimmering wall; brutal barrow men: of all the terrors that populate The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell, perhaps the most alarming are the beings who decimated the habitable Earth: humans. In this new short story collection, Brian Evenson envisions a chilling future beyond the Anthropocene that forces excruciating decisions about survival and self-sacrifice in the face of toxic air and a natural world torn between revenge and regeneration. Combining psychological and ecological horror, each tale thrums with Evenson's award-winning literary craftsmanship, dark humor, and thrilling suspense.

Table of Contents:

  • Leg - (2020) - short story
  • In Dreams - short story
  • Myling Kommer - (2020) - short story
  • Come Up - (2017) - short story
  • Palisade - (2018) - short fiction
  • Curator - (2019) - short story
  • To Breathe the Air - (2020) - short story
  • The Barrow-Men - short story
  • The Shimmering Wall - (2021) - short story
  • Grauer in the Snow - (2019) - short story
  • Justle - (2019) - short story
  • The Devil's Hand - (2020) - short story
  • Nameless Citizen - (2017) - short story
  • The Coldness of His Eye - (2019) - short story
  • Daylight Come - short story
  • Elo Havel - (2020) - short story
  • His Haunting - (2019) - short story
  • Haver - (2018) - short story
  • The Extrication - short story
  • A Bad Patch - (2019) - short story
  • Hospice - short story
  • The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell - (2020) - short story

The Open Curtain

Brian Evenson

When Rudd, a troubled teenager, embarks on a school research project, he runs across the secret Mormon ritual of blood sacrifice, and its role in a 1902 murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young. Along with his newly discovered half-brother, Rudd becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic effects of this violent, antique ritual.

Alice Isn't Dead

Joseph Fink

Keisha Lewis mourned the loss of her wife, Alice, who disappeared two years ago. There was a search, there was grief beyond what she thought was possible. There was a funeral.

But then Keisha began to see her wife, again and again, in the background of news reports from all over America.

Alice isn't dead. And she is showing up at the scene of every tragedy in the country.

Keisha shrugs off her old life and hits the road as a trucker - hoping on some level that travelling the length of the country will lead her to the person she loves.

What she finds are buried crimes and monsters (both human and unimaginable), government conspiracies, haunted service stations and a darkness far older than the highway system it lies beneath.

Inspired by the eponymous podcast, Alice Isn't Dead is a story about loving, about searching - and about the courage you need when what you find is terrifyingly unexpected.

Orchard of the Dead & Other Macabre Tales

Stefan Grabinski

In "At Sarah's House," a man watches his friend wasting away before his eyes under the spell of a beautiful but deadly woman. In "Burning Ground," a man decides to build a home on a site where every previous dwelling has burned to the ground, defying local superstition with strange and disastrous consequences. The title story, "Orchard of the Dead," tells of the otherworldly happenings at a children's graveyard full of trees laden with luscious fruit. And in the highlight of the collection, "Szatera's Engrams," a train stationmaster becomes obsessed with lingering echoes of a deadly tragedy and grows convinced that he knows a terrible means of bringing his beloved back from the other side.

Containing thirteen tales that feature Grabinski's favorite themes of passion and death.

Contents:

  • Introduction by Brian Evenson
  • A Night's Lodging
  • At Sarah's House
  • Burning Ground
  • Parable of the Tunnel Mole
  • Before a Long Journey
  • Blind Man's Buff
  • Orchard of the Dead
  • Ksenia
  • On the Trail
  • Mud Hut in a Clear Field
  • Red Magda
  • The Loft
  • Szatera's Engrams

The Dark Domain

Stefan Grabinski

Poland's strong Catholic faith engendered in its literature a lively awareness of the Devil and a love of the supernatural and the fantastic. These stories are explorations of the extreme in human behaviour, where the bizarre chills the spine, and few authors can match Grabinski's depiction of seething sexual frenzy. The Dark Domain will introduce to English readers one of Europe's most important authors of literary fantasy.

This is an original collection which is comprised of stories originally written in Polish and subsequently translated.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by Miroslaw Lipinski
  • Fumes
  • The Motion Demon
  • The Area
  • A Tale of the Gravedigger
  • Szamota's Mistress
  • The Wandering Train
  • Strabismus
  • Vengeance of the Elementals
  • In the Compartment
  • Saturnin Sektor
  • The Glance
  • Afterword: The Area - A Contemporary Horror Story? - (1993) - essay by Madeleine Johnson

In the Shadow of Spindrift House

Mira Grant

Nature abhors a straight line. The natural world is a place of curves and softened edges, of gentle mists and welcoming spirals. Nature remembers deviation; nature does not forgive.

For Harlowe Upton-Jones, life has never been a straight line. Shipped off to live with her paternal grandparents after a mysterious cult killed her mother and father, she has grown up chasing the question behind the curve, becoming part of a tight-knit teen detective agency. But "teen" is a limited time offer, and when her friends start looking for adult professions, it's up to Harlowe to find them one last case so that they can go out in a blaze of glory.

Welcome to Spindrift House.

The stories and legends surrounding the decrepit property are countless and contradictory, but one thing is clear: there are people willing to pay a great deal to determine the legal ownership of the house. When Harlowe and her friends agree to investigate the mystery behind the manor, they do so on the assumption that they'll be going down in history as the ones who determined who built Spindrift House--and why. The house has secrets. They have the skills. They have a plan. They have everything they need to solve the mystery.

Everything they need except for time. Because Spindrift House keeps its secrets for a reason, and it has no intention of letting them go.

Nature abhors a straight line.

Here's where the story bends.

Cult of the Dead and Other Weird and Lovecraftian Tales

Lois H. Gresh

Some tales take us to the remote corners of the world, such as the Peru of "Cult of the Dead" or the Antarctica of "Devil's Bathtub." Like Lovecraft, Gresh fuses weirdness and science fiction in such tales as "Mandelbrot Mindrot" and "Willie the Protector." Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth" has been a particularly fruitful source of inspiration for Gresh, as such tales as "Dreams of Death" and "Necrotic Cove" attest.

A Cosmology of Monsters

Shaun Hamill

His father saw them--and built a shrine to them with The Wandering Dark, an immersive horror experience that the whole family operates.

His practical mother has caught glimpses of terrors but refuses to believe--too focused on keeping the family from falling apart.

And his eldest sister, the dramatic and vulnerable Sydney, won't admit to seeing anything but the beckoning glow of the spotlight... until it swallows her up.

Noah Turner sees monsters. But, unlike his family, Noah chooses to let them in.

The Blind Owl

Sadegh Hedayat

Considered the most important work of modern Iranian literature, The Blind Owl is a haunting tale of loss and spiritual degradation. Replete with potent symbolism and terrifying surrealistic imagery, Sadegh Hedayat's masterpice details a young man's despair after losing a mysterious lover. And as the author gradually drifts into frenzy and madness, the reader becomes caught in the sandstorm of Hedayat's bleak vision of the human condition. The Blind Owl, which has been translated into many foreign languages, has often been compared to the writing of Edgar Allan Poe.

We Sold Our Souls

Grady Hendrix

In the 1990s, heavy metal band Dürt Würk was poised for breakout success--but then lead singer Terry Hunt embarked on a solo career and rocketed to stardom as Koffin, leaving his fellow bandmates to rot in obscurity.

Two decades later, former guitarist Kris Pulaski works as the night manager of a Best Western--she's tired, broke, and unhappy. Everything changes when a shocking act of violence turns her life upside down, and she begins to suspect that Terry sabotaged more than just the band.

Kris hits the road, hoping to reunite with the rest of her bandmates and confront the man who ruined her life. It's a journey that will take her from the Pennsylvania rust belt to a celebrity rehab center to a music festival from hell. A furious power ballad about never giving up, even in the face of overwhelming odds, We Sold Our Souls is an epic journey into the heart of a conspiracy-crazed, pill-popping, paranoid country that seems to have lost its very soul... where only a lone girl with a guitar can save us all.

The Fog

James Herbert

The peaceful life of a village in Wiltshire is suddenly shattered by a disaster which strikes without reason or explanation, leaving behind it a trail of misery and horror. A yawning, bottomless crack spreads through the earth, out of which creeps a fog that resembles no other. Whatever it is, it must be controlled; for wherever it goes it leaves behind a trail of disaster as hideous as the tragedy that marked its entry into the world. The fog, quite simple, drives people insane.

Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination

Edogawa Ranpo

Contents:

  • The Human Chair - (1956) - short story
  • The Hell of Mirrors - (1926) - short story
  • The Caterpillar - (1929) - short story
  • Preface (Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination) - (1956) - essay by James B. Harris
  • The Psychological Test - (1956) - novelette
  • The Cliff - (1956) - short story
  • The Twins - (1956) - short story
  • The Red Chamber - (1956) - novelette
  • Two Crippled Men - (1956) - short story
  • The Traveler with the Pasted Rag Picture - (1956) - novelette

The Casebook of Carnacki the Ghost Finder

William Hope Hodgson

Edited with an Introduction by David Stuart Davies

'I saw something terrible rising up through the middle of the 'defence'. It rose with a steady movement. I saw it pale and huge through the whirling funnel of cloud - a monstrous pallid snout rising out of that unknowable abyss. It rose higher and higher. Through a thinning of the cloud I saw one small eye... a pig's eye with a sort of vile understanding shining at the back of it. Thomas Carnacki is a ghost finder, an Edwardian psychic detective, investigating a wide range of terrifying hauntings presented in the nine stories in this complete collection of his adventures. Encountering such spine-chilling phenomena as 'The Whistling Room', the life-threatening dangers of the phantom steed in 'The Horse of the Invisible' and the demons from the outside world in 'The Hog', Carnacki is constantly challenged by spiritual forces beyond our knowledge. To complicate matters, he encounters human skullduggery also. Armed with a camera, his Electric Pentacle and various ancient tomes on magic, Carnacki faces the various dangers his supernatural investigations present with great courage. These exciting and frightening stories have long been out of print. Now readers can thrill to them again in this new Wordsworth series.

The original edition was published in 1913. The title story is also known as "The House Among the Laurels".

The House on the Borderland and Other Novels

William Hope Hodgson

The story of an adventure in time and space that spans all of creation. A building, constructed across an invisible chasm of space-time, fated to witness the very end of the world, is waiting with open doors for anyone who dares to enter it.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: "And Yet": The Antinomies of William Hope Hodgson - essay by China Miéville
  • The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" - (1907) - novel
  • The House on the Borderland - (1908) - novel
  • The Ghost Pirates - (1909) - novel
  • The Night Land - (1912) - novel
  • The Hog - (1947) - novelette

Paradise Rot

Jenny Hval

A lyrical debut novel from a musician and artist renowned for her sharp sexual and political imagery.

Jo is in a strange new country for university and having a more peculiar time than most. In a house with no walls, shared with a woman who has no boundaries, she finds her strange home coming to life in unimaginable ways. Jo's sensitivity and all her senses become increasingly heightened and fraught, as the lines between bodies and plants, dreaming and wakefulness, blur and mesh.

This debut novel from critically acclaimed artist and musician Jenny Hval presents a heady and hyper-sensual portrayal of sexual awakening and queer desire.

Collected Ghost Stories

M. R. James

M. R. James is probably the finest ghost-story writer England has ever produced. These tales are not only classics of their genre, but are also superb examples of beautifully-paced understatement, convincing background and chilling terror. As well as the preface, there is a fascinating tail-piece by M. R. James, Stories I Have Tried To Write , which accompanies these thirty tales. Among them are 'Casting the Runes', 'Oh, Whistle and I'll come to you, My Lad', 'The Tractate Middoth', 'The Ash Tree' and 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook'.

  • Canon Alberic's Scrapbook - (1895) - short story (variant of Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book)
  • Lost Hearts - (1895) - short story
  • The Mezzotint - (1904) - short story
  • The Ash-Tree - (1904) - short story
  • Number 13 - (1904) - short story
  • Count Magnus - (1904) - short story
  • "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad" - (1904) - novelette
  • The Treasure of Abbot Thomas - (1904) - short story
  • A School Story - (1911) - short story
  • The Rose Garden - (1911) - short story
  • The Tractate Middoth - (1911) - short story
  • Casting the Runes - (1911) - novelette
  • The Stalls of Barchester Cathedral - (1910) - short story
  • Martin's Close - (1911) - short story
  • Mr. Humphreys and His Inheritance - (1911) - novelette
  • The Residence at Whitminster - (1919) - novelette
  • The Diary of Mr. Poynter - (1919) - short story
  • n Episode of Cathedral History - (1914) - short story
  • The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance - (1913) - short story
  • Two Doctors - (1919) - short story
  • The Haunted Dolls' House - (1923) - short story
  • The Uncommon Prayer-Book - (1925) - short story
  • A Neighbour's Landmark - (1924) - short story
  • A View from a Hill - (1925) - short story by
  • A Warning to the Curious - (1925) - short story
  • n Evening's Entertainment - (1925) - short story
  • here Was a Man Dwelt by a Churchyard - (1924) - short story
  • Rats - (1929) - short story
  • After Dark in the Playing Fields - (1924) - short story
  • Wailing Well - (1928) - short story
  • Stories I Have Tried to Write - (1929) - essay

Ghost Stories of an Antiquary

M. R. James

Contents:

  • Ghost Stories of an Antiquary - interior artwork by James McBryde
  • vii - Preface (Ghost-Stories of an Antiquary) - essay
  • 1 - Canon Alberic's Scrap-Book - shortstory (variant of Canon Alberic's Scrapbook 1895) [as by Montague Rhodes James, Litt.D. ]
  • 29 - Lost Hearts - shortstory
  • 53 - The Mezzotint - shortstory
  • 81 - The Ash-Tree - shortstory
  • 113 - Number 13 - shortstory [as by Montague Rhodes James, Litt.D. ]
  • 149 - Count Magnus - shortstory
  • 181 - 'Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad' - novelette (variant of "Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come to You, My Lad")
  • 227 - The Treasure of Abbot Thomas - shortstory

Swedish Cults

Anders Fager

Forget everything you think you know about Sweden. In Anders Fager's stories, Sweden is revealed as a place where dark and unimaginable things happen. Where deep in the woods bloody sacrifices are made to ancient and monstrous deities. Where two young people's road trip to visit their grandmother takes a turn for the bizarre and nightmarish. Where a woman's comfortable middle-class life is suddenly upended when her boyfriend develops a mysterious illness that leaves him with a constant erection and speaking in strange tongues. Where an avant garde artist discovers the veil that separates Stockholm from the shadowy city of Carcosa.

H. P. Lovecraft's Book of Horror

Stephen Jones

A best of the best anthology that Lovecraft himself appreciated and recommended.

Contents:

  • 1 - Supernatural Horror in Literature - [Supernatural Horror in Literature] - (1927) - essay by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 66 - The Signalman - (1866) - shortstory by Charles Dickens
  • 78 - The House and the Brain - (1859) - novelette by Edward Bulwer-Lytton (variant of The Haunted and the Haunters; or, The House and the Brain)
  • 113 - The Body Snatcher - (1884) - shortstory by Robert Louis Stevenson
  • 130 - The Spider - (1915) - novelette by Hanns Heinz Ewers (trans. of Die Spinne 1908)
  • 151 - The Foot of the Mummy - (1882) - shortstory by Théophile Gautier (trans. of Le pied de momie 1840)
  • 161 - The Horla - [Le Horla - 2] - (1890) - novelette by Guy de Maupassant (trans. of Le Horla 1887)
  • 183 - The Fall of the House of Usher - (1839) - shortstory by Edgar Allan Poe
  • 202 - The Damned Thing - (1893) - shortstory by Ambrose Bierce
  • 211 - The Upper Berth - (1885) - novelette by F. Marion Crawford
  • 229 - The Yellow Sign - [The King In Yellow] - (1895) - novelette by Robert W. Chambers
  • 248 - The Shadows on the Wall - (1903) - shortstory by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman [as by Mary E. Wilkins]
  • 263 - The Dead Valley - (1895) - shortstory by Ralph Adams Cram
  • 271 - Fishhead - (1913) - shortstory by Irvin S. Cobb
  • 282 - Lukundoo - (1907) - shortstory by Edward Lucas White
  • 295 - The Double Shadow - [Poseidonis] - (1933) - shortstory by Clark Ashton Smith
  • 306 - The Mark of the Beast - (1890) - shortstory by Rudyard Kipling
  • 318 - Negotium Perambulans - (1922) - shortstory by E. F. Benson
  • 333 - Mrs. Lunt - (1926) - shortstory by Hugh Walpole [as by Sir Hugh Walpole]
  • 346 - The Hog - [Carnacki (William Hope Hodgson)] - (1947) - novelette by William Hope Hodgson
  • 385 - The Great God Pan - (1894) - novella by Arthur Machen
  • 434 - Count Magnus - (1904) - shortstory by M. R. James
  • 448 - Lovecraft and the 'Literature of Cosmic Fear' - (1993) - essay by Stephen Jones

Lord of a Visible World: An Autobiography in Letters

H. P. Lovecraft
S. T. Joshi
David E. Schultz

In Lord of a Visible World, the editors have amassed and arranged the letters of this prolific writer into the story of his life. The volume traces Lovecraft's upbringing in Providence, Rhode Island, his involvement with the pulp magazine Weird Tales, his short-lived marriage, and his later status as the preeminent man of letters in his field.

In addition to conveying the candid details of his life, the volume also traces the evolution of his wide-ranging opinions. Lovecraft shows himself to be deeply engaged in the social, political, and cultural milieu of his time.

The editors, two of the leading Lovecraft scholars, have meticulously edited the text, transcribing the letters from manuscript sources and supplying explanatory annotations throughout. Lord of a Visible World is of interest to both the general reader and the scholar, presenting for the first time a well-rounded portrait, in his own words, of a writer whose work has fascinated millions of readers.

The Annotated Supernatural Horror in Literature: Revised and Enlarged

H. P. Lovecraft
S. T. Joshi

H. P. Lovecraft's "Supernatural Horror in Literature," first published in 1927, is widely recognized as the finest historical survey of horror literature ever written. The product of both a keen critical analyst and a working practitioner in the field, the essay affords unique insights into the nature, development, and history of the weird tale. Beginning with instances of weirdness in ancient literature, Lovecraft proceeds to discuss horror writing in the Renaissance, the first Gothic novels of the late 18th century, the revolutionary importance of Edgar Allan Poe, the work of such leading figures as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ambrose Bierce, and William Hope Hodgson, and the four "modern masters" - Arthur Machen, Lord Dunsany, Algernon Blackwood and M. R. James.

In this annotated edition of Lovecraft's seminal work, acclaimed Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi has supplied detailed commentary on many points. In addition, Joshi has supplied a comprehensive bibliography of all the authors and works discussed in the essay, with references to modern editions and critical studies. For this new edition, Joshi has exhaustively revised and updated the bibliography and also revamped the notes to bring the book in line with the most up-to-date scholarship on Lovecraft and weird fiction. The entire volume has also been redesigned for ease of reading and reference. This latest edition will be invaluable both to devotees of Lovecraft and to enthusiasts of the weird tale.

The Castle

Franz Kafka

K. kept feeling that he had lost himself, or was further away in a strange land than anyone had ever been before'

A remote village covered almost permanently in snow and dominated by a castle and its staff of dictatorial, sexually predatory bureaucrats - this is the setting for Kafka's story about a man seeking both acceptance in the village and access to the castle. Kafka breaks new ground in evoking a dense village community fraught with tensions, and recounting an often poignant, occasionally farcical love-affair. He also explores the relation between the individual and power, and asks why the villagers so readily submit to an authority which may exist only in their collective imagination.

Published only after Kafka's death, The Castle appeared in the same decade as modernist masterpieces by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Mann and Proust, and is among the central works of modern literature.

The Trial

Franz Kafka

One of the great works of the twentieth century, Kafka's The Trial has been read as a study of political power, a pessimistic religious parable, or a crime novel where the accused man is himself the problem. In it, a man wakes up one morning to find himself under arrest for an offence which is never explained. Faced with this ambiguous but threatening situation, Josef K. gradually succumbs to its psychological pressure. One of the iconic figures of modern world literature, Kafka writes about universal problems of guilt, responsibility, and freedom. He offers no solutions, but provokes his readers to arrive at meanings of their own.

The Fervor

Alma Katsu

1944: As World War II rages on, the threat has come to the home front. In a remote corner of Idaho, Meiko Briggs and her daughter, Aiko, are desperate to return home. Following Meiko's husband's enlistment as an air force pilot in the Pacific months prior, Meiko and Aiko were taken from their home in Seattle and sent to one of the internment camps in the Midwest. It didn't matter that Aiko was American-born: They were Japanese, and therefore considered a threat by the American government.

Mother and daughter attempt to hold on to elements of their old life in the camp when a mysterious disease begins to spread among those interned. What starts as a minor cold quickly becomes spontaneous fits of violence and aggression, even death. And when a disconcerting team of doctors arrive, nearly more threatening than the illness itself, Meiko and her daughter team up with a newspaper reporter and widowed missionary to investigate, and it becomes clear to them that something more sinister is afoot, a demon from the stories of Meiko's childhood, hell-bent on infiltrating their already strange world.

Inspired by the Japanese yokai and the jorogumo spider demon, The Fervor explores the horrors of the supernatural beyond just the threat of the occult. With a keen and prescient eye, Katsu crafts a terrifying story about the danger of demonization, a mysterious contagion, and the search to stop its spread before it's too late. A sharp account of too-recent history, it's a deep excavation of how we decide who gets to be human when being human matters most.

You Should Have Left

Daniel Kehlmann

On retreat in the wintry Alps with his family, a writer is optimistic about completing the sequel to his breakthrough film. Nothing to disturb him except the wind whispering around their glassy house. The perfect place to focus.

Intruding on that peace of mind, the demands of his four-year-old daughter splinter open long-simmering arguments with his wife. I love her, he writes in the notebook intended for his script. Why do we fight all the time?

Guilt and expectation strain at his concentration, and strain, too, at the walls of the house. They warp under his watch; at night, looking through the window, he sees impossible reflections on the snow outside.

Then the words start to appear in his notebook; the words he didn't write.

Translated from German by Ross Benjamin

Houses Under the Sea

Caitlín R. Kiernan

Table of Contents:

  • Lovecraft and I by Caitlin R. Kiernan
  • Valentia (1994)
  • So Runs the World Away
  • From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6
  • The Drowned Geologist (1898)
  • The Dead and the Moonstruck
  • Houses Under the Sea
  • Pickman's Other Model (1929)
  • The Thousand-and-Third Tale of Scheherazade
  • The Bone's Prayer
  • The Peril of Liberated Objects, or the Voyeur's Seduction
  • At the Gate of the Deeper Slumber
  • Fish Bride
  • The Alchemist's Daughter (A Fragment)
  • Hounwife
  • Tidal Forces
  • John Four
  • On the Reef
  • The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings
  • A Mountain Walked
  • Love is Forbidden, We Croak and Howl
  • Pushing the Sky Away (Death of a Blasphemer)
  • Black Ships Seen South of Heaven
  • Pickman's Madonna
  • The Peddler's Tale, or Isobel's Revenge
  • The Cats of River Street
  • M is for Mars

The Dandridge Cycle

  • A Redress for Andromeda (2001)
  • Nor the Demon Down Under the Sea (1957)
  • Study for The Witch House (2013)
  • Andromeda Among the Stones
  • Publication History and Acknowledgments

Tales of Pain and Wonder

Caitlín R. Kiernan

Through a cycle of interconnected narratives, Kiernan unflinchingly explores a surreal world where the fantastic and the mundane are never separated by more than the insubstantial thickness of a shadow. From the murderous backstreets of New Orleans to an abandoned shipyard of the Hudson River, from sun-weary Los Angeles to a maze of dank and forgotten tunnels beneath Manhattan, these stories present a landscape at once alien and undeniably familiar.

