But Commonwealth operative Simon Kovalic knows nothing ever goes to plan. So, when a duplicitous bounty hunter lives up to his reputation, Kovalic’s ready—just maybe not ready enough.Now he and his team must get offworld, before their enemies catch up with them…

    A dark ritual turns a woman obsessed with supernatural powers against the people who love her most. A possessed TV proves that old B-Movie monsters can still terrify an unsuspecting audience…Scare Street’s roster of authors brings you eleven new tales of supernatural horror, in one blood-chilling volume. This macabre collection of short stories is guaranteed to get your pulse racing, and send shivers down your spine.Each deliciously dark tale will haunt your dreams, and keep you reading long past the witching hour. But wait…What was that noise? Did something move in the shadows?Just keep telling yourself… it’s only a story.

    Howard's stories about Conan the Barbarian.These stories were originally published in Weird Tales magazine between 1933 and 1936.The Conan stories included in the collection are:1. The Frost Giant's Daughter (Gods of the North)2. The Tower of the Elephant3. Rogues in the House4. Shadows in the Moonlight (Iron Shadows in the Moon)5. Black Colossus6. Queen of the Black Coast7. The Slithering Shadow (Xuthal of the Dusk)8. A Witch Shall Be Born9. The Devil in Iron10. The People of the Black Circle11. Shadows in Zamboula (Man-Eaters of Zamboula)12. The Pool of the Black One13. Beyond the Black River14. Red Nails15. Jewels of Gwahlur (The Teeth of Gwahlur)16. The Phoenix on the Sword17. The Scarlet Citadel18. The Hour of the Dragon (Conan the Conqueror)As an added bonus, also included in the set are:Cimmeria—A PoemThe Hyborian Age—Conan's World (This is Howard's background essay on the world of Conan)For ease of navigation, the anthology includes an interactive table of contents. The stories in this collection are ordered roughly in chronological order from Conan's first adventures as a young mercenary adventurer and thief to his final epic clashes as a king and are based on the Rippke chronology.About Conan:Conan the Barbarian (also known as Conan the Cimmerian) is a fictional sword and sorcery hero who originated in pulp fiction magazines and has since been adapted to books, comics, several films (including Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer), television programs (cartoon and live-action), video games, role-playing games and other media. The character was created by writer Robert E. Howard in 1932 via a series of fantasy stories published in Weird Tales magazine.Conan the Character:Conan is a Cimmerian. From Robert E. Howard's writings (The Hyborian Age among others) it is known that the Cimmerians were based on the Celts or Gaels. He was born on a battlefield and is the son of a village blacksmith. Conan matured quickly as a youth and, by age fifteen, he was already a respected warrior who had participated in the destruction of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium. After its demise, he was struck by wanderlust and began the adventures chronicled by Howard, encountering skulking monsters, evil wizards, tavern wenches, and beautiful princesses. He roamed throughout the Hyborian Age nations as a thief, outlaw, mercenary, and pirate. As he grew older, he began commanding larger units of men and escalating his ambitions.

    The small coal-mining community of Karlgarin has branded them criminals and sociopaths, and the case against them seems open and shut.Something terrifying though led Bobby and Emily to leave their two young children with a sitter while they embarked on a crazy fire-bug spree. That something was an incredible secret they'd promised to protect.When Emily impulsively breaks her promise while under cross-examination, a bizarre tale unfolds of the night she followed her husband and discovered the truth of his clandestine activities. These two are the last people anyone would expect to save the world. Yet, that’s what they claim. Are they criminals, heroes or completely insane?Inspired by true-life headlines, revealed in Susan May's fascinating postscript From the Imagination Vault, Behind the Fire is an engrossing novelette of the random appearances of frightening black things, and one couple's battle to protect their town from these dangerous and hellish creatures.Fans of Stranger Things will delight in this horror thriller-with-a-twist, which is inspired by true events. From the international best selling author readers call the new Stephen King, comes a tale of horror, love and incredible bravery.

    Written in the 1970s, and in a style geared more toward fantasy than the hardboiled prose of the Repairman Jack novels, "Demonsong" kicks off Wilson's massive Secret History of the World.

