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.

    Initially created by H. P. Lovecraft and a group of his amorphous contemporaries (the so-called "Lovecraft Circle"), The Cthulhu Mythos story cycle has taken on a convoluted, cyclopean life of its own. Some of the most prodigious writers of the 20th century, and some of the most astounding writers of the 21st century have planted their seeds in this fertile soil. The Book of Cthulhu harvests the weirdest and most corpulent crop of these modern mythos tales. From weird fiction masters to enigmatic rising stars, The Book of Cthulhu demonstrates how Mythos fiction has been a major cultural meme throughout the 20th century, and how this type of story is still salient, and terribly powerful today.Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

    Throughout the story Blackwood personifies the surrounding environment—river, sun, wind—and imbues them with a powerful and ultimately threatening character. Most ominous are the masses of dense, desultory, menacing willows, which "moved of their own will as though alive, and they touched, by some incalculable method, my own keen sense of the horrible.""The Willows" is one of Algernon Blackwood's best known short stories. American horror author H.P. Lovecraft considered it to be the finest supernatural tale in English literature. "The Willows" is an example of early modern horror and is connected within the literary tradition of weird fiction.

    Acclaimed editors Simon Strantzas and Michael Kelly bring their keen editorial sensibilities to the third volume of the Year's Best Weird Fiction. The best weird stories of 2015 features work from Robert Aickman, Matthew M. Bartlett, Sadie Bruce, Nadia Bulkin, Ramsey Campbell, Brian Conn, Brian Evenson, L.S. Johnson, Rebecca Kuder, Tim Lebbon, Reggie Oliver, Lynda E. Rucker, Robert Shearman, Christopher Slatsky, D.P. Watt, Michael Wehunt, Marian Womack, Genevieve Valentine No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outre. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres.

    The mysterious blues man’s dark, driving music–broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio station–is said to make living men insane and dead men rise.Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur’s trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil.But as Ingram closes in on Hastur and those who have crossed his path, he’ll learn there are forces much more malevolent than the Devil and reckonings more painful than Hell...In a masterful debut of Lovecraftian horror and Southern gothic menace, John Hornor Jacobs reveals the fragility of free will, the dangerous power of sacrifice, and the insidious strength of blood.

    But a still greater horror will face the recluse - more inexorable, merciless and awful than any creature that can be fought or killed.A classic of the first water - H. P. Lovecraft

    "Robert Aickman was a master of what he called 'strange stories,' and though his fiction has been categorized as horror, it's actually its own beast.As we move further away from the horror boom of the last century and its focus on the mainstream appeal of small town horrors, we are encountering successive generations of writers open to exploring new avenues of the subtly bizarre, an area Aickman frequently mastered.This book is a sampler of how Robert Aickman's work has beoome a significant source of inspiration for contemporary writers."

    No longer the purview of esoteric readers, weird fiction is enjoying wide popularity. Chiefly derived from early 20th-century pulp fiction, its remit includes ghost stories, the strange and macabre, the supernatural, fantasy, myth, philosophical ontology, ambiguity, and a healthy helping of the outré. At its best, weird fiction is an intersecting of themes and ideas that explore and subvert the Laws of Nature. It is not confined to one genre, but is the most diverse and welcoming of all genres. Hence, in this initial showcase of weird fiction you will discover tales of horror, fantasy, science fiction, the supernatural, and the macabre. Contributing authors include Jeffrey Ford, Sofia Samatar, Joseph S. Pulver Sr, John Langan, Richard Gavin, and W. H. Pugmire.

    He has won four World Fantasy Awards, ten British Fantasy Awards, three Bram Stoker Awards, and the Horror Writers' Association's Lifetime Achievement Award. Three decades into his career, Campbell paused to review his body of short fiction and selected the stories that were, to his mind, the very best of his works. Alone With the Horrors collects nearly forty tales from the first thirty years of Campbell's writing. Included here are "In the Bag," which won the British Fantasy Award, and two World Fantasy Award-winning stories, "The Chimney" and the classic "Mackintosh Willy." Campbell crowns the book with a length preface which traces his early publication history, discusses his youthful correspondence with August Derleth, illuminates the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on his early work, and gives an account of the creation of each story and the author's personal assessment of the works' flaws and virtues.In its first publication, a decade ago, Alone With the Horrors won both the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. For this new edition, Campbell has added one of his very first published stories, a Lovecraftian classic, "The Tower from Yuggoth." From this early, Cthulhian tale, to later works that showcase Campbell's growing mastery of mood and character, Alone With the Horrors provides readers with a close look at a powerful writer's development of his craft.

