Book picks similar to
An Odour of Decay by Martin Jenson


horror
weird-fiction
b-priority
paperbacks-from-hell

Seven Footprints to Satan


A. Merritt - 1928
    They play Russian Roulette with seven footprints to world domination--and lost. They had become subject to the Collector of Infernal Revenue--Satan. The Master Player of games would glut his lust with souls and gain world power through diabolical manipulations. But into his collection comes James Kirkham, an American explorer determined to prove that the steps are stacked.

The Hell Candidate


Thomas Luke - 1980
    "Thomas Luke" is a pen name of Graham Masterton, prolific author of such books as "The Manitou." "They said Hunter Peale didn't have a hope in hell of getting elected. They were wrong... He was a kindly, moderate man - with a less than moderate chance of winning. Then it all began to change... What power did Peale now have that brought men to their knees in abnormal pain - and made women writhe with unholy pleasure? The answer froze the spirit like a chill, rancid breath from the foul grave-stench mouth of Hell - for Peale had entered into a monstrous pact with none other than the Prince of Darkness himself..."

Familiar Spirit


Lisa Tuttle - 1983
    until Brian fell in love with someone else. Sarah's life was shattered. Sarah was shattered.Miraculously, Sarah soon had a new lover -- one who came to her in dreams, who promised her anything she wanted, in return for a small favor, an innocent sacrifice...Anything she wanted -- even Brian. For her own, forever.In exchange, all Jade wanted was Sarah's soul...

Haunted


Tamara Thorne - 1995
    Its shrouded history of madness and murder is just the inspiration he needs to wriote his ultimate masterpiece of horror. But what waits for David and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Amber, at Baudey House, is more terrifying than any legend...First comes the sultry hint of jasmine...followed by the foul stench of decay. It is the dead, seducing the living, in an age-old ritual of perverted desire and unholy blood lust. For David and Amber, an unspeakable possession has begun...

The Innsmouth Cycle: The Taint of the Deep Ones


Robert M. PriceDave Carson - 1997
    / My journey to your depths begins tonight / To serve immortal till the stars turn right."These lines from a poem by Ann K. Schwader are the coda for this fine collection of tales about H.P. Lovecraft's Innsmouth--that decadent, smugly rotting New England town where half-human creatures with forbidding batrachian faces follow the arcane practices of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. In his erudite and witty introduction, Robert M. Price calls Innsmouth "the most effective, most evocative ... example of Lovecraft's full-blown alien civilizations." The Innsmouth Cycle includes 13 stories and 3 poems, including the three tales by Lord Dunsany, Robert W. Chambers, and Irvin S. Cobb that inspired Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth." This collection is planned as the first of a pair, the second half of which will be Tales of Innsmouth, containing (according to Price) all new works of "fishy fiction."A fun detail: this book is "respectfully dedicated to Ben Chapman, the Creature from the Black Lagoon." --Fiona Webster

Slow Fade


Rudolph Wurlitzer - 1984
    It is a profound and utterly convincing portrait of a man whose career and life has been devoted to the manipulation of imagesand the story of how, at the age of 71, he tries to divest himself of illusions and make peace with his demons and his past.

Diminished Capacity


Sherwood Kiraly - 1995
    And he has old newspapers stacked up to his ceiling because...well, who knows?

Star Fire


Ingo Swann - 1978
    Essef - Fictional story about a rock superstar who has discovered his own astonishing Psychic powers, his out of body mind voyages have revealed rival Russian and American instalations for developing psychic weaponry.

The Ceremonies


T.E.D. Klein - 1984
    Moving into a former storage building on the farm of Sarr and Deborah Poroth, he expects to spend a productive summer free from essentially all distractions - he is quite wrong in this assumption. Meanwhile, in New York, the rather reserved Carol Conklin goes about trying to survive in the big city on a small income from her job at a library. She meets Jeremy in New York just before he leaves for the summer, and a connection is made which will find the couple developing a romantic relationship on somewhat strange terms. What Jeremy and Carol do not know is that this relationship is the work of a strange, little old man known as Mr. Rosebottom. Rosie is actually the Old One working to bring his master back after a very long absence, and Jeremy and Carol are the unsuspecting keys to his success

The Woodwitch


Stephen Gregory - 1988
    But he also has a dark side. When his girlfriend Jennifer laughs at his impotence, he lashes out in a violent rage, knocking her unconscious. At the suggestion of his employer, Andrew heads to an isolated cottage in the dark Welsh countryside to take a break and get a grip on himself. In the woods, he discovers the grotesque stinkhorn mushroom, whose phallic shape seems to rise in obscene mockery of his own shortcomings. But the stinkhorn gives him an idea, a way to win Jennifer back. As the seeds of obsession take root in Andrew’s mind, he embarks on a nightmarish quest, with unexpected and horrifying results. Stephen Gregory earned worldwide acclaim with his first novel, The Cormorant (1986), which won the Somerset Maugham Award and was adapted for a BBC film. In The Woodwitch (1988), his second novel, Gregory once again proves himself a master of disturbing and unsettling horror.

