The Croning
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Narrated by:
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Emily Zeller
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Written by:
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Laird Barron
About this listen
Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults, and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us....
Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly 80 years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret... of The Croning.
From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror.
©2012 Laird Barron (P)2012 Audible, Inc.You may also enjoy...
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very good book
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-
-
Peak horror
- By Gregory Smart on 2024-11-06
Written by: Laird Barron
-
The Imago Sequence
- And Other Stories
- Written by: Laird Barron
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The title story of this collection - a devilishly ironic riff on H. P. Lovecraft's "Pickman's Model" - was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while "Probiscus" was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.
-
-
Outstanding
- By Daniel on 2021-07-06
Written by: Laird Barron
-
Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe
- Written by: Thomas Ligotti, Jeff VanderMeer - foreword
- Narrated by: Jon Padgett, Linda Jones
- Length: 21 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Thomas Ligotti’s debut collection, Songs of a Dead Dreamer, and his second, Grimscribe, permanently inscribed a new name in the pantheon of horror fiction. Influenced by the strange terrors of Lovecraft and Poe and by the brutal absurdity of Kafka, Ligotti eschews cheap, gory thrills for his own brand of horror, which shocks at the deepest, existential, levels.
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argh the narration.
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Written by: Thomas Ligotti, and others
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The Ballad of Black Tom
- Written by: Victor LaValle
- Narrated by: Kevin R. Free
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
-
Story
Charles Thomas Tester hustles to put food on the table, keep the roof over his father's head, from Harlem to Flushing Meadows to Red Hook. He knows what magic a suit can cast, the invisibility a guitar case can provide, and the curse written on his black skin that attracts the eye of wealthy white folks and their trained cops. But when he delivers an occult page to a reclusive sorceress in the heart of Queens, Tom opens a door to a deeper realm of magic.
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-
very good book
- By Jay G on 2024-03-14
Written by: Victor LaValle
-
The Hollow Places
- Written by: T. Kingfisher
- Narrated by: Hillary Huber
- Length: 9 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"Pray they are hungry." Kara finds these words in the mysterious bunker that she’s discovered behind a hole in the wall of her uncle's house. Freshly divorced and living back at home, Kara now becomes obsessed with these cryptic words and starts exploring the peculiar bunker - only to discover that it holds portals to countless alternate realities. But these places are haunted by creatures that seem to hear thoughts...and the more you fear them, the stronger they become.
-
-
It was Good
- By Amy Merritt on 2020-12-31
Written by: T. Kingfisher
-
The Gods of H. P. Lovecraft
- Written by: Rachel Caine, Seanan McGuire, Laird Barron, and others
- Narrated by: David Stifel, uncredited
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Connecticut, 1666. An ancient spirit awakens in a dark wood. The wildfolk call him Father, slayer, protector. The colonists call him Slewfoot, demon, devil. To Abitha, a recently widowed outcast, alone and vulnerable in her pious village, he is the only one she can turn to for help. Together, they ignite a battle between pagan and Puritan - one that threatens to destroy the entire village, leaving nothing but ashes and bloodshed in their wake.
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The Only Good Indians
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Performance
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From New York Times best-selling author Stephen Graham Jones comes a novel that is equal parts psychological horror and cutting social commentary on identity politics and the American-Indian experience. Fans of Jordan Peele and Tommy Orange will love this story as it follows the lives of four American-Indian men and their families, all haunted by a disturbing, deadly event that took place in their youth. Years later, they find themselves tracked by an entity bent on revenge, totally helpless as the culture and traditions they left behind catch up to them in a vengeful way.
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Leech
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In an isolated chateau, as far north as north goes, the baron’s doctor has died. The doctor’s replacement has a mystery to solve: discovering how the Institute lost track of one of its many bodies. For hundreds of years the Interprovincial Medical Institute has grown by taking root in young minds and shaping them into doctors, replacing every human practitioner of medicine. The Institute is here to help humanity, to cure and to cut, to cradle and protect the species from the apocalyptic horrors their ancestors unleashed.
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Well, that's a lot of unconsensual penetration at every level
- By Clear Menser on 2024-12-02
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14
- Written by: Peter Clines
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
There are some odd things about Nate’s new apartment. Of course, he has other things on his mind. He hates his job. He has no money in the bank. No girlfriend. No plans for the future. So while his new home isn’t perfect, it’s livable. The rent is low, the property managers are friendly, and the odd little mysteries don’t nag at him too much. At least, not until he meets Mandy, his neighbor across the hall, and notices something unusual about her apartment. And Xela’s apartment. And Tim’s. And Veek’s.
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I enjoyed this audio book very much.
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What the critics say
What listeners say about The Croning
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Jake
- 2022-02-12
Second listen
Really enjoyed this book, especially upon second listening. If you like cosmic horror, Laird Barron doesn’t disappoint. I’m far from a literary expert but I’d put The Croning high on the list of excellent cosmic horror novels. Definitely worth a listen if you love horror beyond the stars, and just remember, the children of old leech love you.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-01-20
Certainly Lovecraftian
This is the type of novel you really have to pay close attention and may be better read vs audio. In addition to being surreal and existential, there are three main sections. The first chapter builds a history, the second tells of a specific time period involving two main characters, and the third is the main characters experience later in life (as it relates to the first two chapters). It is very Lovecraftian, surreal at times. I enjoyed the protagonist, an older gentleman with a polite vocabulary (you scoundrel!!!). Lastly, I understand there was rationale with the disjointed and inconsistent narration, and the ending was clever, yet... the story overall felt condensed and incomplete, and by the end was not satisfied nor filled with dread.
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Overall
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Performance
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- Amazon Customer
- 2021-07-31
Worth Listening To
It's tough to find modern Lovecraftian Horror and it's even tougher to find good Lovecraftian Horror. this was a great read and the final chapters were really worth the journey. It had some pacing issues and this is a book that actually requires your focus. I had to listen to some sections multiple times to understand what was happening but it was definitely worth it. I narrator was fantastic.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall
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- Kaler Jonson
- 2023-12-10
Solid cosmic horror marred by erratic narration
The book was fine, nothing particularly memorable but worth the read.
The narrator is awful, but only in very specific ways.
Every single older male voice sounds like a coked up Muppet bursting with good will, regardless of the situation.
The narrator only has maybe four total voices she can do, which leads to very hard to parse conversations which leave me confused as to who said what.
Most bafflingly, the narrator is incapable of pronouncing basic words, making the mistakes I associate with children not adult professional voice actors.
The poor narration really took away from the book for me.
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