100 Best Horror Anthologies Books of All Time

We've researched and ranked the best horror anthologies books in the world, based on recommendations from world experts, sales data, and millions of reader ratings. Learn more

Featuring recommendations from Aaron Nagler, Emma Watson, Ramsey Campbell, and 6 other experts.
1

Night Shift

NIGHT SHIFT -- Stephen King's first collection of stories -- is an early showcase of the depths that King's wicked imagination could plumb. In these 20 tales, we see mutated rates gone bad ("Graveyard Shift"); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity ("Night Surf," the basis for The Stand); a smoker who will try anything to stop ("Quitters, Inc."); a reclusive alcoholic who begins a gruesome transformation ("Gray Matter"); and many more. This is Stephen King at his horrifying best.
--back cover
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Recommended by Aaron Nagler, and 1 others.

Aaron Nagler@DustyEvely LOVE that book (Source)

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2
Angela Carter was a storytelling sorceress, the literary godmother of such contemporary masters of supernatural fiction as Neil Gaiman, David Mitchell, Audrey Niffenegger, J. K. Rowling, and Kelly Link, who introduces this edition of Carter's most celebrated book, published for the seventy-fifth anniversary of her birth.

In The Bloody Chamber - which includes the story that is the basis of Neil Jordan's 1984 movie The Company of Wolves - Carter spins subversively dark and sensual versions of familiar fairy tales and legends like "Little Red Riding Hood," "Bluebeard,"...
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Recommended by Emma Watson, Jack Zipes, and 2 others.

Jack ZipesYes. Angela Carter played a very important role in my life because I was born in 1937, a few years before she was born, and although we didn’t grow up together, we both grew up in a world where sexism was out in the open. There was no critique of the type of sexism that I experienced when I grew up, and I think the same is true for her. And we both experienced what a lot of people called the... (Source)

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3
"Everybody is a book of blood; wherever we're opened, we're red." For those who only know Clive Barker through his long multigenre novels, this one-volume edition of the Books of Blood is a welcome chance to acquire the 16 remarkable horror short stories with which he kicked off his career. For those who already know these tales, the poignant introduction is a window on the creator's mind. Reflecting back after 14 years, Barker writes:

I look at these pieces and I don't think the man who wrote them is alive in me anymore.... We are all our own graveyards I believe;...
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5

The Illustrated Man

The Illustrated Man, a seminal work in Ray Bradbury’s career, whose extraordinary power and imagination remain undimmed by time’s passage, is available from Simon & Schuster for the first time. A peerless American storyteller, Ray Bradbury brings wonders alive. In these eighteen startling visions of humankind’s destiny, unfolding across a canvas of decorated skin, living cities take their vengeance, technology awakens the most primal natural instincts, and dreams are carried aloft in junkyard rockets. Provocative and powerful, The Illustrated Man is a kaleidoscopic... more
Recommended by Brian Moran, and 1 others.

Brian Moran@BrittMichaelian One of my favorite authors! Have you read the Illustrated Man recently? The first story in the book is titled "The Veldt." It was written in 1950 but is ALL ABOUT technology we are talking about today (#AI, #VR). Every story in the book is great. (Source)

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6

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams

A master storyteller at his best—the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story.

Since his first collection, Nightshift, published thirty-five years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he assembles, for the first time, recent stories that have never been published in a book. He introduces each with a passage about its origins or his...
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7

Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural

When this longtime Modern Library favorite--filled with fifty-two stories of heart-stopping suspense--was first published in 1944, one of its biggest fans was critic Edmund Wilson, who in The New Yorker applauded what he termed a sudden revival of the appetite for tales of horror. Represented in the anthology are such distinguished spell weavers as Edgar Allen Poe ("The Black Cat"), Wilkie Collins ("A Terribly Strange Bed"), Henry James ("Sir Edmund Orme"), Guy de Maupassant ("Was It a Dream?"), O. Henry ("The Furnished Room"), Rudyard Kipling ("They"), and H.G. Wells ("Pollock and the... more

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8

I Am Legend and Other Stories

Robert Neville is the last living man on Earth...but he is not alone. Every other man, woman, and child on Earth has become a vampire, and they are all hungry for Neville's blood.

By day, he is the hunter, stalking the sleeping undead through the abandoned ruins of civilization. By night, he barricades himself in his home and prays for dawn.

How long can one man survive in a world of vampires?


I am legend --
Buried talents --
The near departed --
Prey --
Witch war --
Dance of the dead --
Dress of white silk --
Mad...
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Recommended by Greg Garrett, and 1 others.

Greg GarrettThe monsters in the book are more like vampires. But the interesting thing about I Am Legend is that it is an apocalyptic survival story. The main character thinks that he is the last human being left on earth. (Source)

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9

The Weird

A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories

From Lovecraft to Borges to Gaiman, a century of intrepid literary experimentation has created a corpus of dark and strange stories that transcend all known genre boundaries. Together these stories form The Weird, and its practitioners include some of the greatest names in twentieth and twenty-first century literature.

Exotic and esoteric, The Weird plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities. You won't find any elves or wizards here...but you will find the biggest, boldest, and downright most peculiar stories from the last hundred years...
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10

Creepshow

Stories in comic strip form tell of a murdered man returning from the grave, a bizarre meteor, a monster that devours people, a husband's terrible revenge, and a plague of cockroaches. Graphic adaptation art by Bernie Wrightson.