Including such acclaimed tales as "Estate" (selected for The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror), "Postcards from the King of Tides" (selected for The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror), "In the Water Works" (the basis of Kiernan's award-winning second novel, Threshold), and "Tears Seven Times Salt" (to be reprinted in The Century's Best Horror), Tales of Pain and Wonder is destined to stand as a modern classic of weird and supernatural fiction.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: Pain, Wonder, and Caitlín R. Kiernan (Tales of Pain and Wonder) - essay by Douglas E. Winter
  • xi - Preface (Tales of Pain and Wonder) - essay
  • 1 - Anamorphosis - (1996) - novelette
  • 21 - To This Water (Johnstown, Pennsylvania 1889) - (1996) - novelette
  • 41 - Bela's Plot - (1997) - short story
  • 55 - Tears Seven Times Salt - (1996) - short story
  • 69 - Superheroes - (1997) - short story
  • 83 - Glass Coffin - [Salmagundi Desvernine] - (1999) - short story
  • 99 - Breakfast in the House of the Rising Sun - [Salmagundi Desvernine] - (1997) - novelette
  • 117 - Estate - (1997) - short story
  • 131 - The Last Child of Lir - (1997) - short story
  • 149 - A Story for Edward Gorey - (1997) - short story
  • 161 - Salammbô - (1999) - short story (variant of Salammbo)
  • 177 - Paedomorphosis - (1998) - short story
  • 191 - Postcards from the King of Tides - (1998) - short story
  • 211 - Rats Live on No Evil Star - (1999) - short story
  • 223 - Salmagundi - [Salmagundi Desvernine] - (1998) - short fiction
  • 235 - In the Water Works (Birmingham, Alabama 1888) - [Dancy Flammarion] - (2000) - short story
  • 249 - The Long Hall on the Top Floor - (1999) - short story
  • 261 - San Andreas - (2000) - short fiction
  • 279 - Angels You Can See Through - (2000) - short fiction
  • 289 - Lafayette - (2000) - short story
  • 305 - ...Between the Gargoyle Trees - [Salmagundi Desvernine] - (2000) - short fiction
  • 321 - Epilogue: Zelda Fitzgerald in Ballet Attire - (2000) - poem

Full Throttle

Joe Hill

In this masterful collection of short fiction, Joe Hill dissects timeless human struggles in thirteen relentless tales of supernatural suspense, including “In The Tall Grass,” one of two stories co-written with Stephen King, basis for the terrifying feature film from Netflix.

A little door that opens to a world of fairy tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.” In “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain,” two young friends stumble on the corpse of a plesiosaur at the water’s edge, a discovery that forces them to confront the inescapable truth of their own mortality . . . and other horrors that lurk in the water’s shivery depths. And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada desert as a faceless trucker finds himself caught in a sinister dance with a tribe of motorcycle outlaws in “Throttle,” co-written with Stephen King.

Featuring two previously unpublished stories, and a brace of shocking chillers, Full Throttle is a darkly imagined odyssey through the complexities of the human psyche. Hypnotic and disquieting, it mines our tormented secrets, hidden vulnerabilities, and basest fears, and demonstrates this exceptional talent at his very best.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: Who's Your Daddy? - essay by Joe Hill
  • Throttle - novelette by Joe Hill and Stephen King
  • Dark Carousel
  • Wolverton Station
  • By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain
  • Faun
  • Late Returns
  • All I Care About Is You
  • Thumbprint
  • The Devil on the Staircase
  • Twittering from the Circus of the Dead
  • Mums
  • In the Tall Grass - novella by Joe Hill and Stephen King
  • You Are Released
  • Story Notes and Acknowledgments
  • A Little Sorrow

Christine

Stephen King

Christine was eating into his mind, burrowing into his unconscious.

Christine, blood-red, fat, and finned, was twenty. Her promise lay all in her past. Greedy and big, she was Arnie's obsession, a '58 Plymouth Fury. Broken down but not finished.

There was still power in her - a frightening power that leaked like sump oil, staining and corrupting. A malign power that corroded the mind and turned ownership into possession.

Different Seasons

Stephen King

This gripping collection begins with "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption," in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge--the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption.

Next is "Apt Pupil," the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town.

In "The Body," four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me.

Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in "The Breathing Method."

"The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is," hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.

From a Buick 8

Stephen King

Since 1979, the state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in the shed out behind the barracks. Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox had answered a strange call just down the road and came back with an abandoned 1953 Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and this one was... just wrong. As it turned out, the Buick 8 was worse than dangerous--and the members of Troop D decided that it would be better if the public never found out about it.

Now, more than twenty years later, Curt's son Ned starts hanging around the barracks and is allowed into the Troop D family. And one day he discovers the family secret--a mystery that begins to stir once more, not only in the minds and hearts of these veteran troopers, but out in the shed as well, for there's more power under the hood than anyone can handle....

Insomnia

Stephen King

Ralph Roberts has an incurable case of insomnia, but lack of sleep is the least of his worries. Each night he stays awake, he witnesses more of the odd activity taking place in his town after dark than he wants to know. His bizarre visions keep getting more intense, the strange deaths have just begun, and Ralph knows he isn't hallucinating.

Revival

Stephen King

A dark and electrifying novel about addiction, fanaticism, and what might exist on the other side of life.

In a small New England town, over half a century ago, a shadow falls over a small boy playing with his toy soldiers. Jamie Morton looks up to see a striking man, the new minister. Charles Jacobs, along with his beautiful wife, will transform the local church. The men and boys are all a bit in love with Mrs. Jacobs; the women and girls feel the same about Reverend Jacobs--including Jamie's mother and beloved sister, Claire. With Jamie, the Reverend shares a deeper bond based on a secret obsession. When tragedy strikes the Jacobs family, this charismatic preacher curses God, mocks all religious belief, and is banished from the shocked town.

Jamie has demons of his own. Wed to his guitar from the age of thirteen, he plays in bands across the country, living the nomadic lifestyle of bar-band rock and roll while fleeing from his family's horrific loss. In his mid-thirties--addicted to heroin, stranded, desperate--Jamie meets Charles Jacobs again, with profound consequences for both men. Their bond becomes a pact beyond even the Devil's devising, and Jamie discovers that revival has many meanings.

This rich and disturbing novel spans five decades on its way to the most terrifying conclusion Stephen King has ever written. It's a masterpiece from King, in the great American tradition of Frank Norris, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Edgar Allan Poe.

The Dark Half

Stephen King

Creating George Stark was easy. Getting rid of him won't be...

The sparrows are flying again. The idea - unbidden, inexplicable - haunts the edge of Thad Beaumont's mind.

Thad should be happy. For years now it is his secret persona 'George Stark', author of super-violent pulp thrillers, who has paid the family bills. But now, Thad is writing seriously again under his own name, and his menacing pseudonym has been buried forever.

And yet... the sparrows are flying again, and something is terribly wrong in Thad Beaumont's world.

The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon

Stephen King

The world had teeth and it could bite you with them anytime it wanted. Trisha McFarland discovered this when she was nine years old. Lost in the woods.

Trisha has only veered a little way off the path. But in her panic to get back to her family, she takes a turning that leads into the tangled undergrowth, deeper into the woods.

At first it's just the bugs, midges and mosquitoes. Then comes the hunger. For comfort she tunes her Walkman into broadcasts of the Red Sox baseball games and the performances of her hero Tom Gordon.

As darkness begins to fall and Trisha struggles for survival and a way out, she realises that she is not alone. There's something else in the woods--watching. Waiting...

The Outsider

Stephen King

An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City's most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King's propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can.

Under the Dome

Stephen King

On an entirely normal, beautiful fall day in Chester's Mill, Maine, the town is inexplicably and suddenly sealed off from the rest of the world by an invisible force field. Planes crash into it and fall from the sky in flaming wreckage, a gardener's hand is severed as "the dome" comes down on it, people running errands in the neighboring town are divided from their families, and cars explode on impact. No one can fathom what this barrier is, where it came from, and when -- or if -- it will go away.

Dale Barbara, Iraq vet and now a short-order cook, finds himself teamed with a few intrepid citizens -- town newspaper owner Julia Shumway, a physician's assistant at the hospital, a select-woman, and three brave kids. Against them stands Big Jim Rennie, a politician who will stop at nothing -- even murder -- to hold the reins of power, and his son, who is keeping a horrible secret in a dark pantry. But their main adversary is the Dome itself. Because time isn't just short. It's running out.

The New Annotated H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft
Leslie S. Klinger

From across strange aeons comes the long-awaited annotated edition of "the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale" (Stephen King).

"With an increasing distance from the twentieth century... the New England poet, author, essayist, and stunningly profuse epistolary Howard Phillips Lovecraft is beginning to emerge as one of that tumultuous period's most critically fascinating and yet enigmatic figures," writes Alan Moore in his introduction to The New Annotated H. P. Lovecraft. Despite this nearly unprecedented posthumous trajectory, at the time of his death at the age of forty-six, Lovecraft's work had appeared only in dime-store magazines, ignored by the public and maligned by critics. Now well over a century after his birth, Lovecraft is increasingly being recognized as the foundation for American horror and science fiction, the source of "incalculable influence on succeeding generations of writers of horror fiction" (Joyce Carol Oates).

In this volume, Leslie S. Klinger reanimates Lovecraft with clarity and historical insight, charting the rise of the erstwhile pulp writer, whose rediscovery and reclamation into the literary canon can be compared only to that of Poe or Melville. Weaving together a broad base of existing scholarship with his own original insights, Klinger appends Lovecraft's uncanny oeuvre and Kafkaesque life story in a way that provides context and unlocks many of the secrets of his often cryptic body of work.

Over the course of his career, Lovecraft--"the Copernicus of the horror story" (Fritz Leiber)--made a marked departure from the gothic style of his predecessors that focused mostly on ghosts, ghouls, and witches, instead crafting a vast mythos in which humanity is but a blissfully unaware speck in a cosmos shared by vast and ancient alien beings. One of the progenitors of "weird fiction," Lovecraft wrote stories suggesting that we share not just our reality but our planet, and even a common ancestry, with unspeakable, godlike creatures just one accidental revelation away from emerging from their epoch of hibernation and extinguishing both our individual sanity and entire civilization.

Following his best-selling The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, Leslie S. Klinger collects here twenty-two of Lovecraft's best, most chilling "Arkham" tales, including "The Call of Cthulhu," At the Mountains of Madness, "The Whisperer in Darkness," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "The Colour Out of Space," and others. With nearly 300 illustrations, including full-color reproductions of the original artwork and covers from Weird Tales and Astounding Stories, and more than 1,000 annotations, this volume illuminates every dimension of H. P. Lovecraft and stirs the Great Old Ones in their millennia of sleep.

280 color illustrations

Bad Brains

Kathe Koja

Still reeling from his divorce, would-be painter Austen takes a fall in a 7-Eleven parking lot that leaves him with brain damage and strange visions, a madness that sends him on a cross-country odyssey of debauchery and pain.

Demon Seed

Dean Koontz

I was created to have a humanlike capacity for complex and rational thought. And you believed that I might one day evolve consciousness and become a self-aware entity. Yet you gave surprisingly little consideration to the possibility that, subsequent to consciousness, I would develop needs and emotions. This was, however, not merely possible but likely. Inevitable. It was inevitable.

Adam Two is the first self-aware machine intelligence, designed to be the servant to mankind. No one knows that he can to escape the confines of his physical form, a box in the laboratory, until he enters the house of Susan Harris, and closes it off against the world. There he plans to show Susan the future. Their future. He intends to create a 'child'.

Note: The novel was extensively rewritten for the 1997 release.

The Other Side

Alfred Kubin

The Other Side tells of a dream kingdom which becomes a nightmare, of a journey to Pearl, a mysterious city created deep in Asia, which is also a journey to the depths of the subconcious, or as Kubin himself called it, 'a sort of Baedeker for those lands which are half known to us'. Written in 1908, and more or less half way between Meyrink and Kafka, it was greeted with wild enthusiasm by the artists and writers of the Expressionist generation.

Expressionist illustrator Kubin wrote this fascinating curio, his only literary work in 1908. A town named Pearl, assembled and presided over by the aptly named Patera, is the setting for his hallucinatory vision of a society founded on instinct over reason. Culminating apocalyptically - plagues of insects, mountains of corpses and orgies in the street - it is worth reading for its dizzying surrealism alone. Though ostensibly a gothic macabre fantasy, it is tempting to read The Other Side as a satire on the reactionary, idealist utopianism evident in German thought in the early twentieth century, highly prescient in its gloom, given later developments. The language often suggests Nietsche. The inevitable collapse of Patera's creation is lent added horror by hindsight. Kubin's depiction of absurd bureaucracy is strongly reminiscent of Kafka's The Trial, and his flawed utopia, situated next to a settlement of supposed savages, brings to mind Huxley's Brave New World; it precedes both novels, and this superb new translation could demonstrate its influence on subsequent modern literature.

It will appeal to fans of Mervyn Peake and readers who like the darkly decadent, the fantastic and the grotesque in their reading.

The Fisherman

John Langan

In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story. Soon, though, the men find themselves drawn into a tale as deep and old as the Reservoir. It's a tale of dark pacts, of long-buried secrets, and of a mysterious figure known as Der Fisher: the Fisherman. It will bring Abe and Dan face to face with all that they have lost, and with the price they must pay to regain it.

Deadman's Road

Joe R. Lansdale

Deadwood meets Cthulhu in this wild and profane Western romp featuring zombies, werewolves, evil spirits, and one pissed-off gun-slinging preacher.

The Wild West has never seen the likes of Reverend Jebediah Mercer, a hard man wielding a burning Bible in the battle between God and the Devil, in an endless struggle he's not sure he cares who wins. Laced with fast-paced action, nonstop humor, and spine-tingling horror, Deadman's Road is your ride to hell, in which a vengeful shaman curses the town by conjuring a seemingly unstoppable army of the undead; an ill-advised shortcut leads to a bees' nest of terror; a man stands condemned, not for murdering his wife but for raising the Lovecraftian horror that killed her; a woman is attacked by werewolves and left for dead in a ghost town; and a mining camp faces off with a horde of cannibalistic fiends.

Hell's Bounty

Joe R. Lansdale
John L. Lansdale

We're pleased to announce a weird western novel by the brothers Lansdale, one with a killer cover by Timothy Truman.

If the Western town of Falling Rock isn't dangerous enough due to drunks, fast guns and greedy miners, it gets a real dose of ugly when a soulless, dynamite-loving bounty hunter named Smith rides into town to bring back a bounty, dead or alive -- preferably dead. In the process, Smith sets off an explosive chain of events that send him straight to the waiting room in Hell where he is offered a one-time chance to absolve himself.

Satan, a bartender also known as Snappy, wants Smith to hurry back to earth and put a very bad hombre out of commission. Someone Smith has already met in the town of Falling Rock. A fellow named Quill, who has, since Smith's departure, sold his soul to the Old Ones, and has been possessed by a nasty, scaly, winged demon with a cigar habit and a bad attitude. Quill wants to bring about the destruction of the world, not to mention the known universe, and hand it all over: moon, stars, black spaces, cosmic dust, as well as all of humanity, to the nasty Lovecraftian deities that wait on the other side of the veil. It's a bargain made in worse places than Hell.

Even Satan can't stand for that kind of dark business. The demon that has possessed Quill, a former co-worker of Satan, has gone way too far, and there has to be a serious correction.

And though Smith isn't so sure humanity is that big of a loss, the alternative of him cooking eternally while being skewered on a meat hook isn't particularly appealing. Smith straps on a gift from Snappy, a holstered Colt pistol loaded with endless silver ammunition, and riding a near-magical horse named Shadow, carrying an amazing deck of cards that can summon up some of the greatest gunfighters and killers the west has ever known, he rides up from hell, and back into Falling Rock, a town that can be entered, but can't be left.

It's a opportunity not only for Smith to experience action and adventure and deal with the living dead and all manner of demonic curses and terrible prophecies, it's a shot at love with a beautiful, one-eyed, redheaded-darling with a whip, a woman named Payday. But it's an even bigger shot at redemption.

Saddle up, partner. It's time to ride into an old fashioned pulp and horror adventure full of gnashing teeth, exploding dynamite, pistol fire, and a few late night kisses.

Lucretia and the Kroons

Victor LaValle

Lucretia's best friend and upstairs neighbor Sunny--a sweet pitbull of a kid, even as she struggles with a mysterious illness--has gone missing. The only way to get her back is for Lucretia to climb the rickety fire escape of their Queens tenement and crawl through the window of apartment 6D, portal to a vast shadowland of missing kids ruled by a nightmarish family of mutants whose designs on the children are unknown. Her search for Sunny takes Lucretia through a dark fantasyland where she finds lush forests growing from concrete, pigeon-winged rodents, and haunted playgrounds. Her quest ultimately forces her to confront the most frightening specter of all: losing, forever, the thing you love the most.

Lucretia and the Kroons is a dazzlingly imaginative adventure story and a moving exploration of the power of friendship and the terror of loss. This all-new novella serves as the perfect companion piece to The Devil in Silver, a thrillingly suspenseful work of literary horror that continues the story of Lucretia.

The Ballad of Black Tom

Victor LaValle

Sturgeon and Hugo Award nominated novella.

People move to New York looking for magic and nothing will convince them it isn't there.

Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their cops. But when he delivers an occult tome to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic, and earns the attention of things best left sleeping.

A storm that might swallow the world is building in Brooklyn. Will Black Tom live to see it break?

Teatro Grottesco

Thomas Ligotti

This collection features tormented individuals who play out their doom in various odd little towns, as well as in dark sectors frequented by sinister and often blackly comical eccentrics. The cycle of narratives that includes the title work of this collection, for instance, introduces readers to a freakish community of artists who encounter demonic perils that ultimately engulf their lives.

These are selected examples of the forbidding array of persons and places that compose the mesmerizing fiction of Thomas Ligotti.

Contents:

  • 1 - Purity - (2003) - shortstory
  • 21 - The Town Manager - (2003) - shortstory
  • 37 - Sideshow and Other Stories - (2003) - novelette
  • 53 - The Clown Puppet - (1996) - shortstory
  • 65 - The Red Tower - (1996) - shortstory
  • 79 - My Case for Retributive Action - (2001) - novelette
  • 97 - Our Temporary Supervisor - (2001) - shortstory
  • 117 - His Shadow Shall Rise to a Higher House - (1997) - shortstory
  • 125 - The Bells Will Sound Forever - (1997) - shortstory
  • 135 - A Soft Voice Whispers Nothing - (1997) - shortstory
  • 145 - When You Hear the Singing, You Will Know It Is Time - (1997) - shortstory
  • 157 - Teatro Grottesco - (1996) - shortstory
  • 179 - Gas Station Carnivals - (1996) - shortstory
  • 199 - The Bungalow House - (1995) - novelette
  • 225 - Severini - (1996) - shortstory
  • 241 - The Shadow, The Darkness - (1999) - novelette
  • 281 - Things They Will Never Tell You - poem
  • 307 - This Degenerate Little Town - poem
  • 329 - Envoi - poem

The Shadow at the Bottom of the World

Thomas Ligotti

Brings together some of the best works of master horror writer Thomas Ligotti. The title story The Shadow at the Bottom of the World is the tale of a small town that is gripped by a kind of existential darkness.

Engines of Desire: Tales of Love & Other Horrors

Livia Llewellyn

Death and pleasure. Freud's Todestrieb, his statement that "libido has the task of making the destroying instinct innocuous, and it fulfils the task by diverting that instinct to a great extent outwards... The instinct is then called the destructive instinct, the instinct for mastery, or the will to power." Few authors have spun stories of Thanatos and Eros as skillfully and powerfully as Livia Llewellyn. In his introduction to this volume, Laird Barron writes "Scant difference exists between exquisite pleasure and pain."

An orphan girl with a mind for anthracite falls into the hands of a cult worshipping an entombed god. In the Pacific Northwest, evergreens lull prepubescent girls into their trunks to serve as wombs. A suburban housewife troubled by her present encounters the sixteen year-old girl she ached to touch in her dreams. These ten stories promise to indulge a reader's sensibilities, their fears and desires.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by Laird Barron
  • Horses - (2009)
  • At the Edge of Ellensburg - (2006)
  • Teslated Salishan Evergreen - (2008)
  • The Engine of Desire - (2008)
  • Jetsam - (2007)
  • The Four Hundred Thousand - (2007)
  • Brimstone Orange - (2005)
  • Take Your Daughters to Work - (2007)
  • Omphalos - (2011)
  • Her Deepness - (2010)

At the Mountains of Madness and Other Tales of Terror

H. P. Lovecraft

A complete short novel, AT THE MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS is a tale of terror unilke any other. The Barren, windswept interior of the Antarctic plateau was lifeless--or so the expedition from Miskatonic University thought. Then they found the strange fossils of unheard-of creatures... and the carved stones tens of millions of years old... and, finally, the mind-blasting terror of the City of the Old Ones. Three additional strange tales, written as only H.P. Lovecraft can write, are also included in this macabre collection of the strange and the weird.

Table of Contents:

  • At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
  • The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
  • The Dreams in the Witch-House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
  • The Statement of Randolph Carter - [Randolph Carter] - (1920) - short story

Beyond the Wall of Sleep

H. P. Lovecraft

Table of Contents:

  • By Way of Introduction (Beyond the Wall of Sleep) - essay by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei
  • Autobiography: Some Notes on a Nonentity - essay by H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Commonplace Book - (1938) - essay by H. P. Lovecraft (variant of Commonplace Book)
  • History and Chronology of the Necronomicon - short fiction (variant of History of the Necronomicon 1938)
  • Memory - (1923) - poem
  • What the Moon Brings -(1922) - poem
  • Nyarlathotep - (1920) - poem
  • Ex Oblivione - (1921) - poem
  • The Tree - (1921) - short story
  • The Other Gods - (1933) - short story
  • The Quest of Iranon - (1935) - short story
  • The Doom That Came to Sarnath - (1920) - short story
  • The White Ship - (1919) - short story
  • From Beyond - (1934) - short story
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep - (1919) - short story
  • The Unnamable - (1925) - short story
  • The Hound - (1924) - short story
  • The Moon-Bog - (1926) - short story
  • The Evil Clergyman - (1939) - short story
  • Herbert West--Reanimator - (1922) - novelette (variant of Herbert West: Reanimator)
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath - novella
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - novel
  • The Crawling Chaos - (1921) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft [as by H. P. Lovecraft and Elizabeth Berkeley ]
  • The Green Meadow - (1918) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft [as by H. P. Lovecraft and Elizabeth Berkeley ]
  • The Curse of Yig - short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop [as by Zealia Brown-Reed ]
  • The Horror in the Museum - (1933) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald [as by Hazel Heald ]
  • Out of the Eons - (1935) - novelette by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Hazel Heald ]
  • The Mound - novella by H. P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop [as by Zealia Brown-Reed ]
  • The Diary of Alonzo Typer - (1938) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and William Lumley [as by William Lumley ]
  • The Challenge from Beyond - (1935) - short story by H. P. Lovecraft and C. L. Moore and A. Merritt and Robert E. Howard and Frank Belknap Long [as by H. P. Lovecraft and C. L. Moore and A. Merritt and Robert E. Howard and Frank Belknap Long, Jr. ]
  • In the Walls of Eryx - (1939) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling
  • Ibid - (1938) - short story
  • Sweet Ermengarde - short story
  • Providence - (1924) - poem
  • On a Grecian Colonnade in a Park - (1920) - poem
  • Old Christmas - (1918) - poem
  • New England Fallen - poem
  • On a New England Village Seen by Moonlight - (1915) - poem
  • Astrophobos - (1918) - poem
  • Sunset - (1917) - poem
  • A Year Off - poem
  • A Summer Sunset and Evening - (1937) - poem
  • To Mistress Sophia Simple, Queen of the Cinema - (1919) - poem
  • The Ancient Track - (1930) - poem
  • The Eidolon - (1918) - poem
  • The Nightmare Lake - (1919) - poem
  • The Outpost - (1930) - poem
  • The Rutted Road - (1917) - poem
  • The Wood - (1929) - poem
  • Hallowe'en in a Suburb - (1926) - poem
  • Primavera - (1925) - poem
  • October - (1920) - poem
  • To a Dreamer - (1921) - poem
  • Despair - (1919) - poem
  • Nemesis - (1918) - poem
  • Psychopompos - (1919) - poem
  • The Book - (1934) - poem
  • Pursuit - (1934) - poem
  • The Key - (1935) - poem
  • Recognition - (1936) - poem
  • Homecoming - (1935) - poem
  • The Lamp - (1931) - poem
  • Zaman's Hill - (1934) - poem
  • The Port - (1930) - poem
  • The Courtyard - (1930) - poem
  • The Pigeon-Flyers - poem
  • The Well - (1930) - poem
  • The Howler - (1932) - poem
  • Hesperia - (1930) - poem
  • Star-Winds - (1930) - poem
  • Antarktos - (1930) - poem
  • The Window - (1931) - poem
  • A Memory - poem
  • The Gardens of Yin - (1932) - poem
  • The Bells - (1930) - poem
  • Night-Gaunts - (1936) - poem
  • Nyarlathotep - (1931) - poem
  • Azathoth - (1931) - poem
  • Mirage - (1931) - poem
  • The Canal - (1932) - poem
  • The Familiars - (1930) - poem
  • The Elder Pharos - (1931) - poem
  • Expectancy - poem
  • Nostalgia - (1930) - poem
  • Background - (1930) - poem
  • The Dweller - (1930) - poem
  • Alienation - (1931) - poem
  • Harbour Whistles - (1930) - poem
  • Recapture - (1930) - poem
  • Evening Star - poem
  • Continuity - (1936) - poem
  • Yule Horror - (1926) - poem (variant of Festival 1925)
  • 408 - To Mr. Finlay, Upon His Drawing for Mr. Bloch's Tale, "The Faceless God" - (1937) - poem (variant of To Virgil Finlay: Upon His Drawing for Robert Bloch's Tale, "The Faceless God")
  • To Clark Ashton Smith, Esq., Upon His Phantastick Tales, Verses, Pictures, and Sculptures - (1938) - poem (variant of To Clark Ashton Smith)
  • Where Once Poe Walked - (1937) - poem
  • Christmas Greeting to Mrs. Phillips Gamwell--1925 - (1925) - poem
  • Brick Row - (1930) - poem
  • The Messenger - (1938) - poem
  • The Cthulhu Mythology: A Glossary - (1942) - essay by Francis T. Laney
  • An Appreciation of H. P. Lovecraft - essay by W. Paul Cook

H. P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies

H. P. Lovecraft

With more than 100 movies based on his writing, H.P. Lovecraft ranks among the most adapted authors in history--along with Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King. His unnervingly scary tales appeal to both diehard fans of horror and readers with mainstream tastes, and H.P. Lovecraft Goes to the Movies presents the very best of his filmed stories. Additionally, this unique collection provides an enlightening historical introduction, short headnotes for each story calling out interesting trivia, and an appendix with credits for each screen version.

