Relative Danger


Charles Benoit - 2004
    Picture a dispute between black marketer and thief Russell Pearce and an associate-an associate who opens fire and murders Russell Pearce.Fast forward to present-day Pottsville, Pennsylvania. Young Doug Pearce, just fired from his steady job in the brewery, has never strayed far from home. But he's always found stories of his Uncle Russ, the family black sheep, fascinating. In comes a letter from an old friend of his dead uncle inviting him up to Toronto. Doug, at loose ends and bored with killing time, accepts. On arrival, he learns that wealthy and glamorous Edna has an agenda: she has assembled enough clues to solve the murder of Russell Pearce and to recover a legendary red diamond he was thought to be smuggling.Doug, nervous but game, agrees to play detective. How bad can it be to jet off to a glamour spot or two and have an adventure? Whoa! By the end of his first day in Casablanca, Doug knows he's made a mistake. And while he meets people eager to help-a retired museum curator, a beautiful and self-absorbed heiress, and her elderly father, a colleague of Russell Pearce-it becomes clear that someone else is interested in Doug, someone who is also looking for the diamond.From Morocco to Egypt to Bahrain to Singapore, Doug stumbles on. And whether he's escaping across Cairo rooftops, ducking bullets in a high-speed desert chase, or killing time in a crowded Egyptian jail cell, Doug is sure of one thing: He has no clue what he's doing. But surely he'll think of something as he's propelled full circle back to Singapore and the famed Raffles Hotel. He's definitely not 007...but will he prove to be a zero?

Dark Theatres


Benjamin AdamsGreg Stolze - 2001
    It presents eight new stories of intrigue and horror set against the backdrop of the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft blended with modern conspiracy theory. Delta Green: Dark Theatres follows two award winning Role Playing Game sourcebooks, a novel and a previous short story anthology.

Antisocieties


Michael Cisco - 2021
    An ominously quiet town. A haunting young adult novel from the turn of the century. Two starving captives frozen in agony. A young boy from a doting family. A man in a cheap Halloween mask. A succession of portraits of people trapped in their own identities, some of whom insist on their own ideas because they would have nothing at all without them. People for whom being seen by another is terrifying. And, like any collection of portraits, ANTISOCIETIES is also a collection of speculative mirrors ...

The Shadow Gate


Margaret Ball - 1991
    The elves of the Three Realms have sent out one last spell to bring help—nd received it: a staff member from the New Age Psychic Center in Austin, Texas. Unless the stranger from Texas can restore the magic of the Three Realms, the elves—and the Texan—are truly doomed.

The Dulwich Horror and Others


David Hambling - 2013
    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)

RavenShadow: An Adventure of the Spirit


Win Blevins - 1999
    Time, that big boss that runs the white world. Time, which pushes you hither and yon like dust in front of a broom. Yet you are insensitive to the larger grander motions of time made by the natural world—whether the tide is in or out, the moon new or full, when cows are calving, when ice rims the creeks, when willows are green and supple…most of all you know nothing of timelessness. I say this with a shamed face. I have lived that way myself.”Before he was born, Joseph was chosen to carry the sacred ways of his Sioux people. But, instead of walking the good, Red Road of his people, or even the thorny Black Road, he put his feet on the White Road of basketball and booze, women and the blues.Awaking at nearly forty, a man who has lost himself, Joseph seeks redemption. He sets out again on the path of the sweat lodge, the vision quest, and the sacred pipe. The journey delivers him to Wounded Knee, where is must relive the trials of his ancestors, and through his visions understand the past and heal the present.“Historical detail serves a charming treasure.”- Kirkus Reviews”Blue finds himself, but the reader finds even more in Blevins's tales of Lakota lore and his reexamination of one of the darkest episodes in American history. Blevins's prose is razor-sharp, his characters are clearly defined, and his heart, like so many, is at Wounded Knee. An outstanding novel."--Booklist“RavenShadow has the impact of a hurled war lance."--Dee Brown, author of Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

Remember Why You Fear Me: The Best Dark Fiction of Robert Shearman


Robert Shearman - 2012
    A little boy betrays his father to the harsh mercies of Santa Claus. A widower suspects his dead wife’s face is growing over his own. A man goes to Hell, and finds he’s roommate to the ghost of Hitler’s pet dog. Giant spiders, killer angels, ghost cat photography, and the haunted house right at the centre of the Garden of Eden.Deliciously frightening, darkly satirical, and always unexpected, Robert Shearman has won the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, and the Edge Hill Reader’s Prize. Remember Why You Fear Me gathers together his best dark fiction, the most celebrated stories from his acclaimed books, and ten new tales that have never been collected before.This ebook contains four bonus novelettes drawn from throughout Shearman’s impressive career: “Tiny Deaths,” “Jolly Roger,” “The Big Boy’s Big Book of Tricks,” and the previously unpublished “The Girl from Ipanema.”