Contents:

· Father’s Day · gs *
· The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill [adapted from “Weeds”, Cavalier May ’76] · gs *
· The Crate [Gallery, Jul ’79] · gs *
· Something to Tide You Over · gs *
· They’re Creeping Up On You · gs *
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11

Four Past Midnight

At midnight comes the point of balance. Of danger. The instang of utter stillness when between two beats of the heart, an alternative reality can slip through, like a blade between the ribs, and swithc you into a new and terrifying world.

Four Past Midnight: four heart-stopping accounts of that moment when the familiar world fractures beyond sense, the fragments spinning away from the desperate, clutching reach of sanity...
(back cover)
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12
Vampires are real. That fact has Erin Hamilton thinking she’s headed for crazy town. Still, she can’t deny the intense emotion she experiences when Dante Gabriel sinks his teeth into her neck to take her blood. She’s in love, and her body responds to his bite in a way she never could have imagined.

Once Dante tastes Erin’s blood, he’s addicted forever and cannot live without it. He’s heartbroken when she demands that he leave and never return. But neither can live without the other now, which puts them both at risk.

As they struggle to understand the mysterious bond...
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13
The weird fiction short stories of H.P. Lovecraft from 1917-1935. Excludes collaborations.

The eBook’s table of contents is listed below. It includes the year each story was written.

The Tomb (1917)
Dagon (1917)
Polaris (1918)
Beyond the Wall of Sleep (1919)
Memory (1919)
Old Bugs (1919)
The Transition of Juan Romero (1919)
The White Ship (1919)
The Doom That Came to Sarnath (1919)
The Statement of Randolph Carter (1919)
The Terrible Old Man (1920)
The Tree (1920)
The Cats of Ulthar (1920)
The Temple...
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14

Skeleton Crew

In this brilliant collection of stories, Stephen King takes readers down paths that only he could imagine. A supermarket becomes the place where humanity makes its last stand against destruction. A trip to the attic becomes a journey to hell. A woman driver finds a scary shortcut to paradise. An idyllic lake harbors a bottomless evil. And a desert island is the scene of the most terrifying struggle for survival ever waged. less

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15

Scary Stories Paperback Box Set

The three Scary Stories books come together in this paperback box set to form a timeless collection of chillingly scary tales and legends.

Folklorist Alvin Schwartz offers up some of the most alarming tales of horror, dark revenge, and supernatural events of all time.

The paperback books in this box set feature Stephen Gammell's artwork from the original Scary Stories books. Read if you dare!
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16

The October Country

Ray Bradbury's second short story collection is back in print, its chilling encounters with funhouse mirrors, parasitic accident-watchers, and strange poker chips intact. Both sides of Bradbury's vaunted childhood nostalgia are also on display, in the celebratory "Uncle Einar," and haunting "The Lake," the latter a fine elegy to childhood loss. This edition features a new introduction by Bradbury, an invaluable essay on writing, wherein the author tells of his "Theater of Morning Voices," and, by inference, encourages you to listen to the same murmurings in yourself. And has any writer... more

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17

Nightmares and Dreamscapes

From the Flap:

A solitary finger pokes out of a drain. Novelty teeth turn predatory. Flies settle and die on an old pair of sneakers in New York, and the Nevada desert swallows a Cadillac. Meanwhile the legend of Castle Rock returns . . . and grows on you. What does it all mean? What else could it mean? First there was Night Shift (1978), then Skeleton Crew (1985), and now Stephen King is back with a third collection of stories--a vast, many-chambered cave of a volume, with passages leading every which way to hell . . . and a few to glory.

The long reach of Stephen...
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18
Here are Howard’s greatest horror tales, all in their original, definitive versions. Some of Howard’s best-known characters–Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and sailor Steve Costigan among them–roam the forbidding locales of the author’s fevered imagination, from the swamps and bayous of the Deep South to the fiend-haunted woods outside Paris to remote jungles in Africa.

The collection includes Howard’s masterpiece “Pigeons from Hell,” which Stephen King calls “one of the finest horror stories of [the twentieth] century,” a tale of two travelers who stumble upon the ruins of a Southern...
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19
We've reached out to the finest minds in horror, from best-selling authors to fresh new voices, to bring you a collection of stories to chill the blood. Join us as we explore Hawaiian myth and intrigue from Jessica Lee Anderson, sexy, contemporary vampire horror from Dark Shadows star and author Lara Parker, zombie mystery horror from New York Times Best Seller Kevin J Anderson, Mexican mythology horror from David Bowles, grim sci-fi horror from PJ Hoover, home invasion terror from Jason Henderson (that's me), Gothic horror from Leanna Renee Hieber, spooky American ghost horror from Michael... more

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20
Librarian Note: Please do not confuse this anthology with the original novella "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by H.P. Lovecraft. Although "Shadows Over Innsmouth" includes the said novella, the book is a collection of Innsmouth-related stories by a number of later authors and not a single story or novel. You might also consider moving your personal rating and/or review to the appropriate page if you have read only the novella.

