This exciting new anthology, perfect for airport or airplane reading, includes an original introduction and story notes for each story by Stephen King, along with brand new stories from Stephen King and Joe Hill.Stephen King hates to fly. Now he and co-editor Bev Vincent would like to share this fear of flying with you.Welcome to Flight or Fright, an anthology about all the things that can go horribly wrong when you're suspended six miles in the air, hurtling through space at more than 500 mph and sealed up in a metal tube (like—gulp!—a coffin) with hundreds of strangers. All the ways your trip into the friendly skies can turn into a nightmare, including some we'll bet you've never thought of before... but now you will the next time you walk down the jetway and place your fate in the hands of a total stranger.Featuring brand new stories by Joe Hill and Stephen King, as well as fourteen classic tales and one poem from the likes of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Dan Simmons, and many others, Flight or Fright is, as King says, "ideal airplane reading, especially on stormy descents... Even if you are safe on the ground, you might want to buckle up nice and tight."

    From dark fantasy and pure suspense to classic horror tales of vampires and zombies, 999 showcases the extraordinary scope of fantastical fright fiction. The stories in this anthology are a relentless tour de force of fear, which will haunt you, terrify you, and keep the adrenaline rushing all through the night.Amerikanski dead at the Moscow morgue / Kim Newman --The ruins of contracoeur / Joyce Carol Oates --The owl and the pussycat / Thomas M. Disch --The road virus heads north / Stephen King --Keepsakes and treasures: a love story / Neil Gaiman --Growing things / T.E.D. Klein --Good Friday / F. Paul Wilson --Excerpts from the records of the New Zodiac and the diaries of Henry Watson Fairfax / Chet Williamson --An exaltation of termagants / Eric Von Lustbader --Itinerary / Tim Powers --Catfish gal blues / Nancy A. Collins --The entertainment / Ramsey Campell --ICU / Edward Lee --The shadow, the darkness / Thomas Ligotti --Rio Grande Gothic / David Morrell --Des Saucisses, Sans doute / Peter Schneider --Angie / Ed Gorman --The ropy thing / Al Sarrantonio --The tree is my hat / Gene Wolfe --Styx and bones / Edward Bryant --Hemophage / Steven Spurill --The book of irrational numbers / Michael Marshall Smith --Mad dog summer / Joe R. Lansdale --The Theater / Bentley Little --Rehearsals / Thomas F. Monteleone --Darkness / Dennis L. McKiernan --Elsewhere / William Peter Blatty

    Especially with an anthology that features the classic stories "Children of the Corn," "The Lawnmower Man," "Graveyard Shift," "The Mangler," and "Sometimes They Come Back"-which were all made into hit horror films.From the depths of darkness, where hideous rats defend their empire, to dizzying heights, where a beautiful girl hangs by a hair above a hellish fate, this chilling collection of twenty short stories will plunge readers into the subterranean labyrinth of the most spine-tingling, eerie imagination of our time.Contents:· Introduction · John D. MacDonald · in · Foreword · fw · Jerusalem’s Lot · nv Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978 · Graveyard Shift · ss Cavalier Oct ’70 · Night Surf · ss Cavalier Aug ’74 · I Am the Doorway · ss Cavalier Mar ’71 · The Mangler · nv Cavalier Dec ’72 · The Boogeyman · ss Cavalier Mar ’73 · Gray Matter · ss Cavalier Oct ’73 · Battleground · ss Cavalier Sep ’72 · Trucks · ss Cavalier Jun ’73 · Sometimes They Come Back · nv Cavalier Mar ’74 · Strawberry Spring · ss Ubris Fll ’68; Cavalier Nov ’75 · The Ledge · ss Penthouse Jul ’76 · The Lawnmower Man · ss Cavalier May ’75 · Quitters, Inc. · ss Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978 · I Know What You Need · nv Cosmopolitan Sep ’76 · Children of the Corn · nv Penthouse Mar ’77 · The Last Rung on the Ladder · ss Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978 · The Man Who Loved Flowers · ss Gallery Aug ’77 · One for the Road · ss Maine Mar ’77 · The Woman in the Room · ss Night Shift, Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1978Librarian's Note: Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780450042683

