Book picks similar to
The Coming of the Old Ones by Jeffrey Thomas
horror
short-stories
lovecraftian
weird-fiction
Darkness Under the Sun
Dean Koontz - 2010
There once was a killer who knew the night, its secrets and rhythms. How to hide within its shadows. When to hunt. He roamed from town to town, city to city, choosing his prey for their beauty and innocence. His cruelties were infinite, his humanity long since forfeit. But still . . . he had not yet discovered how to make his special mark among monsters, how to come fully alive as Death. This is the story of how he learned those things, and of what we might do to ensure that he does not visit us.
Shadows Over Baker Street
Michael ReavesPoppy Z. Brite - 2003
LovecraftNew Tales of Terror!What would happen if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's peerless detective, Sherlock Holmes, and his allies were to find themselves faced with Lovecraftian mysteries whose solutions lay not only beyond the grasp of logic, but beyond sanity itself. In this collection of original tales, twenty of today's cutting-edge writers provide answers to that burning question.Contributors include Neil Gaiman, Brian Stableford, Poppy Z. Bright, Barbara Hambly, Steve Perry, and Caitlin R. Kierman. These and other masters of horror, mystery, fantasy and science fiction spin dark tales within a terrifyingly surreal universe.Includes the Hugo Award-winning story A Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman.Cover design: David StevensonCover Illustration: John Jude Palencar
New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos
Ramsey CampbellMartin S. Warnes - 1980
Collects nine stories including "Crouch End" by Stephen King, and stories by A.A. Attanasio, Basil Cooper, David Drake, T.E.D. Klein, Frank Belknap Long, Brian Lumley, H.P. Lovecraft and Martin S. Warnes.Contents (view Concise Listing)ix • Introduction (New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos) • essay by Ramsey Campbell3 • Crouch End • [Cthulhu Mythos] • novelette by Stephen King33 • The Star Pools • [Cthulhu Mythos] • novelette by A. A. Attanasio73 • The Second Wish • [Cthulhu Mythos] • novelette by Brian Lumley101 • Dark Awakening • [Cthulhu Mythos] • short story by Frank Belknap Long115 • Shaft Number 247 • [Cthulhu Mythos] • novelette by Basil Copper145 • Black Man with a Horn • [Cthulhu Mythos] • novelette by T. E. D. Klein187 • The Black Tome of Alsophocus • [Cthulhu Mythos] • short story by H. P. Lovecraft and Martin S. Warnes197 • Than Curse the Darkness • [Cthulhu Mythos] • novelette by David Drake223 • The Faces at Pine Dunes • [Severn Valley] • novelette by Ramsey Campbell255 • Notes on Contributors (New Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos) • essay by uncredited
The Shambler from the Stars
Robert Bloch - 1935
It was later included as part of his first published book, The Opener of the Way (1945), and his 1994 collection The Early Fears. As a Cthulhu Mythos tale it is notable for introducing the forbidden tome De Vermis Mysteriis (Mysteries of the Worm), and being a prequel to Lovecraft's own short story The Haunter of the Dark, which was dedicated to Bloch.-- Wikipedia
Goblin
Josh Malerman - 2017
But with the master storyteller Josh Malerman as your tour guide, you'll discover the secrets that hide behind its closed doors. These six novellas tell the story of a place where the rain is always falling, nighttime is always near, and your darkest fears and desires await. Welcome to Goblin. . . .A Man in Slices: A man proves his "legendary love" to his girlfriend with a sacrifice even more daring than Vincent van Gogh's--and sends her more than his heart.Kamp: Walter Kamp is afraid of everything, but most afraid of being scared to death. As he sets traps around his home to catch the ghosts that haunt him, he learns that nothing is more terrifying than fear itself.Happy Birthday, Hunter!: A famed big-game hunter is determined to capture--and kill--the ultimate prey: the mythic Great Owl who lives in Goblin's dark forests. But this mysterious creature is not the only secret the woods are keeping.Presto: All Peter wants is to be like his hero, Roman Emperor, the greatest magician in the world. When the famous magician comes to Goblin, Peter discovers that not all magic is just an illusion.A Mix-Up at the Zoo: The new zookeeper feels a mysterious kinship with the animals in his care . . . and finds that his work is freeing dark forces inside him.The Hedges: When his wife dies, a man builds a hedge maze so elaborate no one ever solves it--until a little girl resolves to be the first to find the mysteries that wait at its heart.
I, Cthulhu, or, What’s a Tentacle-Faced Thing Like Me Doing in a Sunken City Like This (Latitude 47° 9′ S, Longitude 126° 43′ W)?
