MEGACROC


Julian Michael Carver - 2020
    When evidence at the latest scene suggests that a massive predator may be the source of the carnage, a local crocodilian specialist is brought in as a consultant. Soon an effort is launched by the police and the coast guard to successfully locate and capture the ancient creature, which threatens the lives of everyone in the expedition, as well as the surrounding communities.

Ashes and Entropy


Robert S. WilsonLucy A. Snyder - 2018
    Wilson, an anthology of cosmic horror, noir and neo-noir including stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Lucy A. Snyder, Matthew M. Bartlett, Jessica McHugh, Tim Waggoner, and many more. Ashes and Entropy will be beautifully illustrated by Luke Spooner.Our Kickstarter campaign ends very soon and we have many exciting and rare rewards to share with you. So, please, stand on the precipice with us as we prepare to dive down through the event horizon into the bleak and mind-shattering void of both the cosmos and of humanity.

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

Lovecraft's Monsters


Ellen DatlowElizabeth Bear - 2014
    P. Lovecraft, published his first story, the monstrosities that crawled out of his brain have become legend: the massive, tentacled Cthulhu, who lurks beneath the sea waiting for his moment to rise; the demon Sultan Azathoth, who lies babbling at the center of the universe, mad beyond imagining; the Deep Ones, who come to shore to breed with mortal men; and the unspeakably-evil Hastur, whose very name brings death. These creatures have been the nightmarish fuel for generations of horror writers, and the inspiration for some of their greatest works.This impressive anthology celebrates Lovecraft's most famous beasts in all their grotesque glory, with each story a gripping new take on a classic mythos creature and affectionately accompanied by an illuminating illustration. Within these accursed pages something unnatural slouches from the sea into an all-night diner to meet the foolish young woman waiting for him, while the Hounds of Tindalos struggle to survive trapped in human bodies, haunting pool halls for men they can lure into the dark. Strange, haunting, and undeniably monstrous, this is Lovecraft as you have never seen him before.Contents"Only the End of the World Again" by Neil Gaiman"The Bleeding Shadow" by Joe R. Lansdale"Love is Forbidden, We Croak & Howl" by Caitlín R. Kiernan"Bulldozer" by Laird Barron"A Quarter to Three" by Kim Newman"Inelastic Collisions" by Elizabeth Bear"That of Which We Speak When We Speak of the Unspeakable" by Nick Mamatas"Red Goat Black Goat" by Nadia Bulkin"Jar of Salts" and "Haruspicy" by Gemma Files"Black is the Pit From Pole to Pole" by Howard Waldrop and Steven Utley"I've Come to Speak with You Again" by Karl Edward Wagner"The Sect of the Idiot" by Thomas Ligotti"The Dappled Things" by William Browning Spencer"The Same Deep Waters as You" by Brian Hodge"Remnants" by Fred Chappell"Waiting at the Cross Roads" by Steve Rasnic Tem"Children of the Fang" by John Langan

In the Court of the Yellow King


Glynn Owen BarrassChristine Morgan - 2014
    or to transport you into the bizarre world of Carcosa, and the King in Yellow. Banned, burned, yet never totally destroyed, the play lives on, eating away the fabric of society and rotting the veneer of civilization...Come and enjoy new visions of the King, expanding and deepening the fragments glimpsed in the award-winning True Detective television series, penned for your delight by a host of master scribes eager to guide you to a new world of delirium, despair, and madness.

The Great God Pan


Arthur Machen - 1890
    A version of the story was published in the magazine Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen revised and extended it for its book publication (together with another story, "The Inmost Light") in 1894. On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Machen’s story was only one of many at the time to focus on Pan as a useful symbol for the power of nature and paganism. The title was taken from the poem "A Musical Instrument" published in 1862 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which the first line of every stanza ends "... the great god Pan.

