With themes reminiscent of Shirley Jackson, Thomas Ligotti, and Bruno Schulz, but with a strikingly unique vision, Padgett's work explores the mystery of human suffering, the agony of personal existence, and the ghastly means by which someone might achieve salvation from both. A bullied child seeks vengeance within a bed's hollow box spring. A lucid dreamer is haunted by an impossible house. A dummy reveals its own anatomy in 20 simple steps. A stuttering librarian holds the key to a mill town's unspeakable secrets. A commuter's worldview is shattered by two words printed on a cardboard sign. An aspiring ventriloquist spends a little too much time looking at himself in a mirror. And a presence speaks through them all. Contents: Introduction by Matt Cardin The Mindfulness of Horror Practice Murmurs of a Voice Foreknown The Indoor Swamp Origami Dreams 20 Simple Steps to Ventriloquism Infusorium Organ Void The Secret of VentriloquismEscape to Thin Mountain

    Two of the 14 selections are early works: a negligible, almost plotless humor piece, "But First These Words," and an unconvincing horror story, "The Totem Pole," interesting mostly for its vintageit's from a 1939 Weird Tales. The other 12 date from the past decade and include "The Spoiled Bride," a comic, if rather grim, tale of a future in which men can choose their mates from among the cryogenically frozen; a character study of a psychotic Nazi type who murders a little Jewish girl, "The Rubber Room"; and "Everybody Needs a Little Love," the all-too-predictable tale of a man who takes a store mannequin for a companion. Best in the book are a well-wrought tale of adultery and revenge, "The Night Before Christmas," and a deal-with-the-devil story, "Picture."Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

    It continues after midnight, when a young boy, held captive in a basement, is filled with unearthly visions of fantastic and frightening worlds. How could his kidnappers know that the ransom would be their own souls? For, as the hours pass, the boy's nightmares invade his captors like parasites-and soon, they become real.This audiobook also contains the short stories "Underworld," "O Rare and Most Esquisite," "The Rendering Man," "The Fruit of Her Womb," "The Hurting Season," "Chosen," "The Night Before Alec Got Married," "Only Connect," "The Little Mermaid," "Damned if You Do," and "The Ripening Sweetness of Late Afternoon." You can also listen to the acclaimed novelettes, "White Chapel" and "I am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes."

    The story Pages from a Young Girl's Journal won Aickman the World Fantasy Award in 1975. It was originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in 1973 before appearing in this collection.Cold Hand in Mine stands as one of Aickman's best collections and contains eight stories that show off his powers as a 'strange story' writer to the full, being more ambiguous than standard ghost stories. Throughout the stories the reader is introduced to a variety of characters, from a man who spends the night in a Hospice to a German aristocrat and a woman who sees an image of her own soul. There is also a nod to the conventional vampire story (Pages from a Young Girl's Journal) but all the stories remain unconventional and inconclusive, which perhaps makes them all the more startling and intriguing.• The Swords • The Real Road to the Church • Niemandswasser • Pages from a Young Girl's Journal• The Hospice • The Same Dog • Meeting Mr. Millar • The Clock Watcher

    At noon, the murdered child begs for his help. And by nightfall, they have killed a man together and set off into the afterlife, where nothing is what it was, and death is only the beginning of punishment. An eerie story about the nature of death and the self, Midnight Picnic inhabits an American landscape made strange and unfamiliar. From the author of the cult novel Fires, Midnight Picnic is a haunting and disturbing experience.

    400 copies. Contains: "Mrs Midnight", "Countess Otho", "Meeting with Mike", "The Dancer in the Dark", "Mr Pigsny", "The Brighton Redemption", "You Have Nothing to Fear", "The Philosophy of the Damned", "The Mortlake Manuscript", "The Look", "The Giacometti Crucifixion","A Piece of Elsewhere", "Minos or Rhadamanthus".A TV reality show host helps to restore an East End music hall and uncovers the dreadful secret of Mrs Midnight and her Animal Comedians. . . . A historian travels to Switzerland to ghost the autobiography of an exiled Balkan king and encounters a sinister cult. . . . The Master of an Oxford college tries to introduce a dubious piece of modern sculpture into his college chapel with dire consequences. . . . A strange meeting takes place on a playing field between an officer on leave from the trenches and his former headmaster. . . .The settings and characters in Reggie Oliver’s fifth collection of ‘strange’ stories are as varied and unusual as ever, though, as in previous volumes, the theatre forms the milieu of a number of his tales. But the theatres are not just English ones, in the provinces and the West End: one is on the Black Sea; another in post-colonial Kenya. Themes are equally varied, but underlying all is a deep sense of the spiritual under-currents just below the surface of everyday existence, and the precariousness of ‘normality’.Reggie Oliver is an English playwright, biographer and writer of ghost stories. His work has appeared in a number of anthologies, including the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror and The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror.