    He’s been hired by a ten-year-old to kill the kid’s stepdad, McKinsey. The man in question is abusive, abrasive, and abominable. He’s also a monster, which makes Persons the perfect thing to hunt him. Over the course of his ancient, arcane existence, he’s hunted gods and demons, and broken them in his teeth.As Persons investigates the horrible McKinsey, he realizes that he carries something far darker. He’s infected with an alien presence, and he’s spreading that monstrosity far and wide. Luckily Persons is no stranger to the occult, being an ancient and magical intelligence himself. The question is whether the private dick can take down the abusive stepdad without releasing the holds on his own horrifying potential.At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    P. Lovecraft first introduced his macabre universe in the pages of Weird Tales magazine, the response was electrifying. Gifted writers—among them his closest peers—added sinister new elements to the fear-drenched landscape. Here are some of the most famous original stories from the pulp era that played a pivotal role in reflecting the master’s dark vision.  FANE OF THE BLACK PHARAOH by Robert Bloch: A man obsessed with unearthing dark secrets succumbs to the lure of the forbidden.BELLS OF HORROR by Henry Kuttner: Infernal chimes ring the promise of dementia and mutilation.THE FIRE OF ASSHURBANIPAL by Robert E. Howard: In the burning Afghan desert, a young American unleashes an ancient curse.THE ABYSS by Robert A. W. Lowndes: A hypnotized man finds himself in an alternate universe, trapped on a high wire between life and death.  AND SIXTEEN MORE TALES OF ICY TERROR . . .  THE THING ON THE ROOF by Robert E. Howard THE SEVEN GEASES by Clark Ashton Smith THE INVADERS by Henry Kuttner THE THING THAT WALKED ON THE WIND by August Derleth ITHAQUA by August Derleth THE LAIR OF THE STAR-SPAWN by August Derleth & Mark Schorer THE LORD OF ILLUSION by E. Hoffmann Price THE WARDER OF KNOWLEDGE by Richard F. Searight THE SCOURGE OF B’MOTH by Bertram Russell THE HOUSE OF THE WORM by Mearle Prout SPAWN OF THE GREEN ABYSS by C. Hall Thompson THE GUARDIAN OF THE BOOK by Henry Hasse MUSIC OF THE STARS by Duane W. Rimel THE AQUARIUM by Carl Jacobi THE HORROR OUT OF LOVECRAFT by Donald A. Wollheim TO ARKHAM AND THE STARS by Fritz Leiber

    Behind a dusty Georgia carny show... In a mausoleum in Baton Rouge, or in an alley in Calcutta... Here wanderers come to rest, the lost and lonely press their bodies up against each other, the heat rises, flesh yields, bones are bared, blood spills. This is the landscape of today's most brilliant young horror writer, Poppy Z. Brite.Now, in a collection that sings like cutting edge rock 'n' roll and shows the deft touch of a master storyteller, Poppy Z. Brite weaves her unique spell of the sensual, the frightening, and the forbidden....

    . . or not.Joining these haunting works are stories linked to Tremblay’s previous novels. The tour de force metafictional novella Notes from the Dog Walkers deconstructs horror and publishing, possibly bringing in a character from A Head Full of Ghosts, all while serving as a prequel to Disappearance at Devil’s Rock. “The Thirteenth Temple” follows another character from A Head Full of Ghosts—Merry, who has published a tell-all memoir written years after the events of the novel. And the title story, Growing Things, a shivery tale loosely shared between the sisters in A Head Full of Ghosts, is told here in full.From global catastrophe to the demons inside our heads, Tremblay illuminates our primal fears and darkest dreams in startlingly original fiction that leaves us unmoored. As he lowers the sky and yanks the ground from beneath our feet, we are compelled to contemplate the darkness inside our own hearts and minds.Growing things --Swim wants to know if it's as bad as swim thinks --Something about birds --The getaway --Nineteen snapshots of Dennisport --Where we all will be --The teacher --Notes for "The Barn in the Wild" --_______ --Our town's monster --A haunted house is a wheel upon which some are broken --It won't go away --Notes from the dog walkers --Further questions for the somnambulist --The ice tower --The society of the monsterhood --Her red right hand --It's against the law to feed the ducks --The thirteenth temple --Notes --Acknowledgments --Credits

    Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud's intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible.These are love stories. And also monster stories. Sometimes these are monsters in their traditional guises, sometimes they wear the faces of parents, lovers, or ourselves. The often working-class people in these stories are driven to extremes by love. Sometimes, they are ruined; sometimes redeemed. All are faced with the loneliest corners of themselves and strive to find an escape.Nathan Ballingrud was born in Massachusetts but has spent most of his life in the South. He worked as a bartender in New Orleans and New York City and a cook on offshore oil rigs. His story "The Monsters of Heaven" won the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with his daughter.

    A version of the story was published in the magazine Whirlwind in 1890, and Machen revised and extended it for its book publication (together with another story, "The Inmost Light") in 1894. On publication it was widely denounced by the press as degenerate and horrific because of its decadent style and sexual content, although it has since garnered a reputation as a classic of horror. Machen’s story was only one of many at the time to focus on Pan as a useful symbol for the power of nature and paganism. The title was taken from the poem "A Musical Instrument" published in 1862 by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, in which the first line of every stanza ends "... the great god Pan.