COLLECTIONS
&
ANTHOLOGIES
The Art of Ghost Writing
Alistair Rey
A woman haunted by a childhood nursery rhyme. A literary scholar obsessed with tracking down the origins of a primeval scream. A boy with behavioral problems who is sent to an old country estate in the hopes he can be reformed.
These are just some of the characters encountered in Alistair Rey's unique brand of weird fiction. This collection features stories where places have their own secrets, where terror comes alive, where the simplest of us find nothing is so simple anymore, We can no longer trust music and art; we become bound to them to learn their horrors. We cannot trust the mundane or commonplace; we become absorbed beneath its deceiving exterior. We learn the ordinary can rapidly change, and the extraordinary can become normal.
We can accept what we are, who others perceive us to be, and what we may become. But only if we realize we inhabit a world of diminishing returns, and truthfully... we are not here.
"Stories of duplicitous houses, child sacrifices are juxtaposed against vacations to the vineyards of Germany and cruises to see chisel-toothed whales. Every story is a completely different tale, but somehow Rey manages to make you feel on edge. There is tangible tension and a feeling of discomfort in his writing that is at once refreshing and unnerving."
~ Helen Scott
Dark horror story collection
Some adult themes and situations
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Dark
short
horror
stories
Baby Monster
John S. McFarland
McFarland's second volume of harrowing short stories, including two novelettes
and illustrated by the author.
Return with us to Ste. Odile, a cursed town indeed.
We will also be lured to other areas of the world during periods of history that were dark, foreboding, and unsympathetic to humankind in general. You will find recognizable characters within these pages when we revisit their unfortunate situations. You will also be introduced to some new ones who are unique enigmas on their own.
Step into the end of intimate acquaintances and the beginning of tenuous relationships. Mysterious men, undaunted women, warped creatures, maddened minds, human atrocities... all await you here, published here for the first time.
"Authentically unnerving. An uneasy pleasure to read."
~ Ramsey Campbell, author of Demons by Daylight and Alone With the Horrors
"In Baby Monster, McFarland revisits the cursed town of Ste. Odile, where the darkest angels of our souls, all our souls, reside."
~ Dacre Stoker, author of Dracul and great-grandnephew of Bram Stoker
Gothic historical fiction,
horror and mystery
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Gothic
historical
horror
stories
Bad Dreams and Reflections
Trevor Kennedy
"Depending on your definition of the term, I am God. At least to someone like you I am. I am your God now, and within those doors awaits your judgement. You can put it off as much as you like, but you cannot avoid it completely. You were but a man, alas a weak-minded, base animal, but a creature of certain sentience, nonetheless. The rules must be obeyed in full.
Together we must read your book."
Within Trevor Kennedy's Bad Dreams and Reflections, you will discover a world of darkened shades of night and long-forgotten angles of reality where good and evil collide. A plane of malevolence where vampiric cats, insectoid abominations, mischievous genii, demonic entities from Hell, lycanthropic freaks of nature, the sleepless dead, the foul stench of rotting ghouls, and Lovecraftian terrors coexist and stalk the twisted streets and mist-filled entries, as treacherous cursed tomes and the apocalypse wait patiently in the shadows. Do you dare walk the roads of this forbidden wasteland of unprecedented horror?
"What Trevor Kennedy is, along with the likes of John Carpenter, Ramsey Campbell, and Robert W. Chambers, is a font of horror: a source from which macabre, terror, suspense, and dread flows. When one finds Trevor Kennedy's work, it gives the same thrill of finding an unassuming book in a local small bookstore - the kind that ends up exploding the imagination out into tendrils which wrap around realms the reader never knew they were missing from their life."
~ Carl R. Jennings, author and reviewer
Weird and contemporary short horror stories
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Weird
short
horror
stories
The Brotherhood of Secret Darkness
and Other Cults, Cabals,
and Conspiracies
In this collection of thirteen illustrated tales written and drawn by the author, two-fisted heroes - and those of the everyman variety - confront some of the best-known conspiracy theories and urban legends of our time, stumble upon less familiar myths, and even discover a few new ones.
Satanic cults, witches, aliens, pagan gods, ancient monsters, serial killers, and global conspiracies fill the pages of this volume of dark fantasy, horror, and intrigue. The deepest, darkest recesses of the pop-culture zeitgeist are brought to lurid life in these thrilling tales of pulp-style adventure and esoteric mystery.
Read them and see your world with new eyes. Read them and see behind the curtain. Read them and form your own theories. This book reveals that it is all connected.
