trope: Weird/cosmichorror/eldritch fictions

The Musketeers vs. Cthulhu in the Court of King Louis

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The Musketeers vs. Cthulhu in the Court of King Louis
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En Garde!

17th-century France: A place of heroes, villains… and abominations.

Strange things are lurking in the shadows and catacombs of Paris. The forests around the City Of Light teem with strange creatures and furtive cultists. A once pious nation stands on the brink of disaster as entities older than time begin to stir. The stars are right and plots have been set in motion, it is down to a heroic few to save the world from madness and destruction.

Join the heroic escapades of the King’s Musketeers and their allies as they attempt to foil not just the plots of the dastardly Cardinal Richelieu and Milady de Winter but the insidious machinations of the Great Old Ones.

It’s All For One and One For All as the d’Artagnan Romances of Alexandre Dumas collide with the expanded Cthulhu mythos of H.P. Lovecraft and his disciples in this anthology of cosmic horror adventure!

Featuring 15 sanity-blasting tales

The God Engines

The God Engines
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Captain Ean Tephe is a man of faith, whose allegiance to his lord and to his ship is uncontested. The Bishopry Militant knows this — and so, when it needs a ship and crew to undertake a secret, sacred mission to a hidden land, Tephe is the captain to whom the task is given.

Tephe knows from that the start that his mission will be a test of his skill as a leader of men and as a devout follower of his god. It’s what he doesn’t know that matters: to what ends his faith and his ship will ultimately be put — and that the tests he will face will come not only from his god and the Bishopry Militant, but from another, more malevolent source entirely…

Author John Scalzi has ascended to the top ranks of modern science fiction with the best-selling, Hugo-nominated novels Old Man’s War and Zoe’s Tale. Now he tries his hand at fantasy, with a dark and different novella that takes your expectations of what fantasy is and does, and sends them tumbling.

Cthulhu Armageddon

Cthulhu Armageddon
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“Under an alien sky where gods of eldritch matter rule, the only truth is revenge.”

CTHULHU ARMAGEDDON is the story of a world 100 years past the rise of the Old Ones which has been reduced to a giant monster-filled desert and pockets of human survivors (along with Deep Ones, ghouls, and other “talking” monsters).

John Henry Booth is a ranger of one of the largest remaining city-states when he’s exiled for his group’s massacre and suspicion he’s “tainted.” Escaping with a doctor who killed her husband, John travels across the Earth’s blasted alien ruins to seek the life of the man who killed his friends.

It’s the one thing he has left.

A Feast of Ambrosia: The Adventures of Bingor and Donalbain

A Feast of Ambrosia: The Adventures of Bingor and Donalbain
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Eight short stories featuring the two same character by Glenn Rahman

Bingor, a sly scoundrel hailing from Sicilia, and Donalbain, a Scottish bard, are not your typical sword-and-sorcery heroes. Thieving is their main trade, but they have no scruples against burglary, bounty-hunting, treasure-seeking, swindling, and selling information.

Despite their rascally nature, they prefer to make criminals the primary targets of their larceny, and avoid violence whenever possible—which isn’t often! In these adventures, our carefree rogues encounter deadly threats of both earthly origin and supernatural—including vampires, lycanthropes, and other creatures of the night!

Heir of Darkness

Heir of Darkness
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RACE FOR THE RING OF THE GODS

Romans have crossed the border into Germania and stolen Andvaranaut, the Ring of the Gods. Depending upon who possesses it and how it is used, it could let Rome conquer the world—or destroy the world altogether.

Osric, the son of a benign Germanic sorcerer, has entered Roman territory on a quest to reclaim the Ring and its destructive magic power.

But, unknown to Osric, the sorceress Frigerd has also come to Rome to steal the Ring for the evil Cult of Heid, who wants to use it to bring about Götterdämmerung and end the world—and Frigerd is willing to kill anyone who stands in her way.

Even worse, the Ring is held by none other than the Roman Emperor Tiberius, who wants to learn its secrets and exploit its power. To regain the Ring, Osric must penetrate the most heavily-guarded Imperial Palace in the world—and do it before Frigerd does.

In a search and chase that leads from the prisons and palaces of Imperial Rome to the desolate and dangerous Isle of Capri, the battle for Andvaranaut unfolds and then explodes. Who will live to see the day after… and will that day be worth living for?

If you enjoy historical fantasy, sword and sorcery, or adventure stories, then read Heir of Darkness today

The Drums of Chaos (Simon of Gitta Chronicles)

The Drums of Chaos (Simon of Gitta Chronicles)
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You might want to start with the collection of short stories featuring Simon of Gitta written earlier by the same author

CAN A HANDFUL OF HEROES STOP AN APOCALYPSE CENTURIES IN THE MAKING?

Escaped gladiator-slave Simon of Gitta returns to Judea — during the ministry of Jesus of Nazareth — on a mission to avenge the deaths of his parents, seeking revenge in blood against the Roman officials who committed the murders and sold Simon into slavery.

But as Simon travels the Holy Lands with his mentor Dositheus and their apprentices Menander and lione, they gradually become entangled in a complex occult plot designed to call down a monstrous alien entity to herald a new aeon on Earth. The mysterious time traveler John Taggart (from Tierney’s The Winds of Zarr) also becomes involved with Simon as their separate quests converge toward a common goal of saving all life on Earth from extinction.

