Это — 1999 год. Год, который должен был стать временем Апокалипсиса — но не стал. Или все-таки стал, только мы пока не заметили этого — и не заметим, пока не станет поздно? Это — 1999 год. Такой, каким увидели его величайшие из мастеров «литературы ужасов» нашего мира. Писатели, хорошо знающие: Апокалипсис начинается не с трубного гласа, поднимающего мертвых, но со Страха, живущего в душе у каждого из нас. Это — 999 глазами непревзойденного Стивена Кинга. И мчится по дороге Смерть… Это — 999 по Уильяму Питеру Блэтти. И те, что ушли, говорят с живыми… Это — 999 Бентли Литтла. И исчезает грань меж явью и кошмаром… Это — 999 год Дэвида Моррелла, Джойс Кэрол Оутс, Нэнси Коллинз. И еще многих из тех, кому нет равных в умении повергать читателя в черный, иррациональный Ужас…

It is the summer of 1958 in Dewmont, Texas, a town the great American postwar boom passed by. The kids listen idly to rockabilly on the radio and waste their weekends at the Dairy Queen. And an undetected menace simmers under the heat that clings to the skin like molasses... For thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, the end of innocence comes with his discovery of the mysterious long-ago demise of two very different young women. In his quest to unravel the truth about their tragic fates, Stanley finds a protector in Buster Lighthorse Smith, a black, retired Indian-reservation cop and a sage on the finer points of Sherlock Holmes, the blues, and life's faded dreams. But not every buried thing stays dead. And on one terrifying night of rushing creek water and thundering rain, an arcane, murderous force will rise from the past to threaten the boy in a harrowing rite of passage... Vintage Lansdale, A Fine Dark Line brims with exquisite suspense, powerful characterizations, and the vibrant evocation of a lost time. From Publishers Weekly The atmosphere is as thick as an East Texas summer day in Edgar-winner Lansdale's (The Bottoms) engaging, multilayered regional mystery, which harks back to 1958. Thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchel, Jr., has enough on his hands just growing up in Dewmont, Tex., when he literally stumbles on a buried cache of love letters. Stanley pursues the identity of the two lovers with help from the projectionist at his family's drive-in, an aged black man who quotes Sherlock Holmes and doesn't mince words about the world's injustices. As the truth of a gruesome 20-year-old double murder comes to light in the sleepy town, so do the facts of life, death, men, women and race for young Stanley. Unfortunately, this wealth of experience sometimes strains credulity. For instance, Stanley, his sister, Callie, and friend Richard witness a secret burial, see a local phantom, are chased by a murderer and barely miss being hit by a train-all in one night. As the older and wiser Stanley says of the past, "More had happened to my family in one summer than had happened in my entire life." The "down-home" dialect is occasionally overdone, too, with more ripe sayings than Ross Perot on caffeine. But Lansdale clearly knows and loves his subject and enlivens his haunting coming-of-age tale with touches of folklore and humor. From Booklist Lansdale makes a rich stew of memory and mystery in the voice of Stanley Mitchel Jr., who is 13 in 1958 and is writing down, in midlife, what he recalls. His parents own the drive-in in Dewmont, Texas; his dad calls his mom "Gal"; his sister, Callie, is turn-your-head pretty and feisty besides. Stanley finds in the burnt ruins behind the drive-in a cache of love letters. Stanley--innocent enough at the beginning of the story to still believe in Santa Claus--is fascinated by the letters and soon learns that the fire marked the deaths of two young women, long ago. Those deaths ripple through the pages, as Stanley struggles with knowledge of good and evil: his friend Richard's abusive dad; the black cook's stalker boyfriend; the drive-in projectionist who faces twin demons of age and alcohol. Stanley's mother, father, and sister are vivid, glowing personages. Stanley doesn't unravel everything, but race and power, and what people do to each other in the name of desire and religion, coalesce to a mighty climax. 

Irreverent merriment. Diabolical debauchery. Gory good times. Editor Shane McKenzie has gutted the holiday spirit and left it to bleed out on the pages of this gruesome, extreme horror tribute to special occasions. Includes stories by the following masters of the macabre: Jack Ketchum, Joe R. Lansdale, Bentley Little, Nate Southard, Lee Thomas, Wrath James White and More! Table of Contents: "Consensual" by Jack Ketchum "securedate.com" by Boyd E. Harris "Face" by Patrick Shand "Ghunt" by Lee Thomas "Joyeux Paques" by Emma Ennis "The Greatest Sin" by Kevin Wallis "The Greenhouse Garden of Suicides" by Kirk Jones "IHeartRecycling" by Lesley Conner "Taco Meat" by Jon McNee "Remember What I Said About Living Out in the Country?" by A.J. Brown "Every Day a Holiday" by Steve Lowe "Seeing Red" by Chris Lewis Carter "Southern Fried Cruelty" by Matt Kurtz "By Bizarre Hands" by Joe R. Lansdale "Family Man" by John Bruni "We Run Races With Goblin Troopers" by Lee Thompson "Pascal's Wager" by Wrath James White "A Special Surprise at Thanksgiving Dinner" by Elle Richfield "Waiting for Santa" by Bentley Little "Hung With Care" by Ty Schwamberger "Sunshine Beamed" by Marie Green "Dia de los Inocentes" by Elias Siqueiros "Three, Two, One" by Nate Southard

