Classic Monsters

Brooke's best friend, Zeke, has been given the lead role in the school play, "The Phantom." Zeke's totally into it. He loves dressing up in the grotesque phantom costume and scaring the other members of the cast. Brooke thinks Zeke's getting a little too into it.

Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein. You've lived with the stories your whole life. You've read the tales. You've watched the films. But what if the stories were different? What if the things you read about these monsters were warped and twisted? Here lie stories you may not have heard. Stories both weird and shocking. Bizarre and grotesque. Alternate versions of your favorite classic monsters you've never read and never will again. Featuring 13 stories by Jonathan Moon, The Sisters of Slaughter, Tom Lucas and more!

The oldest long poem in Old English, written about AD 1,000, Beowulf tells the story of a great warrior of southern Scandinavia, in both youth and maturity. The monster Grendel terrorizes the Scyldings of Hrothgar's Danish Kingdom until Beowulf defeats him. As a result, he has to face her enraged mother. Beowulf dies after a battle against a fierce dragon.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and deadly monsters. I was leveled up - twice now - transformed from a slightly overweight gamer with no real career prospects into a man-beast capable of slinging a massive hammer around like it's made of feathers and cotton. At this point I've already faced one of the massive demon overlords known as the Morgoss - those who are responsible for the overthrow of the Three goddesses and the predicament we find ourselves in. But I survived, along with several of my allies.

Shortly after discovering an ancient grave, Amon's sister disappeared. Twenty years later she arrives at his doorstep, screaming at full pitch. The plea for help draws him into a world where danger shuffles behind every corner.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and monsters. I was leveled up - thrice now - turning me from a slightly overweight gamer into a chiseled fighter with spidey senses who gets more play with the goddesses than an Xbox. At this point I've already faced two of the massive demons known as the Morgoss, those who are responsible for the overthrow of the Three goddesses and the theft of their powerful hearts.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and monsters. I was leveled up - five times now - turning me from a slightly overweight gamer into a ripped god responsible for protecting three uber-hot goddesses and a retinue of alien women warriors. At this point in the yarn, we've recovered two of the three goddesses' hearts, but still have one to go. Oh yeah, and we're about to be attacked by the largest demon horde in the history of the universe. All in a day's work.

My name is Sam Ryder. I was abducted from Earth and brought to a planet called Tor, a world of dying goddesses and monsters. I was leveled up - four times now - turning me from a slightly overweight gamer into a man-beast demigod charged with the unfortunate tasks of kicking demon ass and getting busy with gorgeous goddesses and exotic alien women. At this point in the tale, we’re about to be attacked by a massive army of shadow monsters conjured from the depths of the underworld (yeah, that part sucks), but don’t worry, there’s hope. Because we’re awesome.

On a stormy summer evening two centuries ago, Mary Shelley wrote the classic tale about a scientist and his monstrous creation. Now, here is the fun just-for-kids version of Mary Shelley’s classic Frankenstein, abridged and retold while remaining true to Shelley’s original text.

In a small Western Queensland town, a reserved young woman receives a note from one of her vanished brothers - a note that makes question her memories of their disappearance and her father’s departure. A beguiling story that proves that Gothic delights and uncanny family horror can live - and even thrive - under a burning sun, Flyaway introduces listeners to Bettina Scott, whose search for the truth throws her into tales of eerie dogs, vanished schools, cursed monsters, and enchanted bottles.

It's never been easy to be a hero. When Beowulf arrives at Hrothgar's hall, he discovers that the hall is beset by Grendel, an evil creature that kills and pillages with impunity. Beowulf, in heroic fashion, bests Grendel in combat, then follows Grendel back to his lair to finish the job.

The cancer-causing disease came from space, and now the whole of humanity is on the brink of extinction. The only hope for Earth is a single starship catapulted across space with a crew of misfits seeking a cure.

The gothic tale of Frankenstein and his construction of a human being who runs amok has, with the help of numerous films, become one of the most vivid horror stories. But Mary Shelley's original novel, written in 1816, dealt more sympathetically with "the daemon," showing how an initially beneficent creature is hammered into a daemon by the way he is treated. Her ideas, and her dramatic but poignant story, is brought to life in this sound dramatization.

After last year's scary adventure, Gabe's a little nervous about being back in Egypt. Back near the ancient pyramids. Back where he saw all those creepy mummies. Then he learns about an Egyptian superstition. A secret chant that is supposed to bring mummies back to life. Gabe's uncle says it's just a hoax. But now it sounds like something's moving in the mummy's tomb. No way can a couple of dumb words wake the dead. Can they?

Tippy the triceratops was once a little girl's imaginary friend, a dinosaur detective who could help her make sense of the world. But when her father died, Tippy fell into the Stillreal, the underbelly of the Imagination, where discarded ideas go when they're too real to disappear. Now, he passes time doing detective work for other unwanted ideas - until Tippy runs into The Man in the Coat, a nightmare monster who can do the impossible: kill an idea permanently. Now Tippy must overcome his own trauma and solve the case, before there's nothing left but imaginary corpses.

Jackson Hunt wants nothing more than to be a professional monster tamer - skilled trainers who raise and battle magical creatures called Djinn. He longs for the day when he comes of age and can leave home to pursue his dreams of taming Djinn. Unfortunately for Jackson, dreams and reality don’t always coincide. To help his grandmother make ends meet, Jackson spends his days doing manual labor on a breeder’s ranch - just about as far removed from the bright lights and roaring crowds of the DBL (Djinn Battle League) as it gets.

After being hunted for centuries because of his garish form, one of the most famous monsters in history suddenly finds that he's a sex symbol. His new status arises from the world’s ever increasing embracement of grotesque body art implants. These esthetics have, in their end, left the world full of monsters.

Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus, is Mary Shelley's passionate and Gothic tale of terror, in which a man's desire to know the unknowable sweeps him into a living nightmare. Victor Frankenstein's experiments with life itself give birth to an extraordinary force with the potential for either good or evil.

Five years have passed. The worlds above and below have recovered and changed. The fairies from the Clockwork Kingdom return every year, asking for Dale's help in vain. This year Cornelius, the head of the fairies, brings dread news: Kostya has returned. The maker has taught herself what she could about magic, but no teacher has ever arrived. Finally a herald manages to break through the spells surrounding the town to warn Nora that something, perhaps a monster, has been keeping them at bay. And it is stalking her for her power and her life.

A brilliant anthology of weird and fantastic stories about islands and sea monsters. 'The Sea-Raiders' by H. G. Wells. 'Alone on a Wide Wide Sea' by J. S. Fletcher. 'Dagon' by H. P. Lovecraft. 'A Tropical Horror' by William Hope Hodgson. 'No Ships Pass' by Eleanor Smith. 'Aepyornis Island' by H. G. Wells. 'The Vengeance of La Maraye' by J. S. Fletcher. 'Absolute Evil' by Julian Hawthorne. 'The Shadows' by Henry S. Whitehead. 'The Lighthouse on Shivering Sand' by J. S. Fletcher. 'Over the Border' by Morgan Robertson. 'Treasure Trove' by Neil Munro.