But can a handful of travelers really thwart a covert scheme backed by the power of the Roman Empire? As the apocalyptic supernatural events slowly unfold, Simon and his allies are in a race against time to prevent the devastation of the world.

Using mystery cults and early Christian Gnosticism as his vehicle, with meticulously researched Roman history and Biblical scholarship, this is author Richard Tierney’s magnum opus: an epic Lovecraftian alternate history dark fantasy novel that features Tierney’s most famous characters, Simon of Gitta and John Taggart. This novel will appeal to fans of historical fantasy and sword & sorcery fiction in the vein of Robert E. Howard, and the elements of cosmic horror and the Cthulhu Mythos will satisfy many fans of H.P. Lovecraft.

Sorcery Against Caesar: The Complete Simon of Gitta Short Stories

Sorcery Against Caesar: The Complete Simon of Gitta Short Stories
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These stories were one of the inspirations for the Cthulhu Invictus campaign for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game by Chaosium. Enjoy sixteen stories combining superbly researched historical fiction with sword & sorcery and Lovecraftian horror.

This is a long-running series of stories (begun in the mid-1980s) by Tierney features Simon of Gitta, an escaped slave turned magician, roves the Roman Empire battling dark magic and demons, all the while pursued by Caesar’s soldiers.

Join Simon as he flees across the ancient world evading cultists and Legionaries, outwitting sorcerers and Centurions, and fighting gladiators and gods, even the deities of the Cthulhu Mythos. Yet all these foes cannot prepare him for his greatest challenge: the pursuit of his lost soul-mate Helen, a love so deep even death can’t stand in its way for long.

There is also a novel : The Drums of Chaos 

 

Darker Than Weird: Fourteen Tales of Horror

Darker Than Weird: Fourteen Tales of Horror
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From celebrated fantasist John R. Fultz comes a collection of dark and varied tales of horror. As did his 2021 fantasy collection, Worlds Beyond Worlds, Darker Than Weird showcases Fultz’s talent for creating compelling characters and stories in fantastic and inventively horrifying worlds. Dark science fiction, Lovecraft-inspired terrors, strange apocalypses and other dooms abound in these pages—a true delight for the horror devotee.

Behind the torn facade of the living world lurks a realm of vivid darkness. Strange currents ebb and flow in the stellar void, spawning monsters, ghosts, and abominations beyond human understanding. Darker Than Weird collects ten years of weird fiction that defies and sometimes utterly destroys the boundaries of genre. From dystopic nightmares to gruesome science fiction, modern terrors to ancient gods, horror is the common thread in this dark tapestry of tales. Fourteen unsettling explorations of the supernatural, the ghastly, and the existentially grotesque. Read them at your own risk.

With a foreword by Don Webb and illustrations by Dan Sauer

“John R. Fultz is a powerful and creative writer very much in the Weird Tales tradition. He is well worth your attention.” —DARRELL SCHWEITZER, former editor of Weird Tales

“Fultz has rapidly matured into a major fantasist.” —LAIRD BARRON, Author of Occultation and Black Mountain

“…a master of his craft.” —DON WEBB, Author of Building Strange Temples

“Fultz delivers the goods.” —HOWARD ANDREW JONES, Author of The Ring-Sworn Trilogy

“…an author with an exceptional talent for characterization and world building.” —The Library Journal

BleakWarrior

BleakWarrior
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What is the purpose of your existence?

For eons, the ancient and powerful Meta-Warriors have betrayed, despoiled, and slain each other in a relentless pursuit of total mutual destruction.

When BleakWarrior suddenly grows tired of the senseless killings, he begins a new mission to discover the truth of his condition.

Of who and what he is. Why he exists….

Descend into a world of dark metaphysics, ultra-violence, senseless mayhem, and transgressive sex with a simultaneously brutal and brilliant fantasy novel unlike any other.

“Transgressive and hard-edged” – Jeff VanderMeer, Nebula award winning author of the Southern Reach trilogy

“Flabbergasting Black Metal New Weird” – Edward Morris, author of the Blackguard series

The Claw of Craving: Book One of Lost Carcosa

The Claw of Craving: Book One of Lost Carcosa
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“Lovecraftian and Barker-esque… stunning truly.” – Steve Stred, Splatterpunk Award Nominated Author
of Mastodon and The Stranger

What is Carcosa?

For Alan Chambers, a jobless loner, it’s the answer to his problems. Or so he thinks…

Rejected by family and friends, and soon-to-be homeless, Alan makes his last desperate bid to discover the truth of this miserable reality by journeying to an occult brothel where it’s said the worthy might obtain passage to this fabled land of Carcosa.

Proving one’s worth is more dangerous than Alan could have imagined.

Prepare for an erotic and horrifying journey into the universe of the Yellow King…

The Claw of Craving is the first in the Books of Lost Carcosa series, an epic fantasy-horror that reimagines the astonishing mythos of Robert W. Chambers. Combining Clive Barker’s eroticism and fantasy with Stephen King’s pulse-pounding narrative, The Claw of Craving will please fans of Imajica, Weaveworld, The Dark Tower, H. P. Lovecraft, Eric LaRocca, and Alistair Rennie.

Praise for Joseph Sale’s other series

“What we have here is a totally original concept, a writer who is doing something new, a writer who has
been forged in the flames like the One Ring.” -Ross Jeffery, Bram Stoker Award Nominated author of
Juniper and Only The Stains Remain

“Dark, cerebral, and genre-bending.” -Brian Fatah Steele, author of Hungry Rain and Violation Hive