"When you read a short story collection, you expect there to be a couple of tales that are a little more than filler, but that is not the case with [this book]. Each of the thirteen stories contained within are excellent in their own right, coming together to make an outstanding collection that is a must read.
"This is an author at the top of his game and one that I cannot wait to see more from."
~ John Watson, Horror Book R&R
pulp-style
conspiracy
stories
Jason J. McCuiston
Sci-fi, horror, and dark fantasy pulp-style conspiracy stories, action/adventure
Appropriate for teenagers on up
The Dark Walk Forward
John S. McFarland
The small town of Ste. Odile has experienced the Great War in ways no one should ever have to endure. Doctors must tend to births and deaths that make their most difficult cases seem benign. An 1880s schoolteacher is faced with the worst blizzard of her time and must save the children under her charge. A young man searches for his father in the abandoned orphanage the older man owns... and both know they will despair at what they find. A primitive woman experiences colonization and the stereotypes of men, yet finds her own method of retribution.
We realize we are lucky to live in the era we do. We also realize anything can change to tear us apart. Is it fate? Destiny? Or do we bring about these changes on our own? McFarland will let us know...
John S. McFarland has slogged through his characters' woes and woven them into sweetly emotional yet acutely distressing tales. We as readers are forced to understand the pain, the despair, and sometimes the hope of his creations.
"McFarland tempers his frights with the mercy of familial love and sympathy for outsiders and victims. Horror readers will be riveted." ~ Publishers Weekly
Gothic
historical
horror
stories
Gothic historical fiction,
horror and mystery
Appropriate for teenagers on up
The Last Star Warden Series
Jason J. McCuiston
"The Last Star Warden is exactly what it looks like: a rollicking collection of space western stories. McCuiston delivers big with plenty of imagination and thrills. He pays homage to a western classic formula while injecting enough delightful alien weirdness to justify the intergalactic setting. The Warden and Quantum are unashamedly heroic heroes doing what's right in an unforgiving universe. Highly recommended."
~ Bryce Beattie, Editor of StoryHack Action & Adventure
Classic
pulp-style
sci-fi
stories
Classic-style pulp science fiction
action/adventure
Appropriate for 12-year-olds on up
The Last Star Warden is lost in time, a man out of his element, fighting against injustice and tyranny in a strange world not his own. He and his faithful friend Quantum work together to help the oppressed and stop the oppressors, but can they eventually find their way back home?
Illustrated by the author, the Last Star Warden series is action-packed sci-fi for readers who love thrilling adventure and lovers of classic pulp magazines will truly enjoy!
Of Dark Places
Gustavo Bondoni
Haunted houses, haunted lands, haunted locations... Places can be as dark as the myths, legends, and stories surrounding them. Gustavo Bondoni knows these places well, having a worldview that is different from the average traveler...
There's thunder in Old Kilpatrick, thunder that has become familiar to a young boy during the war. Then a strange new danger arrives... yet it may not be a threat, but a blessing in disguise.
It's a day's ride from Tarabuco for two infamous outlaws, who are searching for a burial chamber but end up unearthing more than they bargained for.
The Antarctic hides ancient secrets, and one will be discovered by an expedition dispached to find out why an outpost's signal has gone silent.
Gustavo Bondoni will bring you into these dark places to face their horrors, to find and experience the malicious and maligned. If you choose to turn the page...
"Bondoni has a special touch and a unique perspective few others can match... this volume is one of the richest, best-written and most rewarding single-author collections I have read..."
~ Elana Gomel, author of Little Sister, Black House and My Lady of Plagues
Worldwide
horror
stories
Worldwide horror stories based on dark locales
Appropriate for teenagers on up
The Potion and Other Perilous Libations
Matias Travieso-Diaz
"Would you give up your mind and perhaps your freedom to add more months to your life?"
This is the ultimate question posed in the title story of this second collection of dark tales by Matias Travieso-Diaz with settings around the world and times from the distant past to the terrifying future.
A warrior watches his captors appease the gods with human sacrifices during a solar eclipse; a man trades his smile for a night of pleasure during Venice's Carnival and tries to recover it; a pre-Columbian man from a city threatened by Aztec conquest seeks assistance from a cryptid, who offers help at a steep cost.
So perhaps the question changes: What would you give up to survive these horrors? Or would you want to survive at all?
"Matias Travieso-Diaz continues to distinguish himself as one of the leading short story writers in the United States. Although these stories sometimes can be frightening, their reflections and arabesque details also make them thoughtful and unique."