Neil Gaiman - 1986
Neil Gaiman's contribution to Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos.Available from tor.com or neilgaiman.com
The Secret of Ventriloquism
Jon Padgett - 2016
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
The Tsathoggua Cycle: Terror Tales of the Toad God
Robert M. PriceGary Myers - 2003
P. Lovecraft, Tsathoggua was exactly that. They found the Saturnian-Hyperborean-N'klaian toad-bat-sloth-deity as cute and adorable as horrific, and this strange ambivalence echoes throughout their various tales over which Great Tsathoggua casts his batrachian shadow Some are droll fables of human foibles; others are terrifying adventures of human delvers who perish in the fire of a religious fanaticism fully as awful as its super-sub-human object of worship. Tsathoggua has inspired many types of stories in many moods. And not just by Smith and Lovecraft In this arcane volume you will read Tsathogguan tales old and new by various writers, chronicling the horrors of the amorphous amphibian's descent into new decades and deeper waters. The mere fact that such a thing is possible attests mightily the power of the modern myth of Tsathoggua, and the men who created him This book is part of an expanding collection of Cthulhu Mythos horror fiction and related topics. Call of Cthulhu fiction focuses on single entities, concepts, or authors significant to readers and fans of H.P. Lovecraft.Contents and authors in order --From the Parchment of Pnom (Clark Ashton Smith)The Seven Geases (Clark Ashton Smith)The Testament of Athammaus (Clark Ashton Smith)The Tale of Satampra Zeiros (Clark Ashton Smith)The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles (Clark Ashton Smith)Shadow of the Sleeping God (James Ambuehl)The Curse of the Toad (Loay Hall and Terry Dale)Dark Swamp (James Anderson)The Old One (John Glasby)The Oracle of Sadoqua (Ron Hilger)The Horror Show (Gary Myers)The Tale of Toad Loop (Stanley C. Sargent)The Crawling Kingdom (Rod Heather)The Resurrection of Kzadool-Ra (Henry J. Vester III)
Hammers on Bone
Cassandra Khaw - 2016
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.
In the Court of the Yellow King
Glynn Owen BarrassChristine Morgan - 2014
or to transport you into the bizarre world of Carcosa, and the King in Yellow. Banned, burned, yet never totally destroyed, the play lives on, eating away the fabric of society and rotting the veneer of civilization...Come and enjoy new visions of the King, expanding and deepening the fragments glimpsed in the award-winning True Detective television series, penned for your delight by a host of master scribes eager to guide you to a new world of delirium, despair, and madness.
Ashes and Entropy
Robert S. WilsonLucy A. Snyder - 2018
Wilson, an anthology of cosmic horror, noir and neo-noir including stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Lucy A. Snyder, Matthew M. Bartlett, Jessica McHugh, Tim Waggoner, and many more. Ashes and Entropy will be beautifully illustrated by Luke Spooner.Our Kickstarter campaign ends very soon and we have many exciting and rare rewards to share with you. So, please, stand on the precipice with us as we prepare to dive down through the event horizon into the bleak and mind-shattering void of both the cosmos and of humanity.
Deathbird Stories
Harlan Ellison - 1975
The collection contains some of Ellison's best stories from earlier collections and is judged by some to be his most consistently high quality collection of short fiction. The theme of the collection can be loosely defined as God, or Gods. Sometimes they're dead or dying, some of them are as brand-new as today's technology. Unlike some of Ellison's collections, the introductory notes to each story can be as short as a phrase and rarely run more than a sentence or two. One story took a Locus Poll Award, the two final ones both garnered Hugo Awards and Locus Poll awards, and the final one also received a Jupiter Award from the Instructors of Science Fiction in Higher Education (discontinued in 1979). When the collection was published in Britain, it won the 1979 British Science Fiction Award for Short Fiction.His stories will rivet you to the floor and change your heartbeat...as unforgettable a chamber of horror, fantasy and reality as you'll ever experience.-Gallery "Brutally and flamboyantly shocking, frequently brilliant, and always irresistibly mesmerizing."-Richmond Times-Dispatch
Something Came Through
Joe Hart - 2019
In “Down In The Valley” a young fire service member discovers the horrifying truth regarding the missing persons in the lonely state park his fire tower watches over. A man whose entire life has been haunted by a hideous childhood event gets a second chance to make things right in “You Can Never Go Back”. And a young woman’s tragic mistake while driving and texting literally comes back to haunt her in “More”. Written in Hart’s hypnotic and unnerving style, Something Came Through features ten new terrifying stories that peel back the surface of everyday life to expose the darkness waiting beneath.
Madness on the Orient Express: 16 Lovecraftian Tales of an Unforgettable Journey
James LowderLucien Soulban - 2014
They unlock opportunities for wealth and travel, but also create incredible chaos--uprooting populations and blighting landscapes. Work on or around the rails leads to unwelcome discoveries and, in light of the Mythos, dire implications in the spread of the rail system as a whole. A certain path to uncovering unwelcome truths about the universe is to venture beyond our own "placid island of ignorance" and encounter foreign cultures. The Orient Express serves as the perfect vehicle for such excursions, designed as a bridge between West and East. Movement into mystery forms the central action for many stories in this volume. The only limitation placed upon writers for this collection was that their works somehow involve the Orient Express and the Mythos. The last warning whistle has blown, and we are getting underway. Have your tickets at the ready and settle in for a journey across unexpected landscapes to a destination that--well, we'll just let you see for yourself when you arrive. We promise this though: murder will be the least of your problems on this trip aboard the Orient Express!
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe
Kij Johnson - 2016
When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.But the journey sends her on a quest across the Dreamlands and into her own mysterious past, where some secrets were never meant to surface.