Robert Bloch's Psychos


Robert BlochEdo Van Belkom - 1997
    He also liked to write about psychotic and psychopathic killers. This solid anthology, put out by the Horror Writers Association (HWA) and completed after Bloch's death, honors his legacy with 22 tales about murderers and crazies of various stripes. A good many of the stories, most memorably Esther Friesner's "Lonelyhearts," have Blochian twists at the end. The weakest of the bunch have no other flaw than predictability, and the strongest, such as Ed Gorman's powerful "Out There in the Darkness" are classics of traditional storytelling. You'll find excellent stories here by Denise M. Bruchman, Del Stone Jr., Edo van Belkom, Gary A. Braunbeck, and others. Stephen King contributes a little gem of a tale in which the narrator finds himself in an autopsy room: "It fits. It fits everything with a horrid prophylactic snugness. The dark. The rubbery smell.... Dear God, I'm in a body bag." Note: the two previous HWA anthologies are Under the Fang, edited by Robert R. McCammon, and Peter Straub's Ghosts, edited by Peter Straub. --Fiona WebsterContents:Autopsy Room Four by Stephen KingHaunted by Charles GrantOut There in the Darkness by Ed GormanPlease Help Me by Richard Christian MathesonThe Lesser of Two Evils by Denise M. BruchmanPoint of Intersection by Dominick CancillaDoctor, Lawyer, Kansas City Chief by Brent MonahanGrandpa's Head by Lawrence Watt-EvansLonelyhearts by Esther M. FriesnerLighting the Corpses by Del Stone Jr.Echoes by Cindie GeddesLifeline by Yvonne NavarroBlameless by David Niall WilsonDeep Down There by Clark PerryKnacker Man by Richard ParksSo You Wanna Be a Hitman by Gary JonasThe Rug by Edo van BelkomInterview with a Psycho by Billie Sue MosimanIcewall by William D. GaglianiA Southern Night by Jane YolenThe Forgiven by Stephen M. RaineySafe by Gary A. Braunbeck

Less Than Human


Gary Raisor - 1992
    All had family waiting for them. All, except two. The town of Carruthers, Texas, has seen its share of drifters and lowlifes. But never anyone like Steven and Earl. They move from town to town. Hustling the pool halls. Raising a little hell. Drinking a little blood. They sleep by day and hunt by night--the ultimate predators. The perfect life. Until now. A barroom brawl ends in disaster. The soil from Steven's grave has been stolen. And a young boy's death sparks an all out war between vampires and mortals that will turn the local Frontier Day celebration into a blood bath....

Rapture, Blister, Burn


Gina Gionfriddo - 2014
    Men are exfoliating. It's all jumbled: you can't read the signs.Can any woman have it all? After university Catherine and Gwen chose opposite paths: Catherine built a career as a rock-star academic, while Gwen built a home with a husband and children. Decades later, unfulfilled in opposite ways, each woman covets the other's life, and a dangerous game begins as each tries to claim the other's territory. Sparks fly and the age-old question arises: what do women really want?Gina Gionfriddo dissects modern gender politics in this breathtakingly witty and virtuosic comedy, set in a small New England college town. Traversing the experiences of women across the generations, this play is a hugely entertaining exploration of a new style of feminism, ripe for the twenty-first century.Rapture, Blister, Burn was commissioned by Playwrights Horizons, where it premiered, with funds from the Harold and Mim Steinberg Charitable Trust. It received its UK premiere at the Hampstead Theatre, London, in January 2014.

The Dark Rites of Cthulhu


Brian M. SammonsGlynn Owen Barrass - 2014
    Hapless mortals have invoked monstrous entities from beyond through foul magicks, incantations and rituals. When will they learn that here can be no profit nor joy to be gained through relations with the insidious old ones? These sixteen tales of depravity, sorcery and madness may offer some illumination, but ultimately there can be no salvation for those who dabble in The Dark Rites of Cthulhu.

The Height of the Scream


Ramsey Campbell - 1976
    You are reaching THE HEIGHT OF THE SCREAM."4000 copies printed.

Crackpot Palace


Jeffrey Ford - 2012
    His powerful dark fantasy, The Physiognomy, was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; his novel, The Girl in the Glass, won the Edgar® Award, mystery and crime fiction’s most prestigious prize. Crackpot Palace is Ford’s fourth superb collection of short fiction, and in it, his prodigious talent shines as brightly as ever. Here are twenty tales both strange and wonderful, filled with mad scientists, vampires, lost souls, and Native American secrets, from an author who has been glowingly compared to Kafka, Dante, and Caleb Carr (The Alienist).

Creeping Waves


Matthew M. Bartlett - 2016
    That music, that voice calling on the edge of static and distortion-it might lead you to that blasted and damned path toward the Real and Truest heart of Leeds, Massachusetts. This is WXXT. It's the witching hour, when shadows take wing and nightmares stalk. Turn your radio up. Point your antennas to the infinite sky. And stay tuned for Weather on the Sixes. WXXT. The bubbling blisters on the tongue of the Pioneer Valley.

The Serpent's Coil


Farley Mowat - 1974
    It also tells of the deep-sea tug, the Foundation Josephine, which tracked the derelict Leicester over many thousands of miles, found her listing severely, and towed her another thousand miles to Bermuda, where both ships ran into yet another hurricane.Farley Mowat expertly weaves together the different threads of his tale as he tracks the hurricane from its origins to its fateful meeting with the Leicester, describes what it's like to survive a hurricane, and shows the difficult nature of the Josephine's salvage mission. The predecessor of The Perfect Storm, here is a classic of the sea.