Book picks similar to
Devils' Spawn by Charles Birkin


short-stories
horror
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Saints and Strangers


Angela Carter - 1985
    Angela Carter takes real people and literary legends - most often women - who have been mythologized or marginalized and recasts them in a new light. In a style that is sensual, cerebral, almost hypnotic, "The Fall River Axe-Murders" portrays the last hours before Lizzie Borden's infamous act: the sweltering heat, the weight of flannel and corsets, the clanging of the factory bells, the food reheated and reserved despite the lack of adequate refrigeration, the house "full of locked doors that open only into other rooms with other locked doors." In "Our Lady of the Massacre" the no-nonsense voice of an eighteenth-century prostitute/runaway slave questions who is civilized - the Indians or the white men? "Black Venus" gives voice to Charles Baudelaire's Creole mistress, Jeanne Duval: "you could say, not so much that Jeanne did not understand the lapidary, troubled serenity of her lover's poetry but, that it was a perpetual affront to her. He recited it to her by the hour and she ached, raged and chafed under it because his eloquence denied her language." "The Kiss" takes the traditional story of Tamburlaine's wife and gives it a new and refreshing ending. Sometimes disquieting, sometimes funny, always thought-provoking, Angela Carter's stories offer a feminist revision of images that lie deep in the public psyche.

The Asylum: A Jack Nightingale Short Story


Stephen Leather - 2017
    A TV crew goes in to investigate and Jack Nightingale goes in with them. But the truth is more shocking than any of them realise, and not everyone will get out alive. The Asylum is a fast-paced supernatural story about 16,000 words long. Stephen Leather is one of the UK's most successful thriller writers, an ebook and Sunday Times bestseller and author of the critically acclaimed Dan “Spider’ Shepherd series and the Jack Nightingale supernatural detective novels. You can find out more from his website www.stephenleather.com and Jack Nightingale has his own website at www.jacknightingale.com

The Brains of Rats


Michael Blumlein - 1990
    Meet a scientist who discovers how to predetermine and alter the sex of a pregnant woman's fetus, and proceeds to contemplate his own gender...and a surgeon whose primary practice is removing organs and limbs from unwilling patients to redistribute them to unfortunate victims in impoverished countries. Filled with dark surprises, these splendid tales invite us to glimpse the world of high-tech medicine from a disturbing new angle.

The Lord Came at Twilight


Daniel Mills - 2014
    In a wayside tavern, a murderous innkeeper raises a young girl among the ghosts of his past victims. Elsewhere the village of Whistler’s Gore is swept up in the tumult of religious fervor, while in rural Falmouth, the souls of the buried dead fall prey to a fungal infestation.This is New England as it was once envisioned by Hawthorne and Lovecraft, a twilit country of wild hills and barren farmland where madness and repression abound. The Lord Came at Twilight presents 14 stories of doubt and despair, haunter and haunted, the deranged and the devout.

Cold to the Touch


Simon Strantzas - 2009
    300 copies. (Out of print).Reality is a thin translucent membrane that separates this world from the one beyond, and that membrane bends and buckles as we thrust ourselves against it. Through the barrier we see distorted visions, the merest glimpse of which is enough to infect our minds. . . . Thirteen tales of strangeness and surrealism await the reader of this book; stories of loss, despair, and what happens when those without hope meet that which they cannot understand. Two women vacationing far away encounter the mysteries of island life. . . . A trip north of the city to woods and a lake and a sky hungry for more. . . . Snow is falling, reminding the dying of all they've lost, or the young of all they have yet to lose. . . . The other world, it awaits you in the dark, cold to the touch. Contents: 'Under the Overpass', 'The Other Village', 'The Uninvited Guest', 'A Seed on Barren Ground', 'Writing on the Wall', 'A Chorus of Yesterdays', 'The Sweetest Song', 'Pinholes in Black Muslin', 'Fading Light', 'Poor Stephanie', 'Like Falling Snow', 'Here’s to the Good Life', 'Cold to the Touch, and 'Afterword'.

The Night Library


T.L. Barrett - 2012
    Searching these sinister stacks you will find:A church picnic at a haunted reservoir where only a twelve year-old boy is aware that something waits in the water…A burnt-out teacher that finds a friend… in his cancer…The secret to surviving the zombie apocalypse…An inoculation for Lycanthropy which may be more horrible than the disease…Young lovers that, on the eve of World War II, partake of a most forbidden fruit…A haunted carnival ride which delivers its passengers into the unexpected…21 tales of night terror, night madness, nightmares, night woe and night wonder…Welcome to The Night LibraryBe warned: The late fees are killer!

The Altar In The Hills and Other Weird Tales


Brandon Barrows - 2014
    Lovecraft, the most-fevered mind of 20th century horror and weirdness! These weird tales blend horror, science-fiction and fantasy to weave stories of darkness and terror that will alternately leave you checking dark spaces for hidden horrors and wondering at the nature of reality itself. From the horror/mystery of The Altar in the Hills to the private confessions and revelations of one of mankind's most brilliant minds in Through the Ether, these seven stories bring with them Old Gods, strange twists and interesting characters that will both surprise and delight fans of horror fiction.