SEVENTEEN CHILLING STORIES, INCLUDING...
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21

The Oxford Book of Gothic Tales

Brimming with tales of terror, suspense, and the uncanny, this work offers a collection devoted to the best of the Gothic genre. Each story contains the common elements of the gothic talea warped sense of time, a claustrophobic setting, a link to archaic modes of thought, and the impression of a descent into disintegration. Yet taken together, they reveal the progression of the genre from stories of feudal villains amid crumbling ruins to a greater level of sophistication in which writers brought the gothic tale out of its medieval setting, and placed it in the contemporary world. Bringing... more

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22

The Twilight Zone

Complete Stories

Submitted for your approval...

These nineteen classic stories confirm Rod Serling as one of the finest fantasy writers of our time. Serling's legendary television series The Twilight Zone consistently demonstrated his remarkable gift for storytelling. In the years that have followed, millions have experienced and remembered these timeless scenarios, now airing regularly on the Sci-Fi Channel.

These haunting stories by the fabled creator, producer, and series host were the basis for some of the most celebrated, eerie programs ever seen on the home screen. In this...
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23

The Collected Short Stories of Roald Dahl

Alternate Cover Edition ISBN 0140158073 (ISBN13: 9780140158076)

Containing all the stories from Roald Dahl's world-famous books – Over to You, Someone Like you, Kiss Kiss and Switch Bitch – plus eight further tales of the unexpected, this is the definitive collection by one of the great masters of the short story. Macabre, unsettling and deliciously enjoyable, these stories make the perfect bedtime read – but be warned, once you've started reading you won't be able to stop . .
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24

Legend of the Star Runner

A Timmi Tobbson Adventure

Think fast to unravel each mystery and uncover the Legend of the Star Runner.

Following the clues concealed within a centuries-old family legacy, Timmi Tobbson and his friends hope to save a dear friend. But only twenty-four hoursremain to unravel the legend of a long-lost pirate ship, buriedsomewhere deep beneath the city streets. Unbeknownst to them, theirsearch awakens a mystical dark power, sworn to protect what is hidden on board the once famous Star Runner.


Mysteries to Solve

The adventure is divided into 31 concise chapters, each of which ends...
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25

20th Century Ghosts

A collection of short stories.

Imogene is young and beautiful. She kisses like a movie star and knows everything about every film ever made. She's also dead and waiting in the Rosebud Theater for Alec Sheldon one afternoon in 1945....

Arthur Roth is a lonely kid with big ideas and a gift for attracting abuse. It isn't easy to make friends when you're the only inflatable boy in town....

Francis is unhappy. Francis was human once, but that was then. Now he's an eight-foot-tall locust and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing....
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27

Midnight Graffiti

With stories by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, David J. Schow, Nancy Collins, Neil Gaiman, and others.

CONTENTS
Introduction by Jessica Horsting
Rainy Season by Stephen King
Say Hello, Mister Quigley by J. Michael Straczynski
Sinus Fiction by Gil Lamont
Emerald City Blues by Steven R. Boyett
Cattletruck by Cliff Burns
Bad Guy Hats by David J. Schow
'I Want to Get Married!' Says the World's Smallest Man by John Shirley
Spike Jones and the Reverend Sister Claudine by Rex Miller
Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland by Joe R....
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28

Four Color Fear

Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s

Of the myriad genres comic books ventured into during its golden age, none was as controversial as or came at a greater cost than horror; the public outrage it incited almost destroyed the entire industry. Yet before the watchdog groups and Congress could intercede, horror books were flying off the newsstands. During its peak period (1951-54) over fifty titles appeared each month. Apparently there was something perversely irresistible about these graphic excursions into our dark side, and Four Color Fear collects the finest of these into a single robust and affordable volume. more

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29

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the original title of a novella written by the famous Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. The work is commonly known today as The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, or simply Jekyll & Hyde. It is about a London lawyer named John Gabriel Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr Henry Jekyll, and the evil Edward Hyde. less

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30
Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN 9780425093474

To a mortician, the preparation of a corpse is an art. The smooth, silent exchange of blood and embalming fluid is like a symphony to be orchestrated. The presentation of the deceased -- lying in a shining casket framed by flowers -- is an exquisitely composed tableau. And the burial itself is the magnificent climax to his craftsmanship. — Clive Barker also knows how to prepare a body for the grave.

He knows how to plunge his readers into unearthly depths, spiraling from dark horror to dizzying madness. He knows how...
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31

Books of Horror Community Anthology Vol. 1

What flavor is your nightmare?
Forty nine authors have come together to tell us theirs. Each story is unique in its horror but all should be read with the lights on and the shadows kept at bay, because some stories tend to stay with you even after the book is closed.
From established authors, to people putting pen to paper for the first time.
Books of Horror presents its inaugural Community Anthology.

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32

Dark Masques

LOOK BEHIND THE MASQUES—IF YOU DARE…

Enter a shadowy realm where nothing—and no one—is as it appears. A place hidden from view, nestled in the darkest recesses of your mind, awaiting the perfect moment to reveal itself—only to scare you blind. In this collection of unforgettable horror stories, discover the terrifying truth as told by today’s greatest masters of the macabre—classic twisted tales that will reach out from the past and draw you into the depths of their darkness.

Prepare to enter a nightmarish reality in which seeing is disbelieving, your eyes can deceive...
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34

Masterpieces of Terror and the Supernatural

A gripping, chilling collection of 47 stories and six poems, dating back to Shelley and Stevenson, but also including modern masters. less

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35

Borderlands 1

Borderlands is a horror anthology series not concerned with traditional elements of horror fiction. Borderlands is about breaking the mold and pushing the genre and its finest writers to the edge. Hailed as the anthology series of the 90s, Borderlands will remind you that horror can indeed be horrific. Read about a farmer who disdains his wife for a giant potato...women's clothing made from fetal tissue..an executive who slowly slips into the reality he sells...and more.

