Among the dozen selections is the Nebula Award-winning “Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge.”Contents:Bible Stories for Adults, No. 17: The Deluge (1988)Daughter Earth (1991)Known but to God and Wilbur Hines (1991)Bible Stories for Adults, No. 20: The Tower (1994)Spelling God with the Wrong Blocks (1987)The Assemblage of Kristin (1984)Bible Stories for Adults, No. 31: The Covenant (1989)Abe Lincoln in McDonald's (1989)The Confessions of Ebenezer Scrooge (1989)Bible Stories for Adults No. 46: The Soap Opera (1994)Diary of a Mad Deity (1988)Arms and the Woman (1991)

    WHAT WERE THREE ARE NOW ONE, AND I AM FURY... Herman and Janet Erikson are going through a crisis of grief and suffering after losing their daughter in a hit and run. They've given up on each other, they've given up on themselves. They are living day by day. One afternoon, to make a horrible situation worse, their dog goes missing in the coyote-infested badlands behind their property. Herman, resolved in preventing another tragedy, goes to find the dog, completely unaware he's on a hike to the River Styx, which according to Greek myth was the border between the Living World and the world of the Dead. Long ago the gods died and the River dried up, but a bottle containing its waters still remains in the badlands. What Herman discovers about the dark power contained in those waters will change his life forever... "It happens from time to time...a book grabs you from the opening line and refuses to let you go. Benjamin Kane Ethridge's Bottled Abyss was one of those reads for me. Bottled Abyss is a stunningly sophisticated tale, both in its mythic scope and in its adroit handling of complex, emotional characters. Ethridge is a writer of rare emotional intelligence, developed far beyond his years, but with Bottled Abyss he has outdone even his own considerable promise. There are several writers out there, such as Laird Barron, John Langan and Lee Thomas, that have me chomping at the bit for their next release. Add to that shortlist Benjamin Kane Ethridge, for he has made me a fan for life!" -Joe McKinney, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Flesh Eaters and Dead City

    Braunbeck109 • The Pig Man • (1993) • short story by Augustine Funnell125 • Mobius • (1987) • short story by Richard Christian Matheson129 • The Rendering Man • (1994) • short story by Douglas Clegg147 • Weight • (1994) • short story by Dominick Cancilla159 • Layover • (1991) • short story by Ed Gorman169 • Johnny Halloween • (1992) • short story by Norman Partridge181 • Hope • (1993) • short story by Steve Bevan187 • The Mailman • (1988) • short story by Bentley Little197 • Silhouette • (1996) • short story by Stephen Mark Rainey215 • Roadkill • (1991) • short story by Tom Elliott221 • The Rifle • (1995) • short story by Jack Ketchum233 • Pieces • (1992) • short story by Ray Garton237 • Rustle • (1993) • short story by Peter Crowther255 • When the Silence Gets Too Loud • (1995) • short story by Brian Hodge269 • The Rabbit • (1990) • short story by Jack Pavey281 • The Flood • (1986) • short story by John Maclay287 • The Right Thing • (1994) • short story by Gary L. Raisor [as by Gary Raisor]305 • Pig's Dinner • (1991) • short story by Graham Masterton317 • Crash Cart • (1993) • short story by Nancy Holder329 • Wall of Words • (1994) • short story by Lucy Taylor337 • Metastasis • (1990) • short story by David B. Silva349 • Wrapped Up • (1981) • short story by Ramsey Campbell357 • Depth of Reflection • (1990) • short story by David L. Duggins369 • The Mole • (1990) • short story by David Niall Wilson375 • Saviour • (1991) • short story by Gary A. Braunbeck391 • Great Expectations • (1990) • short story by Kim Antieau397 • Shell • (1992) • short story by Adam Corbin Fusco

    Winner of the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year.

    A failed writer meets an ageing gin-queen who claims he was once visited by an angel; a little girl finds a delirious, dying explorer from the Congo at the bottom of her back garden; a night-club is terrorized by a strange libidinous hand; and a young Victorian lady sails to India to find her fiance Cecil horribly transformed...

    His earliest stories, the ones that made his name a quarter of a century ago, were set in the jungles of South America and filled with creatures dark and fantastical. Stories like “Salvador,” “The Jaguar Hunter,” and the excoriatingly brilliant “R&R” deconstructed war and peace in South America, in both the past and the future, like no other writer of the fantastic.A writer of great talent and equally great scope, Shepard has also written of the seamier side of the United States at home in classic stories like “Life of Buddha” and “Dead Money,” and in “Only Partly Here” has written one of the finest post-9/11 stories yet. Perhaps strangest of all, Shepard created one of the greatest sequences of “dragon” stories we’ve seen in the tales featuring the enormous dragon Griaule.The Best of Lucius Shepard is the first ever career retrospective collection from one of the finest writers of the fantastic to emerge in the United States over the past quarter century. It contains nearly 300,000 words of his best short fiction and is destined to be recognized as a true classic of the field.