The Birds and Other Stories


Daphne du Maurier - 1952
    The five other chilling stories in this collection echo a sense of dislocation and mock man's dominance over the natural world. The mountain paradise of 'Monte Verità' promises immortality, but at a terrible price; a neglected wife haunts her husband in the form of an apple tree; a professional photographer steps out from behind the camera and into his subject's life; a date with a cinema usherette leads to a walk in the cemetery; and a jealous father finds a remedy when three's a crowd . . .

The Complete Chronicles of Conan


Robert E. Howard - 2006
    From boy-thief to pirate, mercenary and outlaw, ultimately becoming King of Aquilonia, Conan carved a red swathe through lost cities and unexplored jungles, facing hideous horrors or supernatural menaces with nothing more than a sharp sword in his hand and a beautiful woman at his side. Collected together here in the chronological order they were first published are Robert E. Howard's definitive stories of Conan, exactly as he wrote them, as fresh, atmospheric and vibrant today as they were when they originally appeared in the pulp magazines of more than seventy years ago.

Doctors Wear Scarlet


Simon Raven - 1960
    He is handsome, with an enviable record from school, army and university. A future career as a talented archaeologist seems assured. That is, until he travels to Greece and meets Chriseis. Chriseis is beautiful, mesmerising and mysterious, but also evil. A spellbound Richard is lured into her dark world of vice, vampirism and ritual, high up in the Cretan mountains. When his rescuers finally reach him, he has changed beyond all recognition and is seemingly destined for a tragic end. The final act at a double funeral provides a tumultuous climax to a shocking story.

Collected Ghost Stories


M.R. James - 1931
    R. James is widely regarded as the father of the modern ghost story, and his tales have influenced horror writers from H. P. Lovecraft to Stephen King. First published in the early 1900s, they have never been out of print, and are recognized as classics of the genre. This collection contains some of his most chilling tales, including A View from a Hill, Rats, A School Story, The Ash Tree, and The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance. Read by BAFTA and Emmy-award winning actor Derek Jacobi, and with haunting and evocative music, these tales cannot fail to send a shiver down your spine.

Short Shockers: Collection One


Peter James - 2013
    Funny, sad, but always shocking, each tale carries a twist that will haunt readers for days after they turn the final page . . .This 25,000 word collection, available exclusively in this ebook edition, includes:12 Bolingbroke Avenue (First published in 1998)Number Thirteen (First published in 2010)Just Two Clicks (First published in 2004)Dead on the Hour (First published in 2006)Virtually Alive (First published in 1997)Meet Me at the Crematorium (First published in 2009)Venice Aphrodisiac (First published in 2011)Time Rich (First published in 2013)Christmas is for the Kids (First published in 1993)

Black Gate Tales


Paul Draper - 2020
    A disused London Underground lift goes way beyond the bottom floor.A psychic boy discovers what terrors are buried in the fallow field.A handshake seals a midnight fate in an old farming dispute.A corpse must be buried by dawn.BLACK GATE TALES: Fourteen short stories of dread, hope, death and wonder.

A Bottomless Grave & Other Victorian Tales of Terror


Hugh LambErckmann-Chatrian - 1977
    B. Marriott-WatsonA Tragic Honeymoon by G. R. SimsThe Battle of the Monsters by Morgan RobertsonThe Return by R. Murrey GilchristThe Corpse Light by Dick DonovanThe Ship That Saw a Ghost by Frank NorrisA Bottomless Grave by Ambrose BierceOne Summer Night by Ambrose BierceGhosts That Have Haunted Me by J. K. BangsHaunted by Spirits by George Mandeville FennA Ghost Slayer by J. Keightley SnowdonThe Tomb by Guy de MaupassantThe Man with the Nose by Rhoda BroughtonMy Nightmare by Dorothea GerardA Life-watch by Georgina C. ClarkThe Haunted Chair by Richard MarshCoolies by W. Carlton DaweThe Three Souls by Erckmann-ChatrianA Strange Goldfield by Guy BoothbyAn Alpine Divorce by Robert BarrThe Story of Baelbrow by E. and H. Heron

The Valancourt Book of Horror Stories: Volume One


James D. JenkinsHugh Walpole - 2016
    Jenkins and Ryan CagleAunty Green by John BlackburnMiss Mack by Michael McDowellSchool Crossing by Francis KingA Psychological Experiment by Richard MarshThe Progress of John Arthur Crabbe by Stephen GregoryThe Frozen Man by John TrevenaCalifornia Burning by Michael BlumleinLet Loose by Mary CholmondeleyOut of Sorts by Bernard TaylorThe Head and the Hand by Christopher PriestThe Ghost of Charlotte Cray by Florence MarryatThe Grim White Woman by M. G. LewisThe Terror on Tobit by Charles BirkinFurnished Apartments by Forrest ReidSomething Happened by Hugh FleetwoodThe Tarn by Hugh WalpoleThe Gentleman All in Black by Gerald Kersh