Category: Contemporary

The Autopsy: Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea by S.T. Joshi

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The Autopsy: Best Weird Stories of Michael Shea by S.T. Joshi
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From as early as the 1970s, Michael Shea (1946–2014) distinguished himself as one of the most compelling writers of weird fiction of his generation. Now that his classic story “The Autopsy” has been adapted for television for Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities, the time is right for a full-scale assessment of Shea’s work as a writer of tales of terror and the supernatural.

“The Autopsy” is one of several tales that mingles gruesomeness and science fiction. Others include “Polyphemus,” where the members of a spaceship encounter the titanic eye of some unthinkably vast and hostile entity. “The Angel of Death” exhibits the battle of two alien entities as they successively inhabit hapless human beings in their quest for supremacy.

Shea’s sensitivity to the downtrodden is exhibited in such tales as “The Horror on the #33,” “Water of Life,” and “Tollbooth,” populated by homeless people, prostitutes, drug dealers, and other disdained members of society. Shea’s affinity for California is shown in “Fill it with Regular,” “Upscale,” and other tales that bring his native state to life. As a bonus, two unpublished stories are included: “Feeding Spiders,” evoking the work of a writer who adopted California as his home—Ray Bradbury; and “Ghost,” where a vengeful ghost stalks the tough streets of South Boston.

Michael Shea was the author of dozens of novels and tales of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. This volume shows why his vibrant work deserves to live in the hearts and minds of weird fiction devotees.

The Color Out Of Time by Michael Shea

The Color Out Of Time by Michael Shea
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Set in a beautiful New England vacation spot, a lake surrounded by wooded farmlands, the narrator and his professorial colleague discover eerie and sinister features about this area. The lake shimmers with a disturbing, unnatural color; tourists disappear; an evil presence sickens or twists the thoughts of the park rangers and vacationers alike. Seeking to discover the nature of this horror and prevent further deaths, the narrator and his friend suspect that the lake hosts an alien monstrosity. Together with a long-time resident and sister of one of the area’s past victims, they muster all their strengths and skills to combat a terrifying opponent. Shea’s literary skills and insight into character and group behavior are as skillful as his ability to create fantastic and nightmarish scenarios.

An homage to H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Colour Out of Space”, Shea’s haunting, fast-paced novel continues that narrative. A new Introduction by the author is included.

“Michael Shea may not be the only writer hybridizing science fiction and horror, but he is certainly among the best.”
– Publishers Weekly

“Michael Shea puts his people in the damnedest nightmares.”
– Stuart Gordon, writer/director of Re-Animator

“Michael Shea has long been one of the most vital writers of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. The imaginative scope of his work is exceeded only by the gripping and evocative vibrancy of his prose.”
– S. T. Joshi, award-winning author of H.P. Lovecraft: A Life

“Michael Shea has graced the field of the fantastic for more than thirty years… His prose is as rich and inventive as his considerable imagination…”
– Ramsey Campbell, multiple World Fantasy Award-winning author.

They Thirst

They Thirst
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A Mass Murder. A Disappearance. A Cemetery Ransacked.

It looked like another ordinary day in Los Angeles. Then night came…Evil as old as the centuries has descended upon the City of Angels – it comes as a kiss from the terrifying but seductive immortals. Slowly at first, then by the legions, the ravenous undead choke Los Angeles with bloodthirsty determination – and the hordes of monstrous victims steadily mount each night.

High above glitter city a deadly contest begins. In the decaying castle of a long-dead screen idol, the few remaining human survivors prepare to face the Prince of Evil and his satanic disciples. Whilst the very forces of nature are called into play, isolating the city from the rest of the world and leaving it at the mercy of the blood-hungry vultures of the night…They Thirst

Psychos: Serial Killers, Depraved Madmen, and the Criminally Insane

Psychos: Serial Killers, Depraved Madmen, and the Criminally Insane
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This collection of thirty-eight terrifying tales of serial killers at large, written by the great masters of the genre, plumbs the horrifying depths of a deranged mind and the forces of evil that compel a human being to murder, gruesomely and methodically, over and over again.

From Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs) to Patrick Bateman (American Psycho), stories of serial killers and psychos loom large and menacing in our collective psyche. Tales of their grisly conquests have kept us cowering under the covers, but still turning the pages.

Psychos is the first book to collect in a single volume the scariest and most well-crafted fictional works about these deranged killers. Some of the stories are classics, the best that the genre has to offer, by renowned writers such as Neil Gaiman, Amelia Beamer, Robert Bloch, and Thomas Harris. Other selections are from the latest and most promising crop of new authors.

The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep (Evan Tanner Book 1)

The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep (Evan Tanner Book 1)
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A “rousing, often comic” series debut featuring a globe-trotting spy with nothing to lose—even sleep—from the New York Times–bestselling author (Library Journal).

Evan Michael Tanner hasn’t slept in more than a decade—not since a small piece of battlefield shrapnel invaded his skull and obliterated his brain’s sleep center. Still, he’s managed to find numerous inventive ways to occupy his waking hours.