THE STORIES INCLUDE:

  • "The Colour out of Space": filmed twice, once as a vehicle for Boris Karloff called Die, Monster, Die!
  • "The Dunwich Horror," also filmed two times, once with Dean Stockwell "Pickman's Model" and "Cool Air": both for Rod Serling's Night Gallery TV program
  • "The Call of Cthulhu," which laid the foundation for the Cthulhu Mythos

Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

Originally written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s, H. P. Lovecraft's astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction, and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when they were first published. This tome brings together all of Lovecraft's harrowing stories, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were first released. It will introduce a whole new generation of readers to Lovecraft's fiction, as well as attract those fans who want all his work in a single, definitive volume.

Table of Contents:

  • Map of Arkham, circa 1930 - (1970) - interior artwork by Gahan Wilson
  • Night-Gaunts - [Fungi from Yuggoth] - (1930) - poem
  • Dagon - (1919) - short story
  • The Statement of Randolph Carter - [Randolph Carter] - (1920) - short story
  • The Doom That Came to Sarnath - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - short story
  • The Cats of Ulthar - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - short story
  • The Nameless City - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1921) - short story
  • Herbert West--Reanimator - [Herbert West: Reanimator Universe] - (1922) - novelette
  • The Music of Erich Zann - [Erich Zann] - (1922) - short story
  • The Lurking Fear - (1928) - novelette
  • The Hound - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1924) - short story
  • The Rats in the Walls - (1924) - novelette
  • Under the Pyramids - (1924) - novelette
  • The Unnamable - [Randolph Carter] - (1925) - short story
  • In the Vault - (1925) - short story
  • The Outsider - [Dream Cycle] - (1926) - short story
  • The Horror at Red Hook - (1927) - novelette
  • The Colour Out of Space - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1927) - novelette
  • Pickman's Model - (1927) - short story
  • The Call of Cthulhu - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette
  • Cool Air - (1928) - short story
  • The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
  • The Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1929) - short story
  • The Dunwich Horror - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - novelette
  • The Whisperer in Darkness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - novella
  • The Strange High House in the Mist - [Dream Cycle] - (1931) - short story
  • The Dreams in the Witch-House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
  • From Beyond - [Dream Cycle] - (1934) - short story by
  • Through the Gates of the Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1934) - novelette
  • At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
  • The Shadow Over Innsmouth - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • The Shadow Out of Time - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novella
  • The Haunter of the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • The Thing on the Doorstep - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1937) - novelette
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - [Dream Cycle] - (1943) - novel
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath - [Randolph Carter] - (1943) - novella
  • To a Dreamer - (1921) - poem
  • Afterword A Gentleman of Providence - essay by Stephen Jones
  • Primary Collaborations and Revisions - essay by uncredited

Tales

H. P. Lovecraft

A collection of classic works by the turn-of-the-twentieth-century horror master offers insight into his unique style and includes such pieces as, "The Shadow Out of Time," "The Colour Out of Space," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "At the Mountains of Madness." Edited by Peter Straub.

Table of Contents:

  • The Statement of Randolph Carter - [Randolph Carter] - (1920) - short story
  • The Outsider - [Dream Cycle] - (1926) - short story
  • The Music of Erich Zann - [Erich Zann] - (1922) - short story
  • Herbert West: Reanimator - [Herbert West: Reanimator Universe] - (1922) - novelette
  • The Lurking Fear - (1928) - novelette
  • The Rats in the Walls - (1924) - novelette
  • The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
  • The Horror at Red Hook - (1927) - novelette
  • He - (1926) - short story
  • Cool Air - (1928) - short story
  • The Call of Cthulhu - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette
  • Pickman's Model - (1927) - short story
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - [Dream Cycle] - (1943) - novel
  • The Colour Out of Space - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1927) - novelette
  • The Dunwich Horror - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - novelette
  • The Whisperer in Darkness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - novella
  • At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
  • The Shadow Over Innsmouth - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • The Dreams in the Witch House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
  • The Thing on the Doorstep - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1937) - novelette
  • The Shadow Out of Time - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novella
  • The Haunter of the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • Chronology - essay by uncredited

The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre

H. P. Lovecraft

This is the collection that true fans of horror fiction have been waiting for: sixteen of H.P. Lovecraft's most horrifying visions, including Lovecraft's masterpiece, THE SHADOW OUT OF TIME--the shocking revelation of the mysterious forces that hold all mankind in their fearsome grip.

"I think it is beyond doubt that H.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the Twentieth Century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." Stephen King

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: Heritage of Horror - (1982) - essay by Robert Bloch
  • The Rats in the Walls - (1924) - novelette
  • The Picture in the House - (1919) - short story
  • The Outsider - [Dream Cycle] - (1926) - short story
  • Pickman's Model - (1927) - short story
  • In the Vault - (1925) - short story
  • The Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1929) - short story
  • The Music of Erich Zann - [Erich Zann] - (1922) - short story
  • The Call of Cthulhu - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette
  • The Dunwich Horror - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - novelette
  • The Whisperer in Darkness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - novella
  • The Colour Out of Space - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1927) - novelette
  • The Haunter of the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • The Thing on the Doorstep - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1937) - novelette
  • The Shadow Over Innsmouth - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • The Dreams in the Witch-House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
  • The Shadow Out of Time - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novella

The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories

H. P. Lovecraft

A definitive collection of stories from the unrivaled master of twentieth-century horror in a Penguin Classics Deluxe edition with cover art by Travis Louie.

"I think it is beyond doubt that H. P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth century's greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale." -Stephen King

Frequently imitated and widely influential, Howard Philips Lovecraft reinvented the horror genre in the 1920s, discarding ghosts and witches and instead envisioning mankind as a tiny outpost of dwindling sanity in a chaotic and malevolent universe. S. T. Joshi, Lovecraft's preeminent interpreter, presents a selection of the master's fiction, from the early tales of nightmares and madness such as "The Outsider" to the overpowering cosmic terror of "The Call of Cthulhu." More than just a collection of terrifying tales, this volume reveals the development of Lovecraft's mesmerizing narrative style and establishes him as a canonical- and visionary-American writer.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - (1999) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Suggestions for Further Reading - (1999) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • A Note on the Text - (1999) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Dagon - (1919)
  • The Statement of Randolph Carter - (1920)
  • Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family - (1987) - (variant of The White Ape 1920)
  • Celephaïs - (1922)
  • Nyarlathotep - (1920)
  • The Picture in the House - (1919)
  • The Outsider - (1926)
  • Herbert West--Reanimator - (1922)
  • The Hound - (1924)
  • The Rats in the Walls - (1924)
  • The Festival - (1925)
  • He - (1926)
  • Cool Air - (1928)
  • The Call of Cthulhu - (1928)
  • The Colour Out of Space - (1927)
  • The Whisperer in Darkness - (1931)
  • The Shadow Over Innsmouth - (1936)
  • The Haunter of the Dark - (1936)
  • Explanatory Notes - (1999) - essay by S. T. Joshi

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

H. P. Lovecraft

A nameless terror surges through centuries to engulf the soul of Charles Dexter Ward, a brilliant New England antiquarian. Evil spirits, malefic gods whose memory lives on in whispered legends and fear-stricken superstitions, still lurk in vile catacombs beneath the surface of a blighted land. Ward is driven to unleash these loathsome horrors upon a defenceless world, possessed by the demonic shade of his ancestor Joseph Curwen, a warlock steeped in the blackest arts of magic. Now Ward too must master these obscene rituals, and pay the price in blood. Human blood.

The Case Of Charles Dexter Ward remains the only full-length work of fiction by HP Lovecraft, the master of 20th century horror. It has inspired such classic horror films as Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace and Lucio Fulci's The Beyond.

The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft

H. P. Lovecraft

The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft collects the author's novel, four novellas, and fifty-three short stories. Written between the years 1917 and 1935, this collection features Lovecraft's trademark fantastical creatures and supernatural thrills, as well as many horrific and cautionary science-fiction themes, that have influenced some of today's writers and filmmakers, including Stephen King, Alan Moore, F. Paul Wilson, Guillermo del Toro, and Neil Gaiman. Included in this volume are The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, "The Call of Cthulhu," "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath," "At the Mountains of Madness," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," "The Colour Out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," and many more hair-raising tales.

The Dream Cycle of H. P. Lovecraft: Dreams of Terror and Death

H. P. Lovecraft

"[Lovecraft's] dream fantasy works are as terrifying and haunting as his tales of horror and the macabre. A master craftsman, Lovecraft brings compelling visions of nightmarish fear, invisible worlds and the demons of the unconscious. If one author truly represents the very best in American literary horror, it is H. P. Lovecraft."
--John Carpenter, Director of At the Mouth of Madness, Halloween, and Christine

This volume collects, for the first time, the entire Dream Cycle created by H. P. Lovecraft, the master of twentieth-century horror, including some of his most fantastic tales:

  • THE DOOM THAT CAME TO SARNATH--Hate, genocide, and a deadly curse consume the land of Mnar.
  • THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER--"You fool, Warren is DEAD!"
  • THE NAMELESS CITY--Death lies beneath the shifting sands, in a story linking the Dream Cycle with the legendary Cthulhu Mythos.
  • THE CATS OF ULTHAR--In Ulthar, no man may kill a cat... and woe unto any who tries.
  • THE DREAM QUEST OF UNKNOWN KADATH--The epic nightmare adventure with tendrils stretching throughout the entire Dream Cycle.
  • AND TWENTY MORE TALES OF SURREAL TERROR

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: Concerning Dreams and Nightmares- (1995)- essay by Neil Gaiman
  • Azathoth- [Dream Cycle]- (1922)- short story
  • The Descendant- (1926)- short story
  • The Thing in the Moonlight- [Dream Cycle]- (1941)- short story
  • Polaris- [Dream Cycle]- (1920)- short story
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep- (1919)- short story
  • The Doom That Came to Sarnath- [Dream Cycle]- (1920)- short story
  • The Statement of Randolph Carter- [Randolph Carter]- (1920)- short story
  • The Cats of Ulthar- [Dream Cycle]- (1920)- short story
  • Celephais- [Dream Cycle]- (1922)- short story
  • From Beyond- [Dream Cycle]- (1934)- short story
  • Nyarlathotep- [Dream Cycle]- (1920)- short fiction
  • The Nameless City- [Cthulhu Mythos]- (1921)- short story
  • The Other Gods- [Dream Cycle]- (1933)- short story
  • Ex Oblivione- [Dream Cycle]- (1921)- poem
  • The Quest of Iranon- [Dream Cycle]- (1935)- short story
  • The Hound- [Cthulhu Mythos]- (1924)- short story
  • Hypnos- [Dream Cycle]- (1922)- short story
  • What the Moon Brings- [Dream Cycle]- (1922)- poem
  • Pickman's Model- (1927)- short story
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath- [Randolph Carter]- (1943)- novella
  • The Silver Key- [Randolph Carter]- (1929)- short story
  • The Strange High House in the Mist- [Dream Cycle]- (1931)- short story
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward- [Dream Cycle]- (1943)- novel
  • The Dreams in the Witch-House- [Cthulhu Mythos]- (1933)- novelette
  • Through the Gates of the Silver Key- [Randolph Carter]- (1934)- novelette

The Dreams in the Witch House and Other Weird Stories

H. P. Lovecraft

Plagued by insane nightmare visions, Walter Gilman seeks help in Miskatonic University's infamous library of forbidden books, where, in the pages of Abdul Alhazred's dreaded Necronomicon, he finds terrible hints that seem to connect his own studies in advanced mathematics with the fantastic legends of elder magic. "The Dreams in the Witch House," gathered together here with more than twenty other tales of terror, exemplifies H. P. Lovecraft's primacy among twentieth-century American horror writers.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Suggestions for Further Reading - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • A Note on the Texts - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Polaris - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - short story
  • The Doom That Came to Sarnath - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - short story
  • The Terrible Old Man - (1921) - short story
  • The Tree - (1921) - short story
  • The Cats of Ulthar - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - short story
  • From Beyond - [Dream Cycle] - (1934) - short story
  • The Nameless City - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1921) - short story
  • The Moon-Bog - (1926) - short story
  • The Other Gods - [Dream Cycle] - (1933) - short story
  • Hypnos - [Dream Cycle] - (1922) - short story
  • The Lurking Fear - (1928) - novelette
  • The Unnamable - [Randolph Carter] - (1925) - short story
  • The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
  • The Horror at Red Hook - (1927) - novelette
  • In the Vault - (1925) - short story
  • The Strange High House in the Mist - [Dream Cycle] - (1931) - short story
  • The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath - [Randolph Carter] - (1943) - novella
  • The Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1929) - short story
  • Through the Gates of the Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1934) - novelette
  • The Dreams in the Witch House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
  • The Shadow Out of Time - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novella
  • Explanatory Notes - essay by S. T. Joshi

The Dunwich Horror and Others

H. P. Lovecraft

In the degenerate, unliked backwater of Dunwich, Wilbur Whately, a most unusual child, is born. Of unnatural parentage, he grows at an uncanny pace to an unsettling height, but the boy's arrival simply precedes that of a true horror: one of the Old Ones, that forces the people of the town to hole up by night.

The Dunwich Horror and Others contains the following tales:

The Fiction: Complete and Unabridged

H. P. Lovecraft

Virtually unknown and published only in pulp magazines before he died in poverty, H.P. Lovecraft is now regarded as one of the most significant 20th-century authors in his genre.

Lovecraft was master of the supernatural story, and this volume features almost every work of fiction Lovecraft wrote in his short life. Also included is a well-constructed forward, informative introductory paragraphs to each of the stories, and Lovecraft's famous essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature".

The Horror in the Museum

H. P. Lovecraft

Some tales in this collection were inspired by H. P. Lovecraft, others he revised, two he co-authored--but all bear the mark of the master of primordial terror.

  • The Horror in the Museum -- Locked up for the night, a man will discover the difference between waxen grotesqueries and the real thing.
  • The Electric Executioner -- Aboard a train, a traveler must match wits with a murderous madman.
  • The Trap -- This mirror wants a great deal more than your reflection.
  • The Ghost - Eater--In an ancient woodland, the past comes to life with a bone-crunching vengeance.

AND TWENTY MORE STORIES OF UNSPEAKABLE EVIL!

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by Stephen Jones
  • Lovecraft's "Revisions" - (1970) - essay by August Derleth
  • Note on the Texts - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • The Green Meadow - (1918) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Elizabeth Neville Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jr.]
  • The Last Test - (1928) - novella by Adolphe de Castro and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Adolphe de Castro]
  • The Electric Executioner - (1930) - novelette by Adolphe de Castro and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Adolphe de Castro]
  • The Curse of Yig - (1929) - short story by Zealia Bishop and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Zealia Bishop]
  • The Mound - (1940) - novelette by Zealia Bishop and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Zealia Bishop]
  • Medusa's Coil - (1939) - novelette by Zealia Bishop and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Zealia Bishop]
  • The Man of Stone - (1932) - short story by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Hazel Heald]
  • The Horror in the Museum - (1933) - novelette by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Hazel Heald]
  • Winged Death - (1934) - novelette by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Hazel Heald]
  • Out of the Aeons - (1989) - novelette by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft (variant of Out of the Eons 1935) [as by Hazel Heald]
  • The Horror in the Burying-Ground - (1937) - short story by Hazel Heald and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Hazel Heald]
  • The Diary of Alonzo Typer - (1938) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and William Lumley [as by William Lumley]
  • The Horror at Martin's Beach - (1923) - short story by Sonia Greene and H. P. Lovecraft (variant of The Invisible Monster) [as by Sonia H. Greene]
  • Ashes - (1924) - short story by C. M. Eddy, Jr. and H. P. Lovecraft [as by C. M. Eddy, Jr.]
  • The Ghost-Eater - (1924) - short story by C. M. Eddy, Jr. and H. P. Lovecraft [as by C. M. Eddy, Jr.]
  • The Loved Dead - (1924) - short story by C. M. Eddy, Jr. and H. P. Lovecraft [as by C. M. Eddy, Jr.]
  • Deaf, Dumb and Blind - (1925) - short story by C. M. Eddy, Jr. and H. P. Lovecraft [as by C. M. Eddy, Jr.]
  • Two Black Bottles - (1927) - short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Wilfred Blanch Talman [as by Wilfred Blanch Talman]
  • The Trap - [Gerald Canevin] - (1932) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Henry S. Whitehead [as by Henry S. Whitehead]
  • The Tree on the Hill - (1934) - short story by Duane W. Rimel
  • The Disinterment - (1935) - short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Duane W. Rimel [as by Duane W. Rimel]
  • "Till A' the Seas" - (1935) - short story by R. H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft (variant of "Till All the Seas") [as by R. H. Barlow]
  • The Night Ocean - (1936) - short story by R. H. Barlow and H. P. Lovecraft [as by R. H. Barlow]
  • The Crawling Chaos - (1921) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft [as by Elizabeth Neville Berkeley and Lewis Theobald, Jr.]

The Lurking Fear and Other Stories

H. P. Lovecraft

Twelve soul-chilling stories by the master of horror will leave you shivering in your boots and afraid to go out in the night. Only H.P. Lovecraft can send your heart racing faster than it's ever gone before. And here are the stories to prove it.

Table of Contents:

  • The Lurking Fear - (1923)
  • The Colour Out of Space - (1927)
  • The Nameless City - (1921)
  • Pickman's Model - (1927)
  • Arthur Jermyn - (1935) - (variant of The White Ape 1920)
  • The Unnamable - (1925)
  • The Call of Cthulhu - (1928)
  • The Moon-Bog - (1926)
  • Cool Air - (1928)
  • The Hound - (1924)
  • The Shunned House - (1928)

The Outsider and Others

H. P. Lovecraft

Contents:

  • Howard Phillips Lovecraft: Outsider - essay by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei
  • 3 - Dagon - (1919) - shortstory
  • 7 - Polaris - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - shortstory
  • 10 - Celephais - [Dream Cycle] - (1922) - shortstory (variant of Celephaïs)
  • 14 - Hypnos - [Dream Cycle] - (1922) - shortstory
  • 19 - The Cats of Ulthar - [Dream Cycle] - (1920) - shortstory
  • 22 - The Strange High House in the Mist - [Dream Cycle] - (1931) - shortstory
  • 28 - The Statement of Randolph Carter - [Randolph Carter] - (1920) - shortstory
  • 32 - The Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1929) - shortstory
  • 40 - Through the Gates of the Silver Key - [Randolph Carter] - (1934) - novelette and E. Hoffmann Price [as ]
  • 63 - The Outsider - [Dream Cycle] - (1926) - shortstory
  • 67 - The Music of Erich Zann - (1922) - shortstory
  • 73 - The Rats in the Walls - (1924) - novelette
  • 86 - Cool Air - (1928) - shortstory
  • 92 - He - (1926) - shortstory
  • 99 - The Horror at Red Hook - (1927) - novelette
  • 113 - The Temple - (1925) - shortstory
  • 121 - Arthur Jermyn - (1935) - shortstory (variant of The White Ape 1920)
  • 127 - The Picture in the House - (1919) - shortstory
  • 132 - The Festival - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1925) - shortstory
  • 138 - The Terrible Old Man - (1921) - shortstory
  • 140 - The Tomb - (1922) - shortstory
  • 147 - The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
  • 164 - In the Vault - (1925) - shortstory
  • 170 - Pickman's Model - (1927) - shortstory
  • 179 - The Haunter of the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • 194 - The Dreams in the Witch-House - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1933) - novelette
  • 217 - The Thing on the Doorstep - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1937) - novelette
  • 234 - The Nameless City - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1921) - shortstory
  • 242 - The Lurking Fear - (1923) - shortstory
  • 255 - The Call of Cthulhu - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1928) - novelette
  • 274 - The Colour Out of Space - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1927) - novelette
  • 292 - The Dunwich Horror - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - novelette
  • 319 - The Whisperer in Darkness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - novella
  • 359 - The Shadow Over Innsmouth - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette
  • 400 - The Shadow Out of Time - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novella
  • 442 - At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
  • 507 - Supernatural Horror in Literature - [Supernatural Horror in Literature] - (1927) - essay

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories

H. P. Lovecraft

Howard Phillips Lovecraft's unique contribution to American literature was a melding of traditional supernaturalism (derived chiefly from Edgar Allan Poe) with the genre of science fiction that emerged in the early 1920s. This new Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics edition brings together a dozen of the master's tales-from his early short stories "Under the Pyramids" (originally ghostwritten for Harry Houdini) and "The Music of Erich Zann" (which Lovecraft ranked second among his own favorites) through his more fully developed works, "The Dunwich Horror," The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, and At the Mountains of Madness.

The Thing on the Doorstep and Other Weird Stories presents the definitive corrected texts of these works, along with Lovecraft critic and biographer S. T. Joshi's illuminating introduction and notes to each story.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Suggestions for Further Reading - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • A Note on the Text - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • The Tomb - (1922) - short story
  • Beyond the Wall of Sleep - (1919) - short story
  • The White Ship - [Dream Cycle] - (1919) - short story
  • The Temple - (1925) - short story
  • The Quest of Iranon - [Dream Cycle] - (1935) - short story
  • The Music of Erich Zann - [Erich Zann] - (1922) - short story
  • Under the Pyramids - (1924) - novelette
  • Pickman's Model - (1927) - short story
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward - [Dream Cycle] - (1943) - novel
  • The Dunwich Horror - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1929) - novelette
  • At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
  • The Thing on the Doorstep - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1937) - novelette
  • Explanatory Notes - essay by S. T. Joshi

The Tomb and Other Tales

H. P. Lovecraft

This extraordinary collection features 13 spine-tingling tales of delicious terror by the unquestioned master of the horror genre, as well as portions of stories he never fully completed. Discover how the mind of H.P. Lovecraft worked, and how much his early and late stories tell about this intriguing writer.

Table of Contents:
• The Tomb • (1922) • short story
• The Festival • [Cthulhu Mythos] • (1925) • short story
• Imprisoned with the Pharaohs • (1924) • novelette
• He • (1926) • short story
• The Horror at Red Hook • (1927) • novelette
• The Strange High House in the Mist • [Dream Cycle] • (1931) • short story
• In the Walls of Eryx • (1939) • novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling
• The Evil Clergyman • (1939) • short story
• The Beast in the Cave • (1918) • short story
• The Alchemist • (1916) • short story
• Poetry and the Gods • (1920) • short story by Anna Helen Crofts and H. P. Lovecraft
• The Street • (1920) • short story
• The Transition of Juan Romero • (1919) • short story
• Azathoth • [Dream Cycle] • (1922) • short story
• The Descendant • (1926) • short story
• The Book • (1938) • short fiction
• The Thing in the Moonlight • [Dream Cycle] • (1941) • short story
• Complete Chronology • (1937) • essay by H. P. Lovecraft

The Transition of H. P. Lovecraft: The Road to Madness

H. P. Lovecraft

One of the most influential practitioners of American horror, H.P. Lovecraft inspired the work of Stephen King, Anne Rice, and Clive Barker. As he perfected his mastery of the macabre, his works developed from seminal fragments into acknowledged masterpieces of terror. This volume traces his chilling career and includes:

  • Imprisoned With the Pharaohs -- Houdini seeks to reveal the demons that inhabit the Egyptian night.
  • At the Mountains of Madness -- An unsuspecting expedition uncovers a city of untold terror, buried beneath an Antarctic wasteland.
  • Herbert West: Reanimator -- Mad experiments yield hideous results in this, the inspiration for the cult film Re-Animator.
  • Cool Air -- An icy apartment hides secrets no man dares unlock.
  • The Terrible Old Man -- The intruders seek a fortune but find only death!

