Type: Short story collection

Haunted Castles: The Complete Gothic Stories

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Haunted Castles
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Published: 2016-09-27
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Prefaced by Guillermo del Toro, “perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written” (Stephen King)

Horror legend Ray Russell’s haunting and macabre stories, including “perhaps the finest example of the modern Gothic ever written” (Stephen King), with a foreword by acclaimed filmmaker Guillermo del Toro Haunted Castles is the definitive, complete collection of Ray Russell’s masterful Gothic horror stories, including the famously terrifying novella trio of “Sardonicus,” “Sanguinarius,” and “Sagittarius.” The characters that sprawl through Haunted Castles are frightful to the core: the heartless monster holding two lovers in limbo; the beautiful dame journeying down a damned road toward depravity (with the help of an evil gypsy);

the man who must wear his fatal crimes on his face in the form of an awful smile. Engrossing, grotesque, and completely entrancing, Russell’s Gothic tales are the best kind of dreadful. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard

Kull: Exile of Atlantis by Robert E. Howard
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Published: 2006-10-31
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In a meteoric career that spanned a mere twelve years, Robert E. Howard single-handedly invented the genre that came to be called sword and sorcery. From his fertile imagination sprang some of fiction’s most enduring heroes.

Yet while Conan is indisputably Howard’s greatest creation, it was in his earlier sequence of tales featuring Kull, a fearless warrior with the brooding intellect of a philosopher, that Howard began to develop the distinctive themes, and the richly evocative blend of history and mythology, that would distinguish his later tales of the Hyborian Age. Much more than simply the prototype for Conan, Kull is a fascinating character in his own right: an exile from fabled Atlantis who wins the crown of Valusia, only to find it as much a burden as a prize.

This groundbreaking collection, lavishly illustrated by award-winning artist Justin Sweet, gathers together all Howard’s stories featuring Kull, from Kull’ s first published appearance, in “The Shadow Kingdom,” to “Kings of the Night,” Howard’ s last tale featuring the cerebral swordsman.

The stories are presented just as Howard wrote them, with all subsequent editorial emendations removed. Also included are previously unpublished stories, drafts, and fragments, plus extensive notes on the texts, an introduction by Howard authority Steve Tompkins, and an essay by noted editor Patrice Louinet.

Praise for Kull “Robert E. Howard had a gritty, vibrant style–broadsword writing that cut its way to the heart, with heroes who are truly larger than life.”—David Gemmell

“Howard’s writing seems so highly charged with energy that it nearly gives off sparks.”—Stephen King

“Howard was a true storyteller–one of the first, and certainly among the best, you’ll find in heroic fantasy. If you’ve never read him before, you’ re in for a real treat.”—Charles de Lint “

For stark, living fear . . . what other writer is even in the running with Robert E. Howard?”—H. P. Lovecraft

Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe by Thomas Ligotti

Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
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Published: 2015-10-06
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Songs of a dead dreamer was first published in the Unites States of America by Silver Scarab Press in 1986. Grimscribe was first published in Great Britain by Robinson Publishing and in the United States by Carroll & Graf in 1991.

Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters

Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters
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Published: 2009
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From award-nominated writer John Langan comes a collection of uneasy meetings. A frustrated professor and his graduate student assistant accompany a group of soldiers to a remote Scottish island to learn what is buried there.

A man plays an audiotape left for him by his late father and is initiated into a family story of monstrous deeds. A student learns frightening lessons in a surreal tutoring center. A young couple struggles to make their stand against a group of inhuman pursuers in a ravaged landscape. And, in a new story, an artist discovers a mysterious statue whose completion becomes his obsession.

Occultation and Other Stories by Laird Barron

Occultation and Other Stories
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Published: 2014-07-29
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Winner of the 2010 Shirley Jackson Award, nine stories of cosmic horror from the heir apparent to Lovecraft’s throne. Laird Barron has emerged as one of the strongest voices in modern horror and dark fantasy fiction, building on the eldritch tradition pioneered by writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti. His stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.