    For over two decades, the late Marion Zimmer Bradley, best-selling and beloved author, discovered and nurtured a grand generation of popular and acclaimed writers including Mercedes Lackey, Jennifer Roberson, and a host of others. Authors who have appeared within the pages of Sword and Sorceress represent the full spectrum of some of the brightest talent working today from C.J. Cherryh, Charles de Lint, and Emma Bull... to Deborah J. Ross, Diana L. Paxson, Steven Brust, and Laurell K. Hamilton. We are proud to continue the classic and vibrant feminist tradition with this twenty-fifth volume of new magical adventures edited by Elisabeth Waters, secretary and co-editor to Mrs. Bradley. Here are twenty original stories of remarkable women of power, swashbuckling and magic, spells and duels, arcane sorcery and fabled heroism, written by familiar word-weavers of excitement and adventure, and bright newcomers who are sure to become favorites. Enter a wondrous universe... Marion Zimmer Bradley's Sword and Sorceress Volume 25 includes stories by Dave Smeds, Amy Griswold, Michael H. Payne, Michael Spence, Elisabeth Waters, Deborah J. Ross, Catherine Soto, Pauline J. Alama, L. M. Townsend-Crow, K. D. Wentworth, Helen E. Davis, Robin Wayne Bailey, Steve Chapman, Steven Brust, Kate Coombs, Jonathan Moeller, Lauren K. Moody, Josepha Sherman, Barbara Tarbox, Jonathan Shipley, and Susan Wolven.

     "PAPERCLIP" by Kenneth Hite. "A Spider With Barbed-Wire Legs" by Davide Mana. "Le Pain Maudit" by Jeff C. Carter. "Cracks in the Door" by Jason Mical. "Ganzfeld Gate" by Cody Goodfellow. "Utopia" by David Farnell. "The Perplexing Demise of Stooge Wilson" by David J. Fielding. "Dark" by Daniel Harms."Morning in America" by James Lowder. "Boxes Inside Boxes" and "The Mirror Maze" by Dennis Detwiller. "A Question of Memory" by Greg Stolze. "Pluperfect" by Ray Winninger. "Friendly Advice" by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan. "Passing the Torch" by Adam Scott Glancy. "The Lucky Ones" by John Scott Tynes. "Syndemic" and an introduction by Shane Ivey. These stories are recommended for mature readers. Excerpted from the introduction: We know a program called Delta Green really existed. You can find a couple of references to it in documents uncovered by Freedom of Information Act requests. Delta Green was a psychological operations unit in World War II, created to take advantage of the bizarre occult beliefs of Axis leaders. The public documents, which may have been released with the name unredacted by mistake, don’t say whether it had any success. The OSS was shut down after the war. Many of its people helped launch the CIA in 1947. We can only speculate whether the OSS’s lessons from Delta Green informed the CIA’s notorious psychological operations in the coming decades.  Conspiracy theorists have done more than speculate. Delta Green came back as a secret project to track down Nazis after the war, they say. Delta Green brought federal agents, spies, and special forces together for missions too secret even for the CIA. Delta Green was the precursor and rival to Majestic-12, the U.S. government conspiracy that allied itself with aliens after Roswell. Delta Green fights otherworldly monsters and evil sorcerers under the cover of the Global War on Terror. Once you climb into the rabbit hole, the fall never ends. In this book we turn up tales from the rabbit hole: Delta Green case histories rendered as short stories. They begin in the Dust Bowl, with a Naval intelligence unit supposedly called “P4” and memories of the abandoned New England town of Innsmouth (another bottomless well of conspiracy theories). They look at the days after World War II when secret agents pursued Nazis all over Europe, the early CIA attempted its first infamous schemes, and anticommunist witch-hunts seized on American terrors back home. They bring us through the Cold War desperation of the Seventies and Eighties, when America was shocked by its own crimes and Delta Green allegedly went underground again. And they come to the present day, and a Delta Green divided after it rebuilt itself in the secret government—but many old outlaws refused to trust the new order.

    Okay yes, all that stuff too, but I'm not talking about that right now. The government has also been lying to us about space aliens. Aliens have landed on the National Mall and are asking to speak with the President of the United States. For the sake of the planet, diplomat Michael Wallenson is tasked with keeping them away from Donald Trump at all costs. Will Michael succeed? Or will these heavily armed, easily offended aliens succeed in reaching our leader? Building the border dome, coal-powered missiles, and the true identities of the men in black - all in Take Us To Your Trump, another hilarious satirical comedy from author Andrew Stanek.

    Now, there's a reason to be. Lux and his younger brother Lunam enjoy the full freedom of the simple life and all the childhood adventures offered by growing up in a small village in a picturesque glen. Life is tranquil, peaceful, and just about perfect—except for one formidable fact... Every day is followed by night. And, with the night, comes the DARKNESS. Slowly shrouding the valley and relentlessly seeping into every nook and cranny on its nightly rampage, the darkness returns to feast on its victims. No man, woman, child, animal—or even, insect—is safe. The darkness consumes all; the darkness's hunger is never satisfied. When the sun falls from the sky, the villagers, young and old, must take to arms, guarding their homes, loved ones, and livestock with every ray of light they can muster. Even young Lux and Lunam are well-soldiered in their responsibilities to safeguard themselves and their parents during the nightly vigil, the nightly fight to live to see another day. It's always been this way—the truths and ritual passed down from generation to generation since ancient times. No one dares question why. Nothing can change the frightening fact of the lives of the villagers or emancipate them from their singular foe—nothing, except a child's imagination and a curiosity as immutable as the darkness's own appetite. There's just one truth guiding every man, woman, and child to strive to see another day: "Darkness Comes but Once a Night."

