Dark Horror

For more than 30 years, Ellen Datlow has been at the center of horror. Bringing you the most frightening and terrifying stories, Datlow always has her finger on the pulse of what horror fans crave. Now, with the 11th volume of the series, Daltow's back again to bring you the stories that will keep you up at night. With each passing year, science, technology, and the march of time shine light into the craggy corners of the universe, making the fears of an earlier generation seem quaint. This light creates its own shadows. The Best Horror of the Year chronicles these shifting shadows.

Something is terrorizing the villages of the county. People are dying - covered in blood, their faces frozen in fear. But with not a wound on their bodies. Battling creatures of the dark is the job of the local spook, but 17-year-old Thomas Ward never finished his apprenticeship. It will be no easy task to earn the trust of the villagers and to defeat a monster that no one has ever seen. Yet Jenny - a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter - knows an awful lot about this new evil. And she's willing to share what she's learned with Tom…if he takes her on as his apprentice.

When an early snow ravages the small town of Plainfield, the residents are stripped of heat, power, and mobility. They'll soon wish they had protection. Somewhere outside, something else is lurking. Waiting for the chance to strike...

When a floating city becomes the target of a rash of vampire attacks, only one man can restore the oasis. "The City," a tiny metropolis of a few hundred sheltered citizens floating serenely on a seemingly random course a few feet above the ground, has long been thought safe from the predation of marauding monsters. It seemed like a paradise.

Lord Michael Sutherland, Viscount Ellersleigh, is infamous among the ton for his powers of seduction and his prowess as a lover. Running from his own ennui and a lover who fancies herself his future wife, Michael retreats to the country and a crumbling, haunted castle won in a game of chance...a castle occupied by an innocent and oh-so-tempting young woman, Miss Abbigail Barrows. But country life proves to be anything but quiet. At a debauched house party, Michael finds himself confronted with an unfortunate quandary: Marry Abbigail, an innocent, or hang for murder.

The Sandman ha sido definida por la revista Los Angeles Times como “la mejor epopeya de la historia del cómic” y ha conseguido revolucionar el formato al adaptar su lúgubre universo literario de fantasía y horror para convertirse en un fenómeno cultural de talla mundial. Por fin ha llegado el momento: Audible y DC presentan The Sandman, la primera producción sonora del cómic superventas del New York Times, escrita por el afamado autor Neil Gaiman que además es coproductor ejecutivo de esta adaptación.

I’ve been dual enrolled in both the Celestial and Infernal Academies for a few weeks. Things are going as you might expect: lots of training, lots of learning, lots of late night sessions in my subspace with my girls. But this brief period of normalcy couldn’t last long.

Things are quiet in the morning, especially in an unassuming town like Aledale. When sixteen-year-old Jan (often referred to as “Jinx”) and her best friend Shelley attempt to catch low tide early in the morning at the local cove, Jan uncovers a little box with a mermaid carved into the lid, adorned with shining emerald eyes and a mysterious message and locket inside.

"Dancers in the Dark" is set in the Sookieverse and features Sean and Layla. Dancer Layla Rue Le May's childhood prepared her to handle just about anything, including her aloof partner, Sean McClendon, a 300-year-old, redheaded vampire. Even so, when she somehow acquires a stalker, Layla Rue is surprised to find that Sean is the only one she can trust.

When Andrew is forced to retire from active duty, he believes that all he has to look forward to is a boring desk job. His glory days in special ops are over. But as it turns out, his thrill ride has just begun. Andrew discovers not only that immortals exist and have been manipulating global affairs since antiquity, but that he and his sister are rare possessors of the immortal genes. Problem is, Andrew might be too old to attempt the activation process. But fate may force his hand.

That there is darkness at the heart of the Yuletide season should not surprise. Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol is filled with scenes that are unsettling. The hideous children - Want and Ignorance - beneath the robe of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. In the finest versions of this story, the best parts are the terrifying parts. Best-selling author and editor Christopher Golden shares his love for Christmas horror stories with this anthology of all-new short fiction from some of the most talented and original writers of horror today.

Vampires: murderous creatures in the shape of humans, they stalk the night feeding on the blood of innocents. Seemingly immortal, they can be destroyed only by the use of a stake through the heart, severing of their heads, or exposure to sunlight. By the year AD 12,090, vampires have ruled the Earth for almost 300 years, and it is only these weaknesses that have kept these foul monsters from totally overrunning the world. But what happens when those rules no longer apply?

Darkness, both literal and psychological, holds its own unique fascination. Despite our fears, or perhaps because of them, listeners have always been drawn to tales of death, terror, madness, and the supernatural, and no more so than today when a wildly imaginative new generation of dark dreamers is carrying on in the tradition of Poe and Lovecraft and King, crafting exquisitely disturbing literary nightmares that gaze without flinching into the abyss - and linger in the mind long after.

Andrew's acclimation to his post-transition body isn't easy. His senses are sharper, he's bigger, stronger, and hungrier. Nathalie fears that the changes in the man she loves are more than physical. Measuring up to this new version of him is going to be a challenge. Carol and Robert are disillusioned with each other. They are not destined mates, and love is not on the horizon. When Robert's three months are up, he might be left with nothing to show for his sacrifice.

Alex Cole will do anything for money. Murder? Check. Assault? Check. Infanticide? Check. Sexual favors? Double-check. But after getting himself roped into something called Kuman Thong - including its roasted human fetuses - Cole is left fighting unfathomable phenomena beyond his comprehension and rather unexpectedly trying save the world. All for a lousy paycheck.

From professional athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan to philosophers like Confucius, inspirational business books love to suggest that listeners can succeed in business and in life by adopting the traits of their famous subjects. In Z.E.O. by Scott Kenemore, frustrated employees will finally find inspiration in a source they can already relate to: zombies!

From the acclaimed author of Anno Dracula, the perfect gift for those who love the dark fantastic imaginations of Neil Gaiman and T. Kingfisher, this is a nightmarish tale of a haunted Christmas set deep in the British countryside not too long ago. Cosy traditions are made twisted and terrifying as a mother and son grapple with their painful past.

After defeating the wild dragons deep beneath the Earth, I’m ordered into the Vetruscan Kingdom. There, the warriors are not bonded to dragons but bears. They are equally formidable, and not all bearmancers are friends. Thankfully, I won’t be by myself. I’ll have my dragonmancer women with me, as well as Noctis the Onyx Dragon...and my three dragon children.

These stories present electric messiahs, identity constructs, the Beatles, and even a nuclear Armageddon, which serve as comic foils for Lain's everyman characters. Here is an America where packets of Sea Monkeys arrive in the mail containing secret messages, and the girl next door can breathe underwater. With Last Week's Apocalypse, Douglas Lain arrives with a punch line and a warning.

When a portal opens in a distant enclave city, Gryff and his monster response team find that the Shadowscape creatures are becoming smarter and more organized. Someone, or something, is leading them. Now Gryff finds that he, and the three women he loves, are all that stands between the hordes of evil monsters and humanity.