    With rich and vibrant worldbuilding, readers are transported to antiquated realms to witness noble sacrifices and astonishing wonders. Gathering a comprehensive survey of beloved stories from the genre, this compilation includes stories by such luminaries as George R.R. Martin, Melanie Rawn, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robin Hobb, and Tad Williams, with a foreword by author Brent Weeks. Inspiring and larger-than-life, these tales offer timeless values of courage and friendship in the face of ultimate evil and express mankind's greatest hopes and fears.Stories:01 - Robin Hobb, Homecoming02 - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Word of Unbinding03 - Tad Williams, The Burning Man04 - Aliette de Bodard, As the Wheel Turns05 - Paolo Bacigalupi, The Alchemist06 - Orson Scott Card, Sandmagic07 - Patrick Rothfuss, The Road to Levinshir08 - Brandon Sanderson, Rysn09 - Michael Moorcock, While the Gods Laugh10 - Melanie Rawn, Mother of All Russiya11 - Kate Elliott, Riding the Shore of the River of Death12 - Mary Robinette Kowal, The Bound Man13 - N.K. Jemisin, The Narcomancer14 - Carrie Vaughn, Strife Lingers in Memory15 - Trudi Canavan, The Mad Apprentice16 - Juliet Marillier, Otherling17 - George R.R. Martin, The Mystery Knight

    Terrifying urban myths, malicious ghosts, cursed architecture, malignant city deities, personal demons (in business or relationships) twisted into something worse virtually anything that inspires the contributors to imagine some bit of urban darkness."

    She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945.... Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town.... Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....John Finney is locked in a basement that's stained with the blood of half a dozen other murdered children. In the cellar with him is an antique telephone, long since disconnected, but which rings at night with calls from the dead....The past isn't dead. It isn't even past...

      THE DEEP END by Robert McCammon Everyone thinks the drowning death of Neil Calder in the local swimming pool was a tragic accident. Only his father knows better. Now, on the last night of summer, Neil returns in search of revenge.   INTERVAL by Norman Prentiss Flight 1137 from St. Louis by way of Nashville has gone missing. As anxious friends and family gather around the gate, a ticket clerk finds herself eyewitness to a moment of inhuman evil.   IF THESE WALLS COULD TALK by Shawntelle Madison Eleanor has come from New York City to prep an old Victorian house in Maine for America’s Mysterious Hotspots. Although she’s always thrown herself into her work, this job will take her places she’s never dreamed of going.   THE NIGHT HIDER by Graham Masterton C. S. Lewis wrote about a portal that led to a world of magic and enchantment. But the wardrobe in Dawn’s room holds only death—until she solves its grisly mystery.   WHATEVER by Richard Christian Matheson A 1970s rock ’n’ roll band that never was—in a world that is clearly our own . . . but perhaps isn’t, not anymore . . . or, at least, not yet—takes one hell of a trip.

    Showcasing this cutting-edge talent, Poe’s Children now brings the best of the genre’s stories to a wider audience. Featuring tales from such writers as Neil Gaiman and Jonathan Carroll, Poe’s Children is Peter Straub’s tribute to the imaginative power of storytelling. Each previously published story has been selected by Straub to represent what he thinks is the most interesting development in our literature during the last two decades.Selections range from the early Stephen King psychological thriller “The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet,” in which an editor confronts an author’s belief that his typewriter is inhabited by supernatural creatures, to “The Man on the Ceiling,” Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem’s award-winning surreal tale of night terrors, woven with daylight fears that haunt a family. Other selections include National Book Award finalist Dan Chaon’s “The Bees”; Peter Straub’s “Little Red’s Tango,” the legend of a music aficionado whose past is as mysterious as the ghostly visitors to his Manhattan apartment; Elizabeth Hand’s visionary and shocking “Cleopatra Brimstone”; Thomas Ligotti’s brilliant, mind-stretching “Notes on the Writing of Horror: A Story”; and “Body,” Brian Evenson’s disturbing twist on correctional facilities.Crossing boundaries and packed with imaginative chills, Poe’s Children bears all the telltale signs of fearless, addictive fiction.

