Book picks similar to
A Bit of the Dark World by Toni V. Sweeney
horror
monsters
cthulhu-mythos
lovecraftian
Delta Green: Through a Glass, Darkly
Dennis Detwiller - 2011
government's 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green spent four decades opposing the forces of darkness with honor, but without glory. Stripped of sanction after a disastrous 1969 operation in Cambodia, Delta Green's leaders made a secret pact: to continue their work without authority, without support, and without fear. Delta Green agents slip through the system, manipulating the federal bureaucracy while pushing the darkness back for another day; but often at a shattering personal cost. "Ten years ago, everything changed. It's time you found out how. It's January 2001.The Delta Green agents code-named Cyrus and Charlie get the call: A young boy dead and buried for years has reappeared, healthy and happy, as if no time at all had passed and the disease that killed him had never been. The family thinks it's a miracle, but Delta Green has seen too many miracles turn to madness. Cyrus and Charlie must discover what horrors lurk behind this one. The mission brings them to the brink of apocalypse -- to the edge of the revelation and destruction of Delta Green -- to secrets and terrors at the heart of reality itself.
The Imago Sequence and Other Stories
Laird Barron - 2007
P. Lovecraft's "Pickman's model" - was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while "Proboscis" was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.
Maplecroft
Cherie Priest - 2014
The people of Fall River, Massachusetts, fear me. Perhaps rightfully so. I remain a suspect in the brutal deaths of my father and his second wife despite the verdict of innocence at my trial. With our inheritance, my sister, Emma, and I have taken up residence in Maplecroft, a mansion near the sea and far from gossip and scrutiny. But it is not far enough from the affliction that possessed my parents. Their characters, their very souls, were consumed from within by something that left malevolent entities in their place. It originates from the ocean’s depths, plaguing the populace with tides of nightmares and madness. This evil cannot hide from me. No matter what guise it assumes, I will be waiting for it. With an axe.
Going Monstering
Edward Lee - 2011
All the while, Ann White must become pervert-fodder if she hopes to pass Pledge Week. All too soon, she finds that no act of lewdness is deemed too demeaning, no manner of sexual degradation too foul... For there is a secret festering in the bowels of Alpha House, an ancient carnal evil whose stygian lust is too hideous to imagine and still stay sane. As Ann literally dips herself into a cesspool of soul-soiling immorality, the black revelation throbs closer and closer... WHERE ARE WE GOING TONIGHT? Poor Ann will be slopped on, spewed in, spat upon, penetrated, humped, poked, humiliated, bitch-slapped, gang-sodomized, plungered like a toilet, filled like a decanter, and debased en masse-indeed, she will willingly go through a wringer of sexual depravity to prove her resolve, but along the way, as she converts herself into this veritable receptacle of sullied lust, will she live long enough to unveil the true secret of Alpha House? TONIGHT, WE'RE GOING MONSTERING. An unrelenting and irredeemable novel of gore-house porn and unmitigated black comedic horror.
Megashark
Viktor Zarkov - 2015
They suspect that the deaths are due to poachers and they are all driven by a need for justice. Elsewhere, an experimental government vessel is enhancing deep sea mining equipment. They see one of these dead whales up close and personal...and are fairly certain that it wasn't poachers that killed it. Both of these teams are about to discover that poachers are the least of their worries. There is something hunting the whales... Something big Something prehistoric. Something terrifying. MEGATOOTH!
The Extinct - A Novel of Prehistoric Terror
Shigeru Brody - 2019
On the verge of entering adulthood, restless college student Eric Holden is told the heartbreaking news: his father has been killed in India. A mysterious guide who was with his father in his last moments tells Eric that the murderer is an unknown animal, one that is responsible for dozens of deaths in the region. He asks Eric to join him in the hunt for the beast and to find out what really happened to his father. Eric agrees and joins the team of hunters sent to find the creature. In a remote, forgotten region of the continent, he encounters the full darkness and violence of nature; and the tables are turned quickly as the mysterious beast is not what it seems. Soon, the hunters will become the hunted...