Jack Catcher's parents are dead—his mom died of sickness and his dad of a broken heart—and he has to get out of Oklahoma, where dust storms have killed everything green, hopeful, or alive. When former classmate Jane and her little brother Tony show up in his yard with plans to steal a dead neighbor's car and make a break for Texas, Jack doesn't need much convincing. But a run-in with one of the era's most notorious gangsters puts a crimp in Jane's plan, and soon the three kids are hitching the rails among hoboes, gangsters, and con men, racing to warn a carnival wrestler turned bank robber of the danger he faces and, in the process, find a new home for themselves. This road trip adventure from the legendary Joe R. Lansdale is a thrilling and colorful ride through Depression-era America. About the Author JOE R. LANSDALE is the author of more than a dozen novels for adults, including eight Hap and Leonard novels, as well asSunset and SawdustandLost Echoes.He has received a British Fantasy Award, an American Mystery Award, an Edgar Award, a Grinzane Cavour Prize, and seven Bram Stoker Awards. All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky is his first novel for young adults. 

The Horror Writers Association Presents BLOOD LITE ...a collection of entertaining tales that puts the fun back into dark fiction, with ironic twists and tongue-in-cheek wit to temper the jagged edge. Charlaine Harris reveals the dark side of going green, when a quartet of die-hard environmentalists hosts a fundraiser with a gory twist in "An Evening with Al Gore"...In an all-new Dresden Files story from Jim Butcher, when it comes to tracking deadly paranormal doings, there's no such thing as a "Day Off" for the Chicago P.D.'s wizard detective, Harry Dresden...Sherrilyn Kenyon turns a cubicle-dwelling MBA with no life into a demon-fighting seraph with one hell of an afterlife in "Where Angels Fear to Tread"...Celebrity necromancer Jaime Vegas is headlining a sold-out séance tour, but behind the scenes, a disgruntled ghost has a bone to pick, in Kelley Armstrong's "The Ungrateful Dead." Plus tales guaranteed to get under your skin — in a good way — from Janet Berliner Don D'Ammassa Nancy Holder Nancy Kilpatrick J. A. Konrath and F. Paul Wilson Joe R. Lansdale Will LudwigsenSharyn McCrumb Mark Onspaugh Mike Resnick Steven SavileD. L. Snell Eric James Stone Jeff Strand Lucien Soulban Matt Venne Christopher Welch So let the blood flow and laughter reign — because when it comes to facing our deepest, darkest fears, a little humor goes a long way!

"Dad told me once, that if people don't care about where they live, the way they act, people they associate with, they get lost in the dark, can't find their way back cause there's no light left. I had taken a pretty good step into the shadows tonight." It's payback time, in this short story by Joe R. Lansdale

DARKER — российский литературный онлайн-журнал (вебзин) посвященный «темному» фэнтези, мистике, литературе ужасов и хоррор-культуре в целом. Создан в 2011 году на основе pdf-журнала «ТЬМА». Выходит с периодичностью раз в месяц. Публикует жанровые рецензии, статьи, обзоры, а также рассказы и повести отечественных и зарубежных авторов. В данный сборник вошли избранные рассказы зарубежных и отечественных авторов (от классиков до современных), опубликованные в онлайн-журнале «DARKER» в течение 2011–2015 года. Многие произведения публикуются на русском впервые. *Внимание! Присутствуют произведения категории 18+. Сайт онлайн-журнала: http://darkermagazine.ru/ [Электронное издание, 2015]

A zombie western by Joe R. Lansdale. Dead In The West is the story of Mud Creek, Texas, a town overshadowed by a terrible evil. An Indian medicine man, unjustly lynched by the people of Mud Creek, has put a curse on the town. As the sun sets, he will have his revenge. For when darkness falls, the dead will walk in Mud Creek and they will be hungry for human flesh. The only one that can save the town is Reverend Jebediah Mercer, a gun toting preacher man who came to Mud Creek to escape his past. He has lost his faith in the Lord and his only solace is the whisky bottle. Will he renew his faith in himself and God to defeat this evil or will the town be destroyed?  