Tanner is a card-carrying member of hundreds of international organizations, from the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Order to the Flat Earth Society—not because he believes in their myriad lost causes, he’s simply a joiner by nature. Besides, it gives him something to do.

The Russians think Tanner is a CIA operative on a covert mission. The CIA is certain he’s a Soviet agent. Actually, he’s in Turkey pursuing a fortune in hidden Armenian gold. But Tanner’s up for anything, including a little spycraft, if it helps him reach his big payday. And if need be, he’ll even start a small revolution . . .

 

Pulse (A Jack Sigler Thriller Book 1)

Pulse
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Heart-pounding action combines with adrenaline-charged suspense in the first of international bestselling author Jeremy Robinson's smart, sharp series featuring the Chess Team.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WOULD YOU KILL TO LIVE FOREVER? Imagine a world where soldiers regenerate and continue fighting without pause, where suicide bombers live to strike again and again. This is the dream of Richard Ridley, founder of Manifold Genetics, and he has just discovered the key to eternal life: an ancient artifact buried beneath a Greek-inscribed stone in the Peruvian desert. When Manifold steals the artifact and abducts archeologist Dr. George Pierce, United States Special Forces Delta operator Jack Sigler, callsign King, and his “Chess Team” give chase.

Formed under special order from the president, they are the best of America’s Special Forces, tasked with antiterrorism missions against any threat—ancient, modern, and at times, inhuman. With cutting-edge weapons, tough-as-nails tactics, and keen intellects, they stand alone on the brink, facing the world’s most dangerous threats.

Ridley’s plan to create unstoppable soldiers has just made him threat number one. Tension soars along with the body count as the team faces high-tech security forces, hordes of “regens’, and a resurrected mythological predator complete with regenerative abilities, seven heads, and a savage appetite

A prequel to the serie can be found here

and 8 novellas between the fourth and fifth books here

as well as 3 novellas between the sixth and seventh here

 

God Touched (The Demon Accords Book 1)

God Touched
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Chris Gordon is a rookie with the NYPD – one with a secret. In his spare time Chris is an exorcist without equal, with a gift from God. But when he saves a beatiful girl from a demonic attack, he discovers there is more to fear than just demons.

Finding himself surrounded by vampires and were-weasels and facing a giant short-faced bear, Chris struggles to stay alive, all while protecting his deadly new girlfriend. And then there’s her overprotective vampire mother!

Days Gone Bad (Vesik serie)

Days Gone Bad
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A crashed wedding. A scorned vampire. Here comes the blood…

Necromancer Damian Vesik is no hero. At least, not according to the magical community that turns a blind eye to his battles against evil. So he chalks it up as one more thankless mission when he’s forced to stop his vampire sister from murdering her ex’s entire bridal party….

Infiltrating the ceremony to protect the innocent, Damian uncovers something even more sinister than a massacre. With the help of his berserker fairy friend, he may need to prevent an unholy union between ancient demons and the walking dead.

Damian has one chance to stop his sister and ruin the wedding before one hell of an afterparty dooms the world.

Days Gone Bad is the first book in the savagely funny Vesik urban fantasy series. If you like gritty action, undead enemies, and plenty of snark, then you’ll love Eric R. Asher’s heart-stopping tale.

Night Soldiers: (Night Soldiers: serie)

Night Soldiers
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"Night Soldiers" masterfully re-creates the European world of 1934-1945: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and the guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944.

Bulgaria, 1934. A young man is murdered by the local fascists. His brother, Khristo Stoianev, is recruited into the NKVD, the Soviet secret intelligence service, and sent to Spain to serve in its civil war. Warned that he is about to become a victim of Stalin’s purges, Khristo flees to Paris. Night Soldiers masterfully re-creates

the European world of 1934–45: the struggle between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia for Eastern Europe, the last desperate gaiety of the beau monde in 1937 Paris, and guerrilla operations with the French underground in 1944. Night Soldiers is a scrupulously researched panoramic novel, a work on a grand scale.

Dead Things: An Eric Carter Novel

Dead Things
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When his sister is brutally murdered, necromancer Eric Carter returns to Los Angeles where he vows to find out who did it and make them pay as long as they don't kill him first. Original. 30,000 first printing.

Stephen Blackmoore’s dark urban fantasy series follows necromancer Eric Carter through a world of vengeful gods and goddesses, mysterious murders, and restless ghosts.

Necromancer is such an ugly word, but it’s a title Eric Carter is stuck with.

He sees ghosts, talks to the dead. He’s turned it into a lucrative career putting troublesome spirits to rest, sometimes taking on even more dangerous things. For a fee, of course.

When he left LA fifteen years ago, he thought he’d never go back. Too many bad memories. Too many people trying to kill him.

But now his sister’s been brutally murdered and Carter wants to find out why.

Was it the gangster looking to settle a score? The ghost of a mage he killed the night he left town? Maybe it’s the patron saint of violent death herself, Santa Muerte, who’s taken an unusually keen interest in him.

Carter’s going to find out who did it, and he’s going to make them pay.

As long as they don’t kill him first.