    These brave men and women stand up to the darkness, stare it right in the eye, and give it the finger. These are the stories of those who rage against the night, stories of triumph, sacrifice, and bravery in the face of overwhelming evil. Rage Against the Night features the megastars of dark fantasy and horror—including Stephen King, Ramsey Campbell, Peter Straub, Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, F. Paul Wilson, Jonathan Maberry, Scott Nicholson, Nancy Holder, Sarah Langan, and many, many more.

    Ordered by profession, these short-short stories range from the hilarious to the somber, the absurd to the revelatory. Using real people as the springboard, VanderMeer has created a rich blend of the factual and the imaginary in which everyone gets the secret life they deserve. A luminous little book meant for dipping into one secret life at a time.

    Weaving tales of the everyday world transformed into an unrecognizable place, where reason no longer exists and logic ceases to explain the workings of the universe, Clive Barker provides the stuff of nightmares in packages too tantalizing to resist.Never one to shy away from the unimaginable or the unspeakable, Clive Barker breathes life into our deepest, darkest nightmares, creating visions that are at once terrifying, tender, and witty.The Books of Blood confirm what horror fans everywhere have known for a long time: We will be hearing from Clive Barker for many years to come. This first volume contains the short stories : "The Book of Blood," "The Midnight Meat Train," "The Yattering and Jack," "Sex, Death, and Starshine," and "In the Hills, the Cities."

    WALPUSKI’S TYPEWRITER by Frank Darabont They say that genius is ten percent inspiration and ninety percent perspiration. For Howard Walpuski, it’s an IBM Selectric II typewriter, a nefarious secret, and a whole lot of blood. THE BOY by Bentley Little Christine has found the perfect neighborhood to raise her family: a quaint, quiet, friendly place where everyone gets along. Everyone, that is, except for the boy. TUMOR by Benjamin Percy He dodged death in the nick of time when the golf ball-sized tumor was surgically removed from his head. But the tumor isn’t done with him. TWISTED AND GNARLED by Billie Sue Mosiman He’s smart. Smarter than anyone knows. No one has linked him to the string of bodies he’s left up and down the California coast. Only one woman has ever come close—and she’s no match for his intellect. THE PALAVER by Kealan Patrick Burke It’s time for Oscar Dennihy to close his failing barber shop and retire—until a mysterious customer tells him a truly hair-raising tale . . . and gives Oscar a wonderful and terrible new purpose. INDIA BLUE by Glen Hirshberg Like most Americans, Enrico never gave much thought to the sport of cricket. Not until America’s Rockin’ Professional Cricket game—a spectacle that will live forever in his most horrible nightmares. Praise for the Dark Screams series “A wicked treat [featuring] . . . some of the genre’s best.”—Hellnotes, on Volume One “Five fun-to-read stories by top-notch horror scribes. How can you lose? The answer: you can’t.”—Atomic Fangirl, on Volume Two “If you have not tried the series yet, do yourself a favor and grab a copy of any (or all) of the books for yourself.”—Examiner.com, on Volume Three “Fans of horror of every variety will find something to love in these pages.”—LitReactor, on Volume Four “[Volume Five] runs the gamut from throwback horror to lyrical and heartbreaking tales.”—Publishers Weekly

