Dark Horror

Created as an homage to the 1980 classic horror anthology, Dark Forces, edited by Kirby McCauley, this collection contains 12 original novelettes showcasing today’s top horror talent. Dark Stars features all-new stories from award-winning authors and up-and-coming voices like Stephen Graham Jones, Priya Sharma, Usman T. Malik, Caroline Kepnes, and Alma Katsu, with seasoned author John F.D. Taff at the helm. An afterword from original Dark Forces contributor Ramsey Campbell is a poignant finale to this bone-chilling collection.

Ishmael Jones and his partner Penny have been despatched to assist a group of scientists who are investigating a mysterious black hole which has appeared on a Somerset hillside. Could it really be a doorway to another dimension, an opening into another world? When one of the scientists disappears into the hole - with fatal consequences - Ishmael must prove whether it was an accident - or murder. But with no clues, no witnesses, and no apparent motive, he has little to go on. Is there an alien predator at large, or is an all-too-human killer responsible?

Each precious thing I show you in this book is a holy relic from the night we both perished—the night when I combed you from my hair and watered the moon with your blood.

Bob Howard's career in the Laundry, the secret British government agency dedicated to protecting the world from unspeakable horrors from beyond spacetime, has entailed high combat, brilliant hacking, ancient magic, and combat with indescribably repellent creatures of pure evil. It has also involved a wearying amount of paperwork and office politics, and his expense reports are still a mess. Now, following the invasion of Yorkshire by the Host of Air and Darkness, the Laundry's existence has become public.

A young girl’s life is about to change. By her father’s arrangement, Gabriella is to marry a local merchant twice her age in the spring of 1693. Though she fears leaving her family, the fifteen-year-old understands she must do her duty. As she prepares to become a wife and mother, another change soon finds her. When Gabriella is discovered by a nobleman and hears his voice telepathically, a door to another life opens—one that promises forever. In the secret world of immortal beings, Gabriella finds she only has so long to discover her powers before she must use them to save her life.

Everything Cora thought she knew about Harrow Faire was a lie. All of it. Now, as the lines in the sand are drawn, as a war for the Heart of the Faire builds, she must discover how much she is willing to sacrifice to save the people she has come to think of as family...and how much of herself she’s willing to give up for the man she has come to love.

After Cora Glass’s life was stolen by Harrow Faire, things just keep going from bad to worse. Unable to run, unable to escape, there seems to be no way to avoid what she’s become - the Contortionist. But a girl can only take so much. Haunted by an abandoned and seemingly sentient circus? Fine. The life of her best friend threatened unless she sacrificed herself? Fine. Tormented and stalked by a grinning madman who wanted to kill her, and now wants to do worse? That’s where Cora has to draw the line.

There is a general belief that books give a wider room for imaginations - even wider than the room that watching a movie affords you, and truthfully so. These tales, when listened to in the dark, will leave you with much to imagine - an arm covered in goose bumps and the back of your neck with all the hackles on their ends. The curtains you see might not be curtains. The mirrors, too, might become home to many faces and the old man by the road might not be what you think he is. Welcome to the home of scary and macabre tales.

Danger lurks in the Ruins. Three survivors travel the ruins of a collapsed society, sifting through the rusted relics of the ancients' civilization as they search for a better future, hoping to escape the horrors of the past. But among those treasures lurks danger. And what they discover might be worse than what they left behind.

The Dark Legion have been beaten back, and for the first time, the brothers are allied against the savagery that the UnderVerse has thrown at them, but the storm clouds of war are gathering, and not everyone will see the sun rise again. Jax has one chance to keep his people safe from the storm and the war that's building on the horizon, but it'll take balls of steel, brains of mince—and he's really going to need to be lucky as hell to pull this one off.

The island of Sainte Isabel seems like a tropical paradise. But Sara Hansen sees a different side to her beautiful home. A sinister legacy of bloodshed and death haunts the crystal blue shores. And her husband is still missing...swept away by the spectral vessel known as the Devil Ship. Struggling to keep her dive resort in business, Sara has no time to mourn her loss. But as she tries to put the past behind her, she finds herself plagued by terrible nightmares. Visions of drowned sailors and rotting corpses haunt her waking hours. And a sinister voice calls to her from the sea....

Alone in a strange world and torn by grief, a vampire accepts the hospitality of the local lord. But can the vampire trust him once he discovers the land’s dark connection to his own quest for revenge?

The bold investigators of Arkham Horror are humanity's best hope against monstrous terrors from beyond the void in this second collection of extraordinary eldritch novellas.

Robert Nash is unlucky in love. He is so unlucky in love, in fact, that he has never been with another living person. And that's not about to change any time soon when his latest date is far from living.

A chilling anthology in tribute to the genius of Shirley Jackson. Shirley Jackson is a seminal writer of horror and mystery fiction, whose legacy resonates globally today. Chilling, human, poignant, and strange, her stories have inspired a generation of writers and listeners. This anthology, edited by legendary horror editor Ellen Datlow, brings together today’s leading horror writers to offer their own personal tribute to the work of Shirley Jackson.

Orphaned as a young child, Mirin O'Malley has been brought up by her grandparents on their isolated, rambling estate Hob's Hallow. Long ago her family prospered due to a deal struck with the mer, the terrifying creatures who live in the depths of the sea: safety for their merchant ships in return for a child of each generation. But for many years the family have been unable to keep their side of the bargain and their fortunes have suffered as a result. When Mirin's grandfather dies, her grandmother puts in train a plan to restore their glory - but at the price of Mirin's freedom.

The arrival of vast, alien, inhuman intelligences reshaped the landscape for human affairs across the world, and the United Kingdom is no exception. Things have changed in Britain since the dread elder god Nyarlathotep ascended to the rank of prime minister. In America, a thousand-mile-wide storm system has blanketed the Midwest, and the president is nowhere to be found. The government has been infiltrated by the shadowy Black Chamber, and the Pentagon and NASA have been refocused on the problem of summoning Cthulhu.

Here there be gods and monsters—forged from flesh and stone and vengeance—emerging from the icy abyss of deep space, ascending from dark oceans, and prowling strange cities to enter worlds of chaos and wonder, where scientific rigor and human endeavor is tested to the limits. These are cosmic realms and watery domains where old offerings no longer appease the ancient Gods or the new and hungry idols. Deities and beasts. Life and death. Love and hate. Science and magic. And smiling monsters in human skin.

Walking through his own house at night, a 15-year-old thinks he sees another person stepping through a doorway. Instead of the people who could be there, his mother or his brother, the figure reminds him of his long-gone father, who died mysteriously before his family left the reservation. When he follows it he discovers his house is bigger and deeper than he knew.

What William Gibson did for science fiction, China Miéville has done for fantasy, shattering old paradigms with fiercely imaginative works of startling, often shocking, intensity. Now from this brilliant writer comes a groundbreaking collection of stories, many of them previously unavailable in the United States, and including four never-before-published tales - one set in Miéville’s signature fantasy world of New Crobuzon.