Zod Wallop


William Browning Spencer - 1995
    "Gotta get moving," Rock said. A couple of hundred million years went by. A rock is always slow to take action. A rock watches an oak grow from a sapling to a towering tree, and it's a flash and a dazzle in the mind of a rock. What was that? Rock thinks. Or maybe, Huh?That's how Zod Wallop starts. Harry Gainesborough wrote and drew the story three years ago, before his daughter drowned. Now he writes nothing. Raymond Story read Zod Wallop while he was a patient at Harwood Psychiatric. Now the book means everything to him - so much so that he'd like to meet its author and live out its events. In fact, Zod Wallop means so much to Raymond that he has taken great pains to escape the institution and is now journeying to Harry Gainesborough's house with his young wife, Emily, in tow.These odd doings alone would be enough to unsettle Harry, but they're compounded by other coincidences. Bizarre coincidences. Occurrences that lead Harry to believe that Zod Wallop is actually happening.

The Evil in Pemberley House


Philip José Farmer - 2009
    First described in the fictional biographies Tarzan Alive: The Definitive Biography of Lord Greystoke and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life, Farmer expanded his Wold Newton mythos in novels such as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg, The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, Time s Last Gift, Hadon of Ancient Opar, Flight to Opar, The Dark Heart of Time: A Tarzan Novel, and Escape from Loki: Doc Savage's First Adventure.The Evil in Pemberley House, an addition to the Wold Newton cycle, plays with the Gothic horror tradition. Patricia Wildman, the daughter of the world-renowned adventurer and crimefighter of the 1930s and '40s, Dr. James Clarke "Doc" Wildman, is all alone in the world when she inherits the family estate in Derbyshire, England old, dark, and supposedly haunted.But Farmer, characteristically, turns convention on its ear. Is the ghost real, or a clever sham? In Patricia Wildman, Farmer creates an introspective character who struggles to reconcile the supernatural with her rational scientific upbringing, while also attempting to work through unresolved feelings about her late parents. He sets the action at Pemberley from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and ingrains the various mysteries in the Canon of the Sherlock Holmes stories.The Evil in Pemberley House is a darkly erotic novel with broad appeal to readers of pulp and popular literature, particularly followers of Doc Savage, Sherlockians, and fans of Farmer's own celebrated Wold Newton Family.

The Weird Fiction Megapack: 25 Stories from Weird Tales


Steve Rasnic Tem - 2014
    Included are works by many famous authors, such as H.P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Manly Wade Wellman, E. Hoffmann Price, Tennessee Williams, and many more—with an emphasis on great but less-well-known stories that readers may not have encountered before. "To Become a Sorcerer," by Darrell Schweitzer (included here) was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award.Included are:BOY BLUE, by Steve Rasnic TemTAP DANCING, by John Gregory BetancourtTO BECOME A SORCERER, by Darrell SchweitzerTHE GOLGOTHA DANCERS, by Manly Wade WellmanTHE DEATH OF ILALOTHA, by Clark Ashton SmithTHE SALEM HORROR, by Henry KuttnerTHE DISINTERMENT, by H.P. Lovecraft and D.W. RimelTHE SEA-WITCH, by Nictzin DyalhisVINE TERROR, by Howard WandreiTHE PALE MAN, by Julius LongWEREWOLF OF THE SAHARA, by G.G. PendarvesTRAIN FOR FLUSHING, by Malcolm JamesonTHE DIARY OF PHILIP WESTERLY, by Paul ComptonMASK OF DEATH, by Paul ErnstTHE GIRL FROM SAMARCAND, by E. Hoffmann PriceTHE MONKEY SPOONS, by Mary Elizabeth CounselmanTHE VENGEANCE OF NITOCRIS, by Tennessee WilliamsTHE NINTH SKELETON, by Clark Ashton SmithBIMINI, by Bassett MorganTHE CURSE OF YIG, by H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia BishopTHE HAUNTER OF THE RING, by Robert E. HowardTHE MEDICI BOOTS, by Pearl Norton SwetTHE LOST DOOR, by Dorothy QuickDOOM OF THE HOUSE OF DURYEA, by Earl Peirce, Jr.IN THE DARK, by Ronal KayserAnd don't forget to check out the other volumes in this series, covering science fiction, fantasy, horror, mystery, westerns, single author collections -- and much, much more! Search this ebookstore for "Wildside Megapack" to see the complete list.

The Nightmares on Elm Street: Freddy Krueger's Seven Sweetest Dreams


Martin H. Greenberg - 1991
    The sun will be rising soon. And you say you still aren’t tired? How’s that? You’re…trying to stay awake? You’re afraid to begin…dreaming? You’re scared you might run into…me? …PERCHANCE TO SCREAM… “But I’m already in the book you’re holding! I’m here in all my twisted glory, in seven grotesque tales by the masters of the macabre, including Nancy A. Collins, Bentley Little, and Tom Elliott. Stories about my bone-chilling past, my devilish present—and the horrifyingly vile plans I have for the future. AYE, THERE’S THE RUB! “What’s that? You thought I said—plans for your future? Well, now that you mention it…I can see you’re getting drowsy now. I’ll be waiting for you.”

The Hyde Effect


Steve Vance - 1986
    The murders are attributed to some unknown, savage animal.Precisely one month later, college student Meg Talley is attacked in the same manner. Astonishingly, she survives, but when she insists that her assailant was a hideous monster-like creature, she is called hysterical.Journalist Douglas Morgan, private eye Nick Grundel, and horror novelist Blake Corbett, however, have each theorized that the mangling, incredible though it seems, might be the work of a werewolf. Now they team up with Meg to puruse an intensive investigation. When a suspect is apprehended and confined, the four are on hand. But neither skeptics nor believers are prepared for the bone-chilling terror and cataclysmic violence that will be unleashed in the night of the January full moon...