    John HarrisonGahan WilsonThe anthology market these days is awash with small, themed works focused on very specific markets, like vampire erotica and tales of werewolves, or it features best of the year reprints. It has been years since anyone has dared to bring out a broad-reaching anthology that seeks to define the current state of the genre with all original tales from both masters and hot new writers.

    When originally published in 1985 by Harry Morris’s Silver Scarab Press, the book was hardly noticed. In 1989, an expanded version appeared that garnered accolades from several quarters. Writing in the Washington Post, the celebrated science fiction and fantasy author Michael Swanwick extolled: “Put this volume on the shelf right between H. P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe. Where it belongs.”The revisions in the present volume of Songs of a Dead Dreamer have been calculated to make its stories into enhanced incarnations of the originals. This edition is and will remain definitive.For those already familiar with the stories in Songs of a Dead Dreamer, an invitation is extended to return to them in their ultimate state. For those new to the collection, it is submitted to engage them with some of the most extraordinary tales of their kind. In either case, this publication of Songs of a Dead Dreamer offers evidence for why Ligotti has been judged to be among the most important authors in the history of supernatural horror.

    . .In the dead of night, your past mistakes will haunt you . . .In the dead of night, you hear a discordant tune . . .In the dead of night, the nightingale sings . . . Simon Strantzas, master of the subtle and the bizarre, returns with a dozen strange tales and eerie mysteries. From the shores of a remote oil-stained sound to deep within the familiar heart of suburbia, these are the songs of broken people who cannot find a way to fix themselves, who must search the dark for salvation. Like a siren, the nightingale sings them onward to face their end. But it sings for you too. A requiem in your honor. Because, for you, it is already too late.Table of ContentsIn the Nightingale, Waiting for the Curtain to Rise, an Introduction by John LanganOut of TouchHer Father’s DaughterThe Deafening Sound of SlumberUnreasonable DoubtTend Your Own GardenThe NightingalePale Light in the JungleAn Indelible Stain upon the SkySomething NewMr. KnealeEverything FloatsWhen Sorrows ComeAfterword

    Seventeen tales of mystery, madness, and monsters, by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Kealan Patrick Burke.

    A virtually instant cult film based on Barker's novella Cabal, it was nominated for three Saturn Awards and won several prizes at European film festivals.Midian Unmade tells the stories of the Nightbreed after the fall of their city, Midian. Driven from their homes, their friends and family members slain before their eyes, the monsters become a mostly-hidden diaspora. Some are hunted; others, hunters. Some seek refuge. Others want revenge.Contributors include: Karl Alexander, author of the classic novel Time After Time; actor, writer, and director Amber Benson (Tara Maclay on Buffy the Vampire Slayer); New York Times bestselling author Nancy Holder; Hugo and John W. Campbell Award winner Seanan McGuire; Bram Stoker Award winner Weston Ochse; David J. Schow, winner of the World Fantasy Award and writer of the screenplay for The Crow; New York Times bestselling writer Stephen Woodworth; and many more--23 stories in all.With an introduction by Clive Barker, this is an outstanding collection of original horror short stories in a dazzling variety of styles.

    Tilly's seance --Mrs. Amworth --In the tube --Roderick's story --Reconciliation --Face --Spinach --Bagnell terrace --A tale of an empty house --Naboth's vineyard --Expiation --Home sweet home --"And no bird sings" --Corner house --Corstophine --Temple --Step --Bed by the window --James Lamp --Dance --Hanging of Alfred Wadham --Pirates --Wishing-well --Bath-chair --Monkeys --Christopher comes back --Sanctuary --Thursday evenings --Psychical mallards --Clonmel witch burning.

    But the people of Haven have at last found a warrior to battle the ruthless Sea People attacking them--a warrior imbued with the spirit of the Sun Hound. And if Kyre loses, Haven may not be the only thing destroyed.

    The stories traverse the magical and the mundane, where supernatural beings are indistinguishable from their mortal counterparts in their complexity and complicity.

    The Panic Hand assembles in one volume the shorter works of this master, including the World Fantasy Award-winning tale Friend's Best Man and the short novels Uh-Oh and Black Cocktail.