The work of H. P. Lovecraft continues to inspire many of the leading contemporary authors of horror and the supernatural. In this anthology, S. T. Joshi, the world’s leading expert on Lovecraft and the author of the lively treatise The Rise and Fall of the Cthulhu Mythos, tries his hand at assembling a modern-day Lovecraftian anthology, casting his net on both sides of the Atlantic and producing a volume that radically expands our notions of what constitutes “Lovecraftian” fiction. Caitlín R. Kiernan, Brian Stableford, and Nicholas Royle produce innovative deconstructions of Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s Model” and “The Hound.” Michael Shea transfers the Cthulhu Mythos to San Francisco, Laird Barron and Philip Haldeman set their Lovecraftian horrors in the Pacific Northwest, and Donald R. Burleson and William Browning Spencer enliven the parched Southwest with cosmic monsters. Ramsey Campbell, Jonathan Thomas, Jason Van Hollander, and others make Lovecraft himself a character in tales of cosmic menace, while David J. Schow and Michael Cisco ring new changes on the Lovecraftian concept of the forbidden book. These and other stories by Michael Marshall Smith, Norman Partridge, W. H. Pugmire, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr., Darrell Schweitzer, Donald R. and Mollie L. Burleson, Sam Gafford, and Adam Niswander all reveal how vital and vibrant the Lovecraftian idiom remains… and how terrifying.

Once again, multi-award-winning editors Stephen Jones and David Sutton take you on a terrifying journey into the dark heart of modern horror fiction.Firmly established as the world's premier horror anthology series, this latest volume is twice the size, presenting almost a quarter of a million words of new fiction by some of the hottest names and most talented newcomers in the field. Contributors to Dark Terrors 5 include Peter Straub, Poppy Z. Brite, Ramsey Campbell, Mick Garris — Stephen King's director of choice — Gwyneth Jones, Michael Marshall Smith, Kim Newman, Gahan Wilson, Christopher Fowler and many, many more.

Either First Novel is a darkly funny examination of the relative attractions of creative writing courses and suburban dogging sites, or it's a twisted campus novel and possible murder mystery that's not afraid to blend fact with fiction in its exploration of the nature of identity. Paul Kinder, a novelist with one forgotten book to his name, teaches creative writing in a university in the north-west of England. Either he's researching his second, breakthrough novel, or he's killing time having sex in cars. Either eternal life exists, or it doesn't. Either you'll laugh, or you'll cry. Either you'll get it, or you won't.

Facing the challenges of dealing with his father's death, a man embarks on a bizarre project to build a tank housing four manta rays in the dining room of his parents' home. As he grows increasingly obsessed with the project, his grip on reality begins to slip.

Carl meets Annie Risk and falls for her. Hurt by a recent relationship, she resists becoming involved. A chance find offers distraction. Carl stumbles across part of a map to an unknown town. He becomes convinced it represents the city of his dreams, where ice skaters turn quintuple loops and trumpeters hit impossibly high notes…. where Annie Risk will agree to see him again. But if he ever finds himself in the streets on his map, will they turn out to be the land of his dreams or the world of his worst nightmares?British Fantasy Award winner Nicholas Royle has written a powerful story set in a nightmarish otherworld of fathers and sons, hopes and dreams, love and death.

From legendary editor Ellen Datlow, Tails of Wonder collects the best of the last thirty years of science fiction and fantasy stories about cats from an all-star list of contributors.

An Air Force Loadmaster is menaced by strange sounds within his cargo; a man is asked to track down a childhood friend… who died years earlier; doomed pioneers forge a path westward as a young mother discovers her true nature; an alcoholic strikes a dangerous bargain with a gregarious stranger; urban explorers delve into a ruined book depository, finding more than they anticipated; residents of a rural Wisconsin town defend against a legendary monster; a woman wracked by survivor's guilt is haunted by the ghosts of a tragic crash; a detective strives to solve the mystery of a dismembered girl; an orphan returns to a wicked witch's candy house; a group of smugglers find themselves buried to the necks in sand; an unanticipated guest brings doom to a high-class party; a teacher attempts to lead his students to safety as the world comes to an end around them…What frightens us, what unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the twenty-one stories and poems included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.Legendary editor Ellen Datlow (Poe: New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allan Poe), winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume One.

OVER 40 NEW STORIES FROM BRITAIN’S LEADING CRIME WRITERSLeading editor and reviewer Maxim Jakubowski has compiled another beguiling collection of the year’s best new short crime fiction from the UK. Ian Rankin’s perennially popular Edinburgh cop, Inspector Rebus, makes an unexpected comeback in a short, but intriguing story, ‘The Very Last Drop’, and the collection closes with another Rankin story, ‘Driven’.Making their first appearance in the series are many luminaries such as Kate Atkinson, Louise Welsh, Stephen Booth, Christopher Brookmyre, Colin Bateman, A. L. Kennedy, Sheila Quigley, Lin Anderson, Simon Kernick and David Hewson. Also represented are exciting up-and-coming talents such as Nick Quantrill, Jay Stringer, Paul D. Brazill and Nigel Bird.

Thirty-five short stories from the top names in British crime fiction, by the likes of Lee Child, Ian Rankin, Alexander McCall Smith, Jake Arnott, Val McDermid, and more.

Welcome To The Frightmare Lands…Imagination can be a terrible revenge when a storybook character takes on a life of his own….Trick or treat suddenly takes on a whole new meaning for one doctor who has long been exercising his powers over life and death….When two boys' existences and identities somehow become intertwined, is one the dreamer and the other a dream?She thought she'd found the ideal apartment until it began to take on an eerie life of its own….These are just a few of the twenty-six dwelling places of terror you'll visit in…