They supplement their income by selling pics of themselves as stock photos online.The abandoned Red Water Hotel is the perfect location for a shoot. But when they enter the decrepit building, Dursha begins to feel a strange presence. Jackie dismisses her concerns and they head further in.Strange moths have clustered, and the light filtering through has an eerie shimmer. The young women see a telephone number scrawled on the wall.By now Dursha is totally creeped out. But Jackie is already calling it...THE WIDOWDan decides to go to a party held by an old friend. It’s a no-good group, but it might help him put his worries aside. His life is spiralling and he has a serious toothache to add to his woes.At the party he strikes up a conversation with an enigmatic man who has excellent whiskey, and promises him a quick way to make money.In all honesty, Dan just wants enough cash to pay for a dentist, but he journeys with his new friend to a house deep in the country. The hazy plan is to rob it of a known stash of money.It sounded good in theory, but now his friend is nowhere to be seen and Dan is stuck inside the house, face to face with the widow who lives there...

    Enough room for story and character development, yet short enough to get straight to the bloody point! This book from Bram Stoker Award-nominee Jeff Strand contains five of his macabre tales, collected together for the first time. You'll find nerve-wracking suspense, insane humor, a cute dog, and plenty of weirdness, especially in the last one. STALKING YOU NOW - The reprehensible man in the restaurant doesn’t know that somebody at another table is watching him. Somebody filled with hatred. Somebody waiting for him to be alone. Somebody with duct tape and a gun. It’s a night for vengeance. And a hell of a lot more. AN APOCALYPSE OF OUR OWN – Missy and Kevin are friends. Just friends. But now people are leaking blood from their eyeballs and turning into homicidal oozing mutants. Fortunately, Kevin has access to an underground shelter, but now they’re trapped down there. Can the Friend Zone survive the end of the world? FAINT OF HEART – Rebecca's husband doesn't return from his weekend camping trip. And when somebody shows up at the house, it’s not him. At gunpoint, Rebecca learns what has happened. Two men have kidnapped Gary. He went through a weekend of pure hell. They’ll give him back to her, but first, Rebecca has to relive his entire experience, step by horrific step…and survive… KUTTER - Charlie Stanlon is a serial killer. A ghastly, vicious sociopath who chains women to a table in his basement and tortures them to death. He has no friends. He has no family. He despises his co-workers. His only pleasure in life is to cause pain and terror. Until the day he finds an adorable Boston Terrier and takes it home… FACIAL - Greg has just killed the man he hired to kill one of his wife’s many lovers. He’s now got a dead body in his office. Carlton, Greg’s brother, desperately needs a dead body. It’s kind of related to the lion corpse that he found in his basement. This is the normal part of the story...

    Dick Award finalist* Locus Recommended Reading Here are 33 weird, wonderful stories concerning men, women, teleportation, wind-up cats, and brown paper bags. By turns whimsical and unsettling—frequently managing to be both—these short fictions describe family relationships, bad breakups, and travel to outer space.    Vukcevich's loopy, fun-house mirror take on everyday life belongs to the same absurdist school of work as that of George Saunders, David Sedaris, Ken Kalfus, and Victor Pelevin, although there is no one quite like him. Try one of these stories, it won't take you long, but it will turn your head inside out.Contents:By the Time We Get to Uranus (1998)The Barber's Theme (1995)Beatnicks with Banjoes (2001)Finally Fruit (1997)Pretending (2001)Mom's Little Friends (1992)No Comet (1994)There Is Danger (1993)Pink Smoke (2001)Season Finale (1995)The Sweater (2001)Home Remedy (1996)A Breath-Holding Contest (1991)Fancy Pants (2000)In the Refrigerator (2001)The Perfect Gift (1994)Message in a Fish (2001)Catch (1996)The Finger (1995)Rejoice (1999)My Mustache (1993)We Kill a Bicycle (1995)A Holiday Junket (1998)Giant Step (1994)Quite Contrary (1994)Doing Time (1992)The Next Best Thing (1998)Beastly Heat (1999)Ceremony (1991)Poop (2000)White Guys in Space (1996)Whisper (2001)Meet Me in the Moon Room (1998)

    the Black Company ... Majipoor. For years, these have been some of the names that have captured the hearts of generations of readers and embodied the sword and sorcery genre. And now some of the most beloved and bestselling fantasy writers working today deliver stunning all-new sword and sorcery stories in an anthology of small stakes but high action, grim humor mixed with gritty violence, fierce monsters and fabulous treasures, and, of course, swordplay. Don't miss the adventure of the decade!Contents:- Introduction: Check Your Dark Lord at the Door by Lou Anders & Jonathan Strahan- Goats of Glory by Steven Erikson- Tides Elba: A Tale of the Black Company by Glen Cook- Bloodsport by Gene Wolfe- The Singing Spear by James Enge- A Wizard in Wiscezan by C.J. Cherryh- A Rich Full Week by K.J. Parker- A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet by Garth Nix- Red Pearls: An Elric Story by Michael Moorcock- The Deification of Dal Bamore: A Tale from Echo City by Tim Lebbon- Dark Times at the Midnight Market by Robert Silverberg- The Undefiled by Greg Keyes- Hew the Tintmaster by Michael Shea- In the Stacks by Scott Lynch- Two Lions, a Witch, and the War-Robe by Tanith Lee- The Sea Troll's Daughter by Caitlín R. Kiernan- Thieves of Daring by Bill Willingham- The Fool Jobs by Joe Abercrombie

    Carefully disguised, the monsters can sit down beside you or take up residence within you at the slightest twist of fate. Will you try to stop them? Will you want to?