CONTENTS
'Introduction' -- Thomas F. Monteleone
"The Calling" -- David B....
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36

Strange Highways

Back by popular demand is the hardcover edition of this classic collection of novels, novellas, and short stories, now specially priced. This is Koontz's spellbinding collection of takes interconnected by the strange highways of human experience: adventures, terrors, failures and triumphs. less

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37

Full Throttle

A little door that opens to a world of fairy tale wonders becomes the blood-drenched stomping ground for a gang of hunters in “Faun.” A grief-stricken librarian climbs behind the wheel of an antique Bookmobile to deliver fresh reads to the dead in “Late Returns.” In “By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain,” two young friends stumble on the corpse of a plesiosaur at the water’s edge, a discovery that forces them to confront the inescapable truth of their own mortality . . . and other horrors that lurk in the water’s shivery depths. And tension shimmers in the sweltering heat of the Nevada... more

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38
The story jumps from Hellboy's mysterious World War II origin to his 1994 confrontation with the man who summoned him to earth, and the earliest signs of the plague of frogs. Avoiding his supposed fate as the herald of the end of the world, Hellboy continues with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, fighting alongside Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, and drafting Roger Homunculus into his own ill-fated service with the B.P.R.D. This 368-page volume covers Hellboy’s adventures from 1994 to 1997, reprinting Seed of Destruction, Wake the Devil, and “Wolves of St August,” “The Chained Coffin,”... more

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39

The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft

Explore the marvelous complexity of Lovecraft's writing—including his use of literary allusions, biographical details, and obscure references in this rich, in-depth exploration of great horror fiction from the acknowledged master of the weird, including the stories "Herbert West—Reanimator", "Pickman's Model", "The Call of Cthulhu", "The Thing on the Doorstep", "The Horror at Red Hook" and more.

Did Lovecraft believe in ghosts or paranormal phenomena? In what story does the narrator fear riding the Boston T?

A pathfinder in the literary territory of the macabre, H.P....
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40

Joyland

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.

Joyland is a brand-new novel and has never previously been published.
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41

Welcome to the Show

17 horror Stories. One legendary music venue.

We all know the old cliché: Sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now, add demons, other dimensions, monsters, revenge, human sacrifice, and a dash of the truly inexplicable. This is the story of the (fictional) San Francisco music venue, The Shantyman.

In Welcome to the Show, seventeen of today's hottest writers of horror and dark fiction come together in devilish harmony to trace The Shantyman's history from its disturbing birth through its apocalyptic encore.

Featuring...

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42
Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.


Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her...
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43

New Cthulhu

The Recent Weird

For more than eighty years H.P. Lovecraft has inspired writers of supernatural fiction, artists, musicians, filmmakers, and gamers. His themes of cosmic indifference, the utter insignificance of humankind, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history—written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread—remain not only viable motifs, but are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it.

In the early twenty-first century the best supernatural writers no longer imitate...
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44
In the deft hands of Neil Gaiman, magic is no mere illusion... and anything is possible. In this, Gaiman's first book of short stories, his imagination and supreme artistry transform a mundane world into a place of terrible wonders -- a place where an old woman can purchase the Holy Grail at a thrift store, where assassins advertise their services in the Yellow Pages under "Pest Control," and where a frightened young boy must barter for his life with a mean-spirited troll living beneath a bridge by the railroad tracks. Explore a new reality -- obscured by smoke and darkness,... more

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45

The Dark at the End of the Tunnel

This Bram Stoker Award nominated collection features ten gripping and darkly imaginative stories by Bestselling author Taylor Grant, a rising star in the suspense and horror genres.

Discover what happens when:

- A wealthy industrialist awakens after ten years in suspended animation, and finds out that the horrors of the past can never be left behind.

- A lonely man realizes that he’s gradually vanishing from existence, into a nightmarish limbo of his own making.

- An author stumbles upon an incomplete manuscript by his deceased father, and makes...
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46

I Shudder at Your Touch

There is no sexual act that is not dangerous...

And every caress, no matter how innocent, has the power to open our lives to the dark mysteries of desire, the places where outrageous fantasies and fears are held in check.

Held in check, that is, until it occurs to such supremely talented manipulators of the macabre as Stephen King, Ruth Rendell, Clive Barker, or Patrick McGrath, to let them loose, turning our erotic anxieties into art. Here are gathered the best of their chilling, thrilling, upsetting, and unsettling experiments with our sexual psyches. And rest...
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47

The Collection

Called the Master of the Macabre by Stephen King, the Bram Stoker Award winner presents his first collection of short stories. Features 32 of his best horror stories, including four brand-new stories. (June) less

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48

Nightmare At 20,000 Feet

Remember that monster on the wing of the airplane? William Shatner saw it on The Twilight Zone, John Lithgow saw it in the movie-even Bart Simpson saw it. "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" is just one of many classic horror stories by Richard Matheson that have insinuated themselves into our collective imagination.