~ Alex Ferrate
Dark
and
worldwide
horror
Dark and worldwide horror
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Available online soon
Professor Wyrd's World of Wonders
Miracles and Monsters
In a world where monsters still haunt the shadows, Professor Phineas Wyrd is in the business of Miracles.
Not only is Professor Wyrd's World of Wonders a collection of some of the most amazing performers the nineteenth century has ever seen, it is also home to unique individuals empowered by the Almighty to battle the minions of the Evil One.
From a legendary gunfighter that never misses to a Hungarian mystic linked to every living mind on Earth; from a Russian knife-thrower who can bend the flow of time to a blind preacher who can see demons in their true forms, the World of Wonders boasts a menagerie of Godly heroes.
Join the adventures accompanied by Jason's illustrations as Professor Wyrd leads his team of Miracles across the American wilderness and into its burgeoning metropolises in search of the evil, the corrupt, and the creatures that still go bump in the night.
Jason J. McCuiston
Sci-fi, horror, and dark fantasy pulp-style action/adventure stories
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Sci-fi &
horror
pulp-style
stories
The Satchel and Other Terrors
Matias Travieso-Diaz
"We have to be careful when we walk in the open."
So begins the title story, and so begins Matias Travieso-Diaz's first ominous collection of tales from settings around the world and times both close and long past. We are taken into realms of terror, dragged by the hand into haunted places and minds, meeting characters whose fates could be our own if we aren't careful.
A lonely woman on a cruise will not find what she's looking for until she realizes why she is on this ocean voyage. A man visits a remote village in Africa to learn that some monsters aren't quite what he expected them to be.
Each story opens a new conflict, a new strife, a new view of both the extraordinary and the banal elements of our world. You will be mystified and intrigued, terrified and horrified, all as you turn the pages and discover these stories of dark imaginings.
"In [this book], author Matias Travieso-Diaz takes the reader on an engrossing tour of the darkest corners of this world and others, the past, present, dark futures, and even other planes of conscience and reality. No matter how bizarre, strange, or twisted the story, Travieso-Diaz's living, breathing characters are the life's blood of the tale... there's more than enough wonder and dread for any fan of horror and dark fantasy. A must-read for lovers of these genres."
~ Jason J. McCuiston, author of Project Notebook and the Last Star Warden series
Dark
and
worldwide
horror
Dark and worldwide horror
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Something Wicked This Way Rides
Anthology
Double, double toil and trouble...
Shakespeare began the tense apprehension with his melodic yet warning phrase. Ray Bradbury continued the dark and ominous foreboding that oozes between the words.
Now it has come to the North American Old West, a world with its severe terrain and hardened residents. The rules were harsher out here, the ethics and morals changed, the fight for life and liberty quite different than these unquestionably brave men and women had bargained for. For them something wicked certainly rode.
Like a hell broth boil and bubble...
In this anthology, we explore the Old West with a skewed view, showcasing the weird western genre through stories that explore the peculiar and fantastic, the wicked that was and could have been. In the tradition of pulp and western stories of a bygone era, these are thirty tales to intrigue, amaze, and perhaps downright spook you out of your boots.
With dark intentions and creatures astride,
something wicked this way rides.
"This anthology has a range of stories that capture the sense of adventure and unruliness the setting typical evokes."
~ Shane Spentki
"A hidden gem... Great collection of paranormal/horror short stories set in the Wild West."
~ CC
Weird
westerns
Weird westerns,
sci-fi, horror, and dark fantasy
Appropriate for teenagers on up
The Tension of a Coming Storm
Adrian Ludens
In this book, you will be introduced to twenty newly-collected encounters with darkness, a tangled forest of stories readers of the macabre and strange will eagerly get lost in.
A man traveling cross-country is shocked to find the same mysterious figure waiting for him at each new destination. An angry man pushes the bounds of his own sanity by entombing the young son of a former coworker.
Learn a startling truth behind the Mothman legend, how Jack the Ripper relocated to the Yukon during the Gold Rush, and what drove a tortured author named Poe to his early demise.
You who revel in the strangely mystical and shockingly uncomfortable will certainly delight in the dark mass presented with these pages. And you won't regret a single word.
Weird
and
contemporary
horror
"The glimpses of the words Ludens' characters inhabit have an extra dimension to them beyond many I have seen in contemporary horror fiction. It's like standing in front of a mirror. You see yourself and what's behind you if you stand directly in front of the glass. It's that extra dimension, the peripheral world in which the narrative at hand exists, that Ludens so skillfully implies, that sets these tales apart..."