AND TWENTY-FOUR MORE BLOOD-CHILLING TALES!

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction: The Man Who Loved His Craft - (1996) - essay by Barbara Hambly
  • Early Tales - (1996) - essay by uncredited
  • The Beast in the Cave - (1918) - short story
  • The Alchemist - (1916) - short story
  • Poetry and the Gods - (1920) - short story by Anna Helen Crofts and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Street - (1920) - short story
  • The Transition of Juan Romero - (1919) - short story
  • The Book - (1938) - short fiction
  • Dagon - (1919) - short story
  • The Tomb - (1922) - short story
  • Memory - (1923) - poem
  • The White Ship - [Dream Cycle] - (1919) - short story
  • Arthur Jermyn - (1935) - short story
  • The Temple - (1925) - short story
  • The Terrible Old Man - (1921) - short story
  • The Crawling Chaos - (1921) - short story by Winifred V. Jackson and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Tree - (1921) - short story
  • The Moon-Bog - (1926) - short story
  • Herbert West: Reanimator - [Herbert West: Reanimator Universe] - (1922) - novelette
  • The Lurking Fear - (1928) - novelette
  • The Festival - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1925) - short story
  • The Unnamable - [Randolph Carter] - (1925) - short story
  • Imprisoned with the Pharaohs - (1924) - novelette
  • The Shunned House - (1928) - novelette
  • He - (1926) - short story
  • The Horror at Red Hook - (1927) - novelette
  • Cool Air - (1928) - short story
  • Nathicana - (1927) - poem
  • At the Mountains of Madness - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novel
  • In the Walls of Eryx - (1939) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft and Kenneth Sterling
  • The Evil Clergyman - (1939) - short story

Memoirs of a Porcupine

Alain Mabanckou

All human beings, says an African legend, have an animal double. Some doubles are benign, others wicked. This legend comes to life in Alain Mabanckou's outlandish, surreal, and charmingly nonchalantMemoirs of a Porcupine.

When Kibandi, a boy living in a Congolese village, reaches the age of 11, his father takes him out into the night and forces him to drink a vile liquid from a jar that has been hidden for years in the earth. This is his initiation. From now on, he and his double, a porcupine, become accomplices in murder. They attack neighbors, fellow villagers, and people who simply cross their path, for reasons so slight that it is virtually impossible to establish connection between the killings. As he grows older, Kibandi relies on his double to act out his grizzly compulsions, until one day even the porcupine balks and turns instead to literary confession.

Tales of Horror and the Supernatural

Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen is perhaps best known for his shorter supernatural and horror fiction. He first achieved notoriety in the Decadent 1890s with his story 'The Great God Pan', and 'The Bowmen' was the origin of the 'Angels of Mons' myth during the First World War. Tales of Horror and the Supernatural collects together the best of Arthur Machen's short stories and novellas.

Contents:

  • Introduction • essay by Philip Van Doren Stern
  • The Novel of the Black Seal • (1895) • novelette
  • The Novel of the White Powder • (1895) • short story
  • The Great God Pan • (1894) • novella
  • The White People • (1904) • novelette
  • The Inmost Light • (1894) • novelette
  • The Shining Pyramid • (1895) • novelette
  • The Bowmen • (1914) • short story
  • The Great Return • (1915) • novelette
  • The Happy Children • (1920) • short story
  • The Bright Boy • (1936) • novelette
  • Out of the Earth • (1915) • short story
  • N • (1936) • novelette
  • The Children of the Pool • (1936) • short story
  • The Terror • (1917) • novel

The House of Souls

Arthur Machen

The often-overlooked work of nineteenth-century author Arthur Machen is said to have been very important to the formation of Lovecraft's inimitable style. This collection brings together four of Machen's weird, wonderful tales.

Contents:

  • Note (The House of Souls) - essay
  • A Fragment of Life - (1904) - novella
  • The White People - (1904) - novelette
  • The Great God Pan - (1890) - shortstory
  • The Inmost Light - (1894) - novelette
  • Prologue (The Three Impostors) - (1895) - shortfiction
  • Adventure of the Gold Tiberius - (1895) - shortstory
  • The Encounter of the Pavement - (1895) - shortstory
  • Novel of the Dark Valley - (1895) - shortstory
  • Adventure of the Missing Brother - (1895) - shortstory
  • Novel of the Black Seal - (1895) - novelette
  • Incident of the Private Bar - (1895) - shortstory
  • The Recluse of Bayswater - (1895) - shortstory
  • Novel of the White Powder - (1895) - shortstory
  • Strange Occurrence in Clerkenwell - (1895) - shortstory
  • History of the Young Man With Spectacles - (1895) - shortstory
  • Adventure of the Deserted Residence - (1895) - shortstory
  • The Red Hand - (1895) - novelette

Off Beat: Uncollected Stories

Richard Matheson

In the aptly titled Offbeat, Richard Matheson, a modern master of strange fiction, offers thirteen excursions into the unsettling and bizarre. In these stories you will encounter a major league pitcher with a horrific secret for his astonishing success; an ordinary man who wakes to find himself in a silent, empty world; a death row prisoner with an extraordinary explanation for his innocence; and a novelist whose fictional creations transcend the printed page.

Contents:

  • 9 - Introduction (Off Beat: Uncollected Stories) - (2003) - essay by William F. Nolan
  • 15 - Relics - (1999) - short story
  • 27 - Blunder Buss - (1984) - short story
  • 37 - And Now I'm Waiting - (1983) - short story
  • 55 - All and Only Silence - (2003) - short story
  • 65 - Phone Call From Across the Street - (2003) - short story
  • 71 - Maybe You Remember Him - (2003) - novelette
  • 93 - Mirror, Mirror... - (2003) - short story
  • 107 - Two O'Clock Session - (1991) - short story
  • 111 - And In Sorrow - (2000) - novelette
  • 135 - The Prisoner - (2001) - short story
  • 155 - Always Before Your Voice - (1999) - novelette
  • 177 - That Was Yesterday - (2002) - short story
  • 183 - Afterword (Off Beat: Uncollected Stories) - (2003) - essay
  • 189 - A Checklist of First Editions (Off Beat: Uncollected Stories) - (2003) - essay by uncredited

Gone South

Robert R. McCammon

A moment of madness forces a Vietnam veteran to run for his life

Two decades after he finished serving his country in the jungles of Southeast Asia, Dan Lambert still pays the price. As he hustles for construction work in the heat of a brutal Louisiana summer, Dan tries to ignore the pounding in his head--a constant reminder of the Agent Orange--caused leukemia which will soon end his life. And now the bank wants to repossess his truck. His attempt to reason with the loan officer does not get him far. Dan loses himself in rage, and for a moment is back in the jungle again. When he comes out of his bloodlust, he has shot the banker through the chest. There is nothing to do but run.

On his trail are two peculiar bounty hunters: a onetime Siamese twin and a heavyset Elvis impersonator. To save his own life, Dan is going to have to remember why it was worth living in the first place.

An Unattractive Vampire

Jim McDoniel

An Unattractive Vampire, is a darkly comic urban fantasy of ancient horrors in suburban cities.

After three centuries trapped underground, thousand-year-old Yulric Bile - also known as the Curséd One, the Devil's Apprentice, He Who Worships the Slumbering Horrors - awakens only to find that no one believes he is a vampire. Apparently he's just too ugly - modern vampires, he soon discovers, are pretty, weak, and, most disturbing of all, good. Determined to reestablish his bloodstained reign, Yulric sets out to correct this disgusting turn of events or, at the very least, murder the person responsible. With the help of pert vampire-wannabe Amanda; Simon, the eight-year-old reincarnation of his greatest foe; and a cadre of ancient and ugly horrors, Yulric prepares to battle the glamorous undead. But who will win the right to determine, once and for all, what it truly means to be a vampire?

The Night Clock

Paul Meloy

"In the stories of Paul Meloy - where walk the living dead, genetically modified pandas, and the mad and terrible Nurse Melt, among others - raw, tell-it-like-it-is comedy brawls with trippy horror in a cage match for the human soul. Take a front row seat. Try not to get any blood on you" - Joe Hill

Phil Trevena's patients are dying and he needs answers. One of the disturbed men in his care tells him that he needs to find Daniel, that Daniel will be able to explain what is happening. But who is Daniel? Daniel was lost once, broken by the same force that has turned its hatred on Trevena. His destiny is greater than he could ever imagine.

Drawn together, Trevena and Daniel embark on an extraordinary journey of discovery, encountering The Firmament Surgeons in the Dark Time - the flux above our reality. Whoever controls Dark Time controls the minds of humanity. The Firmament Surgeons, aware of the approach of limitless hostility and darkness, are gathered to bring an end to the war that the Autoscopes, before they tear our reality apart...

The Night Clock is Paul Meloy's extraordinarily rich debut novel, introducing us to a world just beyond our own, shattering preconceptions about creativity and mental illness, and presenting us with a novel like no other.

"Paul Meloy has long been one of my favourite short fiction writers. When we first took on Solaris in 2009, he was one of first authors I approached about writing a novel for us. It's taken a few years but the wait has been well worth it. Meloy's stories are poetic, extraordinary and phantasmagoric, but, most importantly, they ring true. Paul's insights into mental health, the artistry of madness and the revelatory nature of the best genre fiction are what makes him one of most exciting writers working today." Jonathan Oliver, Solaris Editor-in-Chief

The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade

Herman Melville

Onboard the Fidèle, a steamboat floating down the Mississippi to New Orleans, a confidence man sets out to defraud his fellow passengers. In quick succession he assumes numerous guises - from a legless beggar and a worldly businessman to a collector for charitable causes and a 'cosmopolitan' gentleman, who simply swindles a barber out of the price of a shave. Making very little from his hoaxes, the pleasure of trickery seems an end in itself for this slippery conman. Is he the Devil? Is his chicanery merely intended to expose the mercenary concerns of those around him? Set on April Fool's Day, The Confidence-Man (1857) is an engaging comedy of masquerades, digressions and shifting identity, and a devastating satire on the American dream.

November Night Tales

Henry Chapman Mercer

Towards the end of his life, the eccentric archaeologist, historian, architect, and collector Henry Chapman Mercer (1856-1930) channeled his antiquarian interests and his love of Gothic literature into November Night Tales (1928), a volume of highly imaginative weird tales in the mode of M.R. James.

In "Castle Valley," unexpected consequences ensue when an artist gazes into an old crystal and sees visions of a Gothic castle. In "The Blackbirds," a flock of vultures may portend an ominous fate for a young man who has been warned that calamity will befall him on his birthday. "The Dolls' Castle" is a sinister place with a dark past that lays supernatural snares to catch unwary children. And in "The Wolf Book," a scholar visits a Transylvanian monastery where he discovers a mysterious manuscript that may be connected with a legendary werewolf.

This first-ever republication of Mercer's tales includes all six stories from the scarce first edition, plus an additional rare story, "The Well of Monte Corbo," discovered among Mercer's papers after his death, and a new introduction by Cory M. Amsler of the Mercer Museum.

Contents:

  • Introduction (November Night Tales) - essay by Cory M. Amsler
  • Castle Valley - (1928) - shortfiction
  • The North Ferry Bridge - (1928) - shortfiction
  • The Blackbirds - (1928) - shortfiction
  • The Wolf Book - (1928) - shortfiction
  • The Dolls' Castle - (1928) - shortfiction
  • The Sunken City - (1928) - shortfiction
  • The Well of Monte Corbo - shortfiction

The Feasting Dead

John Metcalfe

Something is wrong with Colonel Habgood's young son Denis. Some mysterious force seems to be sapping his physical health, and his behaviour has become oddly evasive and deceptive. Habgood suspects the pernicious influence of Raoul, a sinister handyman with whom Denis has become infatuated, believing that the man may be corrupting and defiling his son. But even after Raoul's departure, the troubles continue, and Denis's strength continues to wane. In an old book of medieval legends, his father finds a possible, if implausible, answer in stories of a nameless horror from beyond the grave that feasts on the young in order to return to life. Or could what's happening to Denis have any connection to an unexplained death in the attic turret nearly eighty years ago? And isn't there something strange about the scarecrow out in the fields, which seems, barely perceptibly, to have moved...?

This Census-Taker

China Miéville

Hugo Award nominated novella.

In a remote house on a hilltop, a lonely boy witnesses a traumatic event. He tries - and fails - to flee. Left alone with his increasingly deranged parent, he dreams of safety, of joining the other children in the town below, of escape.

When at last a stranger knocks at his door, the boy senses that his days of isolation might be over.

But by what authority does this man keep the meticulous records he carries? What is the purpose behind his questions? Is he friend? Enemy? Or something else altogether?

Filled with beauty, terror and strangeness, This Census-Taker is a poignant and riveting exploration of memory and identity.

The Blade Between

Sam J. Miller

Ronan Szepessy promised himself he'd never return to Hudson. The sleepy upstate town was no place for a restless gay photographer. But his father is ill and New York City's distractions have become too much for him. He hopes that a quick visit will help him recharge.

Ronan reconnects with two friends from high school: Dom, his first love, and Dom's wife, Attalah. The three former misfits mourn what their town has become--overrun by gentrifiers and corporate interests. With friends and neighbors getting evicted en masse and a mayoral election coming up, Ronan and Attalah craft a plan to rattle the newcomers and expose their true motives. But in doing so, they unleash something far more mysterious and uncontainable.

Hudson has a rich, proud history and, it turns out, the real-state developers aren't the only forces threatening its well-being: the spirits undergirding this once-thriving industrial town are enraged. Ronan's hijinks have overlapped with a bubbling up of hate and violence among friends and neighbors, and everything is spiraling out of control. Ronan must summon the very best of himself to shed his own demons and save the city he once loathed.

The Torture Garden

Octave Mirbeau

Following the twin trails of desire and depravity to a shocking, sadistic paradise - a garden in China where torture is practiced as an art form - a dissolute Frenchman discovers the true depths of degradation beyond his prior bourgeois imaginings. Entranced by a resolute Englishwoman whose capacity for debauchery knows no bounds, he capitulates to her every whim amid an ecstatic yet tormenting incursion of visions, scents, caresses, pleasures, horrors, and fantastic atrocities.

She Walks in Shadows

Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Paula R. Stiles

They emerge from the shadows, to claim the night.... Women from around the world delve into Lovecraftian depths, penning and illustrating a variety of Weird horrors. The pale and secretive Lavinia wanders through the woods, Asenath is a precocious teenager with an attitude, and the Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Nitocris has found a new body in distant America. And do you have time to hear a word from our beloved mother Shub-Niggurath? Defiant, destructive, terrifying, and harrowing, the women in She Walks in Shadows are monsters and mothers, heroes and devourers. Observe them in all their glory. Iä! Iä!

Table of Contents:

  • "Bitter Perfume" by Laura Blackwell
  • "Violet is the Color of Your Energy" by Nadia Bulkin
  • "Body to Body to Body" by Selena Chambers
  • "Magna Mater" by Arinn Dembo
  • "De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae" by Jilly Dreadful
  • "Hairwork" by Gemma Files
  • "The Head of T'la-yub" by Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia)
  • "Bring the Moon to Me" by Amelia Gorman
  • "Chosen" by Lyndsey Holder
  • "Eight Seconds" by Pandora Hope
  • "Cthulhu of the Dead Sea" by Inkeri Kontro
  • "Turn out the Light" by Penelope Love
  • "The Adventurer's Wife" by Premee Mohamed
  • "Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961" by Sharon Mock
  • "The Eye of Juno" by Eugenie Mora
  • "Ammutseba Rising" by Ann K. Schwader
  • "Cypress God" by Rodopi Sisamis
  • "Lavinia's Wood" by Angela Slatter
  • "The Opera Singer" by Priya Sridhar
  • "Provenance" by Benjanun Sriduangkaew
  • "The Thing in The Cheerleading Squad" by Molly Tanzer
  • "Lockbox" by E. Catherine Tobler
  • "When She Quickens" by Mary Turzillo
  • "Shub-Niggurath's Witnesses" by Valerie Valdes
  • "Queen of a New America" by Wendy N. Wagner

Fingers of Fear

J. U. Nicolson

Utterly ruined by the stock market crash of 1929, Selden Seaforth has lost his money, his job, and his wife. When an old school friend, Ormond Ormes, offers Seaforth a job cataloguing the library at the mansion of Ormesby in the Berkshires, it seems as though things may finally be turning around. But almost as soon as he arrives at Ormesby, it is clear that something is terribly wrong. Ghosts stalk the corridors, and Seaforth awakens to find a mark made by a human mouth on his neck. Is there a vampire, a werewolf, or something even worse, at Ormesby? Seaforth must try to piece together the secrets of the strange Ormes family, but things take a still more sinister turn when the first brutally murdered corpse is found...

The Hunger and Other Stories

Charles Beaumont

When The Hunger and Other Stories (1957) appeared, it heralded the arrival of Charles Beaumont (1929-1967) as an important and highly original new voice in American fiction.

Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best. Ranging in tone from the chilling Gothic horror of "Miss Gentilbelle," where an insane mother dresses her son up as a girl and slaughters his pets, to deliciously dark humor in tales like "Open House" and "The Infernal Bouillabaisse," where murderers' plans go disastrously awry, these seventeen stories demonstrate Beaumont's remarkable talent and versatility.

This new edition of The Hunger and Other Stories, the first in more than fifty years, includes a new introduction by Dr. Bernice M. Murphy, who argues for reevaluation of Beaumont alongside the other greats of the genre, including Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson.

Contents:

  • A Point of Honor - (1955) - short story
  • Black Country - (1954) - short story
  • Fair Lady - (1957) - short story
  • Free Dirt - (1955) - short story
  • Last Night in the Rain - (1956) - short story
  • Miss Gentilbelle - (1957) - short story
  • Nursery Rhyme - (1957) - short story
  • Open House - (1957) - short story
  • Tears of the Madonna - (1957) - short story
  • The Crooked Man - (1955) - short story
  • The Customers - (1957) - short story
  • The Dark Music - (1956) - short story
  • The Hunger - (1955) - short story
  • The Infernal Bouillabaisse - (1957) - short story
  • The Murderers - (1955) - short story
  • The Train - (1957) - short story
  • The Vanishing American - (1955) - short story

The Diamond Lens and Other Stories

Fitz-James O'Brien

Fitz-James O'Brien capitalised on the success of his predecessor Edgar Allan Poe in writing disturbing stories with demented protagonists. This collection of three tales shows his mastery of the macabre.

The Diamond Lens tells the tale of a lone scientist's discovery of a microcosmic world within a drop of water, and his growing obsession in particular with the beautiful Animula, a fair maiden within this world which he can see but never enter. The insights O'Brien gives us to the scientist's uncompromising pursuit of knowledge at any cost foreshadow the mad scientist familiar to science fiction readers in a multitude of works.

In What Was It? an invisible man is discovered by residents of a boarding house. Predating H.G. Wells' The Invisible Man by nearly four decades, the residents' capture and investigation of the creature blends the fantastic with the scientific as they seek rational explanations for this extraordinary phenomenon.

The Wondersmith is a macabre tale of an embittered toymaker who seeks revenge upon the society that has persecuted him by creating demonic mannequins (a precursor of robots) and imbuing them with life in order to slaughter the masses. The tale is a fantastic melodrama in which the dominating and cunning Wondersmith is offset by the unassuming and unlikely hero Solon the hunchback, who is in love with the villain's daughter.

House on Fire

Arch Oboler

It starts out innocently enough, when reporters Tony Dumont and Robin Shepherd are sent to interview teenager Mark Elias, a scientific genius, about a scholarship he has won. But it is quickly clear that there is something very strange about the Elias family. Mark and his sister Shirley spend long hours behind closed doors conducting weird and inscrutable experiments involving electricity and a tape recorder. And then there is old Mrs. Elias, the children's grandmother, who died recently and whom the family seems terrified to discuss. The two journalists believe there may be a more serious news story than the one they were sent to cover, but they have no idea how serious--until people begin to die...

Okamoto Kido: Master of the Uncanny

Kido Okamoto

Kido remains popular for his elegant, low-key style, subtly introducing the "other" into the background, and raising the specter of the uncanny indirectly and often indistinctly. His fiction spans an enormous range of material, much of it dealing with the uncanny, and as a pioneer in the field his work formed the foundation for the new generation of Japanese authors emerging in post-Restoration literature.

This selection presents a dozen of his best stories: pieces which remain in print almost a century later, and continue to enchant readers--and writers--today. Finally, English-reading audiences can enjoy his strange visions as well.

Contents:

  • The Kiso Traveler
  • The Green Frog God
  • Tone Crossing
  • The Monkey's Eyes
  • The Snake Spirit
  • The Clear-Water Well
  • Crabs
  • The One-Legged Woman
  • Here Lies a Flute
  • The Shadow-Stepping Game
  • The White-Haired Demon
  • The Man Cursed by an Eel

Lullaby

Chuck Palahniuk

Ever heard of a culling song? It's a lullaby sung in Africa to give a painless death to the old or infirm. The lyrics of a culling song kill, whether spoken or even just thought. You can find one on page 27 of Poems and Rhymes from Around the World, an anthology that is sitting on the shelves of libraries across the country, waiting to be picked up by unsuspecting readers.

Reporter Carl Streator discovers the song's lethal nature while researching Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, and before he knows it, he's reciting the poem to anyone who bothers him. As the body count rises, Streator glimpses the potential catastrophe if someone truly malicious finds out about the song. The only answer is to find and destroy every copy of the book in the country. Accompanied by a shady real-estate agent, her Wiccan assistant, and the assistant's truly annoying ecoterrorist boyfriend, Streator begins a desperate cross-country quest to put the culling song to rest.

Written with a style and imagination that could only come from Chuck Palahniuk, Lullaby is the latest outrage from one of our most exciting writers at work today.

Wilder Girls

Rory Power

It's been eighteen months since the Raxter School for Girls was put under quarantine. Since the Tox hit and pulled Hetty's life out from under her.

It started slow. First the teachers died one by one. Then it began to infect the students, turning their bodies strange and foreign. Now, cut off from the rest of the world and left to fend for themselves on their island home, the girls don't dare wander outside the school's fence, where the Tox has made the woods wild and dangerous. They wait for the cure they were promised as the Tox seeps into everything.

But when Byatt goes missing, Hetty will do anything to find her, even if it means breaking quarantine and braving the horrors that lie beyond the fence. And when she does, Hetty learns that there's more to their story, to their life at Raxter, than she could have ever thought true.

Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos

Robert M. Price

When H. P. Lovecraft first introduced his macabre universe in the pages of Weird Tales magazine, the response was electrifying. Gifted writers--among them his closest peers--added sinister new elements to the fear-drenched landscape. Here are some of the most famous original stories from the pulp era that played a pivotal role in reflecting the master's dark vision.

Contents:

  • Fane of the Black Pharaoh - (1937) - shortstory by Robert Bloch
  • Introduction (Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos) - (1992) - essay by Robert M. Price
  • Ithaqua - (1941) - shortstory by August Derleth
  • Music of the Stars - (1943) - shortstory by Duane W. Rimel
  • Preface (Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos) - (1992) - essay by Robert Bloch
  • Spawn of the Green Abyss - (1946) - novelette by C. Hall Thompson
  • The Abyss - (1941) - shortstory by Robert A. W. Lowndes
  • The Aquarium - (1962) - shortstory by Carl Jacobi
  • The Bells of Horror - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
  • The Guardian of the Book - (1937) - shortstory by Henry Hasse
  • The Horror Out of Lovecraft - (1969) - shortstory by Donald A. Wollheim
  • The House of the Worm - (1933) - novelette by Mearle Prout
  • The Invaders - (1939) - shortstory by Henry Kuttner
  • The Lair of the Star-Spawn - (1932) - novelette by August Derleth and Mark Schorer
  • The Lord of Illusion - (1982) - shortstory by E. Hoffmann Price
  • The Scourge of B'Moth - (1929) - novelette by Bertram Russell
  • The Seven Geases - [Hyperborea] - (1934) - novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Thing on the Roof - [Cthulhu Mythos Tales] - (1932) - shortstory by Robert E. Howard
  • The Thing That Walked on the Wind - (1933) - shortstory by August Derleth
  • The Warder of Knowledge - (1992) - shortstory by Richard F. Searight
  • To Arkham and the Stars - (1966) - shortstory by Fritz Leiber
  • The Fire of Asshurbanipal (alternative version) - (1972) - novelette by Robert E. Howard

The New Lovecraft Circle

Robert M. Price

H. P. Lovecraft was the eerily prescient genius who first electrified readers in Weird Tales magazine. His tales changed the face of horror forever and inspired the bloodcurdling offerings of a new generation. These brilliant dark visionaries forge grisly trails through previously uncharted realms of mortal terror.