Here are more than twenty of Matheson's most memorable tales of fear and paranoia, including:

"Duel," the nail-biting tale of man versus machines that inspired Steven Spielberg's first film;

"Prey," in which a terrified woman is stalked by a malevolent...
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49

Fallen Angels

An exciting, eye-catching repackage of acclaimed author Walter Dean Myers' bestselling paperbacks, to coincide with the publication of SUNRISE OVER FALLUJA in hardcover.

A coming-of-age tale for young adults set in the trenches of the Vietnam War in the late 1960s, this is the story of Perry, a Harlem teenager who volunteers for the service when his dream of attending college falls through. Sent to the front lines, Perry and his platoon come face-to-face with the Vietcong and the real horror of warfare. But violence and death aren't the only hardships. As Perry struggles to find...
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50
Anita has fallen for the leader of a local pack of werewolves. She's survived a lot, but this love thing may kill her yet. less

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51
“The world of Shirley Jackson is eerie and unforgettable,” writes A. M. Homes. “It is a place where things are not what they seem; even on a morning that is sunny and clear there is always the threat of darkness looming, of things taking a turn for the worse.” Jackson’s characters–mostly unloved daughters in search of a home, a career, a family of their own–chase what appears to be a harmless dream until, without warning, it turns on its heel to seize them by the throat. We are moved by these characters’ dreams, for they are the dreams of love and acceptance shared by us all. We are shocked... more

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52

Haunted Castles

The Complete Gothic Stories

Part of a new six-volume series of the best in classic horror, selected by award-winning director Guillermo del Toro

Filmmaker and longtime horror literature fan Guillermo del Toro serves as the curator for the Penguin Horror series, a new collection of classic tales and poems by masters of the genre. Included here are some of del Toro's favorites, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Ray Russell's short story 'Sardonicus', considered by Stephen King to be 'perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written', to Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill...
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53

Perchance to Dream

The profoundly original and wildly entertaining short stories of a legendary Twilight Zone writer, with a foreword by Ray Bradbury and an afterword by William Shatner
 
It is only natural that Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone—for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont’s finest stories, including five that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.

Beaumont dreamed up fantasies so vast and...
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54

Hellbound Hearts

Clive Barker's iconic masterpiece The Hellbound Heart, the novella adapted into the film Hellraiser, unleashed a new mythology of horror, brilliantly conceived and born of the darkest imagination. Now, enter this visionary world - the merciless realm of the demonic Cenobites - in this collection of stories inspired by The Hellbound Heart.

Featured here is the graphic work "Wordsworth," from bestselling author Neil Gaiman and artist Dave McKean, who unlock an explicit way to violate innocence - one torturous puzzle at a time.... New York Times bestselling author Kelley...
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55
The Vampire Archives is the biggest, hungriest, undeadliest collection of vampire stories, as well as the most comprehensive bibliography of vampire fiction ever assembled. Dark, stormy, and delicious, once it sinks its teeth into you there’s no escape.

Vampires! Whether imagined by Bram Stoker or Anne Rice, they are part of the human lexicon and as old as blood itself. They are your neighbors, your friends, and they are always lurking. Now Otto Penzler—editor of the bestselling Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps—has compiled the darkest, the scariest, and by far the...
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56
Del maestro del Terror, Brian Lumley, se publica por primera vez en nuestro país esta selección de trece relatos, escogidos por el propio autor, que incluye el cuento ganador del British Fantasy Award de 1989 "Cuerpos fructíferos".

Huyendo de los lugares comunes, pero enraizado en la tradición narrativa de H. P. Lovecraft, Lumley consigue que las cosas vuelvan a acechar en la oscuridad. El mal se mueve sutilmente en torno a los personajes y, página a página, va estrechando su cerco hasta atrapar al propio lector.

Prepárate para disfrutar con Brian Lumley de la cara más...
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57
A spaceship captain determined to gather a cupful of the sun. . .a nubile young witch who yearns to taste human love. . .an expedition that hunts dinosaurs across the fragile and dangerous chasm of time. . . These strange and wonderful tales of beauty and terror will transport you from the begininng of time to the outermost limits of the future. Selected from his best-selling collections "The Golden Apples Of The Sun" and "R Is For Rocket," here are thirty-two superb stories from one of the master fantastics of our age--the inimitable Ray Bradbury. less

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62
A gripping collection of six stories of terror—including the novella “The Visible Filth,” the basis for the upcoming major motion picture—by Shirley Jackson Award–winning author Nathan Ballingrud, hailed as a major new voice by Jeff VanderMeer, Paul Tremblay, and Carmen Maria Machado—“one of the most heavyweight horror authors out there” (The Verge).

In his first collection, North American Lake Monsters, Nathan Ballingrud carved out a distinctly singular place in American fiction with his “piercing and merciless” (Toronto Globe and Mail) portrayals of the monsters that...
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63

Hot Blood

Tales of Erotic Horror

Robert R. McCammon, Graham Masterton, Harlan Ellison, Ramsey Campbell and other masters of the macabre take readers into their private world of fear, fantasy, and fatal attraction--in 24 tales of dread and debauchery, riveting stories of sex and terror . . . the fresh fusion that is fast becoming America's obsession. less

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64
A fateful family trip to an amusement park. An island movie theater that takes more than the patrons' cash. A cross-country drive with an unexpected encounter. A family man hellbent on making great time, no matter the cost.

Fourteen horror authors share terrifying and twisted tales of summer vacation gone wrong in Worst Laid Plans: an Anthology of Vacation Horror.