Carter & Lovecraft
Jonathan L. Howard - 2015
Lovecraft mythos into the twenty-first century, optioned by Warner Bros TV.Daniel Carter used to be a homicide detective, but his last case-the hunt for a serial killer-went wrong in strange ways and soured the job for him. Now he's a private investigator trying to live a quiet life. Strangeness, however, has not finished with him. First he inherits a bookstore in Providence from someone he's never heard of, along with an indignant bookseller who doesn't want a new boss. She's Emily Lovecraft, the last known descendant of H.P. Lovecraft, the writer from Providence who told tales of the Great Old Ones and the Elder Gods, creatures and entities beyond the understanding of man. Then people start dying in impossible ways, and while Carter doesn't want to be involved, he's beginning to suspect that someone else wants him to be. As he reluctantly investigates, he discovers that Lovecraft's tales were more than just fiction, and he must accept another unexpected, and far more unwanted inheritance.
California Haunting
Carrie Bates - 2019
But when terrifying dreams haunt her nights and someone unseen begs for help during the day, a terrified Megan questions her sanity. But when Megan realizes the nightmares aren't nightmares at all, and the voice belongs to someone who is long gone, things become even more sinister. And when Megan discovers the old metal container in the basement, her life will never be the same. Can Megan unravel the house's horrific past before she falls victim to the deadly presence? The house hopes not.
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
Sea Raptor: A Deep Sea Thriller
John J. Rust - 2014
Army Ranger, until an unfortunate incident forced him out of the service. He is soon hired by the Foundation for Undocumented Biological Investigation and given a new mission, to search for cryptids, creatures whose existence has not been proven by mainstream science. Teaming up with the daring and beautiful wildlife photographer Karen Thatcher, they must stop a sea monster's deadly rampage along the Jersey Shore. But that's not the only danger Rastun faces. A group of murderous animal smugglers also want the creature. Rastun must utilize every skill learned from years of fighting, otherwise, his first mission for the FUBI might very well be his last.
Strange Ways
Bryan Smith - 2014
In my view, there isn't higher praise than that."--Brian Keene, author of The Rising Meet Delphine, Simone, and Zarina. Together they are the Sisters of the Endless Night. For centuries the coven has traveled the width and breadth of the country, unable to call any one place home for very long. The black magic that has sustained their youth and beauty over the centuries requires frequent ritual human sacrifice. Thus they must move often to avoid detection by those who would oppose them. Now the coven has come to idyllic Wagner Avenue, the very heart of American suburbia. It is here where the alluring witches will face their gravest challenges yet. Dark forces are in motion, the cauldron is boiling, the pentagram is bleeding, and trouble is brewing. The witching hour is here. "Bryan Smith is one of the most reliable and consistently entertaining writers working in the horror and suspense genres."--Ray Garton, author of Live Girls
Alone With the Horrors: The Great Short Fiction, 1961-1991
Ramsey Campbell - 1993
He has won four World Fantasy Awards, ten British Fantasy Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards, and the Horror Writers' Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. Three decades into his career, Campbell paused to review his body of short fiction and selected the stories that were, to his mind, the very best of his works. Alone With the Horrors collects nearly forty tales from the first thirty years of Campbell's writing. Included here are "In the Bag," which won the British Fantasy Award, and two World Fantasy Award-winning stories, "The Chimney" and the classic "Mackintosh Willy." Campbell crowns the book with a length preface which traces his early publication history, discusses his youthful correspondence with August Derleth, illuminates the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on his early work, and gives an account of the creation of each story and the author's personal assessment of the works' flaws and virtues.In its first publication, a decade ago, Alone With the Horrors won both the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. For this new edition, Campbell has added one of his very first published stories, a Lovecraftian classic, "The Tower from Yuggoth." From this early, Cthulhian tale, to later works that showcase Campbell's growing mastery of mood and character, Alone With the Horrors provides readers with a close look at a powerful writer's development of his craft.
