Omnibus collection of four early Bachman novels (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man) and the essay "Why I Was Bachman"

    Immersed in the history, atmosphere and rumours of hauntings, they channelled their darker imaginings into a series of extraordinary new ghost stories.Sarah Perry's intense tale of possession at the Jacobean country house Audley End is a work of psychological terror, while Andrew Michael Hurley's story brings an unforgettably shocking slant to the history of Carlisle Castle. Within the walls of these historic buildings each author has found inspiration to deliver a new interpretation of the classic ghost story.Also includes two afterwords: Andrew Martin's Within These Walls: How the Abbeys and Houses of England Inspired the Ghost Story, and Katherine Davey's A Gazetteer of English Heritage Hauntings, properties which are said to be haunted, including the eight locations which inspired the stories in this book.

    Kingfisher comes a collection of short stories, including "Jackalope Wives," "The Tomato Thief," "Pocosin," and many others. By turns funny, lyrical, angry and beautiful, this anthology includes two all-new stories, "Origin Story" and "Let Pass The Horses Black," appearing for the first time in print.

    They are lessons in ingenuity and surprise, sometimes building slowly to a chilling climax, sometimes springing horror on you from the utterly banal. And as you'd expect from these writers, the stories are more than simply frightening - they're also disquieting exposures of mortality, loneliness and the human capacity for both evil and remorse.We wish you pleasant dreams.Contains ghost stories by: Ruth Rendell, M. R. James, Rudyard Kipling, Edith Wharton, E. F. Benson, E. Nesbit, Saki, W. W. Jacobs, W. F. Harvey, Hugh Walpole, Chico Kidd and LP Hartley.

    Collected in this chilling volume are some of the famous Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo's best stories—bizarre and blood-curdling expeditions into the fantastic, the perverse, and the strange, in a marvelous homage to Rampo's literary 'mentor', Edgar Allan Poe.

    In her long-awaited debut story collection, dark, lush, and spellbinding short fiction you will find unexpected detours, dangerous magic, and even more dangerous women.Briar, bodyguard for a body-stealing sorceress, discovers her love for Rose, whose true soul emerges only once a week. An apprentice witch seeks her freedom through betrayal, the bones of the innocent, and a meticulously-plotted spell. In a world powered by crystal skulls, a warrior returns to save China from invasion by her jealous ex. A princess runs away from an arranged marriage, finding family in a strange troupe of traveling actors at the border of the kingdom’s deep, dark woods.Concluding with a gorgeous full-length novella, Marjorie Liu’s first short fiction collection is an unflinching sojourn into her thorny tales of love, revenge, and new beginnings.Sympathy for the bones --The briar and the rose --The light and the fury --The last dignity of man --Where the heart lives --After the blood --Tangleroot palace

    That's what Harriet and Arthur Bloomsbury think, but that comforting feeling is a fiction. Hiding among the stone walls, picturesque barns, and hay bales is a horror they can't imagine. It's deadly, impossible -- maybe even paranormal. This short story isn’t your average murder mystery, because this time, the threat isn’t quite so clear. Is it the serial killers hunting you? Your own paranoia? Or the very laws of nature? The suspense is free.

    Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable and tart, these highly imaginative, vintage Atwoodian mini-fictions speak on a broad range of subjects, reflecting the times we live in with deadly accuracy and knife-edge precision.In pieces ranging in length from a mere paragraph to several pages, Atwood gives a sly pep talk to the ambitious young; writes about the disconcerting experience of looking at old photos of ourselves; gives us Horatio's real views on Hamlet; and examines the boons and banes of orphanhood. Bring Back Mom: An Invocation; explores what life was really like for the "perfect" homemakers of days gone by, and in The Animals Reject Their Names she runs history backward, with surprising results.Chilling and witty, prescient and personal, delectable and tart, The Tent is vintage Atwood, enhanced by the author's delightful drawings.

    Readers only familiar with such masterpieces as The Dragonbone Chair and Talchaser’s Song will be delighted to discover that in his short fiction, Williams has been able to explore myriad new possibilities and adventures.Previously collected in multiauthor anthologies and limited hardcover editions, these superlative talks of dragons, super-soldiers, wizards, cyberpunks, heroes, and fools are now available together for the first time in an affordable trade paperback edition. These stories showcase the exhilarating breadth of Williams’ imagination, in stories hearkening to the tales of such classic fantasists as J. R. R. Tolkien, Robert Jordan, Ray Bradbury, and Peter S. Beagle. Included is an original tale written specifically for this volume.The Very Best of Tad Williams is a true delight to those who have imagined themselves in fantastic worlds beyond the everyday and mundane.TABLE OF CONTENTSThe Old Scale GameThe Storm DoorThe Stranger’s HandsChild of an AncientCityThe Boy Detective of Oz: An Otherland StoryThree Duets for Virgin and NosehornDiary of a DragonNot with a Whimper, EitherSome Thoughts Re: Dark DestroyerZ is for...Monsieur Vergalant’s CanardThe Stuff that Dreams are Made OfFish Between FriendsEvery Fuzzy Beast of the Earth, Every Pink Fowl of the AirA Stark and Wormy KnightBlack SunshineAnd Ministers of Grace

    Throughout the collection, women become insects, men turn to stone, a city becomes insomniac and bodies are picked apart to make up better ones. The mundane worlds of schools and sea side towns are invaded and transformed by the physical, creating a landscape which is constantly shifting to hold on to the bodies of its inhabitants. Blending the mythic and the fantastic, the collection considers characters in motion – turning away, turning back or simply turning into something new.From the winner of The White Review Short Story Prize 2018, salt slow is an extraordinary collection of short stories that are sure to dazzle and shock.