This anthology includes stories by V. Castro, Hailey Piper, Patrick Lacey, Scott Cole, Laura Keating, Malcolm Mills, Jeremy Herbert, S. E. Howard, Chad Stroup, Kenzie Jennings, Waylon Jordan, Greg Sisco,...
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65

Tales of the Lost, Volume 1

We all Lose Something!

We all lose something… We lose many things during our time in this universe. From the moment we are born we start losing time, and loss becomes a part of our life from the beginning. We lose friends (both imaginary and real), loved ones, pets, and family. We gain stuff and lose stuff, from our socks to our money. We can lose our hope, sanity, passions, our mind, and perhaps even our soul! In the end when death finds us, we end up losing everything... Don’t we?

Tales of the Lost takes a dark look at the things we lose and the ghosts we struggle with. Featuring haunting...
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66
Too much terror to contain…

Shadows reach out with darkened claws. The floorboards creek as your greatest fears stalk the halls. And no matter how much you tell yourself it is just a dream, you know the truth. Evil hides in the darkness. And now, it has finally been unleashed…

Scare Street gathers volumes 1 to 3 of Terror in the Shadows in a single edition. Over thirty tales stalk the pages of this macabre collection. And just when you think you’ve experienced the most chilling horror of all, a new story unfolds within this massive tome of fear.
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67

By Bizarre Hands

WARNING: THIS BOOK MAY BE HAZARDOUS TO YOUR MENTAL HEALTH.
But if you've got a taste for bone-chilling, gut-wrenching terror that brilliantly tests the limits of human endurance, then Joe R. Lansdale is your man. In his first collection of short stories, the gruseome and outrageous cult classic "The Drive-In" pilots a wildly thrilling, violent and vivid roller coaster ride to Hell and beyond...plumbing the eerie depths of his remarkable imagination to create horrors unique and unsettling - dark products of twisted genius that weave the grisly fabric of nightmares. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!...
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68
An Air Force Loadmaster is menaced by strange sounds within his cargo; a man is asked to track down a childhood friend... who died years earlier; doomed pioneers forge a path westward as a young mother discovers her true nature; an alcoholic strikes a dangerous bargain with a gregarious stranger; urban explorers delve into a ruined book depository, finding more than they anticipated; residents of a rural Wisconsin town defend against a legendary monster; a woman wracked by survivor's guilt is haunted by the ghosts of a tragic crash; a detective strives to solve the mystery of a dismembered... more

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69

The White People and Other Weird Stories

Machen's weird tales of the creepy and fantastic finally come to Penguin Classics. With an introduction from S.T. Joshi, editor of American Supernatural Tales, The White People and Other Weird Stories is the perfect introduction to the father of weird fiction. The title story "The White People" is an exercise in the bizarre leaving the reader disoriented and on edge. From the first page, Machen turns even fundamental truths upside-down, as his character Ambrose explains, "there have been those who have sounded the very depths of sin, who all their lives have never done an 'ill... more
Recommended by Ramsey Campbell, and 1 others.

Ramsey CampbellMachen was one of the first great British writers of supernatural horror fiction. He was Welsh, and wrote in the 1890s and early 20th century. He conveyed a sense of spiritual dread in a way that nobody had before. I think his greatest story is “The White People”, which is mostly in the form of an adolescent girl’s diary. Nothing is directly shown. The surface of this story is absolutely... (Source)

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70

Blue World

From the battlefields of a Vietnam veteran's memory to an old-time movie hero's search for a serial killer, from Halloween in a special town--where the rules of trick-or-treat are written in blood--to a Texas road where a wrong turn leads to a nest of evil, horror master McCammon is at his terrifying best in this collection of stories. less

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72

The Bachman Books

Omnibus collection of four early Bachman novels (Rage, The Long Walk, Roadwork, The Running Man) and the essay "Why I Was Bachman" less

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73
11 • Introduction (The Best of Cemetery Dance) • essay by Richard Chizmar
29 • Chattery Teeth • (1992) • novelette by Stephen King
61 • The Box • (1994) • short story by Jack Ketchum
73 • Haceldama • (1993) • novelette by Gary A. Braunbeck
109 • The Pig Man • (1993) • short story by Augustine Funnell
125 • Mobius • (1987) • short story by Richard Christian Matheson
129 • The Rendering Man • (1994) • short story by Douglas Clegg
147 • Weight • (1994) • short story by Dominick Cancilla
159 • Layover • (1991) • short story by Ed Gorman
169 • Johnny...
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74
Driven and Reckless, the young writers who lead the splatterpunk movement have one rule: "There are no limits". Editor Paul Sammon--himself a talented writer and moviemaker--has assembled the first and only book to emcompass this dynamic literary movement. Features the works of Edward Bryant, Craig Spector, Rex Miller, Clive Barker and more. less

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75

Terror in the Shadows (Terror in the Shadows, #1)

The dark can be a terrible, terrible place…

A young man’s attempts at breaking parole end in a night of horror. A child realizes his Christmas gift might be more sinister than he originally thought. An editor accidentally uncovers his client’s sinister plan to cleanse the world of all evil...

Scare Street’s roster of authors Ron Ripley, David Longhorn, Sara Clancy and A. I. Nasser come together to bring you 10 of the most terrifying tales meant to chill you to your core.