A Mountain Walked: Great Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos


S.T. JoshiNeil Gaiman - 2014
    P. Lovecraft wrote “The Call of Cthulhu” in 1926, initiating the Cthulhu Mythos, one of the most widely imitated shared-world universes in weird fiction. Even in his lifetime, many other writers added to the Mythos, and after his death hundreds if not thousands of authors of weird, fantasy, and science fiction have added their distinctive elaborations on Lovecraft’s basic themes and ideas. This volume features some of the best Cthulhu Mythos writing over the past century. Beginning with such rare but classic stories as Mearle Prout’s “The House of the Worm” and Robert Barbour Johnson’s “Far Below,” from the pages of Weird Tales, the anthology moves on to James Wade’s novella “The Deep Ones” and Ramsey Campbell’s refreshing riff on the “forbidden book” motif, “The Franklyn Paragraphs.” Acclaimed stories by T. E. D. Klein, Thomas Ligotti, Neil Gaiman, and W. H. Pugmire are also included. The book includes an array of original stories by such leading authors of Lovecraftian fiction as Caitlín R. Kiernan, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., Donald Tyson, Cody Goodfellow, and Michael Shea. Gemma Files contributes a richly textured novella, while Jonathan Thomas offers a story full of his distinctive melding of horror and satire. A Mountain Walked is chock-full of stories old and new that highlight the endless variations that can be played on H. P. Lovecraft’s signature creation. S. T. Joshi is the leading authority on H. P. Lovecraft. He is the author of I Am Providence: The Life and Times of H. P. Lovecraft and the editor of the Black Wings series of Lovecraftian fiction. He edits the Lovecraft Annual and the Weird Fiction Review.

The Ithaqua Cycle


Robert M. Price - 1997
    He is Sasquatch, the Wendigo, the Wind-Walker. Here, gathered together in one place, is an entire cycle of stories about Ithaqua, from Algernon Blackwood's seminal "The Wendigo," to the brand new "Wrath of the Wind-Walker."

Burnt Black Suns


Simon Strantzas - 2014
    The nine stories in this volume exhibit Strantzas’s wide range in theme and subject matter, from the Lovecraftian “Thistle’s Find” to the Robert W. Chambers homage “Beyond the Banks of the River Seine.” But Strantzas’s imagination, while drawing upon the best weird fiction of the past, ventures into new territory in such works as “On Ice,” a grim novella of arctic horror; “One Last Bloom,” a grisly account of a scientific experiment gone hideously awry; and the title story, an emotionally wrenching account of terror and loss in the baked Mexican desert. With this volume, Strantzas lays claim to be discussed in the company of Caitlín R. Kiernan and Laird Barron as one of the premier weird fictionists of our time.Cover artwork by Santiago Caruso

The New Lovecraft Circle


Robert M. PriceDonald R. Burleson - 1996
    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.  THE PLAIN OF SOUND by Ramsey Campbell: In the beginning they could find no source for the throbbing vibrations; in the end they could find no escape. THE HORROR ON THE BEACH by Alan Dean Foster: Along the coast of Santa Barbara, the mighty Pacific Ocean can no longer contain—or conceal—an ancient, insatiable evil stirring in its depths.THE KISS OF BUGG-SHASH by Brian Lumley: It mattered not how innocent the students’ motives seemed; the demon had been summoned, and the price had to be paid—every last red drop of it.THE FISHERS FROM OUTSIDE by Lin Carter: A man obsessed with unlocking the secrets of a race older than time would not be disappointed—doomed perhaps, devoured possibly, but definitely not disappointed.  AND TWENTY-ONE MORE TALES OF FEAR . . .  THE STONE ON THE ISLAND by Ramsey Campbell THE STATEMENT OF ONE JOHN GIBSON by Brian Lumley DEMONIACAL by David Sutton THE SLITHERER FROM THE SLIME by H. P. Lowcraft THE DOOM OF YAKTHOOB by Lin Carter THE KEEPER OF THE FLAME by Gary Myers DEAD GIVEAWAY by J. Vernon Shea THOSE WHO WAIT by James Wade THE KEEPER OF DARK POINT by John Glasby THE BLACK MIRROR by John Glasby I’VE COME TO TALK WITH YOU AGAIN by Karl Edward Wagner THE HOWLER IN THE DARK by Richard L. Tierney THE WHISPERERS by Richard A. Lupoff LIGHTS! CAMERA! SHUB-NIGGURATH! by Richard A. Lupoff SAUCERS FROM YADDITH by Robert M. Price VASTARIEN by Thomas Ligotti THE MADNESS OUT OF SPACE by Peter H. Cannon ALIAH WARDEN by Roger Johnson THE LAST SUPPER by Donald R. Burleson THE CHURCH AT GARLOCK’S BEND by David Kaufman THE SPHERES BEYOND SOUND (THRENODY) by Mark Rainey