His debut collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, was the inaugural winner of the Shirley Jackson Award. He returns with his second collection, Occultation. Pitting ordinary men and women against a carnivorous, chaotic cosmos, Occulation’s nine tales of terror (two published here for the first time) were nominated for just as many Shirley Jackson awards, winning for the novella “Mysterium Tremendum” and the collection as a whole. Featuring an introduction by Michael Shea, Occultation brings more of the spine-chillingly sublime cosmic horror Laird Barron’s fans have come to expect.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Jirel of Joiry (Golden Age Masterworks)

Jirel of Joiry
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Jirel of Joiry is a character created by C.L. Moore one of the only women writing pulp swod and sorcery stories in the golden age of weird tales magazine where her adventures was printed alongside those of Robert E. Howard Conan the barbarian, Clark Ashton Smith Averoigne stories, and H. P. Lovecraft Cthulhu Mythos weird fictions

Jirel is the red-headed proud and beautiful ruler of her own domain  somewhere in medieval France.

This book contain all six of her stories

With her red hair flowing, her yellow eyes glinting like embers, and her face streaked with blood, Jirel is strong, fearless, and driven by honor. The fierce, proud, and relentless commander of warriors, standing tall above her enemies and simmering with rage, Jirel bids farewell to the world of treacherous men and walks through a forbidden door into Hell itself in pursuit of freedom, justice, and revenge. These are the classic tales of blood and honor that catapulted C.L. Moore into the legendary ranks of such acclaimed writers as Robert E. Howard and Edgar Rice Burroughs in the golden age of sword and sorcery. First published in the magazine Weird Tales in the 1930s, Moore’s fantastic medieval adventures are heightened by a savage, romantic vision that helped define the genre, earning her recognition as a Grand Master for lifetime achievement by the World Fantasy Convention.

Young Thongor

Young Thongor
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Lin Carter's greatest creation, the barbarian swordsman Thongor of Lemuria, returns in his first new book in more than 40 years! "Young Thongor" collects Carter's short stories about Thongor's earliest adventures. Drawing on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian and Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, Lin Carter has created an enduring new character sure to please all who treasure sword & sorcery in the classic vein.

Collects Carter’s short stories about Thongor’s earliest adventures

for the original thongor serie go here

Black Tide Rising (Black Tide Rising Anthologies Book 1)

Black Tide Rising
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A collection of all-original stories set in the Black Tide Rising series of novels created by multiple New York Times best-selling author John Ringo Stories by John Ringo, Eric Flint, John Scalzi & Dave Klecha, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z. Williamson and more.

RESIST THE ZOMBIE PLAGUE! Top authors bring new perspectives to John Ringo’s Black Tide Rising universe, in which humanity fights back against the hordes of infected. The news that humanity had been dreading for ages had come true. Zombies are real. Worst of all, we created them. The apocalypse was upon us, and every man, woman and child had to answer a simple question of themselves: “What do we do now?” For a group of neighbors in the Chicago suburbs of Northern Indiana, it was “work together or die”…and figure out how to live on top of oil storage tanks to keep the zombies at bay. For the Biological Emergency Response Teams in New York City, it was “how long can we fight off the infected before it’s too late” . . .as well as having to fight other groups all out to claim a dwindling stock of supplies and safety. And for a group of cheerleaders, it was about the end of their world. And about what happens when you get a group of physically fit young women with guns really, really angry.

