Psychotic killers, devious ghosts, alien monsters, howling storms, undead creatures, and other dark forces haunt the highways and the truckers who drive them in these 18 chilling tales! Contains the Bram Stoker Award winning story "Happy Joe's Rest Stop" by John Palisano. A ghostly voice on a trucker’s CB radio knows more about his life than it should… Two drivers find their cargo gives them inhuman appetites… A boy in a truck stop encounters a supernatural force that threatens to destroy the world… The hypnotic singing lulling a driver to sleep might not be coming from the tires… A fender-bender between a big rig and a four wheeler is not as accidental as it seems… The sinister cargo lurking in a rock and roll band’s fleet of trucks is unleashed at their final show... Hit the road with this anthology of trucking horror fiction!
Take a trip through the imaginations of 18 visionary writers as they explore the future of trucking in this new science fiction anthology! There's something for every genre fiction fan in this follow-up to the hit "18 wheels of Horror - a Trailer Full of Trucking Terrors." From the back cover: An alien fuel additive shows just how fast a big rig can go... A disembodied driver wages war on self-driving trucks... A haul through time takes an unexpected turn... Reality shatters for a trucker using an experimental delivery device... Stargazing gives an overweight driver a new lease on life... A young girl risks her life to hitch a ride out of an apocalyptic wasteland... The highways of the universe will never be the same!
The first in a series of anthologies devoted to the Lovecraftian gods, Ordo ab Chao follows the highly successful The Gods of HP Lovecraft (published in 2015 by JournalStone Publishing). We begin our series with the primal origins and the god Azathoth, who represents primordial chaos in the Lovecraftian Mythos. H.P. Lovecraft described Azathoth as a demon king ruling from a dark throne in the middle of the fiery cosmic void, out of which all created things emanated. Surrounding this orbiting spiral of infinite chaos and creation sounded the repetitive notes of an incessant flute, a reference to the Greek god Pan and the symbol of chaos behind the orderliness of nature. Taking this as our departure, the stories in this volume approach Azathoth through the concept of “order out of chaos” (or Ordo ab Chao in Latin). Ordo ab Chao includes new work from some of the most talented and respected authors in horror and dark fantasy, featuring stories from T. Kingfisher, Ruthanna Emrys, Adam L. G. Nevill, Kaaron Warren, Brian Evenson, Donald Tyson, Richard Thomas, Richard Gavin, Matthew Cheney, Erica Ruppert, Jamieson Ridenhour, Maxwell I. Gold, Lena Ng, Nathan Carson, Samuel Marzioli, Lauri Taneli Lassila, Akis Linardos, and R. B. Payne.
In 2016 Bram Stoker Award winner John Palisano's first collection, All That Withers, the stories range from Lovecraftian musings to terrifying explorations of the inhuman condition, with Palisano creating vivid images of desperate people engaged in ordeals which could happen to many of us … how they respond is the difference between their survival and oblivion. The stories include several Bram Stoker Award-nominated tales, as well as the 2016 Stoker winner for Short Fiction, "Happy Joe's Rest Stop". The complete listing of included stories: Happy Joe’s Rest Stop Splinterette The Geminis Available Light Long Walk Home My Darkness Travels on Sunshine The Haven To the Stars That Fooled You Mother You Can Watch Outlaws of Hill County Welcome to the Jungle Wings for Wheels Secret Sea Eternal Valley The Curious Banks of the Wabash River The Tennatrick Vampiro X is for Xyx Sunset Beach I Know This World Forever Gaia Ungaia Perrollo’s Ladder
They're among us. They live down the street, in the apartment next door and oftentimes in our own homes. They are the real monsters. And they stare back at us from our own bathroom mirrors. Peel Back the Skin is a powerhouse anthology of horror from Bram Stoker Award-nominated editors Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson that strips away the human mask from the real monsters of our time -- mankind. Featuring a star-studded cast of award-winning authors from the horror, dark fantasy, speculative fiction, transgressive, bizzaro, extreme horror and thriller genres, Peel Back the Skin is the next game-changing release from Grey Matter Press. Including fifteen all-new works of fiction from Jonathan Maberry, Ray Garton, Tim Lebbon, Graham Masterton, Yvonne Navarro, Ed Kurtz, Durand Sheng Welsh, James Lowder, Joe McKinney, Lucy Taylor, Charles Austin Muir, Erik Williams, Nancy A. Collins, John McCallum Swain and William Meikle. Praise for Peel Back the Skin: "Peel Back the Skin investigates the horrific behavior of humanity, but does not revel in it. The entertainment is dark and pulpy, but never exploitive. Peel Back the Skin reveals why horror is necessary today." -- Karl Wolff, New York Journal of Books "Every single story in the book is in a class of its own. Thematically, Peel Back the Skin is a thing of brilliance, each story complementing or enhancing the stories around it. Top-notch, accessible and entertaining dark fiction." -- Shane Douglas Keene, This is Horror "This collection of short stories serves both to entertain and provoke thought. I can recommend this collection of spooky delights as a great way to spend a few fall nights." -- Michele Galgana, FANGORIA Proudly presented by Grey Matter Press, the multiple Bram Stoker Award-nominated independent publisher. Grey Matter Press: Where Dark Thoughts Thrive
