After canceling the circus's itinerary because a hostile stranger is hunting the ringmaster, the troupes' hopes fall on Webern Bell, hunchback devoted to perfecting the surreal clown performances from his dreams.
Twenty-two genre-bending short stories of the strange and surreal from the Bram Stoker, World Fantasy, and International Horror Guild Award–winning author. Steve Rasnic Tem is the celebrated author of award-winning horror novels and short story collections such as Blood Kin and City Fishing. But the stories featured in Celestial Inventories showcase his ability to defy genre with imaginative works of the fantastic. These stories cross conventional boundaries between science fiction, fantasy, horror, literary fiction, bizarro, magic realism, and the new weird. Many of these stories have been lauded, appearing in Best of the Year compilations and receiving major Fantasy or Science Fiction nominations and awards. Others are collected from rare chapbooks, anthologies, and obscure magazines. And these previously published works are joined by a new story written specifically for this volume.
Stories of suspense, sorrow, and horror by the Bram Stoker Award–winning, New York Times–bestselling author of Ararat. A circus clown willing to give anything to be funny. A spectral gunslinger who must teach a young boy to defend the ones he loves. A lonely widower making a farewell tour of the places that meant the world to his late wife. A faded Hollywood actress out to deprive her ex-husband of his prize possession. These are just some of the characters to be found in Tell My Sorrows to the Stones, a remarkable collection of short fiction by one of today’s literary masters of darkness. “Some of my editor friends tell me that horror fiction is finally starting to make a comeback. If that’s true, writers like Christopher Golden are a big part of the reason.” —George R. R. Martin
“Pushes urban fantasy noir to its logical extreme by casting the resurrected body of Christ—now called Cross—as an angel-slaying, wise-cracking antihero.” —Publishers Weekly For thousands of years, Cross has wandered the earth, a mortal soul trapped in the undying body left behind by Christ. He’s been a thief, a con man, a soldier, and a drunkard. He’s fought as a slave in the Colosseum and as a knight at King Arthur’s side. But now he must play the part of reluctant hero, as an angel comes to him for help finding the Mona Lisa—the real Mona Lisa that inspired the painting. Cross’s quest takes him into a secret world within our own, populated by characters just as strange and wondrous as he is. Haunted by memories of Penelope—the only woman he truly loved—he wants to avenge her death at the hands of his ancient enemy, Judas, a forgotten god from an ancient time. The angel promises to deliver Judas to Cross, but nothing is ever what it seems when Judas is involved, and when a group of renegade angels looking for a new holy war show up, things truly go to hell. “A deliriously unhinged roller coaster of a novel, blending fantasy, history, horror and humour with the aplomb of an overfull blender, but all of it smarter than it, truly, has any right—or need—to be.” —National Post “Sweeps you up with its gallows humour, whether you’re revelling in the pleasures of two-fisted, angel-punching action or the cleverly rendered language.” —Quill & Quire “Takes urban fantasy to a different level with this tale of conspiracy and confession.” —Library Journal
Navigating their burned-out, futuristic city home under constant threat from a pair of dragons circling the skies, three young people are forced to flee and confront challenges ranging from fire and conspiracies to taboo drugs and dragon-worshippers.
With millions of copies sold worldwide, Di Morrissey is Australia's favourite storyteller with new novel The Night Tide out now. Natalie is a young Gold Coast mother with a loving husband, two small children and a happy lifestyle. While helping her mother move house, she finds a little box containing a Burmese artefact. When Natalie learns its unique history through a letter left by her great-great uncle, it ignites an interest in its country of origin and her uncle's unfulfilled plans for this curio. Her investigations collide with her own dramatically changing circumstances and create a catalyst for a moral dilemma that challenges the core of her marriage as she finds herself immersed in two very different golden lands.
To defeat her enemies . . . she must make them immortal. Only men are allowed into the wells of vision. But Cara’s mother defies this edict and is killed, but not before returning with a vision of terrible and wonderful things that are to come . . . and all because of five-year-old Cara. Years later, evil destroys the rest of Cara’s family. In a rage, Cara uses magic to transform herself into a male warrior. But she finds that to defeat her enemies, she must break the cycle of violence, not continue it. As Cara’s mother’s vision of destiny is fulfilled, the wonderful follows the terrible, and a quest for revenge becomes a quest for eternal life.
Best New Horror combines dozens of the best and grisliest short stories of today. For twenty-five years this series has been published in the United Kingdom as The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror, and now comes to the US to delight and terrify thriller enthusiasts. This has been the world’s leading annual anthology dedicated solely to showcasing the best in contemporary horror fiction. This newest volume offers outstanding new writing by masters of the genre, such as Joan Aiken, Peter Atkins, Ramsey Campbell, Christopher Fowler, Joe R. Lansdale, John Ajvide Lindqvist, Robert Silverberg, Michael Marshall Smith, Evangeline Walton, and many others! Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.