Short Horror Stories Vol. 9


Kathryn St. John-Shin - 2020
    A sleepwalker is stalked by a sinister spirit in the shadow world between dreams and reality. And in a town ravaged by a savage beast, a desperate man will do anything to protect his loved one.Scare Street is proud to present the best in bone-chilling supernatural horror. This volume contains three spine-tingling tales for your reading pleasure. But first, lock the doors, close the windows, and be sure to turn on the lights.Safe and sound, you begin to read. But wait… something scratches on your bedroom door. And you realize all the locks in the world can’t protect you. Because the thing you fear most is already inside.The lights go out, the door creaks open. And the real nightmare begins…

She Walks in Shadows


Silvia Moreno-GarciaAngela Slatter - 2015
    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” Laura Blackwell“Violet is the Color of Your Energy” Nadia Bulkin“Body to Body to Body” Selena Chambers“Magna Mater” Arinn Dembo“De Deabus Minoribus Exterioris Theomagicae” Jilly Dreadful“Hairwork” Gemma Files“The Head of T’la-yub” Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas (translated by Silvia Moreno-Garcia)“Bring the Moon to Me” Amelia Gorman“Chosen” Lyndsey Holder“Eight Seconds” Pandora Hope“Cthulhu of the Dead Sea” Inkeri Kontro“Turn out the Lights” Penelope Love“The Adventurer’s Wife” Premee Mohamed“Notes Found in a Decommissioned Asylum, December 1961″ Sharon Mock“The Eye of Juno” Eugenie Mora“Ammutseba Rising” Ann K. Schwader“Cypress God” Rodopi Sisamis“Lavinia’s Wood” Angela Slatter“The Opera Singer” Priya Sridhar“Provenance” Benjanun Sriduangkaew“The Thing in The Cheerleading Squad” Molly Tanzer“Lockbox” E. Catherine Tobler“When She Quickens” Mary Turzillo“Shub-Niggurath’s Witnesses” Valerie Valdes“Queen of a New America” Wendy N. Wagner

The Book of Cthulhu


Ross E. LockhartMichael Shea - 2011
    Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries (the so-called "Lovecraft Circle"), The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Black Star Black Sun


Rich Hawkins - 2015
    This should be a time of rest, of contemplation and reconnection with his elderly father, a chance to recharge in the fresh air of the remote village. However, grim nightmares and daytime visions of hellish environments populated by insidious creatures serve only to fray his already ragged nerves. A chance encounter with a fellow sufferer leads to an unlikely alliance as imaginary threats suddenly become manifest, and the entire village falls under the sway of the Black Star. As neighbours become enemies and the world around him crumbles, Ben must search for the truth but, more importantly, he must be prepared to accept it. Black Star, Black Sun – an unsettling new novella from Rich Hawkins, the author of the critically acclaimed novel, The Last Plague.

Darkness


Ratnakar Matkari - 2019
    An elderly woman who knows that death is close, but learns how to cheat it... A child with a dangerous friend who happens to be invisible... A ghost who can't stop reliving his suicide over and over again... People you'll wish you never have to meet, and stories you'll never forget. Skilfully translated into English for the very first time, these chilling tales from master storyteller Ratnakar Matkari are bound to keep readers of all ages up at night. With every page you turn, you'll be looking over your shoulder to make sure no one's there. Look again. Maybe there is!