Featuring original stories from some of the brightest stars in the science fiction universe: John Ringo; Eric Flint, John Scalzi & Dave Klecha, Sarah A. Hoyt, Jody Lynn Nye, Michael Z. Williamson, Kacey Ezell, and more. About Black Tide Rising: “. . . an entertaining batch of . . . action-packed tales. Certainly, fans of Ringo’s particular brand of action-adventure will be pleased.”—Booklist “This anthology broadens Ringo’s Black Tide world, serving up doses of humanity amid the ravenous afflicted. Comedy has a place in this harsh reality, and these stories stir adventure and emotion at a frantic clip throughout. Zombie fiction fans will be thrilled.”—Library Journal About the Black Tide Rising Series: “Not only has Ringo found a mostly unexplored corner of the zombie landscape, he’s using the zombie frame to tackle a broader theme: the collapse and rebirth of civilization. The zombie scenes are exciting, sure, but its the human story that keeps us involved. A fine series.”— Tide Rising

The Fall of Númenor: And Other Tales from the Second Age of Middle-earth

The Fall of Númenor
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Published: 2022-11-15
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J.R.R. Tolkien’s writings on the Second Age of Middle-earth, collected for the first time in one volume. J.R.R. Tolkien famously described the Second Age of Middle-earth as a “dark age, and not very much of its history is (or need be) told.” And for many years readers would need to be content with the tantalizing glimpses of it found within the pages of The Lord of the Rings and its appendices, including the forging of the Rings of Power, the building of the Barad-dûr and the rise of Sauron. It was not until Christopher Tolkien published The Silmarillion after his father’s death that a fuller story could be told.

Although much of the book’s content concerned the First Age of Middle-earth, there were at its close two key works that revealed the tumultuous events concerning the rise and fall of the island of Númenor. Raised out of the Great Sea and gifted to the Men of Middle-earth as a reward for aiding the angelic Valar and the Elves in the defeat and capture of the Dark Lord Morgoth, the kingdom became a seat of influence and wealth; but as the Númenóreans’ power increased, the seed of their downfall would inevitably be sown, culminating

in the Last Alliance of Elves and Men. Even greater insight into the Second Age would be revealed in subsequent publications, first in Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, then expanded upon in Christopher Tolkien’s magisterial twelve-volume The History of Middle-earth, in which he presented and discussed a wealth of further tales written by his father, many in draft form.

Now, adhering to the timeline of “The Tale of Years” in the appendices to The Lord of the Rings, editor Brian Sibley has assembled into one comprehensive volume a new chronicle of the Second Age of Middle-earth, told substantially in the words of J.R.R. Tolkien from the various published texts, with new illustrations in watercolor and pencil by the doyen of Tolkien art, Alan Lee.

Necromancy in Nilztiria

Necromancy in Nilztiria
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Published: 2020
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The world of Nilztiria is an ancient one. Beneath its brilliant crimson sun and demon-haunted moons wondrous treasures lay buried, waiting to be uncovered by intrepid adventurers. Yet peril abounds as well, in the form of nefarious sorcerers, grotesque beasts, and inexplicable phenomena.

The world of Nilztiria is an ancient one. Beneath its brilliant crimson sun and demon-haunted moons wondrous treasures lay buried, waiting to be uncovered by intrepid adventurers. Yet peril abounds as well, in the form of nefarious sorcerers, grotesque beasts, and inexplicable phenomena. Among the bold heroes and callous villains of Nilztiria are:

XEDROCH LOOR—A lusty rapscallion, his striving for glittering treasures and the embraces of lovely ladies invariably leads him into danger.

AVOK KUR STORN—A strong-willed, quick-witted barbarian who fears neither man nor demon. He laughs in the face of death!

KRYNMORA—This cruel yet beautiful sorceress thinks nothing of sacrificing human life to appease her demonic patron. She has an affinity for unnatural beasts, including her lover who was once a man!

VRAN THE CHAOS-WARPED—By his sickly green eyes he bears the mark of a sorcerous experiment gone awry, but he was also altered in more dreadful ways…

XAARXOOL THE NECROMANCER—Possessor of powerful artefacts and reams of forgotten lore, his expertise in wizardry is unmatched.

If you crave stories of adventure and wonder with a touch of gallows humor, look no further than these thirteen tales of Nilztiria!