Science Horror

Texas? Toast. Battered by five cataclysmic hurricanes in three weeks, the Texas Gulf Coast and half of the Lone Star State is reeling from the worst devastation in history. Thousands are dead or dying - but the worst is only beginning. Amid the wreckage, something unimaginable is happening: a deadly virus has broken out, returning the dead to life - with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. The nightmare begins...

Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has come into possession of a vital clue that may lead him to his ultimate goal: a cure for death. The path is vague, however, and certainly treacherous as it takes him into strange territories that, quite literally, no one has ever seen before. The task is too dangerous to venture upon alone, so he must seek assistance - comrades for the coming travails.

Disorder and chaos ravage London when thousands are contaminated by the accidental discharge of an experimental bioweapon. The disease robs its hosts of rational thought, giving them a singular desire - find more living flesh to infect.

Possessed of an extraordinary telekinetic gift - she can make objects burst into flames - Dahlia Le Blanc has spent her life isolated from other people. But just when she thinks she's finally achieved some peace, her world comes crashing down. For a reason she cannot guess, she has become the target of deadly assassins. Suddenly, no place is safe - not even the secret refuge she established long ago. Now she must rely on Nicolas Trevane, a dangerous warrior sent to track her down and protect her.

Juliet: It is my duty to obey, to give my body and blood to a vampire master until he no longer has use for me. There is no escape. Nowhere to run. Follow the rules or die. I don't want to die. Darius: Twenty-two years of conditioning has crafted the perfect poison-a weapon my enemies won't see coming. I'll break her, train her, and use her to take down everyone who stands in my way. She's alluring. She's perfect. And she's mine.

A plague has fallen across the land. Slaughter fills the streets. All seems lost. After Great Britain is hit by a devastating epidemic, four old friends must cross the war-torn country to get home to their families. But in order to reach their loved ones, they must journey through towns, villages and countryside teeming with the monstrous Infected - mutated people whose only desires are to infect and feed. Run and hide. Seek shelter. Pray for salvation. The last plague is here.

Ancient evils lurk in the Western New York town of Oneka Falls, and they are hungry. Only three children have encountered them and lived. Psyches fractured, each child has survived as best they could - wrapped in fantasy, the comfort of amnesia, or the silence of isolation. When those evils intrude on their lives a second time, it sets a chain of events in action that can only end in destruction. But who will be destroyed, the children or the ancient evils that plague the town?

Saber Wynter is running from her past when she meets Jess Calhoun, an ex-Navy SEAL who is physically and emotionally compromised by his own mysterious and violent history as a GhostWalker. What Jess senses in Saber is a kindred spirit, a lost soul desperate for sanctuary. He offers her a home, a job, and a haven where she can safely reveal the secrets that shadow her. But danger follows her, too. Now, the riddles of both their pasts are about to collide.

Hugo Award-winning author Charles Stross is renowned for his cutting-edge science fiction. This third entry in his “edgy … spoof of Cold War spy thrillers” ( Booklist) finds covert agent Bob Howard learning about a top-secret dossier that vanishes with his boss. Determined to discover the contents of this memorandum, Howard runs afoul of Russian spies, ancient demons, and apostles of a hideous cult planning to raise the Eater of Souls from the undead.

Faced with an overwhelming infestation of living dead on the US mainland, the US Pacific Fleet manages a strategic withdrawal of civilians and supplies. Aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, Dr. Henry Damico advises the remnants of the civilian government and military leadership on how to survive in a world overrun with zombies.

It’s an ordinary Monday. Until everything changes forever. At 2:44 PM, a mysterious crack appears in the sky. Anyone unfortunate enough to look up is immediately struck blind. What’s worse, their mind is wiped clean, replaced with a vicious urge to kill anyone within reach. Mark is at work when it happens. Fighting not to fall asleep, the boring department meeting suddenly turns into a bloodbath when people are drawn to the windows to look up at the sky.

Waking up in a tacky coffin and wearing off-brand shoes, Betsy Taylor can't believe the horrible turn her life has taken; then she discovers she's a vampire. Soon, Betsy becomes a participant in a power struggle between the forces of darkness. With only her friend Jessica and the hunky vampire Sinclair to help her, this new "Queen of Vampires" will have a tough time getting her afterlife straight.

It's now two years since the zombie apocalypse changed the world. Survival is precarious for Zach Gunderson and his friends. They are encountering zombies who are evolving into something more than mindless automatons, and the group dynamic is threatened by the revelation of a murderer in their midst. They handle each situation in their own special manner, but a seemingly innocent encounter with a group of Marines leads to disastrous consequences.

After a tragic accident at work, all Grady Miller wanted was an escape. He finds it months later with two of his closest friends. Together, the three of them travel south to Prism Lake for the upcoming holiday, where they plan on spending the sunny weekend drinking, grilling, and relaxing. But when a series of monstrous blizzards cover the Eastern United States in feet of snow, knocking out communications and making the roads impossible to drive on, they realize their weekend of fun could turn into a lifetime of survival.

Horror is what Dan Law enjoys. He loves to read horror novels as a way to escape from his teaching job, from his loneliness, from the everyday dullness of life in Silver Lake. That’s what Dan lives for. When a new bookstore opens in town, every visitor receives a free book of their own. A book that tells their own personal story...a story they have to follow to the brutal end. As Silver Lake’s population descends into violent savagery, Dan finds he is no longer living for horror novels - he’s living inside one.

Five years ago, Coburn went to sleep - wasn't exactly planned - and he's just woken up to find most everybody in the world dead. And not cool, interesting dead like him; oh, no. Coburn looks basically human, and these guys...really don't. He likes blood, and they like flesh. He's smart; them, not so much. But they outnumber him by about a million to one, and their clotted blood cannot sustain him.

Halloween - with its tricks and treats - is a dust bunny's dream come true. Just ask Lyle, Sedona Snow's faithful sidekick. But for Sedona, it's a nightmare. Though her new job managing a small hotel and tavern on Rainshadow is helping her move on from her tragic past, a bizarre disaster down in the catacombs has brought a pack of rowdy ghost hunters to her inn. And now, Sedona's ex has arrived on the island, claiming he wants to get back together, just as a newcomer appears to have a strong interest in her.

This is the way the world ends: with a nanosecond of computer error in a Defense Department laboratory and a million casual contacts that form the links in a chain letter of death. And here is the bleak new world of the day after: a world stripped of its institutions and emptied of 99 percent of its people. A world in which a handful of panicky survivors choose sides - or are chosen.

Pitting ordinary men and women against a carnivorous, chaotic cosmos, Occultation's eight tales of terror (two never before published) include the Theodore Sturgeon and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated story "The Forest" and Shirley Jackson Award nominee "The Lagerstatte."

Seabury Quinn's short stories were featured in well more than half of the pulp magazine Weird Tales' original publication run. His most famous character, the supernatural French detective Dr. Jules de Grandin, investigated cases involving monsters, devil worshippers, serial killers, and spirits from beyond the grave, often set in the small town of Harrisonville, New Jersey.