~ John S. McFarland, author of The Dark Walk Forward and Baby Monster
Weird and contemporary horror
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Vanther the Vanquisher: Bloodquest
Scott Harper
Vanther the Vanquisher: Bloodquest takes place in an ancient, savage world known as the Hyborian Age, where tyrants and monsters rule the land. Vanther himself was the greatest warrior the world had witnessed, even before he received the blood curse of the Undead. He was dedicated to defending his clan of hunter/gatherers from plundering outsiders before it was decimated. Now a death-dealing force of unearthly might, he must use all his dark powers on a perilous quest into a savage wasteland to rescue his maker and find the key to ending his eternal bloodlust. Joined by the fierce vampiress Lysandra, Vanther soon discovers that vampires aren't at the top of the supernatural food chain.
Harper has also included a variety of blood-soaked vampire stories where he weaves his own take on vampires into the annals of world history. This book is not for the faint of heart - you'll wallow in the bloody quests and gut-wrenching action. Harper will make you believe in vampires again, and you'll be thrilled to do so.
Dark
fantasy
vampire
barbarians
"A gritty sword and sorcery epic...
This book is indeed a bloody quest!"
~ Kevin M. Glover, publisher, playwright, and comic creator
"Scott Harper has created a smartly written and wonderfully entertaining mix of Sword and Sorcery and Vampires, with a pinch of Edgar Ric Burroughs added in. Robert E. Howard and Brian Lumley would be very pleased indeed!"
~ Douglas Draa, Weirdbook editor and weird fiction aficionado
Dark fantasy, vampire barbarians,
vampire horror, violence and gore
Some adult themes and situations
Appropriate for savvy teenagers on up
A Visit to the Catacombs
J. Weintraub
"Welcome to the catacombs of via Altamontivecci, the grandest and one of the most ancient in the world. For those of you who have booked in advance, please step inside, I trust you have all signed the waiver as instructed? Good. The visit will be of a long duration. Now, please hand over your tickets..."
So we are introduced to our visit into this collection of dark, curious, and strange stories from the mind of J. Weintraub. You will find an eclectic mix of imaginative work, plunging us into the depths of our primal fears and intellectual curiosity to great effect.
From supernatural to science fiction, from the psychological to the sarcastic, you will be led deeper and deeper into the dark and the unknown as you accompany Mr. Weintraub on his unrelenting descent into the catacombs.
So please, stay with the group and avoid curious wanderings. We want you to enjoy your visit!
Dark &
speculative
horror &
sci-fi
"J. Weintraub is a connoisseur of the human soul and the thousand shadows residing there. His stories - quiet, introspective, yet with sharp edges - dig to the bottom, reaching down to the nerves of readers and dragging them into a confrontation with the metaphysical twilight of heart and mind. Truly a storyteller at the highest level."
~ Nicola Lombardi, author of The Gypsy Spiders and Other Tales of Italian Horror
Dark and speculative horror and science fiction
Appropriate for teenagers on up
Welcome to Scar Ridge
Jonathon Mast
A train station sits neatly at the top of Main Street, but the tracks are suspiciously absent. A false priest presides over an unusual amount of funerals. After a young man comes home from the Civil War, trees start to randomly appear in strange locations.
From the moment Carter returns home to find his beloved western town and the people within it have disappeared and he must win it back, we learn things have gone strange in Scar Ridge, Arizona.
The nine stories here are intimately intertwined in this isolated location, dusty and hot, the perfect place for the Landowner to work his odd magick. Each individual story will lead you to the ultimate terrifying conclusion, that there is something truly wrong within this town, within the people, and within this world that might just be a part of our own.
Weird
western
horror
"This ain't your graddaddy's western. In fact, if Rod Serling himself scooped up the Ponderosa, Dodge City, and Walnut Grove then plopped them right smack dab in the middle of The Twilight Zone, it still wouldn't hold a candle to the wild weirdness of Scar Ridge. Jonathon Mast will keep you turning the page with this hellish collection of bandits and lawmen, cowboys and Indians, soiled doves and the salt-of-the-earth dealing with high strangeness in a Weird West all his own. Welcome to your next can't-put-down-read, Welcome to Scar Ridge."
~ Jason J. McCuiston, author of The Brotherhood of Secret Darkness and Other Cults, Cabals, and Conspiracies
Weird western horror stories
Appropriate for teenagers on up