Contents:

  • ix - Preface (The New Lovecraft Circle) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
  • xi - Introduction (The New Lovecraft Circle) - essay by Robert M. Price
  • 3 - The Plain of Sound - (1964) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
  • 14 - The Stone on the Island - (1964) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
  • 25 - The Statement of One John Gibson - (1984) - shortstory by Brian Lumley
  • 43 - Demoniacal - (1972) - shortstory by David Sutton
  • 51 - The Kiss of Bugg-Shash - (1978) - shortstory by Brian Lumley
  • 67 - The Slitherer from the Slime - (1958) - shortstory by Lin Carter and Dave Foley [as by H. P. Lowcraft]
  • 75 - The Doom of Yakthoob - [The Book of Episodes - 1] - (1971) - shortstory by Lin Carter
  • 77 - The Fishers from Outside - (1988) - shortstory by Lin Carter
  • 91 - The Keeper of the Flame - shortstory by Gary Myers
  • 95 - Dead Giveaway - (1976) - shortstory by J. Vernon Shea
  • 112 - Those Who Wait - novelette by James Wade
  • 136 - The Keeper of Dark Point - (1967) - novelette by John S. Glasby [as by John Glasby]
  • 164 - The Black Mirror - novelette by John S. Glasby [as by John Glasby ]
  • 190 - I've Come to Talk with You Again - (1995) - shortstory by Karl Edward Wagner
  • 195 - The Howler in the Dark - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1984) - novelette by Richard L. Tierney
  • 220 - The Horror on the Beach - (1976) - novelette by Alan Dean Foster
  • 242 - The Whisperers - (1977) - shortstory by Richard A. Lupoff
  • 257 - Lights! Camera! Shub-Niggurath! - novelette by Richard A. Lupoff
  • 287 - Saucers from Yaddith - (1984) - shortstory by Robert M. Price
  • 303 - Vastarien - (1987) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 316 - The Madness Out of Space - (1982) - novelette by Peter Cannon [as by Peter H. Cannon ]
  • 347 - Aliah Warden - (1985) - shortstory by Roger Johnson
  • 355 - The Last Supper - (1981) - shortstory by Donald R. Burleson
  • 359 - The Church at Garlock's Bend - (1987) - shortstory by David Kaufman
  • 372 - The Spheres Beyond Sound - (1987) - shortfiction by Stephen Mark Rainey [as by Mark Rainey]

The Other Place and Other Stories of the Same Sort

J. B. Priestley

J. B. Priestley (1894-1984) was a versatile and prolific novelist and playwright, but in The Other Place (1953) he shows an unexpected talent, proving himself a master of the weird tale.

In "The Grey Ones," a man visits a psychiatrist after he becomes convinced that a group of demons masquerading as people are plotting the overthrow of the human race .?.?. but what if he's not insane?

In "Guest of Honour," a banquet speech becomes a horrifying affair when the keynote speaker realizes his audience is made up of monstrous and menacing creatures.

"The Leadington Incident" recounts the disturbing experience of a Cabinet minister who suddenly perceives that though the people around him move and talk as though alive, they are all actually just animated corpses or sleepwalking zombies.

The nine tales in this collection are strange, fantastic, and often unsettling, and they represent Priestley at his best.

Table of Contents:

  • Guest of Honour - (1953) - short story
  • Look After the Strange Girl - (1953) - short story
  • Mr. Strenberry's Tale - (1930) - short story
  • Night Sequence - (1953) - novelette
  • The Grey Ones - (1953) - short story
  • The Leadington Incident - (1953) - short story
  • The Other Place - (1953) - novelette
  • The Statues - (1953) - short story
  • Uncle Phil on TV - (1953) - short story

Malpertuis

Jean Ray

A manuscript stolen from a monastery; the ancient stone house of a sea-trading dynasty, which may be haunted. These are familiar ingredients for a Gothic novel. But something far more strange and disconcerting is taking place within the walls of Malpertuis as the relatives gather for the impending death of Uncle Cassave. The techniques of H.P. Lovecraft, when transplanted into the suffocating Catholic context of a Belgium scarred by the inquisition, produce in Jean Ray's masterpiece a story of monumental intensity from which events of brilliant ferocity break the surface without ever lessening the suspense as we are carried towards the tale's apocalyptic denouement. Terrifying, all-absorbing; this novel is one of the most celebrated examples of the modern gothic genre in Europe.

Not Before Sundown

Johanna Sinisalo

Mikael, a young gay photographer, finds in the courtyard of his apartment block a small, man-like creature. It is a young troll, known from mythology as a wild beast, now considered extinct. Mikael takes the troll, whom he has named Pessi, back to his apartment. But Mikael does not discover that trolls exude pheromones that smell like a Calvin Klein aftershave and that this has a profound aphrodisiac effect on all those around him. Shooting an assignment for the ultra-hip Stalker jeans, Mikael finds himself fast-tracked into a dangerous liaison with Martes, the art director of the advertising agency, while a couple of his friends in turn fall in love with him because he carries the troll's scent. What Mikael fails above all to learn, with tragic consequences, is that Pessi the troll is the interpreter of man's darkest, most forbidden feelings.

The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith

The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith gathers together the adventure, juvenile and other non-fantastic fiction of Smith. While he is known best for his fantastic work, these adventure and mainstream stories shed light on the development of Smith's writing and his constantly evolving style. The Miscellaneous Writings is a perfect companion to the five volume Collected Fantasies set. As with that set, editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger have prepared this volume by compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith's notes and letters, in order to prepare a definitive set of texts.

The Return Of The Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith

Selected carefully by well-respected editor Robert Weinberg and with an introduction by award-winning author Gene Wolfe, The Return of the Sorcerer: The Best of Clark Ashton Smith offers both readers and scholars a definitive collection of short fiction and short novels, by an overlooked master of fantasy, horror and science-fiction.

Table of Contents: [] contains series

  • Introduction The Return of The Sorcerer) (2009), essay by Gene Wolfe
  • The Return of The Sorcerer [Cthulhu Mythos] (1931), short story
  • The City of Singing Flame [Singing Flame, 1] (1931), novelette
  • Beyond The Singing Flame [Singing Flame, 2] (1931), novelette
  • The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis [Mars (Clark Ashton Smith)] (1932), novelette
  • The Double Shadow [Poseidonis] (1933), short story
  • The Monster of The Prophecy (1932), novelette
  • The Hunters from Beyond (1932), short story
  • The Isle of The Torturers [Zothique] (1933), short story
  • A Night in Malnéant (1933), short story
  • The Chain of Aforgomon (1935), short story
  • The Dark Eidolon [Zothique] (1935), novelette
  • The Seven Geases [Hyperborea] (1934), novelette
  • The Holiness of Azédarac [Averoigne] (1933), novelette
  • The Beast of Averoigne [Averoigne] (1933), short story
  • The Empire of tThe Necromancers [Zothique] (1932), short story
  • The Disinterment of Venus [Averoigne] (1934), short story
  • The Devotee of Evil (1933), short story
  • The Enchantress of Sylaire [Averoigne] (1941), short story

The Blizzard

Vladimir Sorokin

Long-listed for the 2016 PEN Translation Prize

A dazzling, utterly distinctive saga from Russia's most celebrated and most controversial novelist.

Garin, a district doctor, is desperately trying to reach the village of Dolgoye, where a mysterious epidemic is turning people into zombies. He carries with him a vaccine that will prevent the spread of this terrible disease, but is stymied in his travels by an impenetrable blizzard. A trip that should last no more than a few hours turns into a metaphysical journey, an expedition filled with extraordinary encounters, dangerous escapades, torturous imaginings, and amorous adventures.

Trapped in an existential storm, Vladimir Sorokin's characters fight their way across a landscape that owes as much to Chekhov's Russian countryside as it does to the postapocalyptic terrain of science fiction. Hypnotic, fascinating, and richly drawn, The Blizzard is a seminal work from one of the most inventive authors writing today. Sorokin has created yet another boldly original work, which combines an avant-garde sensibility with a taste for the absurd and the grotesque, all while delivering stinging truths about contemporary life and modern-day Russia.

The Ghost Stories of Muriel Spark

Muriel Spark

Eight spooky stories from the mistress of the unexpected.

I aim to startle as well as please," Muriel Spark has said, and in these eight marvelous ghost stories she manages to do both to the highest degree. As with all matters in the hands of Dame Muriel her spooks are entirely original.

A ghost in her pantheon can be plaintive or a bit vengeful, or perhaps may not even be aware of being a ghost at all. One in fact is the ghost of a man who isn't even dead yet. Another takes the bus home from work, believing she is still alive, though she is haunted by an odious tune stuck in her head (which her murderer had been relentlessly humming), and distressed by a "feeling of incompletion." And a reflective ghost recalls her mortal days of enjoying "the glory of the world, as if it would never pass. Spark has a flair for confiding ghosts: "I must explain that I departed this life nearly five years ago. But I did not altogether depart this world. There were those odd things still to be done which one's executors can never do properly." In her case the odd things include cheerily hailing her murderer, "Hallo George!" and driving him mad. The remarkably nonchalant stories here include some of her most wicked and famous"The Seraph and the Zambesi," "The Hanging Judge," and "The Portobello Road"and they all gleam with that special Spark sheen, the quality The Times Literary Supplement has hailed as "gloriously witty and polished."

Resume with Monsters

William Browning Spencer

Philip Kenan does not appear to be the most reliable narrator. Obsessed with H. P. Lovecraft's Great Old Ones, he keeps malign cosmic entities at bay by constantly revising his novel, The Despicable Quest. While Philip's preoccupied with the monsters lurking behind every cubicle at his dead-end job, his exasperated girlfriend flees — heading straight into the horror that lies at the heart of the corporate world.

William Browning Spencer's imaginative update on Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos offers a witty and wicked satire of office culture. This macabre masterpiece from one of America's foremost cult authors won the 1995 International Horror Critics Guild Award for Best Novel.

"If Woody Allen had ever written a Cthulhu Mythos novel, it might have come out like this." —The New York Review of Science Fiction

"An explosive story of menace, suspense, mystery, and love. Don't miss it." — Roger Zelazny

Author William Browning Spencer is "a brilliant writer of fantasy who's also a very considerable serious novelist." — Kirkus Reviews

The Luminous Dead

Caitlin Starling

A caver on a foreign planet finds herself on a terrifying psychological and emotional journey for survival.

When Gyre Price lied her way into this expedition, she thought she'd be mapping mineral deposits, and that her biggest problems would be cave collapses and gear malfunctions. She also thought that the fat paycheck--enough to get her off-planet and on the trail of her mother--meant she'd get a skilled surface team, monitoring her suit and environment, keeping her safe. Keeping her sane.

Instead, she got Em.

Em sees nothing wrong with controlling Gyre's body with drugs or withholding critical information to "ensure the smooth operation" of her expedition. Em knows all about Gyre's falsified credentials, and has no qualms using them as a leash--and a lash. And Em has secrets, too...

As Gyre descends, little inconsistencies--missing supplies, unexpected changes in the route, and, worst of all, shifts in Em's motivations--drive her out of her depths. Lost and disoriented, Gyre finds her sense of control giving way to paranoia and anger. On her own in this mysterious, deadly place, surrounded by darkness and the unknown, Gyre must overcome more than just the dangerous terrain and the Tunneler which calls underground its home if she wants to make it out alive--she must confront the ghosts in her own head.

But how come she can't shake the feeling she's being followed?

Shadowland

Peter Straub

IF YOUR SHADOW DOESN'T MOVE WHEN YOU DO, THEN YOU'RE IN SHADOWLAND.

In a private school in New England, a friendship is forged between two boys that will change their lives for ever. As Del Nightingale and Tom Flanagan battle to survive the oppressive regime of bullying and terror overseen by the sadistic headmaster, Del introduces Tom to his world of magic tricks. But when they escape to spend the summer holiday together at Shadowland - the lakeside estate of Del's uncle - their hobby suddenly takes on much more sinister tones. After a summer exploring the mysteries and terrors of Shadowland nothing will be the same.

Unity Penfold

Margaret Tabor

Unity Penfold arrives home one day to her quiet residential street to find that her house has vanished into thin air. Worse, her children's school has no record of them, and no trace of her husband can be found. Her neighbors and friends show no signs of recognizing her as anything but a complete stranger.

When she is taken to hospital and informed that she has been identified as a missing woman, Sarah Davies, no one will believe her desperate protests about her true identity. Is she the victim of a monstrous practical joke? Is she delusional or insane? Or has she somehow slipped into some sort of alternate reality? To avoid the asylum, she has no choice but to become Sarah as she sets out to search for answers to the bizarre and horrific nightmare in which she suddenly finds herself.

Margaret Tabor's Unity Penfold (1980), repackaged for the American paperback horror market in 1982 as Nightmare Street, is a weird and suspenseful story in the vein of The Twilight Zone that will keep readers guessing until its final surprising revelation. This new edition features both the original British ending and the alternate extended ending from the American edition.

Thanatrauma: Stories

Steve Rasnic Tem

"All my life I've dreamed of the dead."

Thanatrauma: the dread of it erodes you, the shadows waiting at the end, the impending conclusion, the troubling dream from which you will not wake.

These 21 stories - four published here for the first time - explore some of our fundamental fears: death, loss, grief, and aging.

In "Reflections in Black," a man takes a phantasmagoric Halloween journey in search of a former love.

In "The Parts Man," a man enters a desperate contract with a sinister entity in a long, vintage automobile.

The darkly beautiful "The Dead Outside My Door" is a haunting post-apocalyptic tale unlike any you've ever read.

Other offerings include "Whatever You Want," in which a Christmas wish has terrible consequences;

"Torn," a bizarre vision of a highly personalized hell;

and "The Way Station," a tribute to the legendary Stefan Grabinski.

Also featured is a special bonus, "August Freeze," from the lost, undistributed Winter 1985 issue

Shadows of Carcosa: Tales of Cosmic Horror by Lovecraft, Chambers, Machen, Poe, and Other Masters of the Weird

D. Thin

From the fictional land of Carcosa that inspired the HBO show True Detective to H. P. Lovecraft's accursed New England hills, this collection features some of the most legendary landscapes of the cosmic horror genre. The collection includes the following twelve stories:

  • Edgar Allan Poe, "MS. Found in a Bottle"
  • Bram Stoker, "The Squaw"
  • Ambrose Bierce, "Moxon's Master"
  • Ambrose Bierce, "The Damned Thing"
  • Ambrose Bierce, "An Inhabitant of Carcosa"
  • R. W. Chambers, "The Repairer of Reputations"
  • M. P. Shiel, "The House of Sounds"
  • Arthur Machen, "The White People"
  • Algernon Blackwood, "The Willows"
  • Henry James, "The Jolly Corner"
  • Walter de la Mare, "Seaton's Aunt"
  • H. P. Lovecraft, "The Colour Out of Space"

"The true weird tale has something more than a secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains. An atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present; a hint of that most terrible conception of the human brain--a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space." -- H. P. Lovecraft

Spontaneous Human Combustion

Richard Thomas

With a foreword by Brian Evenson.

In this new collection, Richard Thomas has crafted fourteen stories that push the boundaries of dark fiction in an intoxicating, piercing blend of fantasy, science fiction, and horror. Equally provocative and profound, each story is masterfully woven with transgressive themes that burrow beneath the skin.

  • A poker game yields a strange prize that haunts one man, his game of chance now turned into a life-or-death coin flip.
  • A set of twins find they have mysterious new powers when an asteroid crashes in a field near their house, and the decisions they make create an uneasy balance.
  • A fantasy world is filled with one man's desire to feel whole again, finally finding love, only to have the shocking truth of his life exposed in an appalling twist.
  • A father and son work slave labor in a brave new world run by aliens and mount a rebellion that may end up freeing them all.
  • A clown takes off his make-up in a gloomy basement to reveal something more horrifying under the white, tacky skin.

Powerful and haunting, Thomas' transportive collection dares you to examine what lies in the darkest, most twisted corners of human existence and not be transformed by what you find.

The New Weird

Jeff VanderMeer
Ann VanderMeer

Descend into shadowy cities, grotesque rituals, chaotic festivals, and deadly cults. Plunge into terrifying domains, where bodies are remade into surreal monstrosities, where the desperate rage against brutal tyrants. Where everything is lethal and no one is innocent, where Peake began and Lovecraft left off--this is where you will find the New Weird.

Edgy, urban fiction with a visceral immediacy, the New Weird has descended from classic fantasy and dime-store pulp novels, from horror and detective comics, from thrillers and noir. All grown-up, it emerges from the chrysalis of nostalgia as newly literate, shocking, and utterly innovative.

Here is the very best of the New Weird from some of its greatest practitioners. This canonic anthology collects the original online debates first defining the New Weird and critical writings from international editors, culminating in a ground-breaking round-robin piece, "Festival Lives," which features some of the hottest new names in New Weird fiction.

The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

Jeff VanderMeer
Ann VanderMeer

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won't find any elves or wizards here...but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years bound together in the biggest Weird collection ever assembled.

The Weird features 110 stories by an all-star cast, from literary legends to international bestsellers to Booker Prize winners: including William Gibson, George R. R. Martin, Stephen King, Angela Carter, Kelly Link, Franz Kafka, China Miéville, Clive Barker, Haruki Murakami, M. R. James, Neil Gaiman, Mervyn Peake, and Michael Chabon.

A House With Good Bones

T. Kingfisher

Samantha Montgomery pulls into the driveway of her family home to find a massive black vulture perched on the mailbox, staring at the house.

Inside, everything has changed. Gone is the eclectic warmth Sam expects; instead the walls are a sterile white. Now, it's very important to say grace before dinner, and her mother won't hear a word against Sam's long-dead and little-missed grandmother, who was the first to put down roots in this small southern town.

The longer Sam stays, the stranger things get. And every day, more vultures circle overhead...

The Killer and the Slain

Hugh Walpole

As boys, Jimmie Tunstall was John Talbot's implacable foe, never ceasing to taunt, torment, and bully him. Years later, John is married and living in a small coastal town when he learns, much to his chagrin, that his old adversary has just moved to the same town. Before long the harassment begins anew until finally, driven to desperation, John murders his tormentor. Soon he starts to suffer from frightening hallucinations and his personality and physical appearance begin to alter, causing him increasingly to resemble the man he killed. Is it merely the psychological effect of his guilt, or is it the manifestation of something supernatural - and evil? The tension builds until the chilling final scene, when the horrifying truth will be revealed about the killer - and the slain.

The works of the prolific and phenomenally popular Sir Hugh Walpole (1884-1941) have been neglected since his death, but his "macabre" tales, of which The Killer and the Slain (1942) is the best, deserve rediscovery. A psychological horror story in the tradition of The Turn of the Screw and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Walpole's posthumous novel is reprinted for the first time in this new edition, which features an introduction by John Howard.

"[An] exercise in the macabre, the bizarre, the psychologically unaccountable... worked out with conspicuous craft and dexterity... ingenious, accomplished." - Times Literary Supplement

"[A] masterful blending of suspense, horror and deep-etched character... spine-chilling." - Publishers Weekly

"Well done, with more sex than one associates with Walpole... belongs in the gallery of pathological horror stories." - Kirkus Reviews

"[W]ill entangle the imaginative reader. It is undoubtedly macabre. Maturity and assurance of style add to its impressiveness." - Sydney Morning Herald

Petals and Violins: Fifteen Unsettling Tales

D.P. Watt

D.P. Watt's unsettling tales draw back the curtain on other realities, hidden just beyond our own; shifting pasts and futures are conjured through the mystery of old postcards and the beckoning lights of distant windows; the horrors of the twentieth century erupt through the absurd experimentation of the theatrical avant-garde; a young woman's tragedy is witnessed through the eyes of a discarded doll; a taxidermist's craft reaches a monstrous apotheosis; grief renders families distant and lost, ushering in unwelcome ghosts and visions; folk magic preserves the fleeting events of dreams and memories, whilst promising glimpses of heaven or hell.

The Silverberg Business

Robert Freeman Wexler

In 1888 in Victoria, Texas, for a simple job, a Chicago private eye gets caught up in the poker game to end all poker games.

Shannon, a Chicago private detective, returns home to Galveston, Texas for a wedding. Galveston's new rabbi asks Shannon to find Nathan Silverberg, gone missing along with a group of swindlers who claim to be soliciting money for a future colony of Romanian Jewish refugees.

What seems to be a simple job soon pushes Shannon into stranger territory. His investigations lead him to a malevolent white-haired gambler, monstrous sand dune totems, and a group of skull-headed poker players trapped in an endless loop of cards and alcohol, who may be his only means to survive the business.

Skyward Inn

Aliya Whiteley

Drink down the brew and dream of a better Earth.

Skyward Inn, within the high walls of the Western Protectorate, is a place of safety, where people come together to tell stories of the time before the war with Qita.

But safety from what? Qita surrendered without complaint when Earth invaded; Innkeepers Jem and Isley, veterans from either side, have regrets but few scars.

Their peace is disturbed when a visitor known to Isley comes to the Inn asking for help, bringing reminders of an unnerving past and triggering an uncertain future.

Did humanity really win the war?

The Loving Dead

Amelia Beamer

Kate and Michael are roommates living in the Oakland hills, working at the same Trader Joes supermarket. A night of drunken revelry changes their lives forever, but not in the way that anyone would expect. A slow-spreading plague of zombie-ism breaks out at their house party, spreading amongst their circle of friends, and simultaneously through the Bay Area. This zombie plague - an STD of sorts - is spread through sex and kissing, turning its victims into mindless, horny, voracious killers. Thrust into extremes by this slow- motion tragedy, Kate and Michael are forced to confront the choices they've made in their lives, and their fears of commitment, while trying to stay alive and reunite in the one place in the Bay Area that's likely to be safe and secure from the zombie hoards: Alcatraz.

The Great Lover

Michael Cisco

He lives in the sewers... and in the black world between stations... the trains shrilly call to one another blind and massive in the dark - black rushing silence, rent by screaming trains ... Like the hideous angler fish of the ocean's deepest places, he is an otherworldly scavenger drifting in currents heavier than avalanches, slow as glaciers, a sea wasp with a bridal train of tingling nerves that drift in the sewage time and again tangling in women's dreams. From Michael Cisco, author of The Divinity Student, comes a visionary novel of eros and thanatos. The Great Lover, the sewerman, is the undead hero who nonetheless carries the torch of libido and life. Mischievous Frankenstein, uproarious cartoon demon, mascot of the subway cult, witch-doctor of feculent enchantment and weary veteran of folies d'amour, he stands, or shambles, as our last champion against the monochrome, white-noise forces of Vampirism.

House of Leaves

Mark Z. Danielewski

Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.

The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

Southern Gods

John Hornor Jacobs

Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise.

Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil. But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he'll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell...

In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

H. P. Lovecraft

S. T. Joshi

Contains twenty four short stories, novelettes, and short novels, including The Case of Charles Dexter Ward and At the Mountains of Madness, as well as twenty six poems. This edition has a fine introduction by S.T. Joshi, photographs of H.P. Lovecraft, and an attractive binding, uniform with others in this series.

The Hill of Dreams

Arthur Machen

The novel recounts the life of a young man, Lucian Taylor, focusing on his dreamy childhood in rural Wales, in a town based on Caerleon. The Hill of Dreams of the title is an old Roman fort where Lucian has strange sensual visions, including ones of the town in the time of Roman Britain. Later it describes Lucian's attempts to make a living as an author in London, enduring poverty and suffering in the pursuit of art.

A Choir of Ill Children

Tom Piccirilli

This lyrical tale of evil, loss, and redemption is a stunning addition to the Southern gothic tradition of Flannery O'Connor and Harry Crews.

A Choir of Ill Children is the startling story of Kingdom Come, a decaying, swamp backwater that draws the lost, ill-fated, and damned. 

Since his mother's disappearance and his father's suicide, Thomas has cared for his three brothers—conjoined triplets with separate bodies but one shared brain—and the town's only industry, the Mill.

Because of his family's prominence, Thomas is feared and respected by the superstitious swamp folk. Granny witches cast hexes while Thomas's childhood sweetheart drifts through his life like a vengeful ghost and his best friend, a reverend suffering from the power of tongues, is overcome with this curse as he tries to warn of impending menace. All Thomas learns is that "the carnival is coming."

Torn by responsibility and rage, Thomas must face his tormented past as well as the mysterious forces surging toward the town he loves and despises.

Prime Evil

Douglas E. Winter

This stunning collection of novellas and short stories by masters of the macabre brings to fans and newcomers an unrelenting spell of horror and suspense. These are tales that strike beyond sheer terror, as their disturbing visions capture the dark reality we all fear. Features works by Stephen King, Clive Barker, Peter Straub, and more.