"Not for the faint of heart or weak of stomach, the 19 stories in this new best-of annual anthology feature episodes of graphic gore and violence—including torture, dismemberment, self-mutilation, and home abortion—that are designed to push buttons as well as boundaries...strictly for hardcore horror fans."—Publishers Weekly Excerpt from the Introduction: Editors Randy Chandler and Cheryl Mullenax put the call out to horror writers and editors of extreme stories, the hardcore stuff that breaks boundaries and trashes taboos, the transgressive tales you can't "unread" (as Chuck Palahniuk says). We staked out our territory and nailed this to the wall to guide us: YEAR'S BEST HARDEST HORROR Not your mama's best-of horror annual. This stuff comes from the edge of the abyss, stories you read at your own risk because you feel the abyss looking right back into you through the tainted lens of each twisted tale. Some of the stories you'll find here are loaded with very graphic descriptions of violence, sex and depravities, while others may contain only one shocking moment of brutality. In others, the hardcore aspect may be less graphic and subtler than you might expect. Some of these quieter tales offer the reader some time to recover from the more disturbing ones preceding. Most of the stories collected here are from small and specialty press anthologies, with a few from periodicals, like the prestigious Splatterpunk Zine in the UK and Thuglit here in the US. Bizarro is also represented with a couple of tales from the unlikely anthology Blood For You: A Literary Tribute To GG Allin from Weirdpunk Books. (If you're not familiar with the late GG Allin, you can find snippets from some of his outrageous and obscene punk shows online, which will increase your appreciation of those two tales.) So for now, forget about that neighbor you suspect is a serial killer, don't worry about the drunk driver that could take you out on your next trip to the store, push those troubling news stories to the back of your mind and immerse yourself in the imaginary horrors at hand. But don't be surprised if you sense something dark staring back at you from between the lines. That is to be expected when you enter these forbidding realms. With any luck, you may find something useful to help you survive the approaching Apocalypse. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The Year That Was "Worth the Having" by Michael Paul Gonzalez "Awakening" by Jeff Strand "Readings Off The Charts" by Adam Cesare "Reborn" by The Behrg "What's Worst" by David James Keaton "Dead End" by Kristopher Triana "What You Wish For" by Lilith Morgan "King Shits" by Charles Austin Muir "Cleanup On Aisle 3" by Adam Howe "Bath Salt Fetus" by Jorge Palacios "Bored With Brutality" by MP Johnson "Exposed" by Monica J. O'Rourke "Eleanor" by Jason Parent "The Scavengers" by Tony Knighton "The Most Important Miracle" by Scott Emerson "Hungry For Control" by Clare de Lune "Clarissa" by Robert Essig & Jack Bantry "Where The Sun Don't Shine" by Pete Kahle "Blackbird Lullaby" by George Cotronis
An elderly man aggressively defends his private domain against all comers?including his daughter;a policeman investigates an impossible horror show of a crime; a father witnesses one of the worst things a parent can imagine; the abuse of one child fuels another’s yearning; an Iraqi war veteran seeks a fellow soldier in his hometown but finds more than she bargains for . . . The Best Horror of the Year showcases the previous year’s best offerings in short fiction horror. This edition includes award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Adam L. G. Nevill, Livia Llewellyn, Peter Straub, Gemma Files, Brian Hodge, and more. For more than three decades, award-winning editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow has had her finger on the pulse of the latest and most terrifying in horror writing. Night Shade Books is proud to present the ninth volume in this annual series, a new collection of stories to keep you up at night. Table of Contents: Summation 2016 - Ellen Datlow Nesters -- Siobhan Carroll The Oestridae -- Robert Levy The Process is a Process All its Own -- Peter Straub The Bad Hour -- Christopher Golden Red Rabbit -- Steve Rasnic Tem It's All the Same Road in the End -- Brian Hodge Fury -- DB Waters Grave Goods -- Gemma Files Between Dry Ribs -- Gregory Norman Bossert The Days of Our Lives -- Adam LG Nevill House of Wonders -- C.E. Ward The Numbers -- Christopher Burns Bright Crown of Joy -- Livia Llewellyn The Beautiful Thing We Will Become -- Kristi DeMeester Wish You Were Here -- Nadia Bulkin Ragman -- Rebecca Lloyd What’s Out There? -- Gary McMahon No Matter Which Way We Turned -- Brian Evenson The Castellmarch Man -- Ray Cluley The Ice Beneath Us -- Steve Duffy On These Blackened Shores of Time -- Brian Hodge Honorable Mentions
Histories of science fiction often dicuss Fritz Lang's Metropolis as a classic work within the genre--yet the term "science fiction" had not been invented at the time of the film's release. If the genre did not have a name, did it exist? Does retroactive assignment to a genre change our understanding of a film? Do films shift in meaning and status as the name of a genre changes meaning over time? These provocative questions are at the heart of this book, whose thirteen essays examine the varying constructions of genre within film, television, and other entertainment media. Collectively, the authors argue that generic labels are largely irrelevant or even detrimental to the works to which they are applied. Part One examines the meanings of genre and reveals how the media is involved in the production and dissemination of generic definitions. Part Two considers specific films (or groups of films) and their relationships within various categorizations. Part Three focuses on the closely tied concepts of history and memory as they relate to the perceptions of genre.