So head over to your favorite reading spot, make yourself comfortable, and...
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76
The follow-up to the nationwide bestseller I Shudder at Your Touch. Here are 22 sensually scary stories from authors such as Ramsey Campbell, Ray Bradbury, Robert Bloch, Harlan Ellison, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and more. Follow their unflinching imaginations deep into the heart of darkness . . . if you dare.

1 • Aphra • (1993) • short story by Nancy A. Collins [as by Nancy Collins]
18 • Eye of the Lynx • [The Nyctalops Trilogy • 3] • (1983) • short story by Thomas Ligotti
29 • Heavy Set • (1964) • short story by Ray Bradbury (variant of Heavy-Set)
40 • Mr. Wrong •...
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77

Cthulhu 2000

In Cthulhu 2000, a host of horror and fantasy's top authors captures the spirit of supreme supernatural storyteller H. P. Lovecraft--with eighteen chilling contemporary tales that would have made the master proud.

- The Barrens by F. Paul Wilson: In a tangled wilderness, unearthly lights lead the way to a world no human was meant to see.
- His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood by Poppy Z. Brite: Two dabblers in black magic encounter a maestro of evil enchantment.
- On the Slab by Harlan Ellison: The corpse of a one-eyed giant brings untold fortune--and unspeakable fear--to...
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78
For more than three decades, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror readers crave. Now, with the tenth volume of the series, Datlow is back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night.

Encompassed in the pages of The Best Horror of the Year have been such illustrious writers as:

Neil Gaiman

Kim Stanley Robinson

Stephen King

Linda Nagata

Laird Barron

Margo Lanagan

And...
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79

Brain Cheese Buffet

You've seen Cannibal Holocaust. You've seen Salo. You've seen Nekromantik. You ain't seen shit! Zombie prostitutes, religious rapists, horny werewolves, death by vomit, and sexual fetishes scraped off the sidewalk. From sex prisons to mafia torture chambers, hold on tight because you're about to enter the perverted and twisted mind of Edward Lee. Once you've seen what he has to show you - there's no coming back. Brain Cheese Buffet collects nine of Lee's most sought after tales of violence and body fluids. Featuring the Stoker nominated "Mr. Torso," the legendary gross-out piece "the... more

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80

Killers Inside

A Horror Anthology

Cannibals, cultists, clowns and killers, things that go bump in the night and sacrificial rituals. Whether you like your horror freshly cut-up and still dripping blood, or stalking through the shadows, ready to jump out and grab you, you'll find what you're looking for inside. A macabre collection from some of the greatest up-and-coming horror authors, guaranteed to keep you glancing over your shoulder. If you don't lock your doors at night, you will after reading this. Enjoy, if you dare. less

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81
Horror has the gripping ability to captivate...and enthrall. It hooks you with unnerving stories of dread and evil, pushes your limits and pokes every phobia. Audiences love to be scared but behind every muffled scream is something deeper and even more fascinating.

In Screaming for Pleasure, S.A. Bradley takes you on a wild journey exploring horror, where you'll discover what is so tantalizing about terror, including:


Rare insights about some of the greatest fright directors of all time, like David Cronenberg, Guillermo Del Toro and John...
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82
Hellboy's complete story is presented for the first time in chronological order for the ultimate reading experience.

This 416-page volume covers Hellboy's adventures from 1998 to 2005, reprinting Conqueror Worm, Strange Places, Into the Silent Sea, and "The Right Hand of Doom, "Box Full of Evil," and "Being Human" from The Right Hand of Doom and B.P.R.D. Being Human.


Hellboy loses faith in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense when they strap a bomb to one of his fellow not-quite-human agents. He gets answers about his...
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83

The New Lovecraft Circle

H. P. Lovecraft was the eerily prescient genius who first electrified readers in Weird Tales magazine. His tales changed the face of horror forever and inspired the bloodcurdling offerings of a new generation. These brilliant dark visionaries forge grisly trails through previously uncharted realms of mortal terror.
 
THE PLAIN OF SOUND by Ramsey Campbell: In the beginning they could find no source for the throbbing vibrations; in the end they could find no escape.
THE HORROR ON THE BEACH by Alan Dean Foster: Along the coast of Santa Barbara, the mighty...
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84
A collection of horror tales features the work of Brad Strickland, Gregory Nicoll, Rex Miller, Nancy Kilpatrick, Scott A. Cupp, Kathryn Ptacek, Douglas Borton, Morgan Fields, Richard Lee Byers, and others. less

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85
This annual collection of exceptional horror and dark fantasy fiction stories is the essential must-have for horror buffs. The 20th edition of this showcase of horror includes a comprehensive overview of international selections, an impressively researched necrology, and a list of indispensable contact addresses for the dedicated horror fan and aspiring writer of true horror. less

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86

Best New Horror 29

In this latest edition of the world's longest-running annual showcase of horror and dark fantasy you will find cutting-edge stories by such authors as Helen Marshall, Conrad Williams, Ramsey Campbell, Angela Slatter, Reggie Oliver and Thana Niveau, amongst many others, along with the usual Introduction: Horror in 2017 and Necrology of those who have left us. less

