Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gamers. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history—written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread—remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. In the early twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate Lovecraft, but they are profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos he created. New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird presents some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction—bizarre, subtle, atmospheric, metaphysical, psychological, filled with strange creatures and stranger characters—eldritch, unsettling, evocative, and darkly appealing.

    Serling was a serious admirer of horror, fantasy, and science fiction, and he scoured every magazine and collection available to find stories suitable for his series. This anthology showcases almost every original story that had been adapted into an episode. The result is a masterful collection of 30 classic tales by Richard Matheson (who also wrote the warmly nostalgic introduction), Charles Beaumont, Ray Bradbury, Damon Knight, Lewis Padgett, Jerome Bixby, and Manly Wade Wellman, among others. Fans of The Twilight Zone will enjoy revisiting their favorite episodes in literary form, but even if you've never seen the show, you'll enjoy this fine anthology. --Stanley WiaterCONTENTSPreface · Carol Serling · prIntroduction · Richard Matheson · inOne for the Angels · Anne Serling-Sutton·Perchance to Dream Charles BeaumontDisappearing Act · Richard Matheson Time Enough at Last · Lynn A. Venable · What You Need · Lewis Padgett · Third from the Sun · Richard Matheson · Elegy · Charles Beaumont · Brothers Beyond the Void · Paul W. Fairman · The Howling Man [as by C. B. Lovehill] · Charles Beaumont · It’s a Good Life · Jerome Bixby · The Valley Was Still · Manly Wade Wellman · The Jungle · Charles Beaumont ·To Serve Man · Damon Knight ·Little Girl Lost · Richard Matheson · Four O’Clock · Price Day · I Sing the Body Electric! [“The Beautiful One Is Here”] · Ray Bradbury · The Changing of the Guard · Anne Serling-Sutton · In His Image [“The Man Who Made Himself”] · Charles BeaumontMute · Richard Matheson ·Death Ship · Richard Matheson · The Devil, You Say? · Charles Beaumont ·Blind Alley · Malcolm Jameson · Song for a Lady · Charles Beaumont ·Steel · Richard Matheson · Nightmare at 20,000 Feet · Richard Matheson ·The Old Man · Henry Slesar · The Self-Improvement of Salvadore Ross · Henry Slesar · The Beautiful People · Charles Beaumont · Long Distance Call [“Sorry, Right Number”] · Richard Matheson · An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge · Ambrose Bierce

    HochThe Bargain by A.M. BurrageThe Sins of the Father by Carole BuggeThe Moving Finger Types by Henry SlesarThe Story of Obbok by Darrell SchweitzerRevised Expectations by Kathleen C. SzajThe Pandora Heart by Tanith LeeDon't Open That Book! by Patricia MullenGenesis for Dummies by Patrick LobruttoTurn the Page by Zenna HendersonBecome So Shining That We Cease to Be by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro The Resurrection by Christine JacobsenThe Confession of Brother Blaise by Jane YolenNever Again the Same by L. Jagi LamplighterThe Temple by H.P. LovecraftThe Green Thumb by John Gregory BetancourtFamous First Words by Harry HarrisonThe Super Alkaloid by Jack Snow"I Am a Fine Musician..." by Roberta RogowObituary by Isaac AsimovOne-Shot Beamish and His Wonderful Feminals by Jack Sheckley Patent Pending by Arthur C. ClarkeThe Monster-Maker by William C. MorrowThe Maladjusted Classroom by H. Nearing, Jr.Black Bargain by Robert BlochThe Devil in Manuscript by Nathaniel HawthorneFeeling Lucky by Laura J. CatanzaritiMendoza by Andrew WarrenSatan's Home Page by Ron GoulartProfessor Lubermayer's Final Lecture by Marvin KayeCinnabar by Jean PaivaMessage from Hell by Robert SheckleyA Child of Earth and Hell by Jessica Amanda SalmonsonThe Master's Thesis by David MaddenDP! by Jack VanceRepeating Echo by J. Timothy HuntThe Shadowy Street by Jean RayThe Bear Garden by Aline Myette-VolskyThe Testament of Magdalen Blair by Aleister Crowley

    P. Lovecraft, this stylish new collection of adventure stories fizzes with wit and invention. They can be enjoyed separately, but read them in one sitting and the pieces fit horribly together into a larger and more terrible nightmare. †These tales constitute David Hambling’s initial foray into the realm of Lovecraftian fiction. The fertility of imagination, the crisp character delineations, and the smooth-flowing prose that we find in these seven tales leave us wishing for more of the same, and Hambling will no doubt oblige in the coming years. For now, we can sit back and relish a brace of stories that not only evoke the shade of the dreamer from Providence, but which that dreamer himself would have enjoyed to the full. —S. T. Joshi(from his foreword)

    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.