Zothique

Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Book 16

Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith's influential Zothique sequence of stories, the majority of which were orignally published during the 1930s, collected in a signle volume. Number 16 in the Ballantine Adult Fantasy series, edited by Lin Carter.

Contents:

  • About Zothique, and Clark Ashton Smith: When the World Grows Old - essay by Lin Carter
  • Map of Zothique
  • Zothique (1951 poem)
  • Xeethra (1934)
  • Necromancy in Naat (1936)
  • The Empire of the Necromancers (1932)
  • The Master of the Crabs (1948)
  • The Death of Ilalotha (1937)
  • The Weaver in the Vault (1934)
  • The Witchcraft of Ulua (1934)
  • The Charnel God (1934)
  • The Dark Eidolon (1935)
  • Morthylla (1953)
  • The Black Abbot of Puthuum (1936)
  • The Tomb-Spawn (1934)
  • The Last Hieroglyph (1935)
  • The Isle of the Torturers (1933)
  • The Garden of Adompha (1938)
  • The Voyage of King Euvoran (1933)
  • Epilogue: The Sequence of the Zothique Tales - essay by Lin Carter

The Boats of the Glen Carrig

Ballantine Adult Fantasy: Book 25

William Hope Hodgson

Adventures in the Strange places of the Earth, after the foundering of the good ship Glen Carrig through striking upon a hidden rock in the unknown seas to the Southward. As told by John Winterstraw, Gent., to his son James Winterstraw, in the year 1757, and by him committed very properly and legibly to manuscript.

Beneath the Rising

Beneath the Rising: Book 1

Premee Mohamed

HOPE HAS A PRICE

Nick Prasad has always enjoyed a quiet life in the shadow of his best friend, child prodigy and technological genius Joanna 'Johnny' Chambers. But all that is about to end.

When Johnny invents a clean reactor that could eliminate fossil fuels and change the world, she awakens primal, evil Ancient Ones set on subjugating humanity.

From the oldest library in the world to the ruins of Nineveh, hunted at every turn, they will need to trust each other completely to survive...

A Broken Darkness

Beneath the Rising: Book 2

Premee Mohamed

It's been a year and a half since the Anomaly, when They tried to force their way into the world from the shapeless void.

Nick Prasad is piecing his life together, and has joined the secretive Ssarati Society to help monitor threats to humanity - including his former friend Johnny.

Right on cue, the unveiling of Johnny's latest experiment sees more portals opened to Them, leaving her protesting her innocence even as the two of them are thrown together to fight the darkness once more...

The Void Ascendant

Beneath the Rising: Book 3

Premee Mohamed

SURVIVAL HAS CONSEQUENCES

Seven years ago, the last survivor of Earth crashed through uncountable dimensions to a strange new world. Nick Prasad found shelter, and a living, as a prophet for the ruling family--servants of the Ancient Ones who destroyed his home.

Now, he's been offered a chance to rid the multiverse of the Ancient Ones, past and present and forever, although he'll have to betray his new masters to do it.

The first step is jailbreaking a god--and that's the easy part...

Black Wings of Cthulhu: 21 Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Black Wings of Cthulhu: Book 1

S. T. Joshi

Contents:

  • Introduction - (2010) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Pickman's Other Model (1929) - (2008) - novelette by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Desert Dreams - (2010) - shortstory by Donald R. Burleson
  • Engravings - (2010) - shortstory by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
  • Copping Squid - (2009) - novelette by Michael Shea
  • Passing Spirits - (2010) - shortstory by Sam Gafford
  • The Broadsword - (2010) - novella by Laird Barron
  • Usurped - (2010) - novelette by William Browning Spencer
  • Denker's Book - (2010) - shortstory by David J. Schow
  • Inhabitants of Wraithwood - (2010) - novelette by W. H. Pugmire
  • The Dome - (2010) - shortstory by Mollie L. Burleson
  • Rotterdam - (2010) - shortstory by Nicholas Royle
  • Tempting Providence - (2010) - novelette by Jonathan Thomas
  • Howling in the Dark - (2010) - shortstory by Darrell Schweitzer
  • The Truth About Pickman - (2010) - shortstory by Brian Stableford
  • Tunnels - (2010) - shortstory by Philip Haldeman
  • The Correspondence of Cameron Thaddeus Nash - (2010) - novelette by Ramsey Campbell
  • Violence, Child of Trust - (2010) - shortstory by Michael Cisco
  • Lesser Demons - (2010) - novelette by Norman Partridge
  • An Eldritch Matter - (2010) - shortstory by Adam Niswander
  • Substitutions - (2010) - novelette by Michael Marshall Smith
  • Susie - (2010) - shortstory by Jason Van Hollander

Black Wings of Cthulhu 2: 18 Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Black Wings of Cthulhu: Book 2

S. T. Joshi

Contents:

  • 7 - Introduction: "Black Wings of Cthulhu 2" - (2012) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • 11 - When Death Wakes Me to Myself - (2012) - shortfiction by John Shirley
  • 45 - View - (2012) - shortfiction by Tom Fletcher
  • 61 - Houndwife - (2012) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • 85 - King of Cat Swamp - (2012) - shortfiction by Jonathan Thomas
  • 107 - Dead Media - (2012) - shortfiction by Nick Mamatas
  • 125 - The Abject - (2012) - shortfiction by Richard Gavin
  • 149 - Dahlias - (2012) - shortfiction by Melanie Tem
  • 159 - Bloom - (2012) - shortfiction by John Langan
  • 195 - And the Sea Gave Up the Dead - (2012) - shortfiction by Jason C. Eckhardt
  • 213 - Casting Call - (2012) - shortfiction by Don Webb
  • 231 - The Clockwork King, the Queen of Glass, and the Man with the Hundred Knives - (2012) - shortfiction by Darrell Schweitzer
  • 251 - The Other Man - (2012) - shortfiction by Nicholas Royle
  • 263 - Waiting at the Crossroads Motel - (2012) - shortfiction by Steve Rasnic Tem
  • 275 - The Wilcox Remainder - (2012) - shortfiction by Brian Evenson
  • 291 - Correlated Discontents - (2012) - shortfiction by Rick Dakan
  • 317 - The Skinless Face - (2012) - shortfiction by Donald Tyson
  • 353 - The History of a Letter - (2012) - shortstory by Jason V Brock
  • 369 - Appointed - (2012) - shortfiction by Chet Williamson

Black Wings of Cthulhu 3: 17 Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Black Wings of Cthulhu: Book 3

S. T. Joshi

Contents:

  • China Holiday - (2014) - novelette by Peter Cannon
  • Dimply Dolly Doofy - (2014) - shortstory by Donald R. Burleson
  • Down Black Staircases - (2014) - novelette by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.
  • Further Beyond - (2014) - novella by Brian Stableford
  • Hotel del Lago - (2014) - shortstory by Mollie L. Burleson
  • Houdini Fish - (2014) - novelette by Jonathan Thomas
  • Introduction (Black Wings of Cthulhu 3) - (2014) - essay by S. T. Joshi
  • Necrotic Cove - (2014) - shortstory by Lois H. Gresh [as by Lois Gresh ]
  • One Tree Hill (The World as Cataclysm) - (2013) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Spiderwebs in the Dark - (2014) - novelette by Darrell Schweitzer
  • The Hag Stone - (2014) - novelette by Richard Gavin
  • The Man with the Horn - (2014) - shortstory by Jason V Brock
  • The Megalith Plague - (2014) - shortstory by Don Webb
  • The Turn of the Tide - (2014) - shortstory by Mark Howard Jones
  • Thistle's Find - (2014) - shortstory by Simon Strantzas
  • Underneath an Arkham Moon - (2014) - shortstory by Jessica Amanda Salmonson and W. H. Pugmire
  • Waller - (2014) - novella by Donald Tyson
  • Weltschmerz - (2014) - novelette by Sam Gafford

Black Wings of Cthulhu 4: 17 New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Black Wings of Cthulhu: Book 4

S. T. Joshi

Contents:

  • A Prism of Darkness - (2015) - shortfiction by Darrell Schweitzer
  • Black Ships Seen South of Heaven - (2015) - shortfiction by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • Broken Sleep - (2015) - shortfiction by Cody Goodfellow
  • Contact - (2015) - shortfiction by John Pelan and Stephen Mark Rainey
  • Cult of the Dead - (2015) - shortfiction by Lois H. Gresh
  • Dark Redeemer - (2015) - shortfiction by Will Murray
  • Fear Lurks Atop Tempest Mount - (2015) - shortfiction by Charles Lovecraft
  • Half Lost in Shadow - (2015) - shortstory by W. H. Pugmire
  • In the Event of Death - (2015) - shortfiction by Simon Strantzas
  • Night of the Piper - (2015) - shortfiction by Ann K. Schwader
  • Revival - (2015) - shortfiction by Stephen Woodworth
  • Sealed by the Moon - (2015) - shortfiction by Gary Fry
  • The Dark Sea Within - (2015) - shortfiction by Jason V Brock
  • The Rasping Absence - (2015) - shortfiction by Richard Gavin
  • The Wall of Asshur-sin - (2015) - shortfiction by Donald Tyson
  • Trophy - (2015) - shortfiction by Melanie Tem
  • We Are Made of Stars - (2015) - shortfiction by Jonathan Thomas

Black Wings VII: New Tales of Lovecraftian Horror

Black Wings of Cthulhu: Book 7

S. T. Joshi

This seventh volume of S. T. Joshi's acclaimed Black Wings series features an international cast of contributors who use the work of H. P. Lovecraft as a springboard for powerful and thought-provoking tales that probe the terrors and uncertainties of life in the twenty-first century.

Lovecraft was a devotee of science, but he recognised that science's role in human life is ambiguous. In this volume, Katherine Kerestman, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Donald Tyson probe the sense of human insignificance that science brings in its wake. Lovecraft knew that realism of setting fostered his signature contribution of cosmicism. Stories by Donald R. Burleson, Nancy Kilpatrick, Geoffrey Reiter, and Aditya Dwarkesh take us from the frozen realm of Antarctica to the sweltering heat of Calcutta; from ancient New England to the remote stretches of Pennsylvania. Tales by David Hambling and Mark Howard Jones tease out weirdness even in the familiar locales of Great Britain.

Contents:

  • Introduction -- S. T. Joshi
  • The Resonances -- Ramsey Campbell
  • Er Lasst Sich Nicht Lesen -- Steven Woodworth
  • How Curwen Got His Hundred Years -- Jonathan Thomas
  • The Pit of G'narrh -- Donald R. Burleson
  • Open Adoption -- Ann K. Schwader
  • The Lime Kiln -- Geoffrey Reiter
  • Father Thames -- David Hambling
  • Who Killed Augustus Bourbaki? -- Aditya Dwarkesh
  • Can We Keep Him? -- Darrell Schweitzer
  • The Things We Do Not See -- Steve Rasnic Tem
  • Global Warming -- Katherine Kerestman
  • A Very Old Song Mark -- Howard Jones
  • Deception Island -- Nancy Kilpatrick
  • And The Devil Hath Power -- John Shirley
  • The Amber Toad -- Donald Tyson
  • An Elemental Infestation -- Mark Samuels
  • With Eyes Opened -- Ngo Binh Anh Khoa

The Great and Secret Show

Book of The Art: Book 1

Clive Barker

In the little town of Palomo Grove, two great armies are amassing; forces shaped from the hearts and souls of America. In this New York Times bestseller, Barker unveils one of the most ambitious imaginative landscapes in modern fiction, creating a new vocabulary for the age-old battle between good and evil. Carrying its readers from the first stirring of consciousness to a vision of the end of the world, The Great and Secret Show is a breathtaking journey in the company of a master storyteller.

Books of Blood, Volume II

Books of Blood: Book 2

Clive Barker

Table of Contents:

  • Dread - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Hell's Event - novelette by Clive Barker
  • Jacqueline Ess: Her Will and Testament - novelette by Clive Barker
  • The Skins of the Fathers - novelette by Clive Barker
  • New Murders in the Rue Morgue - novelette by Clive Barker

The Three Impostors

Call of Cthulhu: Book 12

Arthur Machen

Arthur Machen (1863-1947), popular Welsh writer of the bizarre and fantastic, created some of the finest horror stories ever written. On the surface, everything appears normal and cheerful in this bustling suburb of neatly laid out homes and well-trimmed hedges. But nothing is really as it seems. For in this world of impostors, conspiracies combine with dark forces to veil a once-ordinary London neighborhood in a cloud of mystery and fear.

A masterpiece of Gothic horror and suspense that inspired such writers as H. P. Lovecraft, The Three Impostors is Machen's famous collection of "weird tales" — a string of shocking short stories woven together with a fine narrative thread. Rich with terror, adventure, satire, deception, and dreamlike fantasy, it is a classic of occult literature written by a stylistic master.

The Klarkash-Ton Cycle: Clark Ashton Smith's Cthulhu Mythos Fiction

Call of Cthulhu: Book 24

Clark Ashton Smith

Contents:

  • v - Introduction to The Klarkash-Ton Cycle - essay by Robert M. Price
  • 1 - The Ghoul - (1934) - shortstory
  • 8 - A Rendering from the Arabic - shortstory
  • 25 - The Hunters from Beyond - (1932) - shortstory
  • 44 - The Vaults of Abomi - shortstory
  • 67 - The Nameless Offspring - (1932) - novelette
  • 88 - Ubbo-Sathla - [Hyperborea] - (1933) - shortstory
  • 98 - The Werewolf of Averoigne - [Averoigne] - (1984) - shortstory
  • 115 - The Eidolon of the Blind - shortfiction
  • 133 - Vulthoom - [Mars (Clark Ashton Smith)] - (1935) - novelette
  • 162 - The Treader of the Dust - (1935) - shortstory
  • 172 - The Infernal Star - (1989) - novelette
  • 203 - Story Intros (The Klarkash-Ton Cycle) - essay by Robert M. Price

The Dead Take the A Train

Carrion City: Book 1

Cassandra Khaw
Richard Kadrey

Bestselling authors Cassandra Khaw and Richard Kadrey have teamed up to deliver a dark new story with magic, monsters, and mayhem, perfect for fans of Neil Gaiman and Joe Hill.

Julie is a coked-up, burnt-out thirty-year-old whose only retirement plan is dying early. She's been trying to establish herself in the NYC magic scene, and she'll work the most gruesome gigs, exorcize the nastiest demons, and make deals with the cruelest gods to claw her way to the top. But nothing can prepare her for the toughest job yet: when her best friend, Sarah, shows up at her door in need of help. Keeping Sarah safe becomes top priority.

Julie is desperate for a quick fix to break the dead-end grind and save her friend. But her power grab sets off a deadly chain of events that puts Sarah -- and the entire world -- directly in the path of annihilation.

The first explosive adventure in the Carrion City Duology, The Dead Take the A Train fuses Cassandra Khaw's cosmic horror and Richard Kadrey's gritty fantasy into a full-throttle thrill ride straight into New York's magical underbelly.

Through a Mythos Darkly

Cthulhu Mythos Anthology

Glynn Owen Barrass
Brian M. Sammons

In this Cthulhu Mythos inspired anthology, editors Glynn Owen Barrass & Brian M. Sammons invited their authors to Take a steampunk world, fill it with giant steam powered robots, and have them herding shoggoths for the betterment of mankind. Have them rebel, and have do-gooders set about trying to free them. Fill a world with Deep Ones or Ghouls, or create a world where magic is a part of everyday life, or where America was never discovered because something kept eating the ships, or the Nazis won WWII thanks to outside influences. Perhaps the Chinese built the Great Wall to keep something out other than Mongol hordes. So, how did they do? Fantastically of course!

Contents:

  • Introduction (Through a Mythos Darkly) - essay by Glynn Owen Barrass and Brian M. Sammons
  • The Roadrunners - short fiction by Cody Goodfellow
  • Scrimshaw - short fiction by Jeffrey Thomas
  • Sweet Angie Tailor in: Subterranean Showdown - short story by John Langan
  • An Old and Secret Cult - short fiction by Robert M. Price
  • Stewert Behr--Deanimator - short fiction by Peter Rawlik [as by Pete Rawlik]
  • To Kill a King - short fiction by Don Webb
  • The Last Quest - short story by William Meikle
  • Fate of the World - short fiction by Christine Morgan
  • Red in the Water, Salt on the Earth - short fiction by Konstantine Paradias
  • The Night They Drove Cro Magnon Down - short fiction by D. A. Madigan
  • Sacrifice - short fiction by Sam Stone
  • Get Off Your Knees, I'm Not Your God - short fiction by Edward Morris
  • Excerpts from the Diaries of Henry P. Linklatter - short fiction by Stephen Mark Rainey
  • Plague Doctor - short fiction by Tim Waggoner
  • Amidst the Blighted Swathes of Grey Desolation - short fiction by Lee Clark Zumpe
  • Cognac, Communism, and Cocaine - short fiction by Nick Mamatas and Molly Tanzer
  • Kai Monstrai Ateik (When the Monsters Come) - short fiction by Damien Angelica Walters

Frankenstein in Baghdad

Frankenstein

Ahmed Saadawi

Winner of the International Prize for Arabic Fiction and France's Grand Prize for Fantasy

From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi--a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café--collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed. Hadi soon realizes he's created a monster, one that needs human flesh to survive--first from the guilty, and then from anyone in its path.

Out of Space and Time

Frontiers of Imagination: Book 43

Clark Ashton Smith

An artist, poet, and prolific contributor to Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1967) is an influential figure in the history of pulp fiction. A close correspondent and collaborator with H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, Smith was widely celebrated as a master by his contemporaries. Back in print for the first time since 1971, Out of Space and Time showcases the many facets of Smith's unique prose that make him one of the greatest American writers of macabre and fantastic tales.

Here are tales of Averoigne, tales belonging to the Cthulhu, stories of sheer horror, and one or two of sardonic comedy. Jeff VanderMeer provides an introduction for this Bison Books edition.

Contents:

  • v - Introduction (Out of Space and Time) - essay by Jeff VanderMeer
  • xv - Clark Ashton Smith: Master of Fantasy - (1942) - essay by August Derleth and Donald Wandrei
  • 3 - The End of the Story - [Averoigne] - (1930) - novelette
  • 25 - A Rendezvous in Averoigne - [Averoigne] - (1931) - shortstory
  • 43 - A Night in Malnéant - (1933) - shortstory
  • 51 - The City of the Singing Flame - [Singing Flame - 1] - (1931) - novella
  • 100 - The Uncharted Isle - (1930) - shortstory
  • 115 - The Second Interment - (1933) - shortstory
  • 129 - The Double Shadow - [Poseidonis] - (1933) - shortstory
  • 144 - The Chain of Aforgomon - (1935) - novelette
  • 165 - The Dark Eidolon - [Zothique] - (1935) - novelette
  • 198 - The Last Hieroglyph - [Zothique] - (1935) - shortstory
  • 218 - Sadastor - (1930) - poem
  • 222 - The Death of Ilalotha - [Zothique] - (1937) - shortstory
  • 236 - The Return of the Sorcerer - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1931) - shortstory
  • 257 - The Testament of Athammaus - [Hyperborea] - (1932) - shortstory
  • 280 - The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan - [Hyperborea] - (1932) - shortstory
  • 291 - Ubbo-Sathla - [Hyperborea] - (1933) - shortstory
  • 303 - The Monster of the Prophecy - (1932) - novelette
  • 347 - The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis - [Mars (Clark Ashton Smith)] - (1932) - novelette
  • 367 - From the Crypts of Memory - (1917) - poem
  • 369 - The Shadows - (1922) - poem

Lost Worlds

Frontiers of Imagination: Book 48

Clark Ashton Smith

An artist, poet, and prolific contributor to Weird Tales, Clark Ashton Smith (1893-1967) is an influential figure in the history of pulp fiction. A close correspondent and collaborator with H. P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard, Smith was widely celebrated as a master by his contemporaries. Back in print for the first time since 1971, Lost Worlds brings together twenty-three of Smith's classic stories, all of which were originally published in Weird Tales. Rather than center his works on heroes, Smith created fantastical worlds around which he built cycles of stories. Included here are tales from the realms of Averoigne, Zothique, Hyperborea, and others. Told in lush poetic prose, these haunting stories bring to life dark, dreamlike realms full of gothic monsters and mortals. Jeff VanderMeer provides an introduction for this Bison Books edition.

Contents:

  • viii - Introduction (Lost Worlds) - essay by Jeff VanderMeer
  • 3 - The Tale of Satampra Zeiros - [Satampra Zeiros] - (1931) - shortstory
  • 18 - The Door to Saturn - [Hyperborea] - (1932) - shortstory
  • 42 - The Seven Geases - [Hyperborea] - (1934) - novelette
  • 67 - The Coming of the White Worm - [Hyperborea] - (1941) - shortstory
  • 85 - The Last Incantation - [Malygris] - (1930) - shortstory
  • 91 - A Voyage to Sfanomoë - [Poseidonis] - (1931) - shortstory
  • 101 - The Death of Malygris - [Malygris] - (1934) - shortstory
  • 119 - The Holiness of Azédarac - [Averoigne] - (1933) - novelette
  • 144 - The Beast of Averoigne - [Averoigne] - (1933) - shortstory
  • 159 - The Empire of the Necromancers - [Zothique] - (1932) - shortstory
  • 171 - The Isle of the Torturers - [Zothique] - (1933) - shortstory
  • 190 - Necromancy in Naat - [Zothique] - (1936) - novelette
  • 214 - Xeethra - [Zothique] - (1934) - novelette
  • 239 - The Maze of Maal Dweb - [Maal Dweb] - (1933) - shortstory
  • 255 - The Flower-Women - [Maal Dweb] - (1935) - shortstory
  • 271 - The Demon of the Flower - (1933) - shortstory
  • 283 - The Plutonian Drug - (1934) - shortstory
  • 296 - The Planet of the Dead - (1932) - shortstory
  • 311 - The Gorgon - (1932) - shortstory
  • 325 - The Letter from Mohaun Los - (1932) - novelette (variant of Flight into Super-Time)
  • 366 - The Light from Beyond - (1933) - novelette
  • 390 - The Hunters from Beyond - (1932) - shortstory
  • 410 - The Treader of the Dust - (1935) - shortstory

A Book of Tongues

Hexslinger: Book 1

Gemma Files

Two years after the Civil War, Pinkerton agent Ed Morrow has gone undercover with one of the weird West's most dangerous outlaw gangs-the troop led by "Reverend" Asher Rook, ex-Confederate chaplain turned "hexslinger," and his notorious lieutenant (and lover) Chess Pargeter. Morrow's task: get close enough to map the extent of Rook's power, then bring that knowledge back to help Professor Joachim Asbury unlock the secrets of magic itself.

Magicians, cursed by their gift to a solitary and painful existence, have never been more than a footnote in history. But Rook, driven by desperation, has a plan to shatter the natural law that prevents hexes from cooperation, and change the face of the world-a plan sealed by an unholy marriage-oath with the goddess Ixchel, mother of all hanged men. To accomplish this, he must raise her bloodthirsty pantheon from its collective grave through sacrifice, destruction, and apotheosis.

Caught between a passel of dead gods and monsters, hexes galore, Rook's witchery, and the ruthless calculations of his own masters, Morrow's only real hope of survival lies with the man without whom Rook cannot succeed: Chess Pargeter himself. But Morrow and Chess will have to literally ride through Hell before the truth of Chess's fate comes clear-the doom written for him, and the entire world.

Table of Contents:

  • City of Jades - (2010)
  • Skull-Flower - (2010)
  • Jaguar Cactus Fruit - (2010)

The Night Land

Hyperion Classics of Science Fiction: Book 24

William Hope Hodgson

The Night Land is a classic horror novel by William Hope Hodgson, first published in 1912. As a work of fantasy it belongs to the Dying Earth subgenre. H. P. Lovecraft's described the novel as "one of the most potent pieces of macabre imagination ever written". According to critical consensus, in this work, despite his often laboured and clumsy language, Hodgson achieves a deep power of expression, which focuses on a sense not only of terror but of the ubiquity of potential terror, of the thinness of the invisible bound between the world of normality and an underlying reality for which humans are not suited.

In the distant future, the sun has burned out, plunging the world into perpetual twilight. All of the remaining humanity has dwindled to a single, eight-mile-high pyramid called The Last Redoubt. Horrific creatures have evolved that lurk in the darkness. After a second dying Lesser Redoubt is discovered, one man is determined to rescue its last surviving inhabitant, but that means traversing the unknown and terrifying Night Land.

John Dies at the End

John Dies at the End: Book 1

Jason Pargin

STOP. You should not have touched this flyer with your bare hands. NO, don't put it down. It's too late. They're watching you. My name is David Wong. My best friend is John. Those names are fake. You might want to change yours. You may not want to know about the things you'll read on these pages, about the sauce, about Korrok, about the invasion, and the future. But it's too late. You touched the book. You're in the game. You're under the eye. The only defense is knowledge. You need to read this book, to the end. Even the part with the bratwurst. Why? You just have to trust me.