    Author Storm Constantine was intrigued by this story and found herself thinking ‘What if...?’ Thin Air is the novel that sprang from her ideas. While the characters in this book are not based upon any existing people, alive, dead or missing, the mystery was enough to inspire a story.Dex is the front man of a successful band, and appears to have the perfect rock star life with his journalist partner, Jay. But Jay’s existence is shattered by Dex’s sudden disappearance. The mystery is never solved, and Dex is never found: alive or dead. Some years later, after Jay has got her life back together, strange events begin to unfold that suggest that Dex is still around. While it gradually becomes clear to Jay that there is more to the mystery than even she thought possible, malign forces begin to close in on her with the apparent intent of keeping the truth behind Dex’s disappearance forever hidden.Jay can only follow the clues where they lead her, and that is into territory beyond normal human perception. In the bizarre town of Lestholme, she comes upon a community of the lost, people whose lives have been ruined by media attention, and it is in this surreal place that Jay must penetrate to the heart of the mystery, and discover what really happened to the man she loves, who vanished into thin air.Capturing the ambience of the music scene of the 90s, Thin Air is one of Storm’s best-loved novels.

     Eve is an 18,000 word novella originally published as an ongoing story on Reddit's Writing Prompts forum by user /u/psycho_alpaca.

    ASSASSINS. MERCENARIES.Coin is their master, and their trade, more often than not, is blood. These are BLACKGUARDS.Whether by coin or by blood...YOU WILL PAY.Swift from the shadows, comes an 'edgy' anthology, edited by J.M. MARTIN, featuring sundry tales of roguish types—assassins, mercenaries, thieves—many of whom are already established in well-known fantasy series. Interior artwork by David Alvarez, Orion Zangara and Oksana Dmitrienko. A full roster of authors from indie sensations to New York Times bestsellers: Foreword by Glen Cook Introduction by J.M. Martin JEAN RABE, "Mainon" (Original tale) * BRADLEY P. BEAULIEU, "Irindai" (Shattered Sands) * CAT RAMBO, "The Subtler Art" (Serendib) CAROL BERG, "Seeds" (Lighthouse Duet) KENNY SOWARD, "Jancy's Justice" (GnomeSaga) MICHAEL J. SULLIVAN, "Professional Integrity" (Riyria) RICHARD LEE BYERS, "Troll Trouble" (Plague Knight) PAUL S. KEMP, "A Better Man" (Egil and Nix) * DJANGO WEXLER, "First Kill" (Shadow Campaigns) MARK SMYLIE, "Manhunt" (The Known World) JOHN GWYNNE, "Better to Live than to Die" (Faithful Fallen) MARK LAWRENCE, "The Secret" (Broken Empire) LAURA RESNICK, "Friendship" (Silerian Chronicles) CLAY SANGER, "The First Kiss" ** SHAWN SPEAKMAN, "The White Rose Thief" (The Dark Thorn) PETER ORULLIAN, "A Length of Cherrywood" (Aeshau Vaal) TIM MARQUITZ, "A Taste of Agony" (Prodigy series) JAMES A. MOORE, "What Gods Demand" (Seven Forges) DAVID DALGLISH, "Take You Home" (Shadowdance) JOSEPH R. LALLO, "Seeking the Shadow" (Book of Deacon) JON SPRUNK, "Sun and Steel" (Shadow Saga) S.R. CAMBRIDGE, "The Betyár and the Magus" ** SNORRI KRISTJANSSON, "A Kingdom and a Horse" (Valhalla Saga) JAMES ENGE, "Thieves at the Gate" (Morlock) LIAN HEARN, "His Kikuta Hands" (Tales of the Otori) ANTHONY RYAN, "The Lord Collector" (Raven's Shadow novella)* ANTON STROUT, "Scream" (Simon Canderous Chronicles) * stretch goal achieved** open submissions winners

    When an oil rig drills too deep under the Gulf of Mexico it breaks the capstone separating our world from the UnderRealms - home to monsters, daemons and dark magiks. The nightmares of our long ago come flooding back into the world where they are met by automatic weapons fire, heating seeking missiles (they're hell on dragons, don'tcha know) and one drunken, dissolute son of a bitch called Dave. But this is not Dave's story. This is the story of the poor bastards who had to put up with him while he saved the world and acted like a jerk.

    Kane knew he'd lost his strength, and perhaps his soul, when he entered the erotic web of the vampire. . . .

    1979 ACE mass market paperback,2nd impression, no ISBN. Robert Asprin, Lynn Abbey. A fantasy anthology with a twist. All different stories from different authors, all in the same town.