Like first-rate poetry, they are endlessly readable. Those who have not read them have something to look forward to, and an assortment of Dunsany is the foundation stone of any fantasy collection.” —L. Sprague de CampThirty short and short-short stories by the 18th Baron of Dunsany. Edited by, and with introduction, notes and afterword by, Lin Carter.Contents: Introduction: The dreams of MĀNA-YOOD-SUSHĀI / Lin Carter — The cave of Kal — Of the gods of Averon — Mlideen — The King that was not — The men of Yarnith — In the land of Time — Time and the gods — The opulence of Yahn — The fortress unvanquishable, save for Sacnoth — Poltarnees, beholder of Ocean — The idle city — Bethmoora — Idle days on the Yann — The hashish man — Carcassonne — In Zaccarath — The dream of King Karna-Vootra — How the enemy came to Thlūnrāna — The distressing tale of Thangobrind the jeweller, and of the doom that befell him — A shop in Go-by Street — The avenger of Perdóndaris — How the dwarfs rose up in war — The probable adventure of the three literary men — The loot of Bombasharna — The injudicious prayers of Pombo the idolater — The bride of the man-horse — The quest of the Queen’s Tears — How one came, as was foretold, to the City of Never — A day at the Edge of the World — Erlathdronion — Epilogue — Afterword / Lin Carter(Cover Illustration: Ray Cruz)

    And he certainly never felt the lack. He was almost pure thought. He was just doing what he had to do - looking for the right body to play host to him. Once he found it and moved in, he would execute one of the most incredible plans ever conceived. He would be hailed as a hero on his own planet and EARTH WOULD NEVER KNOW WHAT HIT IT!

    It’s 1964 in idyllic Zephyr, Alabama. People either work for the paper mill up the Tecumseh River, or for the local dairy. It’s a simple life, but it stirs the impressionable imagination of twelve-year-old aspiring writer Cory Mackenson. He’s certain he’s sensed spirits whispering in the churchyard. He’s heard of the weird bootleggers who lurk in the dark outside of town. He’s seen a flood leave Main Street crawling with snakes. Cory thrills to all of it as only a young boy can.   Then one morning, while accompanying his father on his milk route, he sees a car careen off the road and slowly sink into fathomless Saxon’s Lake. His father dives into the icy water to rescue the driver, and finds a beaten corpse, naked and handcuffed to the steering wheel—a copper wire tightened around the stranger’s neck. In time, the townsfolk seem to forget all about the unsolved murder. But Cory and his father can’t.   Their search for the truth is a journey into a world where innocence and evil collide. What lies before them is the stuff of fear and awe, magic and madness, fantasy and reality. As Cory wades into the deep end of Zephyr and all its mysteries, he’ll discover that while the pleasures of childish things fade away, growing up can be a strange and beautiful ride.   “Strongly echoing the childhood-elegies of King and Bradbury, and every bit their equal,” Boy’s Life, a winner of both the Bram Stoker and World Fantasy Awards, represents a brilliant blend of mystery and rich atmosphere, the finest work of one of today’s most accomplished writers (Kirkus Reviews).

    Prime Evil: New Stories by the Masters of Modern Horror

    Although he is best known today for his scripts for television and film, including several classic episodes of The Twilight Zone, Beaumont is being rediscovered as a master of weird tales, and this, his first published collection, contains some of his best. Ranging in tone from the chilling Gothic horror of "Miss Gentilbelle," where an insane mother dresses her son up as a girl and slaughters his pets, to deliciously dark humor in tales like "Open House" and "The Infernal Bouillabaisse," where murderers' plans go disastrously awry, these seventeen stories demonstrate Beaumont's remarkable talent and versatility. This new edition of The Hunger and Other Stories, the first in more than fifty years, includes a new introduction by Dr. Bernice M. Murphy, who argues for reevaluation of Beaumont alongside the other greats of the genre, including Shirley Jackson, Ray Bradbury, and Richard Matheson.Contents:Miss Gentilbelle • (1957) The Vanishing American • (1955)A Point of Honor • (1955) Fair Lady • (1957) Free Dirt • (1955) Open House • (1957)The Train • (1957) The Dark Music • (1956) The Customers • (1957)Last Night in the Rain • (1956)The Crooked Man • (1955) Nursery Rhyme • (1957) The Murderers • (1955) The Hunger • (1955) Tears of the Madonna • (1957) The Infernal Bouillabaisse • (1957)Black Country • (1954)

    In stories written in the gothic tradition, narrators recount their descent into madness and despair. Through their investigations into the unexplained, they tug at the thin threads that separate our world from another of indescribable horror. ‘“ Great God! I never dreamed of THIS!”’ screams occultist Harley Warren in ‘The Statement of Randolph Carter’, as he begs his companion to bury him alive. Another early piece, ‘The Outsider’ – a tragic and emotive evocation of loneliness and desolation – follows a man’s escape from his castle in a desperate search for human contact, but the loathsome truth he discovers destroys his mind.In later tales, such as the iconic ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ and ‘The Whisperer in Darkness’, Lovecraft reaches into the cosmos, bridging the divide between horror and science fiction. The extra-terrestrial ‘gods’ and cursed histories that would emerge from these stories now form the cornerstones of Lovecraft’s unique mythology: the Cthulhu Mythos. This fictional universe, built in large part by his friend and most ardent supporter August Derleth, has in the years since been reimagined in myriad forms, and continues to act as a haunted playground for countless illustrators, fans and authors.This edition, based on its sister limited edition, marries Lovecraft’s best-known fiction with two modern masters of the macabre, the acclaimed artist Dan Hillier and author Alan Moore. In his beautifully crafted new preface, Moore finds Lovecraft at once at odds with and integral to the time in which he lived: ‘the improbable embodiment of an estranged world in transition’. Yet, despite his prejudices and parochialisms, he ‘possessed a voice and a perspective both unique in modern literature’.Hillier’s six mesmerising, portal-like illustrations embrace the alien realities that lurk among the gambrel roofs of Lovecraft’s landscapes. By splicing Victorian portraits and lithographs with cosmic and Lovecraftian symbolism, each piece – like the stories themselves – pulls apart the familiar to reveal what lies beneath.The edition itself shimmers with Lovecraft’s ‘unknown colours’, bound in purple and greens akin to both the ocean depths and mysteries from outer space. The cover is embossed with a mystical design by Hillier, while a monstrous eye stares blankly from the slipcase.Content:1. Dagon2. The Statement of Randolph Carter3. Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family4. Celephaïs5. Nyarlathotep6. The Picture in the House7. The Outsider8. Herbert West -- Reanimator9. The Hound10. The Rats in the Walls11. The Festival12. He13. Cool Air14. The Call of Cthulhu15. The Colour Out of Space16. The Whisperer in Darkness17. The Shadow Over Innsmouth18. The Haunter of the Dark