    When Frank, Shelley and their two young children move into the home of their dreams, they discover a problem with the cellar.It doesn't take them long to find out why the house was sold at a knock-down price.

    They hide in back yards, car lots, shopping malls. They devour neighbors, dogs and police officers. And they are here to stay. The real question is, what are you going to do about it? How will you survive?How will the world change when the dead begin to rise? Stoker-award-winning author Christopher Golden has assembled an original anthology of never-before-published zombie stories from an eclectic array of today's hottest writers. Inside there are stories about military might in the wake of an outbreak, survival in a wasted wasteland, the ardor of falling in love with a zombie, and a family outing at the circus. Here is a collection of new views on death and resurrection.With stories from Joe Hill, John Connolly, Max Brooks, Kelley Armstrong, Tad Williams, David Wellington, David Liss, Aimee Bender, Jonathan Maberry, and many others, this is a wildly diverse and entertaining collection... the last word on The New Dead.

    He idolizes Sarah Roberts from afar, and has done so for more than five years. He has studied her pictures, memorized her news clippings and now waits in the dark for the day when he can make Sarah his hostage.A steel cage waits for Sarah, where Elmore has practiced what he will do to her. The other girls he has practiced with now lay discarded, buried about his property. He keeps their fingernails and toenails to roll between his teeth, to savor their strength, to feel the nails weaken and give in, just as his victims do.Elmore has a plan for Sarah, and she walks right into his trap. Sarah Roberts is his hostage and no one knows where they are. In Sarah Roberts Book Four, The Hostage, Sarah is in a fight not just for her freedom, but also her life.The Victim (Sarah Roberts Book Five)In Book Five, Sarah Roberts is The Victim.Sarah is killed in a horrible car accident, the DNA found in the car verified as hers. But the government men at the Sophia Project have faked her death to keep her to themselves.After her funeral, she shows up in the food court of a busy mall where a violent exchange takes place. Things go wrong fast. The people protecting Sarah die within seconds from a mysterious drug. She runs, escaping the clutches of the police who want to figure out her connection to the murderers. A group of men called The Rapturites surface to take responsibility for the carnage. They want Sarah raptured as the end times are upon us. As the police hunt her, and the Rapturites get close, people she loves, old friends who have helped her in the past, start to die around her. Vivian, her sister, watches. Vivian listens. Sarah executes.In Sarah Roberts Book Five, Sarah is The Victim, and there's nothing she can do about it. Except she won't stay dead.The Enigma (Sarah Roberts Book Six)In Book Six, The Enigma, Sarah Roberts heads to Las Vegas, Nevada.Her dead sister has left her a message with two tasks to complete in Vegas. She is supposed to choose a random guy with a cell phone and send a message to a number her sister has supplied. Before she can complete this first task, she notices a man following her. This man begs her, with tears in his eyes, to not send the text.On the west side of Vegas, a man is being tortured. Sarah's second task is to arrive at a certain time to stop it. When she shows up late, people start to die. The man who had followed her also shows up. With people dead at the warehouse, the police want to know what she's doing in Vegas and why she was there.All Sarah wants is to get her bike and leave Las Vegas. But Maxwell Ramsey has a different plan for Sarah. She has entered his territory and intervened in his business. She has cost him money and time as he plans the acquisition of a local casino. For that, Sarah has to be removed.What she doesn't expect are the deep ties to her family and what that means to her now, and in the future.In Book Six, The Enigma, Sarah Roberts is in Vegas gambling with her life and can only make it out alive if she plays her cards right.

    Brockmeyer, the award-winning author of KIND NEPENTHE. In "Mine" a child hangs precariously between the isthmus of innocence and evil, shedding his humanity for the altar of a wolf pup.A horrifying and ancient legend reveals itself with a shocking new twist in "A Dirty Winter Moon.""Have a Heart" teaches us that nature always prevails over the follies of man, sometimes in an extremely gruesome manner.In "Rumpelstiltskin" the troll under the bridge is very real, and wants your children for unspeakable deeds.In "The Gym Teacher" a boy's obsession with serial killers leads him to discover the true nature of a monster.These twenty stories traverse the outskirts of society to reveal the brutality of humanity in all its gory glory.

    Ballard. The Venus Hunters. London: Gollancz, 1986. First hardcover edition, first printing. Octavo. 142 pages.