     Including never-before published stories by: Neil Gaiman, Steve Rasnic Tem, Kathe Koja, David J. Schow, Bentley Little, Poppy Z. Brite, Joe R. Lansdale, Jack Ketchum, Melanie Tem, Tanith Lee, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Lea Silhol, Freda Warrington, Elizabeth Massie, Brett Alexander Savory, Katherine Ramsland, Yvonne Navarro, Thomas S. Roche, Michael Marano, John Shirley, Brian Hodge, and Elizabeth Engstrom ...all at their most brilliant and most outrageous. Here are dangerous games between lovers, howls from the dark, voyeurs and their victims, disturbed wishes and bitter dreams. Unflinching, uncommon, and underground, these tales vibrate with new life.

    In To Walk the Night, Bark Jones and his college buddy Jerry Lister, a science whiz, head back to their alma mater to visit a cherished professor of astronomy. They discover his body, consumed by fire, in his laboratory, and an uncannily beautiful young widow in his house—but nothing compares to the revelation that Jerry and Bark encounter in the deserts of Arizona at the end of the book. In The Edge of Running Water, Julian Blair, a brilliant electrophysicist, has retired to a small town in remotest Maine after the death of his wife. His latest experiments threaten to shake up the town, not to mention the universe itself.

    The Dark takes a look at the tormented and unquiet dead; the darkness in us, the living; and the sometimes tenuous boundary between the two.

    "Straub at his spellbinding best".--Publishers Weekly.

    Twenty-two masters of horror and fantasy give Van Helsing, the vampire hunter from Bram Stoker's Dracula, his due as they reimagine the adventures of the greatest foe of the most evil vampire in literary history.

    A short story.

    Love missives unread, gifts unreceived, lost in postal limbo. Dead Letters: An Anthology features new stories from the masters of horror, fantasy and speculative fiction, each inspired by object from the Dead Letters Office. Featuring original stories by:Joanne Harris * Maria Dahvana Headley & China Miéville * Michael Marshall Smith * Lisa Tuttle * Ramsey Campbell * Pat Cadigan * Steven Hall * Alison Moore * Adam LG Nevill * Nina Allan * Christopher Fowler * Muriel Gray * Andrew Lane * Angela Slatter * Claire Dean * Nicholas Royle * Kirsten Kaschock

    Bounds, and a reclusive islander shares his world with shape-changing selkies in Robert Holdstock's haunting tale The Silvering.Late-night office workers are menaced by hungry horrors in Ramsey Cambell's claustrophobic Down There, while the monsters of both Brian Lumley's The Thin People and Basil Copper's The Flabby Men share only a semblance of humanity. The King of the Monsters himself turns up in Godzilla's Twelve Step Program by Joe R. Lansdale, R. Chetwynd-Hayes' The Shadmock and Clive Barker's Rawhead Rex are genuinely new monsters, and the last monster-fighter and the last classic monster confront each other in Kim Newman's The Chill Clutch of the Unseen.If you like monsters, then there are plenty to choose from in this creature-filled collection boasting some of the biggest names in horror, fantasy and science fiction.Contents:Introduction: How to Make a Monster by Stephen JonesVisitation by David J. SchowDown There by Ramsey CampbellThe Man He Had Been Before by Scott EdelmanCalling All Monsters by Dennis EtchisonThe Shadmock by R. Chetwynd-HayesThe Spider Kiss by Christopher FowlerCafé Endless: Spring Rain by Nancy HolderThe Medusa by Thomas LigottiIn the Poor Girl Taken by Surprise by Gemma Files Downmarket by Sydney J. BoundsFat Man by Jay LakeThe Thin People by Brian LumleyThe Hill by Tanith LeeGodzilla's Twelve Step Program by Joe R. Lansdale.220 Swift by Karl Edward WagnerOur Lady of the Sauropods by Robert SilverbergThe Flabby Man by Basil CopperThe Silvering by Robert HoldstockSomeone Else's Problem by Michael Marshall SmithRawhead Rex by Clive BarkerThe Chill Clutch of the Unseen by Kim Newman

     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)

    Le Guin * 197 • Understanding Human Behavior • (1982) • novelette by Thomas M. Disch * 221 • Relativistic Effects • (1982) • novelette by Gregory Benford * 243 • Firewatch • [Time Travel] • (1982) • novelette by Connie Willis (aka Fire Watch) * 283 • The Wooing of Slowboat Sadie • [Springfield] • (1982) • shortstory by George Alec Effinger [as by O. Niemand ] * 293 • With the Original Cast • (1982) • novelette by Nancy Kress * 323 • When the Fathers Go • (1982) • novelette by Bruce McAllister * 351 • The Science Fiction Year (1982) • (1983) • essay by Charles N. Brown * 359 • Recommended Reading - 1982 • (1983) • essay by Terry Carr