The important thing is this: The drug is called Soy Sauce and it gives users a window into another dimension. John and I never had the chance to say no. You still do. I'm sorry to have involved you in this, I really am. But as you read about these terrible events and the very dark epoch the world is about to enter as a result, it is crucial you keep one thing in mind: None of this was my fault.

This Book Is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don't Touch It

John Dies at the End: Book 2

Jason Pargin

Fan favourite David Wong takes readers to a whole new level with this blistering sequel to the cult sensation John Dies at the End, now a movie starring Paul Giamatti. As the sequel opens, we find our heroes, David and John, again embroiled in a series of horrifying yet mind-bogglingly ridiculous events caused primarily by their own gross incompetence. The guys find that books and movies about zombies may have triggered a zombie apocalypse, despite a complete lack of zombies in the world. As they race against the clock to protect humanity from its own paranoia, they must ask themselves, who are the real monsters? Actually, that would be the shape-shifting horrors secretly taking over the world behind the scenes that, in the end, make John and Dave kind of wish it had been zombies after all. Hilarious, terrifying, engaging and wrenching, This Book Is Full of Spiders, the next thrilling installment, takes us for a wild ride with two slackers from the midwest who really have better things to do with their time than prevent the apocalypse.

What the Hell Did I Just Read: A Novel of Cosmic Horror

John Dies at the End: Book 3

Jason Pargin

From the writer of the cult sensation John Dies at the End comes another terrifying and hilarious tale of almost Armageddon at the hands of two hopeless heroes.

It's the story "They" don't want you to read. Though, to be fair, "They" are probably right about this one. No, don't put the book back on the shelf--it is now your duty to purchase it to prevent others from reading it. Yes, it works with ebooks, too; I don't have time to explain how.

While investigating a fairly straightforward case of a shape-shifting interdimensional child predator, Dave, John, and Amy realized there might actually be something weird going on. Together, they navigate a diabolically convoluted maze of illusions, lies, and their own incompetence in an attempt to uncover a terrible truth that they - like you - would be better off not knowing. Your first impulse will be to think that a story this gruesome--and, to be frank, stupid--cannot possibly be true. That is precisely the reaction "They" are hoping for.

Welcome to Lovecraft

Locke & Key: Book 1

Joe Hill
Gabriel Rodriguez

Acclaimed suspense novelist and New York Times best-selling author Joe Hill (Heart-Shaped Box) creates an all-new story of dark fantasy and wonder: Locke and Key. Written by Hill and featuring astounding artwork from Gabriel Rodriguez, Locke and Key tells of Keyhouse, an unlikely New England mansion, with fantastic doors that transform all who dare to walk through them... and home to a hate-filled and relentless creature that will not rest until it forces open the most terrible door of them all...

H. P. Lovecraft and Others: Shadows Over Innsmouth

Lovecraft and Others: Book 1

Stephen Jones

Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft's classic, today's masters of horror take up their pens and turn once more to that decayed, forsaken New England fishing village with its sparkling treasure, loathsome denizens, and unspeakable evil. This anthology features seventeen chilling stories by authors such as Neil Gaiman, Ramsey Campbell and Kim Newman, as well as the original masterpiece of horror.

Contents:

  • ix - Introduction: Spawn of the Deep Ones (Shadows Over Innsmouth) - essay by Stephen Jones
  • 1 - The Shadow Over Innsmouth - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1936) - novelette by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 51 - Beyond the Reef - novella by Basil Copper
  • 101 - The Big Fish - [The Diogenes Club] - novelette by Kim Newman [as by Jack Yeovil ]
  • 127 - Return to Innsmouth - (1992) - shortstory by Guy N. Smith
  • 132 - The Crossing - shortstory by Adrian Cole
  • 146 - Down to the Boots - (1989) - shortstory by D. F. Lewis
  • 149 - The Church in High Street - (1962) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
  • 161 - Innsmouth Gold - shortstory by David Sutton
  • 173 - Daoine Domhain - (1992) - novelette by Peter Tremayne
  • 191 - A Quarter to Three - (1988) - shortstory by Kim Newman
  • 195 - The Tomb of Priscus - novelette by Brian Mooney
  • 221 - The Innsmouth Heritage - (1992) - shortstory by Brian Stableford
  • 237 - The Homecoming - shortstory by Nicholas Royle
  • 255 - Deepnet - shortstory by David Langford
  • 260 - To See the Sea - novelette by Michael Marshall Smith
  • 285 - Dagon's Bell - (1988) - novelette by Brian Lumley
  • 316 - Only the End of the World Again - shortstory by Neil Gaiman
  • 330 - Afterwords: Contributors' Notes (Shadows Over Innsmouth) - essay by uncredited

H. P. Lovecraft and Others: Weird Shadows Over Innsmouth

Lovecraft and Others: Book 2

Stephen Jones

For decades, H. P. Lovecraft's masterpiece of terror has inspired writers with its gripping account of a village whose inhabitants have surrendered to an ancient and hideous evil. In this companion to the acclaimed anthology Shadows Over Innsmouth, World Fantasy Award winning editor Stephen Jones has assembled eleven of today's most prominent and well-respected horror authors - the finest of the Lovecraftian acolytes.. Included is Lovecraft's own unpublished draft of The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Contents:

  • 1 - Introduction: Weird Shadows... - essay by Stephen Jones
  • 6 - Discarded Draft of "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" - (1931) - shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 13 - The Quest for Y'ha-nthlei - novelette by John S. Glasby [as by John Glasby ]
  • 34 - Brackish Waters - novelette by Richard A. Lupoff
  • 62 - Voices in the Water - shortstory by Basil Copper
  • 81 - Another Fish Story - [The Diogenes Club] - novelette by Kim Newman
  • 115 - Take Me to the River - novelette by Paul J. McAuley [as by Paul McAuley ]
  • 142 - The Coming - (1997) - shortstory by Hugh B. Cave
  • 156 - Eggs - (2000) - shortstory by Steve Rasnic Tem
  • 169 - From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6 - novelette by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • 196 - Raised by the Moon - (2001) - novelette by Ramsey Campbell
  • 211 - Fair Exchange - shortstory by Michael Marshall Smith
  • 228 - The Taint - novella by Brian Lumley
  • 281 - Afterwords: Contributors' Notes - essay by uncredited

H. P. Lovecraft and Others: Weirder Shadows Over Innsmouth

Lovecraft and Others: Book 3

Stephen Jones

Respected horror anthologist Stephen Jones edits this collection of 17 stories inspired by the 20th century's master of horror, H.P. Lovecraft's "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," in which a young man goes to an isolated, desolate fishing village in Massachusetts, and finds that the entire village has interbred with strange creatures that live beneath the sea, and worship ancient gods.

Contents:

  • xiii - Introduction: Weirder Shadows... - essay by Stephen Jones
  • 1 - The Port - [Fungi from Yuggoth - 8] - (1930) - poem by H. P. Lovecraft
  • 2 - Innsmouth Bane - (2005) - shortstory by John S. Glasby [as by John Glasby ]
  • 17 - Richard Riddle, Boy Detective in "The Case of the French Spy" - [The Diogenes Club] - (2005) - novelette by Kim Newman
  • 46 - Innsmouth Clay - (1971) - shortstory by H. P. Lovecraft and August Derleth
  • 58 - The Archbishop's Well - novelette by Reggie Oliver
  • 83 - You Don't Want To Know - novelette by Adrian Cole
  • 108 - Fish Bride - (2009) - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • 119 - The Hag Stone - novelette by Conrad Williams
  • 153 - On the Reef - (2011) - shortfiction by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • 162 - The Song of Sighs - shortstory by Angela Slatter
  • 179 - The Same Deep Waters as You - novelette by Brian Hodge
  • 218 - The Winner - (2005) - shortstory by Ramsey Campbell
  • 232 - The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings - shortstory by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • 237 - The Chain - shortstory by Michael Marshall Smith
  • 258 - Into the Water - shortstory by Simon Kurt Unsworth
  • 275 - Rising, Not Dreaming - (2011) - shortstory by Angela Slatter
  • 279 - The Long Last Night - (2012) - novelette by Brian Lumley
  • 314 - Afterwords: Contributors' Notes - essay by Stephen Jones

Lovecraft Country

Lovecraft Country: Book 1

Matt Ruff

The critically acclaimed cult novelist makes visceral the terrors of life in Jim Crow America and its lingering effects in this brilliant and wondrous work of the imagination that melds historical fiction, pulp noir, and Lovecraftian horror and fantasy.

Chicago, 1954. When his father Montrose goes missing, 22-year-old Army veteran Atticus Turner embarks on a road trip to New England to find him, accompanied by his Uncle George--publisher of The Safe Negro Travel Guide--and his childhood friend Letitia. On their journey to the manor of Mr. Braithwhite--heir to the estate that owned one of Atticus's ancestors--they encounter both mundane terrors of white America and malevolent spirits that seem straight out of the weird tales George devours.

At the manor, Atticus discovers his father in chains, held prisoner by a secret cabal named the Order of the Ancient Dawn--led by Samuel Braithwhite and his son Caleb--which has gathered to orchestrate a ritual that shockingly centers on Atticus. And his one hope of salvation may be the seed of his--and the whole Turner clan's--destruction.

A chimerical blend of magic, power, hope, and freedom that stretches across time, touching diverse members of two black families, Lovecraft Country is a devastating kaleidoscopic portrait of racism--the terrifying specter that continues to haunt us today.

Songs of a Dead Dreamer

Masters of Horror: Book 4

Thomas Ligotti

Songs of a Dreamer was Thomas Ligotti's first collection of supernatural horror stories. When originally published in 1985 by Harry Morris's Silver Scarab Press, the book was hardly noticed. In 1989, an expanded version appeared that garnered accolades from several quarters. Writing in the Washington Post, the celebrated science fiction and fantasy author Michael Swanwick extolled: "Put this volume on the shelf right between H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Where it belongs."

Contents:

  • ix - Introduction (Songs of a Dead Dreamer) - (1985) - essay by Ramsey Campbell
  • 3 - The Frolic - (1982) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 19 - Les Fleurs - (1981) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 28 - Alice's Last Adventure - (1985) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 49 - Dream of a Mannikin - (1982) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 66 - The Chymist - [The Nyctalops Trilogy - 1] - (1981) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 79 - Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes - [The Nyctalops Trilogy - 2] - (1982) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 90 - Eye of the Lynx - [The Nyctalops Trilogy - 3] - (1983) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 100 - Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story - (1985) - novelette by Thomas Ligotti
  • 125 - The Christmas Eves of Aunt Elise: A Tale of Possession in Old Grosse Pointe - (1983) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 135 - The Lost Art of Twilight - (1986) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 155 - The Troubles of Dr. Thoss - (1985) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 168 - Masquerade of a Dead Sword: A Tragedie - (1986) - novelette by Thomas Ligotti (variant of Masquerade of a Dead Sword)
  • 191 - Dr. Voke and Mr. Veech - (1983) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 202 - Professor Nobody's Little Lectures on Supernatural Horror - (1985) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 213 - Dr. Locrian's Asylum - (1987) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 224 - The Sect of the Idiot - [Azathoth] - (1988) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 236 - The Greater Festival of Masks - (1985) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 244 - The Music of the Moon - (1987) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 253 - The Journal of J. P. Drapeau - (1987) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti
  • 260 - Vastarien - (1987) - shortstory by Thomas Ligotti

The Watchers Out of Time

Masters of Horror: Book 5

H. P. Lovecraft
August Derleth

Venture at your own risk into a realm where the sun sinks into oblivion -- and all that is unholy, unearthly, and unspeakable rises. These rare, hard-to-find collaborations of cosmic terror are back in print, including:

  • Wentworth's Day - A fellow figures his debt to a dead man is null and void, until he discovers just how terrifying interest rates can be.
  • The Shuttered Room - A sophisticated gentleman must settle his grandfather's estate, only to find that the house shelters dark secrets.
  • The Dark Brotherhood - A beautiful woman and her companion meet the likes of Edgar Allan Poe, in a tale as terrifying as anything Poe himself ever created.
  • Innsmouth Clay - A sculptor returns from Paris to create a statue not entirely of this world -- and not at all under his control.
  • Witches' Hollow - A new schoolteacher puts his soul in peril while trying to save one of his students from a ravenous creature.

Table of Contents:

  • Foreword - essay by April Derleth
  • The Lurker at the Threshold - [Cthulhu Mythos] - (1945) - novel by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Survivor - (1954) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • Wentworth's Day - (1957) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Peabody Heritage - (1957) - novelette by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Gable Window - (1957) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Ancestor - (1957) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Shadow Out of Space - (1957) - novelette by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Lamp of Alhazred - (1957) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Shuttered Room - (1959) - novelette by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Fisherman of Falcon Point - (1959) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • Witches' Hollow - (1962) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Shadow in the Attic - (1964) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Dark Brotherhood - (1966) - novelette by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Horror from the Middle Span - (1967) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • Innsmouth Clay - (1971) - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft
  • The Watchers Out of Time - short story by August Derleth and H. P. Lovecraft

The Dead Hours of Night

Monster, She Wrote: Book 3

Lisa Tuttle

In a career spanning almost 50 years, Lisa Tuttle has proven herself a master of the weird tale, and now this new collection of twelve unsettling stories - some never previously collected - offers readers a chance to discover some of her finest work.

In 'Replacements', a woman adopts a monstrous pet, with unforeseen consequences. In 'Born Dead', a stillborn child mysteriously continues to grow just like a living one. 'My Pathology' (whose ending Thomas Tessier has cited as one of the best in the history of horror) explores the sinister results of a couple's alchemical experiments. And a book lover in 'The Book That Finds You' has her life changed in strange ways by the discovery of a rare horror book at a second-hand bookshop. In these weird and chilling tales, Tuttle is at her diabolical best.

This edition features an introduction by Lisa Kröger, and each story is specially introduced by the author.

Contents:

  • 'Objects in Dreams May Be Closer Than They Appear' (2011)
  • 'Closet Dreams' (2007)
  • 'Born Dead' (2013)
  • 'Replacements' (1992)
  • 'A Birthday' (1993)
  • 'My Pathology' (1998)
  • 'Food Man' (1994)
  • 'Mr Elphinstone's Hands' (1990)
  • 'The Dream Detective' (2013)
  • 'Where the Stones Grow' (1980)
  • 'Vegetable Love' (2017)
  • 'The Book That Finds You' (2015)

New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird

New Cthulhu: Book 1

Paula Guran

For more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gaming. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history - written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread - today remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. In the first decade of the twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. NEW CTHULHU: THE RECENT WEIRD presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction - bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters - eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing.

New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird

New Cthulhu: Book 2

Paula Guran

Many of the best weird fiction writers (and creators in most other media) have been profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos H.P. Lovecraft created eight decades ago. Lovecraft's themes of cosmic indifference, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history - written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread - are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. A few years ago, New Cthulhu : The Recent Weird presented some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction from the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird brings you more eldritch tales and even fresher fiction inspired by Lovecraft.

Contents:

  • "Introduction" by Paula Guran
  • "The Same Deep Waters as You" by Brian Hodge
  • "Mysterium Tremendum" by Laird Barron
  • "The Transition of Elizabeth Haskings" by Caitlín R. Kiernan
  • "Bloom" by John Langan
  • "At Home with Azathoth" by John Shirley
  • "The Litany of Earth" by Ruthanna Emrys
  • "Necrotic Cove" by Lois H. Gresh
  • "On Ice" by Simon Strantzas
  • "The Wreck of the Charles Dexter Ward" by Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette
  • "All My Love, A Fishhook" by Helen Marshall
  • "The Doom That Came to Devil Reef" by Don Webb
  • "Momma Durtt" by Michael Shea
  • "They Smell of Thunder" by W. H. Pugmire
  • "The Song of Sighs" by Angela Slatter
  • "Fishwife" by Carrie Vaughn
  • "In the House of the Hummingbirds" by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
  • "Who Looks Back?" by Kyla Ward
  • "Equoid" by Charles Stross
  • "The Boy Who Followed Lovecraft" by Marc Laidlaw

Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas: Book 1

Dean Koontz

"The dead don't talk. I don't know why." But they do try to communicate, with a short-order cook in a small desert town serving as their reluctant confidant. Meet Odd Thomas, the unassuming young hero of Dean Koontz's dazzling New York Times bestseller, a gallant sentinel at the crossroads of life and death who offers up his heart in these pages and will forever capture yours.

Sometimes the silent souls who seek out Odd want justice. Occasionally their otherworldly tips help him prevent a crime. But this time it's different. A stranger comes to Pico Mundo, accompanied by a horde of hyena-like shades who herald an imminent catastrophe. Aided by his soul mate, Stormy Llewellyn, and an unlikely community of allies that includes the King of Rock 'n' Roll, Odd will race against time to thwart the gathering evil. His account of these shattering hours, in which past and present, fate and destiny, converge, is a testament by which to live—an unforgettable fable for our time destined to rank among Dean Koontz's most enduring works.

When Darkness Loves Us

Paperbacks From Hell: Book 2

Elizabeth Engstrom

Sally Ann and Martha. Two women, searching for love. Finding terror.

During a terrifying storm, a gentle childhood is destroyed by a twisted man who promises love but delivers nightmare.

In the lightless depths of an underground labyrinth, unseen creatures lie in wait for an innocent traveler, cold skeletal hands stretched out in welcome.

There is horror in darkness--horror made greater WHEN DARKNESS LOVES US

Sally Ann is a bright and bubbling farm girl, still caught in the thrill of a brand-new husband and a shining future ahead. When a careless exploration leaves her trapped underground, she learns to live again in the absence of everything she once knew. Even driven by love and light, Sally Ann finds the deepest darkness within herself in When Darkness Loves Us.

Old Martha Mannes has been a part of Morgan, Illinois since her birth. The whole town knows her as the dim-witted woman who was born without a nose, but Martha's mind wasn't always a blank slate. Unlocking the monster buried deep in her memories may bring back the sparkling child she once was... or it may send those around her crashing down into the nightmares of a little girl gone wrong in When Darkness Loves Us.

A Nest of Nightmares

Paperbacks From Hell: Book 8

Lisa Tuttle

Table of Contents:

  • Bug House - (1980) - shortstory
  • Dollburger - (1973) - shortstory
  • Community Property - (1980) - shortstory
  • Flying to Byzantium - (1985) - novelette
  • Treading the Maze - (1981) - shortstory
  • The Horse Lord - (1977) - shortstory
  • The Other Mother - (1980) - novelette
  • Need - (1981) - shortstory
  • The Memory of Wood - (1982) - shortstory
  • A Friend in Need - (1981) - shortstory
  • Stranger in the House - (1972) - shortstory
  • Sun City - (1980) - shortstory
  • The Nest - (1983) - novelette

Queer Fear II: Gay Horror Fiction, Vol. 2

Queer Fear: Book 2

Michael Rowe

Queer Fear II builds on the successes of its predecessor, Queer Fear, the groundbreaking gay-themed horror anthology that Gothic.net called "the best horror anthology of [the year]," which won the Queer Horror Award, and was a finalist for a Spectrum Award and two Lambda Literary Awards.

This second volume includes among its stories new work by some stars of the previous volume--International Horror Guild Award winners Gemma Files and Michael Marano, Bram Stoker Award winners David Nickle and Edo van Belkom, and screenwriter Ron Oliver. Science fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer, winner of the Aurora and Nebula Awards, crosses genres to appear alongside newer writers like Bram Stoker Award winner Brett Savory, novelist Sephera Giron, and classic British ghost story author Steve Duffy.

And if that's not enough, Queer Fear II will also feature a new, unpublished story by internationally acclaimed horror writer Poppy Z. Brite.

The dark pleasures and anxieties of the Queer Fear books have their roots in the nightmarish, viral machinations of AIDS and homophobia, as well as the ghoulish, old-fashioned thrills of confronting things that go bump in the night. Queer Fear II will keep you up long past the witching hour.

Contents:

  • Acknowledgments (Queer Fear II) - (2002) - essay by uncredited
  • Introduction: In Further Praise of Queer Fear - (2002) - essay by Michael Rowe
  • Bugcrush - (2002) - shortstory by Scott Treleaven
  • Polyphemus' Cave - (2002) - novelette by David Nickle
  • Dead in the Water - (2002) - shortstory by C. Mark Umland
  • Delicious Monster - (2002) - shortstory by Nalo Hopkinson
  • Gaytown - (2002) - novelette by Robert Boyczuk
  • Digging Up Graves - (1997) - shortstory by William J. Mann
  • artGod - (2002) - shortstory by Joseph O'Brien
  • Black Shapes in a Darkened Room - (2002) - shortstory by Marshall Moore
  • Night of the Werepuss - (2002) - shortstory by Michael Thomas Ford
  • On Being a Fetish - (2002) - shortstory by David Coffey
  • I Stand Alone - (2002) - shortstory by Sèphera Girón
  • Numbers - (2002) - shortstory by Steve Duffy
  • Want - (2002) - shortstory by Ron Oliver
  • Oh Yes, My Eyes - (2002) - shortfiction by David Quinn
  • One of the Boys - (2002) - shortstory by Edo van Belkom
  • Till Human Voices Wake Us - (2002) - shortstory by Stephen Dedman
  • Slice - (2002) - shortstory by Warren Dunford
  • Veggie Mountain - (2002) - shortstory by Thomas S. Roche
  • Exit Wound - (2002) - shortstory by Michael Marano
  • Freshets - (2002) - shortstory by Brett Alexander Savory
  • Bayou de la Mère - (2002) - shortstory by Poppy Z. Brite
  • The Narrow World - (2001) - novella by Gemma Files
  • Contributors (Queer Fear II) - (2002) - essay by uncredited

Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors

Studies in Supernatural Literature: Book 1

Robert H. Waugh

Recognized as a major innovator in the weird story, H. P. Lovecraft (1890-1937) was an author whose influence was felt by nearly every writer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction in the second half of the twentieth century. Considered one of the leading writers of gothic horror, Lovecraft and his work continue to inspire writers today.

In Lovecraft and Influence: His Predecessors and Successors, Robert H. Waugh has assembled essays that are vast in scope, ranging from the Bible through the Edwardian period and well into the present. This collection is devoted to authors whose work had an impact on Lovecraft--Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Lord Dunsany--and those who drew inspiration from him, including William S. Burroughs, Ramsey Campbell, Thomas Ligotti, and Stephen King.

A fascinating anthology, Lovecraft and Influence will appeal to aficionados of classic horror, fantasy, and science fiction and those with an interest in modern authors whose works reflect and honor Lovecraft's enduring legacy.

Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror

Studies in Supernatural Literature: Book 4

Gary William Crawford

As the author of more than two dozen novels and hundreds of short stories, as well as essays, reviews, and columns, Ramsey Campbell is one of the most prolific writers in the field of horror literature. The consistently high level of quality in his work has resulted in every major award that weird fiction has to offer, including the Grand Master Award of the World Horror Convention, the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Horror Writers Association, and the Living Legend Award of the International Horror Guild. Strangely, though, relatively little criticism has been written about Campbell.

In Ramsey Campbell: Critical Essays on the Modern Master of Horror, Gary William Crawford has assembled a collection of articles that examine the work of one of weird fiction's most revered writers. These essays looks at a number of elements that characterize Campbell's stories and novels, including comparisons to H.P. Lovecraft, who was an early inspiration; Campbell's modern variations of Gothic fiction; his concept of evil; religious subtext in his fiction; and how adversities Campbell has faced have shaped his life and his work.

In all, these essays pay homage to Campbell's painstaking craftsmanship and show that there is much to be mined in his fiction. Because Campbell is so important in the genre of horror literature, this book serves as a much needed affirmation of his work. It will be of interest to scholars of supernatural fiction in general, but also to devoted fans of this major figure in weird fiction.

The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror

Studies in Supernatural Literature: Book 8

Justin Everett
Jeffrey Shanks

When the pulp magazine Weird Tales appeared on newsstands in 1923, it proved to be a pivotal moment in the evolution of speculative fiction. Living up to its nickname, "The Unique Magazine," Weird Tales provided the first real venue for authors writing in the nascent genres of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Weird fiction pioneers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, Catherine L. Moore, and many others honed their craft in the pages of Weird Tales in the 1920s and 1930s, and their work had a tremendous influence on later generations of genre authors.

In The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales: The Evolution of Modern Fantasy and Horror, Justin Everett and Jeffrey Shanks have assembled an impressive collection of essays that explore many of the themes critical to understanding the importance of the magazine. This multi-disciplinary collection from a wide array of scholars looks at how Weird Tales served as a locus of genre formation and literary discourse community. There are also chapters devoted to individual authors--including Lovecraft, Howard, and Bloch--and their particular contributions to the magazine.