Kaiju Winter
Jake Bible - 2014
People are dangerous and desperate to escape the oncoming mega-eruption, knowing it will plunge the continent, and the world, into a perpetual ashen winter. But no matter how ready humanity is, nothing can prepare them for what comes out of the ash: Kaiju!
It Was a Dark and Creepy Night: Real-Life Encounters with the Strange, Mysterious, and Downright Terrifying
Joshua P. Warren - 2014
Warren began collecting these stories from around the world: they had to be true, they had to be short, and they had to send a shiver down your spine.It Was a Dark and Creepy Night presents a wide variety of weird and spooky tales about ghosts, UFOs, cryptids, angels, demons, ESP, interdimensional contact and more. Because each tale is short, this eerie little tome is perfect for a subway ride, a plane flight, or a night entertaining guests.An internationally respected investigator of the unknown, Joshua adds his insight to these strange experiences. Some tales are too odd to easily categorize, but each one simple or complex transformed an ordinary person's life, revealing a facet of those uncanny phenomena that still leave us wondering…what if?Imagine if:You met a strange woman who said she remembered Lincoln's funeral, then vanished . . .You dreamed you were being attacked by a demon and woke up to find scratch marks across your body . . .The face of the person in front of you suddenly transformed into that of a reptilian . . .Remember: These and the many other tales in this fascinating book are true, short, and eminently creepy!
The BIG Horror Box Set (5 books) (Damienverse, #1-5)
Iain Rob Wright - 2015
#1 Best Seller - Horror Anthologies. From a Top 100 Most Popular Author in Horror. Add it to your cart NOW because it is available for a limited time! This 500,000-word collection is over 1000 pages long, full of chills, thrills, and spine-tingling terror. All books are standalone stories, but also form part of a larger connected universe. You have to read them all to get the full picture. 5 bestsellers with over 1000 5-star reviews between them! Check out individual descriptions below. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SAM (Book 1) First came The Exorcist. Then came The Omen. Now there's another creepy child to keep you awake at night. You'll never see the ending coming. When a washed-up priest and a skittish ghost hunter are summoned to a vast countryside estate, they have no idea what to expect. A grief-stricken mother wants them to help her sick child and investigate a recent string of accidents around her home. It's clear that something unexplained is going on, but their initial observations point only to a single suspect: 8-year old Sammie. Yet, while it's clear that little Sammie is a very peculiar child, there's surely no way he could have been behind the long list of accidents and deaths. He's just a child... Sammie has a secret. Want to hear it? ASBO (Book 2) A terrifying novel for fans of Eden Lake, the Girl Next Door, and the Purge. A gentle family man's life is forever changed when he refuses to buy a pack of cigarettes for the local gang of youths. Led by the emotionally unstable and sadistic Frankie, the gang target the man and his family in an escalating campaign of terror and violence that will threaten their very lives. If only he’d bought those damn cigarettes. ASBO. Your fear is their entertainment... THE FINAL WINTER (Book 3) Iain Rob Wright's debut novel is a masterclass in suspense and is sure to keep you guessing What would you do if it started snowing in every country in the world? Would you panic? For a ragtag group of strangers at a run-down English pub, the best solution is a pint of beer with a shot of denial -- but one by one they will be left with no choice but to accept that something sinister is lurking outside in the snow. Something that will never let them see light of day. THE HOUSEMATES (Book 4) Ten days, twelve competitors, two million in cash. What at first seems like a wonderful opportunity for Damien Banks turns out to be the worst nightmare he can imagine. Trapped inside a house with eleven strangers and a booming voice known only as 'The Landlord', Damien is forced to compete not only for the money, but for his life. Let the games begin... SEA SICK (Book 5) A novel unlike anything else. A story that is equal parts Dawn of the Dead and Groundhog Day. An unforgettable classic. Police Officer Jack Wardsley’s life ended the moment his partner died. His recent record of brutality, and a reputation for not following the rules, has prompted his seniors to give him an ultimatum: find a way to let go of all the anger – or find another job.