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88

High Cotton

This collection of Joe R. Lansdale stories represents the best of the “Lansdale” genre—a strange mixture of dark crime, even darker humor, and adventure tales. The stories are varied in setting and theme, but they are all pure Lansdale—eerie, amusing, and occasionally horrific. In “The Pit,” modern gladiators square off against one another using Roman methods. An alternate-history tale called “Trains Not Taken” shows Buffalo Bill as an ambassador and Wild Bill Hickok as a clerk. Lansdale’s love of large lizards and humor are evident in the stories “Godzilla’s Twelve Step Program” and “Bob the... more

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90
Robert E. Howard is the world-renowned author of the Conan series and the stories that were the basis of the recent Kull movie. He also was one of H.P. Lovecraft's frequent correspondents, and an author of many pivotal Mythos tales. This book collects together all of Howard's Mythos tales, including the tales that originated Gol-Goroth, Unausspreclichen Kulten, and Friedrich Von Junzt. Included in this collections are several fragments left behind by Robert E. Howard which have been completed by a variety of authors.

This book has been long anticipated by readers of H.P. Lovecraft...
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91
Contents

The Late Shift by Dennis Etchison
The Enemy by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Dark Angel by Edward Bryant
The Crest of Thirty-six by Davis Grubb
Mark Ingestre: The Customer’s Tale by Robert Aickman
Where the Summer Ends by Karl Edward Wagner
The Bingo Master by Joyce Carol Oates
Children of the Kingdom by T. E. D. Klein
The Detective of Dreams by Gene Wolfe
Vengeance Is. By Theodore Sturgeon
The Brood by Ramsey Campbell
The Whistling Well by Clifford D. Simak
The Peculiar Demesne by Russell Kirk
Where the Stones Grow...
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92
Once upon a time, the stories that came to be known as “fairy tales” were cultivated to entertain adults more than children; it was only later that they were tamed and pruned into less thorny versions intended for youngsters. But in truth, they have continued to prick the imaginations of all ages.

Over the years, authors have often borrowed bits and pieces from these stories, grafting them onto their own writing, creating literature with both new meaning and age-old significance. In the last few decades or so, they’ve also intentionally retold and reinvented the tales in a variety...
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94
The mighty Messenger of the Outer Gods, Nyarlathotep has also been known to deliver tidings from the Great Old Ones. He is the only Outer God who chooses to personify his presence on our planet. A god of a thousand forms, he comes to Earth to mock, to wreak havoc, and to spur on humanity's self-destructive urges. This volume of stories and poems illustrates the ubiquitous presence of Nyarlathotep and shows him in several different guises. Among them, his presence as Nephren-Ka, the dread Black Pharaoh of dynastic Egypt, dominates. The thirteen stories include a Lin Carter novella. Selected... more

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95

The Year's Best Horror Stories XVIII

Contents

13 • Introduction: From Horror Angst to Zombies • essay by Karl Edward Wagner
17 • Kaddish • (1989) • short story by Jack Dann
30 • The Gravedigger's Tale • (1989) • short story by Simon Clark
40 • Meeting the Author • (1989) • short story by Ramsey Campbell
55 • Buckets • (1989) • novelette by F. Paul Wilson
76 • The Pit-Yakker • non-genre • (1989) • short story by Brian Lumley
99 • Mr. Sandman • (1989) • short story by Scott D. Yost
115 • Renaissance • (1989) • short story by Chico Kidd [as by A. F. Kidd]
135 • Lord of...
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97

Accursed

A Horror Anthology

Accursed items. Some people believe in them, some people don’t. With a truly cursed item, belief doesn’t matter. It’s gonna do its best to get you anyway. You might survive, but you may still end up dead, or with the worst luck ever. Maybe you will be compelled to do things that you never would without it’s influence. Maybe you thought it would help you at the casino. Maybe it did. But there’s always a price to pay, one you aren’t ready for. That little lucky charm you have in your pocket may be doing more damage than good. But you don’t know. You think its helping, yet it’s cursed. And it... more

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98
The Living Dead 2 has more of what zombie fans hunger for: more scares, more action, more... brains! Experience the indispensable series that defines the very best in zombie literature with a shambling, ravenous herd of original stories. The Living Dead 2 also features a slavering horde of reprint zombie stories. All this adds up to a landmark volume that helps define what zombie godfather John Skipp calls "The New Zombie Literature."

Additional contributing authors:
Joe McKinney
Carrie Ryan
Kim Paffenroth
R.J. Sevin
Julia Sevin
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99

Horror Stories

A Memoir

From the two-time Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter behind the groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville comes a haunting memoir in stories in the tradition of Patti Smith's M Train

When Liz Phair was just starting out in the Wicker Park, Chicago, music scene in the early 1990s, she mostly encountered a**holes—mostly men, who didn't respect her and were determined not to see her fail, exactly, because they didn't care enough about her to wish failure on her—they just wanted her to get out of their space, to...
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100

Night Visions 5

Douglas E. Winter presents a collection of all-new, tantalizingly terrifying stories by masters of horror. "Strong stuff, with good shudder potential ... A success ... You'll want to read this one!"--Locus.

* Introduction - Douglas E. Winter
* The Reploids - Stephen King
* Sneakers - Stephen King
* Dedication - Stephen King
* Metastasis - Dan Simmons
* Vanni Fucci is Alive and Well and Living in Hell - Dan Simmons
* Iverson's Pits - Dan Simmons
* The Skin Trade - George R.R. Martin

[Some sources give Paul J. Mikol, the Dark Harvest...
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