    September 4, 1900. A giant hurricane—destined to be remembered as the storm of the century—is brewing offshore. Fighter John McBride has arrived from Chicago to challenge the local heavyweight champion, a 22 year-old Jack Johnson, as-yet unknown to the broader boxing world. Problem is, Johnson is black and the local Sporting Club doesn’t want him to leave the ring alive. Around this central story, Lansdale weaves a compelling historical tale, filled with prostitutes and gamblers, storm-tossed sailors and everyday citizens. His unflinching dialog recreates a time when racism and violence were facts of life.

    This contains: Hyperpilosity; Language for Time Travelers; The Command; The Merman; Employment; The Gnarly Man; Reward of Virtue; Nothing in the Rules; The Hardwood Pile; The Reluctant Shaman; The Inspector's Teeth; The Ameba; The Guided Man; Judgment Day; A Gun for Dinosaur; The Emperor's Fan; Two Yards of Dragon; and The Little Green Men.

    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 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

    Paul Wilson. From The Keep, nearly twenty years ago, to this year's Legacies, Wilson has been one of the most dependable names for fine storytelling in whatever genre he chooses.In The Barren and Others, Wilson lets his fertile imagination run wild, traveling from the Old West of Doc Holliday to the Pine Barrens of present-day New jersey and encountering many strange, suspect, and supernatural happenings along the way. From urban mercenary Repairman Jack, hero of Wilson's recent novel, Legacies, to the obese and food-obsessed Topsy, Wilson's wild array of characters get caught up in adventures both fascinating and horrifying.A first -rate collection of first-rate tales, ranging from Lovecraftian to Western supernatural, with many mysterious combination in between, The Barrens and Others will be a treasure for Wilson's established fans and to those discovering Wilson for the first time.

    He was erudite, cranky, Jewish, wildly creative, and sold most of his wonderful stories to pulp magazines. They are wonderful.Now his estate and his friends have brought together a definitive collection of his finest work, each story introduced by an SF luminary: writers like Ursula K. Le Guin, William Gibson, Poul Anderson, Gene Wolfe, Guy Davenport, Peter S. Beagle, Gregory Benford, Thomas M. Disch, and dozens of others. This is a volume every lover of fantasy will need to own.

    WuMorning Terrors — Peter CrowtherMisadventures in the Skin Trade — Don D’AmmassaCircle of Lias — Lawrence C. ConnollyWatching the Soldiers — Dirk StrasserOne in the A.M. — Rachel DrummondA Side of the Sea — Ramsey CampbellPainted Faces — Gerard Daniel HournerMonotone — Lawrence GreenbergDead Leaves — James C. DobbsFrom the Mouths of Babes — Bentley LittleThe Late Mr. Havel’s Apartment — David HerterUnion Dues — Gary BraunbeckEarshot — Glenn IsaacsonFee — Peter Straub

    Kiernan's The Ammonite Violin & Others, one of contemporary dark fantasy s most bewitching and distinctive voices is back with another banquet of the weird and unexpected. In his introduction, Jeff VanderMeer (City of Saints and Madmen, Finch) writes, Kiernan creates her own light in this remarkable collection, and shines it on dark places. In doing so, she gives us gritty, lyrical, horrible, beautiful truths. In The Ammonite Violin & Others, the author rises to meet the high expectations she set with such collections as Tales of Pain and Wonder, A is for Alien, and the World Fantasy Award-nominated To Charles Fort, With Love. Within these pages, you ll discover a dazzling suite of stories situated on the borderlands between the unspeakbale and the erotic, the grotesque and the sublime. Here are stories of dream and metamorphosis, strange lands and beings existing beyond the veil of death and beyond this earth. Here is a selkie who's lost her sealskin, a woman with a blackhole in her heart, a fairie girl fallen to the Queen of Decay, the descent of a modern-day Orpheus, and a killer who has fashioned the most exquisite musical instrument from the remains of one of his victims. Here are dreams, nightmares, and worse things yet.The Ammonite Violin & Others is comprised of stories first published in the subscription only Sirenia Digest, run by Caitlin for her most devoted readers. This publication marks the stories' first availability to the general public.

    The cycle of narratives that includes the title work of this collection, for instance, introduces readers to a freakish community of artists who encounter demonic perils that ultimately engulf their lives. These are selected examples of the forbidding array of persons and places that compose the mesmerizing fiction of Thomas Ligotti.