Book picks similar to
World's Greatest Dad by Edward Lorn
horror
short-stories
lendable
short-stories-novellas
The Methuselah Treatment
T.C. Powell - 2015
Not everyone can. Who decides? Desperate to save his daughter from a mysterious sickness, Daniel applies for the Methuselah Treatment. If she gets it, his daughter won’t just recover, she’ll live forever. But the drug is tightly controlled, and only the special, the talented, and the truly deserving ever receive it. There is nothing special about Daniel’s destitute ten- year-old girl—or is there?
Ashes
Scott Nicholson - 2010
The afterword explains where the ideas for the stories came from.
Lullaby for a Lost World
Aliette de Bodard - 2016
Her bones grew into the foundation and pushed up through the walls, feeding his power and continuing the cycle. As time passes and the ones she loved fade away, the house and the master remain, and she yearns ever more deeply for vengeance.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Bloodchild
Octavia E. Butler - 1984
Butler’s shattering meditation on symbiosis, love, power and tough choices. It won the Hugo, Locus, Nebula and Science Fiction Chronicle awards and is widely regarded as one of her greatest works.Years ago, a group known as the Terrans left Earth in search of a life free of persecution. Now they live alongside the Tlic, an alien race who face extinction; their only chance of survival is to plant their larvae inside the bodies of the humans.When Gan, a young boy, is chosen as a carrier of Tlic eggs, he faces an impossible dilemma: can he really help the species he has grown up with, even if it means sacrificing his own life?Perfect for fans of the thrilling Arrival and the works of Ursula Le Guin.
Snow, Glass, Apples
Neil Gaiman - 1995
A retelling of the Snow White fairy tale from the point of view of the "wicked stepmother." This version was a chapbook compiled by Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab and sold at Comic Con 2008 and on the BPAL website with all proceeds going to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
Eros, Philia, Agape
Rachel Swirsky - 2010
She is also the submissions editor of Podcastle, an audio fantasy magazine.
Faster
Calvin Demmer - 2014
It’s a contract that follows him throughout his days, a contract he can’t escape. Or can he? One night on the road, he must decide whether to keep running or surrender. . . Either choice has its price.A short story.
Comfort Me with Apples
Catherynne M. Valente - 2021
Her perfect husband. She can feel it in her bones. He is perfect. Their home together in Arcadia Gardens is perfect. Everything is perfect.It's just that he's away so much. So often. He works so hard. She misses him. And he misses her. He says he does, so it must be true. He is the perfect husband and everything is perfect.But sometimes Sophia wonders about things. Strange things. Dark things. The look on her husband's face when he comes back from a long business trip. The questions he will not answer. The locked basement she is never allowed to enter. And whenever she asks the neighbors, they can't quite meet her gaze...But everything is perfect. Isn't it?
When The Stars Are Right
William Meikle - 2013
But why do they need an expert in ritual magic on board their new flagship spacecraft? And why do they need an exorcist? It is soon apparent they are meddling with forces they don't understand. But can they be controlled?A Lovecraftian short story.This is an old one, from about 1993, not long after I started out. It got reworked into an expanded novella THE PLASM for Dark Regions Press, but here it is in its original form. Think of it in black and white, 50s B movie style — that's how it runs in my head.
The Shopkeep: A Morbid Tale (The Morbid Tales, #1)
Zachery Miller - 2017
They’re just there for a steal and a quick buck, but what they don’t realize is that they’ve come for a whole different reason: the Devil’s Shopkeep awaits.
The Visit
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - 2021
Obinna is a dutiful and unsophisticated stay-at-home husband and father married to a powerful businesswoman. Eze is single, a cautious rebel from his university days whose arrival soon upsets the balance in Obinna’s life. In a world where men are constantly under surveillance and subject to the whims of powerful women, more than Obinna’s ordered and accustomed routine might be on the line.Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Visit is part of Black Stars, a multi-dimensional collection of speculative fiction from Black authors. Each story is a world much like our own. Read or listen to them in a single sitting.
Devil's Night: A Halloween Short Story
Richard Chizmar - 2012
It was the night before Halloween, the night we always called Wreck Night or Devil's Night back when we were kids and Halloween was second in our hearts only to Christmas. At least the newspapers got that much right. The day, I mean. They pretty much screwed up the rest of the story. I was there that night. Let me tell you what really happened…
Apt Pupil
Stephen King - 1982
Good grades, good family, a paper route. But he is about to meet a different kind of teacher: Mr. Dussander. Todd knows all about Dussander's dark past. The torture. The death. The decades-old manhunt Dussander has escaped to this day. Yet Todd doesn't want to turn him in. Todd wants to know more. Much more. He is about to learn the real meaning of power—and the seductive lure of evil.
Catching Caroline
Sylvia Day - 2005
He lives for the moment, indulging in temporary pleasures. Until Lady Caroline Seton sets her eyes on him and the heat of her gaze lures him in. Now he wants more than one stolen kiss, he wants forever. But Caroline hides a dangerous secret, one that could cost him his life. Will his love be enough to save them both...?Genres: Dark Fantasy / Vampire / Historical / Regency
The Lost Sisters
Holly Black - 2018
Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.The Lost Sisters is a companion e-novella to the New York Times bestselling novel The Cruel Prince by master writer Holly Black.