    Illustrated and presented by one of the leading artists in modern fantasy, this title gives us some of the great songs and folktales of the English, Irish, and Scottish traditions, re-imagined in sequential-art form, in collaboration with some of the strongest fantasy writers.

    Is Raistlin truly dead?The answer lies in the new Dragonlance novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, which gazes into the future of Caramon and his mage-son, and into the dark nether-past of Raistlin.Untold tales of Krynn.Tales of sea monsters, dark elves, ice bears, hideous hydra-headed serpents, and loathsome draconian troops.Further adventures of the kender Tas; the innkeeper Otik and young Tika; the dwarf Flint and Tanis, leader of the companions; Caramon and Raistlin, twon brothers, one, a genial warrior, the other, a sickly magician and scholar.Nine short stories by superlative writers, plus an exciting new novella by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman.The Dragonlance Saga goes on!

    Life is rough, unlife can be even more difficult, especially when you're a zombie with bad luck. This is not your average zombie novella.

    A place where the Druids laid down their lives to protect the darkest of all their secrets.

    By the anniversary show a year later, the fanbase had exploded, vaulting the podcast into the #1 spot on iTunes. Since then, its popularity has grown by epic proportions, hitting more than 100 million downloads, and Night Vale has expanded to a successful live multi-cast international touring stage show and a New York Times bestselling novel. Now the first two seasons are available as books, offering an entertaining reading experience and a valuable reference guide to past episodes.Mostly Void, Partially Stars introduces us to Night Vale, a town in the American Southwest where every conspiracy theory is true, and to the strange but friendly people who live there.Mostly Void, Partially Stars features an introduction by creator and co-writer Joseph Fink, a foreword by Cory Doctorow, and behind-the-scenes commentary and guest introductions by performers from the podcast and notable fans, including Cecil Baldwin (Cecil), Dylan Marron (Carlos), and Kevin R. Free (Kevin) among others. Also included is the full script from the first Welcome to Night Vale live show, Condos. Beautiful illustrations by series artist Jessica Hayworth accompany each episode.Mostly Void, Partially Stars is an absolute must-have whether you’re a fan of the podcast or discovering for the first time the wonderful world of Night Vale.

    The bestselling Sword and Sorceress series continues with this exciting 20th edition of all-new stories. It's all here: hard-hitting action, spellbinding magic, butt-kicking heroines... and some of the most popular names in fantasy today.

    But the villains themselves beg to differ. In Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling's new anthology for younger readers, you'll hear from the Giant's wife ("Jack and the Beanstalk"), Rumplestiltskin, the oldest of the Twelve Dancing Princesses, and many more. A stellar lineup of authors, including Garth Nix, Holly Black, Neil Gaiman and Nancy Farmer, makes sure that these old stories do new tricks!

    From a giant human-absorbing tongue to a place where God is in the eyes of the psychopathic. This is a party at the furthest limits of human decency and cruelty. Robert Devereaux is your host but watch out, he's spiked the punch with drugs, sex, and dismemberment. Deadite Press is proud to present ten stories of the strange, the gross, and the just plain fucked up from one of the most original voices in horror - Robert Devereaux.

    Each tale offers glimpses into familiar, shadowy worlds that push the boundaries of the spirit and leave the mind haunted with the knowledge that black juice runs through us all.Contents:Earthly Uses (2004)House of the Many (2004)My Lord's Man (2004)Perpetual Light (2004)Red Nose Day (2004)Rite of Spring (2004)Singing My Sister Down (2004)Sweet Pippit (2004)Wooden Bride (2004)Yowlinin (2004)

    Howard’s favorite writers. Here at last is every pulse-pounding, action-packed story of Lamb’s greatest hero, the wolf of the steppes, Khlit the Cossack. Journey now with the unsung grandfather of sword and sorcery in search of ancient tombs, gleaming treasure, and thrilling landscapes. Match wits with deadly swordsmen, scheming priests, and evil cults. Rescue lovely damsels, ride with bold comrades, and hazard everything on your brains and skill and a little luck. Wolf of the Steppes is the first of a four-volume set that collects, for the first time, the complete Cossack stories of Harold Lamb and presents them in order: every adventure of Khlit the Cossack and those of his friends, allies, and fellow Cossacks, many of which have never before appeared between book covers. Compiled and edited by the Harold Lamb scholar Howard Andrew Jones, each volume features never-before reprinted essays Lamb wrote about his stories, informative introductions by popular authors, and a wealth of rare, exciting, swashbuckling fiction.In this first volume, Khlit infiltrates a hidden fortress of assassins, tracks down the tomb of Genghis Khan, flees the vengeance of a dead emperor, leads the Mongol horde against impossible odds, accompanies the stunning Mogul queen safely through the land of her enemies, and much more. This is the stuff of grand adventure, from the pen of an American Dumas.