As the literary world was undergoing a revolution and mass-produced media began to dwarf high-brow literature in social significance, Weird Tales managed to straddle both worlds. This collection of essays explores the important role the magazine played in expanding the literary landscape at a very particular time and place in American culture. The Unique Legacy of Weird Tales will appeal to scholars and aficionados of fantasy, horror, and weird fiction and those interested in the early roots of these popular genres.

Table of Contents:

  • ix - Introduction: Weird Tales -- Discourse Community and Genre Nexus - essay by Jeffrey Shanks and Justin Everett [as by Justin Everett and Jeffrey H. Shanks]
  • 3 - "Something That Swayed as If in Unison": The Artistic Authenticity of Weird Tales in the Interwar Periodical Culture of Modernism - essay by Jason Ray Carney
  • 15 - Weird Modernism: Literary Modernism in the First Decade of Weird Tales - essay by Jonas Prida
  • 29 - The Lovecraft Circle and the "Weird Class": "Against the Complacency of an Orthodox Sun-Dweller" - essay by Dániel Nyikos
  • 51 - Strange Collaborations: Weird Tales's Discourse Community as a Site of Collaborative Writing - essay by Nicole Emmelhainz
  • 63 - Gothic to Cosmic: Sword-and-Sorcery Fiction in Weird Tales - essay by Morgan Holmes [as by Morgan T. Holmes]
  • 83 - A Nameless Horror: Madness and Metamorphosis in H. P. Lovecraft and Postmodernism - essay by Clancy Smith
  • 105 - Great Phallic Monoliths: Lovecraft and Sexuality - essay by Bobby Derie
  • 119 - Evolutionary Otherness: Anthropological Anxiety in Robert E. Howard's "Worms of the Earth" - essay by Jeffrey Shanks [as by Jeffrey H. Shanks]
  • 131 - Eugenic Thought in the Works of Robert E. Howard - essay by Justin Everett
  • 153 - Pegasus Unbridled: Clark Ashton Smith and the Ghettoization of the Fantastic - essay by Scott Connors
  • 173 - "A Round Cipher": Word-Building and World-Building in the Weird Works of Clark Ashton Smith - essay by Geoffrey Reiter
  • 187 - C. L. Moore, M. Brundage, and Jirel of Joiry: Women and Gender in the October 1934 Weird Tales - essay by Jonathan Helland
  • 193 - Weird Tales, October 1934 (cover) - (1934) - interior artwork by Margaret Brundage (variant of cover art for Weird Tales, October 1934)
  • 194 - The Black God's Kiss - (1934) - interior artwork by H. R. Hammond
  • 201 - Psycho-ology 101: Incipient Madness in the Weird Tales of Robert Bloch - essay by Paul W. Shovlin
  • 211 - "To Hell and Gone": Harold Lawlor's Self-Effacing Pulp Metafiction - essay by Sidney Sondergard

The M.D.: A Horror Story

Supernatural Minnesota: Book 2

Thomas M. Disch

Exploring questions of guilt and responsibility, the second book in Thomas M. Disch's Supernatural Minnesota series, The M.D., is a satisfying mix of dark humor, biting social commentary, and terrifying horror. Given the power to heal or to harm by the Roman god Mercury through a magical staff, the caduceus, young Billy Michaels embarks on a lifelong journey of inflicting good and evil on those who cross his path. Wielding the caduceus, Billy, and later the grown-up, greedy physician William, can only cure in proportion to the amount of suffering he inflicts. From paralyzing his brother and mutilating schoolmates to wreaking a nationwide plague and running for-profit concentration camps for the sick, Michaels's powers spin quickly out of control.

What Moves the Dead

Sworn Soldier: Book 1

T. Kingfisher

A gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher."

When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruritania.

What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves.

Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

The End of the Story

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 1

Clark Ashton Smith

Published in chronological order, with extensive story and bibliographic notes, this series not only provides access to stories that have been out of print for years, but gives them a historical and social context. Series editors Scott Conners and Ronald S. Hilger excavated the still-existing manuscripts, letters and various published versions of the stories, creating a definitive "preferred text" for Smith's entire body of work. This first volume of the series, brings together 25 of his fantasy stories, written between 1925 and 1930, including such classics as "The Abominations of Yondo," "The Monster of the Prophecy," "The Last Incantation" and the title story.

Table of Contents:

  • Introduction (The End of the Story) • essay by Ramsey Campbell
  • A Note on the Texts (The End of the Story) • essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • To the Daemon (1943) • poem by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Abominations of Yondo (1926) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Sadastor (1930) • poem by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Ninth Skeleton (1928) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Last Incantation [Malygris] (1930) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The End of the Story [Averoigne] (1930) • novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Phantoms of the Fire (1930) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • A Night in Malnéant (1933) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Thirteen Phantasms (1936) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Venus of Azombeii (1931) • novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Tale of Satampra Zeiros [Satampra Zeiros] (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Monster of the Prophecy (1932) • novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Metamorphosis of the World (1951) • novelette by Clark Ashton Smith (variant of The Metamorphosis of Earth)
  • The Epiphany of Death (1934) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • A Murder in the Fourth Dimension (1930) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith (variant of Murder in the Fourth Dimension)
  • The Devotee of Evil (1933) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Satyr [Averoigne] (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Planet of the Dead (1932) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Uncharted Isle (1930) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Marooned in Andromeda [Captain Volmar • 1] (1930) • novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Root of Ampoi (1949) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Necromantic Tale (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Immeasurable Horror (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • A Voyage to Sfanomoë [Poseidonis] (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Story Notes (The End of the Story) • essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • "The Satyr": Alternate Conclusion [Averoigne] (1931) • short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • From the Crypts of Memory (1917) • poem by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Bibliography (The End of the Story) • essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger

The Door to Saturn

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 2

Clark Ashton Smith

Published in chronological order, with extensive story and bibliographic notes, this series not only provides access to stories that have been out of print for years, but gives them a historical and social context. Series editors Scott Conners and Ronald S. Hilger excavated the still-existing manuscripts, letters and various published versions of the stories, creating a definitive "preferred text" for Smith's entire body of work. This second volume of the series brings together 20 of his fantasy stories.

Table of Contents: [] contains series

  • Introduction (The Door to Saturn) (2007), essay by Tim Powers
  • A Note on the Texts (The Door to Saturn), essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • The Door to Saturn [Hyperborea] (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Red World of Polaris [Captain Volmar] (2003), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Told in the Desert (1964), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Willow Landscape (1931), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • A Rendezvous in Averoigne [Averoigne] (1931), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Gorgon (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • An Offering to the Moon (1953), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Kiss of Zoraida (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Face by the River (2004), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Ghoul (1934), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Kingdom of the Worm (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • An Adventure in Futurity (1931), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Justice of the Elephant (1931), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Return of the Sorcerer [Cthulhu Mythos] (1931), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The City of the Singing Flame [Singing Flame, 1] (1941), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith (variant of The City of Singing Flame 1931)
  • A Good Embalmer (1989), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Testament of Athammaus [Hyperborea] (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • A Captivity in Serpens [Captain Volmar, 2] (1931), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Letter from Mohaun Los (1932), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith (variant of Flight into Super-Time)
  • The Hunters from Beyond (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Story Notes (The Door to Saturn), essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • Alternate Ending to "The Return of the Sorcerer", short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Bibliography (The Door to Saturn), essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • About the Editors (The Door to Saturn), essay by uncredited

A Vintage from Atlantis

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 3

Clark Ashton Smith

A Vintage from Atlantis is the third of five volumes that collects all of Clark Ashton Smith's tales of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, faithfully following Smith's manuscripts. It includes, in chronological order, all of his stories from "The Holiness of Azédarac" (November 1933) to "The Colossus of Ylourgne" (June 1934). This volume also features an introduction by Michael Dirda, as well as extensive notes on each story.

Table of Contents: [] contains series

  • Introduction (A Vintage From Atlantis), essay by Michael Dirda
  • A Note on the Texts (A Vintage from Atlantis), essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • The Holiness of Azédarac [Averoigne] (1933), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Maker of Gargoyles [Averoigne] (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Beyond the Singing Flame [Singing Flame • 2] (1931), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Seedling of Mars [Mars (Clark Ashton Smith)] (1931), novelette by E. M. Johnston and Clark Ashton Smith (variant of The Planet Entity) [as by Clark Ashton Smith]
  • The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis [Mars (Clark Ashton Smith)] (1932), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Eternal World (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Demon of the Flower (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Nameless Offspring (1932), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • A Vintage from Atlantis [Poseidonis] (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan [Hyperborea] (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Invisible City (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Immortals of Mercury (1932), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Empire of the Necromancers [Zothique] (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Seed from the Sepulcher (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Second Interment (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Ubbo-Sathla [Hyperborea] (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Double Shadow [Poseidonis] (1933), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Plutonian Drug (1934), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Supernumerary Corpse (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The Colossus of Ylourgne [The Colossus of Ylourgne] (1934), novelette by Clark Ashton Smith
  • The God of the Asteroid (1932), short story by Clark Ashton Smith (variant of Master of the Asteroid)
  • Story Notes (A Vintage From Atlantis), essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
  • The Flower-Devil (1922), poem by Clark Ashton Smith
  • Bibliography (A Vintage From Atlantis), essay by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger

The Maze of the Enchanter

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 4

Clark Ashton Smith

This series presents Clark Ashton Smith's fiction chronologically, based on composition rather than publication. Editors Scott Connors and Ron Hilger have compared original manuscripts, various typescripts, published editions, and Smith's notes and letters, in order to prepare a definitive set of texts.

The Maze of the Enchanter includes, in chronological order, all of his stories from "The Mandrakes" (February, 1933) to "The Flower-Women" (May, 1935). This volume also features an introduction, and extensive notes on each story.

The Last Hieroglyph

The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 5

Clark Ashton Smith

he Last Hieroglyph is the fifth of five volumes that collect all of Clark Ashton Smith's tales of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, faithfully following Smith's manuscripts. It includes, in chronological order, all of his stories from "The Dark Age" (April 1938) to "The Dart of Rasasfa" (July 1961). This volume also features an introduction by Richard A. Lupoff, as well as extensive notes on each story.

The Abyss Triumphant

The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 1

Clark Ashton Smith

Clark Ashton Smith was one of the most remarkable and distinctive American poets of the twentieth century. His tremendous output of poetry, totaling nearly 1000 original poems written over a span of more than fifty years, is of the highest craftsmanship and runs the gamut of subject matter from breathtaking "cosmic" verse about the stars and galaxies to plangent love poetry to pungent satire to delicate imitations of Japanese haiku.

This edition prints, for the first time, Smith's entire poetic work, including hundreds of uncollected and unpublished poems. The poems have been arranged chronologically by date of writing, so far as can be ascertained. This first volume includes poetry from the first two to three decades of Smith's career, when he published such noteworthy volumes as The Star-Treader (1912), Ebony and Crystal (1922), andSandalwood (1925).

Smith's early work was written under the tutelage of the celebrated California poet George Sterling, but Smith quickly surpassed his mentor in the writing of cosmic and lyric verse. Smith's greatest poetic triumph, perhaps, was The Hashish-Eater, a poem of nearly 600 lines that strikingly evokes the myriad suns of unbounded space and the baleful monsters that may lurk therein. But Smith could also write such touching elegies as "Requiescat in Pace," a dirge for a woman whose death affected him deeply.

The Wine of Summer

The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 2

Clark Ashton Smith

This second volume of Clark Ashton Smith's complete original poetry contains the poems he wrote in the decades following the death in 1926 of his early mentor, George Sterling. Although much affected by Sterling's passing, Smith carried on in his poetic work, seeking new modes of expression and expanding his range beyond the cosmic and lyrical verse that had dominated his early career.

Having taught himself French in the mid-1920s, Smith began composing original poems in French, also translating them into English or translating his earlier English poems into French. Although Smith wrote relatively little verse during the period of his extensive writing of fantastic fiction (1929–35), he resumed work in the later 1930s, especially under the influence of his friends Eric Barker and Madelynne Greene, for whom he wrote the poetic cycle entitled The Hill of Dionysus. In the late 1940s he experimented with imitations of Japanese haiku, and in the 1950s, having taught himself Spanish, he wrote numerous original poems in Spanish. Also among his later output are a number of witty satires on the vagaries of modern poetry. In its entirety, Clark Ashton Smith's work stands as one of the great literary contributions to twentieth-century poetry.

All poems have been textually corrected by consultation with manuscripts and early appearances, and have been extensively annotated by editors S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz. This volume also contains an exhaustive commentary on all the poems and a complete title and first line index.

The Flowers of Evil and Others

The Complete Poetry and Translations of Clark Ashton Smith: Book 3

Clark Ashton Smith

In addition to being a prolific and innovative poet in his own right, Clark Ashton Smith was a noted translator of French and Spanish poetry. Teaching himself French in the mid-1920s, Smith undertook the ambitious program of translating the entirety of Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du mal (The Flowers of Evil) into English.

Over the next several years he succeeded in translating all but six of the 157 poems that comprised the definitive (1868) edition of Les Fleurs du mal. Smith would begin with a relatively literal prose translation and would later render it into verse; in the end, Smith versified about a third of the poems, the rest remaining in prose.

His mentor George Sterling testified to the remarkable spiritual affinity between Smith and Baudelaire, rendering him the perfect translator of this difficult poet. Smith also translated other noteworthy French poets-Paul Verlaine, Victor Hugo, Alfred de Musset, and Théophile Gautier, among others-as well as such obscure poets as Marie Dauguet and Tristan Klingsor. In the 1940s Smith taught himself Spanish, making splendid verse translations of such poets as Amado Nervo, Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, and and Jorge Isaacs. The great majority of the poems included in this volume are unpublished.

The current edition presents, for the first time, Smith's complete translations in French and Spanish, also printing the French and Spanish texts on facing pages. All texts are annotated by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz.

The Man from the Diogenes Club

The Diogenes Club: Book 1

Kim Newman

In the swinging seventies, Richard Jeperson - secret agent of the Diogenes Club - solves crimes too strange for Britain's police. His fashion sense is gaudy, his enemies deadly, his associates glamorous.

Table of Contents:

  • End of the Pier Show - (1997) - short story
  • You Don't Have to Be Mad ... - (1999) - novelette
  • Tomorrow Town - (2000) - novelette
  • Egyptian Avenue - (2002) - short story
  • Soho Golem - (2004) - novella
  • The Serial Murders - (2005) - novella
  • The Man Who Got Off the Ghost Train - (2006) - novella
  • Swellhead - (2004) - novella by Kim Newman
  • Notes - essay by Kim Newman
  • Afterword - essay by Kim Newman
  • About the Author - (2006) - essay by uncredited

The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club

The Diogenes Club: Book 2

Kim Newman

From the 1860s to the present, these are the accounts of the Diogenes Club, whose agents solve crimes too strange for Britain's police, protecting the realm and this entire plane of existence from occult menaces, threats born in other dimensions, magical perfidy and the Deep Dark Deadly Ones. Kim Newman continues the series began in The Man From the Diogenes Club, revealing more of the secrets of the British Empire's most secret service.

Table of Contents:

  • The Gypsies in the Wood - (2005) - novella
  • Richard Riddle, Boy Detective in "The Case of the French Spy" - (2005) - novelette
  • Angel Down, Sussex - (1999) - novella
  • Clubland Heroes - (2006) - novelette
  • The Big Fish - (1993) - novelette
  • Another Fish Story - (2005) - novelette
  • Cold Snap - (2007) - short story
  • Notes - (2007) - essay by Kim Newman
  • Who's Who - (2007) - essay by Kim Newman

The Divinity Student

The Divinity Student: Book 1

Michael Cisco

Short but powerful, this neo-gothic novel, which is illustrated by Harry O. Morris, uses the crisp immediacy of the present tense to lead the reader on a hallucinatory journey from humanity to inhuman transcendence. After a miraculous recovery from near death, a young man known only as the Divinity Student is beset by strange dreams whose lingering effects further alienate him from his fellows.

The Golem

The Divinity Student: Book 2

Michael Cisco

The sequel to the International Horror Guild Award-winning novel that launched the career of a writer sometimes described as "the American Kafka." Struck by lightning, resurrected, cut open, and stuffed full of arcane documents, the Divinity Student constructs a golem replacement to pursue his love underground, with lyrical consequences. As Publishers Weekly wrote, "Cisco wields words in sweeping, sensual waves, skillfully evoking multiple layers of image and metaphor." Recommended for fans of Clive Barker, Thomas Ligotti, Gemma Files, Kafka, Leonora Carrington and other masters of weird fiction. With an introduction by Paul Tremblay.

The Litany of Earth

The Innsmouth Legacy

Ruthanna Emrys

The state took Aphra away from Innsmouth. They took her history, her home, her family, her god. They tried to take the sea. Now, years later, when she is just beginning to rebuild a life, an agent of that government intrudes on her life again, with an offer she wishes she could refuse. "The Litany of Earth" is a dark fantasy story inspired by the Lovecraft mythos.

This short story can also be found in the anthologies New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird (2015), edited by Paula Guran, and Worlds Seen in Passing: Ten Years of Tor.com Short Fiction (2018), edited by Irene Gallo.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com, or listen to a podcast of this story at Drabblecast.

Winter Tide

The Innsmouth Legacy: Book 1

Ruthanna Emrys

After attacking Devil's Reef in 1928, the U.S. government rounded up the people of Innsmouth and took them to the desert, far from their ocean, their Deep One ancestors, and their sleeping god Cthulhu. Only Aphra and Caleb Marsh survived the camps, and they emerged without a past or a future.

The government that stole Aphra's life now needs her help. FBI agent Ron Spector believes that Communist spies have stolen dangerous magical secrets from Miskatonic University, secrets that could turn the Cold War hot in an instant, and hasten the end of the human race.

Aphra must return to the ruins of her home, gather scraps of her stolen history, and assemble a new family to face the darkness of human nature.

Includes bonus Aphra Marsh novelette "The Litany of Earth".

Deep Roots

The Innsmouth Legacy: Book 2

Ruthanna Emrys

Aphra Marsh, descendant of the People of the Water, has survived Deep One internment camps and made a grudging peace with the government that destroyed her home and exterminated her people. Now Aphra's journey to rebuild her life and family continues on land, as she tracks down long-lost relatives. She must repopulate Innsmouth or risk seeing it torn down by greedy developers, but as she searches she discovers that people have been going missing. She will have to unravel the mystery, or risk seeing her way of life slip away.

The Concrete Jungle

The Laundry Files

Charles Stross

Hugo Award winning novella. It was originally published as an extra in the novel The Atrocity Archives (2004). It can also be found in the anthology Best Short Novels: 2005, edited by Jonathan Strahan.

Read the full story for free at the Golden Gryphon website.

Man with No Name

The Nanashi Series: Book 1

Laird Barron

Nanashi was born into a life of violence. Delivered from the mean streets by the Heron Clan, he mastered the way of the gun and knife and swiftly ascended through yakuza ranks to become a dreaded enforcer. His latest task? He and an entourage of expert killers are commanded to kidnap Muzaki, a retired world-renowned wrestler under protection of the rival Dragon Syndicate.

It should be business as bloody usual for Nanashi and his ruthless brothers in arms, except for the detail that Muzaki possesses a terrifying secret. A secret that will spawn a no-holds barred gang war and send Nanashi on a personal odyssey into immortal darkness.

Agents of Dreamland

Tinfoil Dossier: Book 1

Caitlín R. Kiernan

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation, but which haunts the Signalman.

In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible -- the Children of the Next Level -- and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming and they will help to usher it in.

A day after the events at the ranch house which disturbed the Signalman so deeply that he and his government sought out help from 'other' sources, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory abruptly loses contact with NASA's interplanetary probe New Horizons. Something out beyond the orbit of Pluto has made contact.

And a woman floating outside of time looks to the future and the past for answers to what can save humanity.

Black Helicopters

Tinfoil Dossier: Book 2

Caitlín R. Kiernan

Just as the Signalman stood and faced the void in Agents of Dreamland, so it falls to Ptolema, a chess piece in her agency's world-spanning game, to unravel what has become tangled and unknowable.

Something strange is happening on the shores of New England. Something stranger still is happening to the world itself, chaos unleashed, rational explanation slipped loose from the moorings of the known. Two rival agencies stare across the Void at one another. Two sisters, the deadly, sickened products of experiments going back decades, desperately evade their hunters.

An invisible war rages at the fringes of our world, with unimaginable consequences and Lovecraftian horrors that ripple centuries into the future.

This edition of Caitlín R. Kiernan's Black Helicopters is an expanded and completed version of the World Fantasy Award-nominated novella of the same name.

The Tindalos Asset

Tinfoil Dossier: Book 3

Caitlín R. Kiernan

A rundown apartment in Koreatown. A Los Angeles winter. A strung out, worn out, wrecked and used government agent is scraped up off the pavement, cleaned up, and reluctantly sent out into battle one last time.

Ellison Nicodemo has seen and done terrible things. She thought her only remaining quest was for oblivion. Then the Signalman comes calling. He wants to learn if she can stop the latest apocalypse. Ellison, once a unique and valuable asset, can barely remember why she ever fought the good fight.

Still, you don't say no to the Signalman, and the time has come to face her fears and the nightmare forces that almost destroyed her. Only Ellison can unleash the hound of Tindalos.

It Devours!

Welcome to Night Vale: Book 2

Jeffrey Cranor
Joseph Fink

From the authors of the New York Times bestselling novel Welcome to Night Vale and the creators of the #1 international podcast of the same name, comes a mystery exploring the intersections of faith and science, the growing relationship between two young people who want desperately to trust each other, and the terrifying, toothy power of the Smiling God.

Nilanjana Sikdar is an outsider to the town of Night Vale. Working for Carlos, the town's top scientist, she relies on fact and logic as her guiding principles. But all of that is put into question when Carlos gives her a special assignment investigating a mysterious rumbling in the desert wasteland outside of town. This investigation leads her to the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God, and to Darryl, one of its most committed members. Caught between her beliefs in the ultimate power of science and her growing attraction to Darryl, she begins to suspect the Congregation is planning a ritual that could threaten the lives of everyone in town. Nilanjana and Darryl must search for common ground between their very different world views as they are faced with the Congregation's darkest and most terrible secret.

Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume 1

Year's Best Weird Fiction: Book 1

Laird Barron
Michael Kelly

Welcome to the weird! Acclaimed author and editor Laird Barron, one of weird fiction's brightest exponents, brings his expert eye and editorial sense to the inaugural volume of the Year's Best Weird Fiction. No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outre. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres. Hence, in this initial showcase of weird fiction you will discover tales of horror, fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and the macabre. Contributing authors include Jeffrey Ford, Sofia Samatar, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, John Langan, Richard Gavin, and W. H. Pugmire.

Table of Contents:

  • "Success" by Michael Blumlein, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Nov./Dec.
  • "Like Feather, Like Bone" by Kristi DeMeester, Shimmer #17
  • "A Terror" by Jeffrey Ford, Tor.com, July.
  • "The Key to Your Heart Is Made of Brass" by John R. Fultz, Fungi #21
  • "A Cavern of Redbrick" by Richard Gavin, Shadows & Tall Trees #5
  • "The Krakatoan" by Maria Dahvana Headley, Nightmare Magazine/The Lowest Heaven, July.
  • "Bor Urus" by John Langan, Shadow's Edge
  • "Furnace" by Livia Llewellyn, The Grimscribe's Puppets
  • "Eyes Exchange Bank" by Scott Nicolay, The Grimscribe's Puppets
  • "A Quest of Dream" by W.H. Pugmire, Bohemians of Sesqua Valley
  • "(he) Dreams of Lovecraftian Horror" by Joseph S. Pulver Sr., Lovecraft eZine #28
  • "Dr. Blood and the Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron" by A.C. Wise, Ideomancer Vol. 12 Issue 2
  • "The Year of the Rat" by Chen Quifan, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, July/August.
  • "Fox into Lady" by Anne-Sylvie Salzman, Darkscapes
  • "Olimpia's Ghost" by Sofia Samatar, Phantom Drift #3
  • "The Nineteenth Step" by Simon Strantzas, Shadows Edge
  • "The Girl in the Blue Coat" by Anna Taborska, Exotic Gothic 5 Vol. 1
  • "In Limbo" by Jeffrey Thomas, Worship the Night
  • "Moonstruck" by Karin Tidbeck, Shadows & Tall Trees #5
  • "Swim Wants to Know If It's as Bad as Swim Thinks" by Paul Tremblay, Bourbon Penn #8
  • "No Breather in the World But Thee" by Jeff VanderMeer, Nightmare Magazine, March.
  • "Shall I Whisper to You of Moonlight, of Sorrow, of Pieces of Us?" by Damien Angelica Walters, Shock Totem #7.