     And yet, there is an attraction, undeniable, to the vampire archetype, whether the pale European count, impeccably dressed and coldly masculine, yet strangely ambiguous, ready to sink his sharp teeth deep into his victims' necks, draining or converting them, or the vamp, the count's feminine counterpart, villain and victim in one, using her wiles and icy sexuality to corrupt man and woman alike... Edited and introduced by acclaimed anthologist John Joseph Adams (Wastelands, The Living Dead), By Blood We Live gathers together the best vampire literature from the preceding three decades, authored by many of today's most renowned writers of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror. Contents: (Author, title (type, year of first publication, beginning page in print edition))01 - Neil Gaiman, Snow, Glass, Apples (short story, 1995, p3)02 - Anne Rice, The Master of Rampling Gate (novelette, 1984, p13)03 - Harry Turtledove, Under St. Peter's (novelette, 2007, p33)04 - Tad Williams, Child of an Ancient City (novelette, 1988, p43)05 - Michael A. Burstein, Lifeblood (novelette, 2003, p75)06 - Barbara Roden, Endless Night (short story, 2008, p88)07 - Garth Nix, Infestation (novelette, 2008, p106)08 - Carrie Vaughn, Life Is the Teacher (short story, 2008, p120)09 - Nancy Kilpatrick, The Vechi Barbat (short story, 2007, p134)10 - Kristine Kathryn Rusch, The Beautiful, The Damned (short story, 1995, p148) 11 - David Wellington, Pinecones (short story, 2006, p161)12 - Norman Partridge, Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu (novelette, 1994, p165)13 - Sergei Lukyanenko, Foxtrot at High Noon (short story, 2008, p180)14 - Michael Marshall Smith, This Is Now (short story, 2004, p189)15 - Nancy Holder, Blood Gothic (short story, 1985, p199)16 - Jane Yolen, Mama Gone (short story, 1991, p204)17 - Joe Hill, Abraham's Boys (short story, 2004, p209)18 - Tanith Lee, Nunc Dimittis (novelette, 1983, p224)19 - Gabriela Lee, Hunger (short story, 2007, p240)20 - Caitlín R. Kiernan, Ode to Edvard Munch (short story, 2006, p250)21 - L.A. Banks, Finders Keepers (short story, 2008, p256)22 - Brian Stableford, After the Stone Age (short story, 2004, p275)23 - Kevin J. Anderson, Much at Stake (short story, 1991, p286)24 - Elizabeth Bear, House of the Rising Sun (short story, 2005, p297)25 - Lilith Saintcrow, A Stand-Up Dame (short story, 2008, p302)26 - Kelley Armstrong, Twilight (novelette, 2007, p316)27 - Eric Van Lustbader, In Darkness, Angels (novelette, 1983, p333)28 - Barbara Hambly, Sunrise on Running Water (novelette, 2007, p355)29 - Bruce McAllister, Hit (short story, 2008, p372)30 - Ken MacLeod, Undead Again (short story, 2005, p385)31 - Robert J. Sawyer, Peking Man (short story, 1996, p388)32 - Ben Lumley, Necros (short story, 1986, p396)33 - Catherynne M. Valente, Exsanguinations: A Handbook for the Educated Vampire by Anna S. Oppenhagen-Petrescu (short story, 2005, p409)34 - Charles Coleman Finlay, Lucy, In Her Splendor (short story, 2003, p415)35 - John Langan, The Wide, Carnivorous Sky (short story, 2009, p426)36 - Stephen King, One for the Road (short story, 1977, p464)37 - Ross E. Lockhart, For Further Reading (By Blood We Live) (essay, 2008, p477)

    This reprint anthology showcases the best Holmes short fiction from the last 25 years, featuring stories by such visionaries as Stephen King, Neil Gaimen, Laura King, and many others.

    But in truth, they have continued to prick the imaginations of readers at all ages.Over the years, authors have often borrowed bits and pieces from these stories, grafting them into their own writing, creating literature with both new meaning and age-old significance. In the last few decades or so, they’ve also intentionally retold and reinvented the tales in a variety of ways—delightful or dark, wistful or wicked, sweet or satirical—that forge new trails through the forests of fantastic fiction.This new anthology compiles some of the best modern fairy-tale retellings and reinventions from award-winning and bestselling authors, acclaimed storytellers, and exciting new talents, into an enchanting collection. Explore magical new realms by traveling with us, Beyond the Woods . . .