    In his wanderings, John encounters a parade of benighted forest creatures, mountain spirits, and shapeless horrors from the void of history with only his enduring spirit, playful wit, and the magic of his guitar to preserve him. Manly Wade Wellman's Silver John is one of the most beloved figures in fantasy, a true American folk hero of the literary age. For the first time the "Planet Stories" edition of "Who Fears the Devil?" collects all of John's adventures published throughout Wellman's life, including two stories about John before he got his silver-stringed guitar that have never previously appeared in a Silver John collection. Lost, out of print, or buried in expensive hardcover editions, the seminal, unforgettable tales of "Who Fears the Devil?" stand ready for a new generation ready to continue the folk tradition of Silver John!

    In an attempt to conjure some meaning from his life, he embarks on an autobiography, but he finds himself writing the story of another man in another, imagines, world whose insidious attraction draws him even further in...

    tight binding. No marks on pages.

    When examined, each weapon leads to a different, previously unsolved murder. Someone has been killing people for twenty years or more and storing the weapons together for some inexplicable purpose. Confronted with the sudden emergence of hundreds of unsolved homicides, Tallow soon discovers that he's walked into a veritable deal with the devil. An unholy bargain that has made possible the rise of some of Manhattan's most prominent captains of industry. A hunter who performs his deadly acts as a sacrifice to the old gods of Manhattan, who may, quite simply, be the most prolific murderer in New York City's history.

    Howard created more than the greatest action hero of the twentieth century—he also launched a genre that came to be known as sword and sorcery. But Conan wasn’t the first archetypal adventurer to spring from Howard’s fertile imagination. “He was . . . a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan. . . . A hunger in his soul drove him on and on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things. . . . Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect—he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane.”Collected in this volume, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Gary Gianni, are all of the stories and poems that make up the thrilling saga of the dour and deadly Puritan, Solomon Kane. Together they constitute a sprawling epic of weird fantasy adventure that stretches from sixteenth-century England to remote African jungles where no white man has set foot. Here are shudder-inducing tales of vengeful ghosts and bloodthirsty demons, of dark sorceries wielded by evil men and women, all opposed by a grim avenger armed with a fanatic’s faith and a warrior’s savage heart. This edition also features exclusive story fragments, a biography of Howard by scholar Rusty Burke, and “In Memoriam,” H. P. Lovecraft’s moving tribute to his friend and fellow literary genius. Skulls in the stars --The right hand of doom --Red shadows --Rattle of bones --The castle of the devil --Death's black riders --The moon of skulls --The one black stain --The blue flame of vengance --The hills of the dead --Hawk of Basti --The return of Sir Richard Grenville --Wings in the night --The footfalls within --The children of Asshur --Solomon Kane's homecoming --Solomon Kane's homecoming (variant).

    G. Ballard lived far ahead of his time. Called his "prophetic masterpiece" by many, The Atrocity Exhibition practically lies outside of any literary tradition. Part science fiction, part eerie historical fiction, part pornography, its characters adhere to no rules of linearity or stability. This reissued edition features an introduction by William S. Burroughs, extensive text commentary by Ballard, and four additional stories. Of specific interest are the illustrations by underground cartoonist and professional medical illustrator Phoebe Gloeckner. Her ultrarealistic images of eroticism and destruction add an important dimension to Ballard's text.

    Whilst struggling to deal with his wife?s post-partum depression, his own alcoholism and a long-overdue novel that he has no motivation to write, the pseudonym under which he writes begins talking to him?

    No reference to the present day is intended or should be inferred.The sizable cast of characters includes anarchists, balloonists, gamblers, corporate tycoons, drug enthusiasts, innocents and decadents, mathematicians, mad scientists, shamans, psychics, and stage magicians, spies, detectives, adventuresses, and hired guns. There are cameo appearances by Nikola Tesla, Bela Lugosi, and Groucho Marx.As an era of certainty comes crashing down around their ears and an unpredictable future commences, these folks are mostly just trying to pursue their lives. Sometimes they manage to catch up; sometimes it's their lives that pursue them.Meanwhile, the author is up to his usual business. Characters stop what they're doing to sing what are for the most part stupid songs. Strange sexual practices take place. Obscure languages are spoken, not always idiomatically. Contrary-to-the-fact occurrences occur. If it is not the world, it is what the world might be with a minor adjustment or two. According to some, this is one of the main purposes of fiction.Let the reader decide, let the reader beware. Good luck.--Thomas PynchonAbout the Author:Thomas Pynchon is the author of V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's Rainbow, Slow Learner, a collection of short stories, Vineland and, most recently, Mason and Dixon. He received the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow in 1974.