Joe Landsdale once again combines his love of the wild west with zombies in Deadman's Road, another tale of his two-gun toting Reverend Jebidiah. The Reverend decides to help a deputy sheriff escort a prisoner along Deadman's Road, the supposed haunt of an undead fiend. This novella was first published as a serial in three parts by Subterranean Press in March 2007 — taken from Joe R Lansdale's collection The Shadows, Kith and Kin which was published April 25 2007. Subsequently included in The Living Dead — an anthology of 34 zombie stories by various authors — published by Night Shade Books in September 2008

All new strange cases of death and magic in the city by some of the biggest names in urban fantasy.  In this all-new collection of urban fantasy stories, editors George R.R. Martin and Gardner Dozois explore the places where mystery waits at the end of every alley and where the things that go bump in the night have something to fear...  Includes stories by New York Times bestselling authors Charlaine Harris, Patricia Briggs, Diana Gabaldon, Simon R. Green, S. M. Stirling, and Carrie Vaughn, as well as tales by Glen Cook, Bradley Denton, M.L.N. Hanover, Conn Iggulden, Laurie R. King, Joe R. Lansdale, John Maddox Roberts, Steven Saylor, Melinda Snodgrass, and Lisa Tuttle

Twenty-one stories for mature audiences only! This collection of Joe R. Lansdale stories represents the best of the “Lansdale” genre—a strange mixture of dark crime, even darker humor, and adventure tales. Though varied in setting and theme, all the stories are pure Lansdale—eerie, amusing, and occasionally horrific. In “The Pit,” modern gladiators square off against one another using Roman methods. An alternate-history tale called “Trains Not Taken” shows Buffalo Bill as an ambassador and Wild Bill Hickok as a clerk. Lansdale’s love of large lizards and humor are evident in the stories “Godzilla’s Twelve Step Program” and “Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland.” The career of Joe R. Lansdale has spanned more than twenty-seven years, in which period he has written over two hundred short stories. This collection is the best of these. As Lansdale states in his Introduction, ". these stories are the ones I think best reflect my work." Some of these are obviously horrific ab initio: others, the realization will slowly, surely creep upon one. Others will visit alternate history, humor, or dark crime. Mixing the impossible, the improbable, and the never-before-thought-of, Lansdale uses his innate East Texas storytelling abilities to perfection. As an added bonus, each story starts with an introduction by Lansdale, describing the story-behind-the-story

Hyenas marks the always-welcome return of Joe R. Lansdale’s most indelible fictional creations: Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Once again, the embattled but resilient duo find themselves enmeshed in a web of danger, duplicity, and escalating mayhem. The result is a tightly compressed novella that is at once harrowing, hilarious, and utterly impossible to put down. The story begins with a barroom brawl that is both brutal and oddly comic. The ensuing drama encompasses abduction, betrayal, robbery, and murder, ending with a lethal confrontation in an East Texas pasture. Along the way, readers are treated to moments of raucous, casually profane humor and to scenes of vivid, crisply described violence, all related in that unmistakable Lansdale voice. An essential addition to an already imposing body of work, Hyenas shows us both the author and his signature characters at their inimitable best. It doesn’t get better than this. Hyenas also includes the bonus Hap Collins short story, “The Boy Who Became Invisible”. From Publishers Weekly In Lansdale's wry, casually violent novella about roughneck buddies Hap Collins (white and straight) and Leonard Pine (African-American and gay), the two knights-errant befriend a hapless fellow whose younger, weaker brother has fallen in with extremely bad company—he's just joined a gang of bank robbers whose leader is used to increasing his own share of the loot by killing the other gang members. As usual, the dialogue is deadpan tart and the action extreme but convincing. Readers will find themselves simultaneously grinning and flinching. The book also includes "The Boy Who Became Invisible," a story Hap tells about something he witnessed years before, perhaps explaining why he's inclined to stand up for people who aren't as good at defending themselves as he and Leonard grew up to be. Lansdale (Vanilla Ride) once again proves he's the East Texas master of redneck noir.  

Rockstar Games has partnered with Mulholland Books to publish a collection of short fiction expanding the world of the newest groundbreaking achievement in storytelling: the interactive crime thriller L.A. Noire. 1940s Hollywood, murder, deception and mystery take center stage as readers reintroduce themselves to characters seen in L.A. Noire. Explore the lives of actresses desperate for the Hollywood spotlight; heroes turned defeated men; and classic Noir villains. Readers will come across not only familiar faces, but familiar cases from the game that take on a new spin to tell the tales of emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and their ill-fated victims. With original short fiction by Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer, Duane Swierczynski and Andrew Vachss, L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories breathes new life into a time-honored American tradition, in an exciting anthology that will appeal to fans of suspense and gamers everywhere

Abrash amalgam of terrifying suspense, raw humor, and intriguing mystery that unfolds in the vividly rendered shadowy lowlands of East Texas. After a harrowing stint in the Iraq war, Cason Statler returns home to the small East Texas town of Camp Rapture, where he drinks too much, stalks his ex-wife, and takes a job at the local paper, only to uncover notes on a cold case murder. With nothing left to live for and his own brother connected to the victim, he makes it his mission to solve the crime. Soon he is drawn into a murderous web of blackmail and deceit. To make matters worse, his deranged buddy Booger comes to town to lend a helping hand

Lightspeed (www.lightspeedmagazine.com) is the critically-acclaimed, online science fiction magazine edited by bestselling anthologist John Joseph Adams. Lightspeed publishes all types of science fiction, from near-future, sociological soft sf, to far-future, star-spanning hard sf, and anything and everything in between. Each month, Lightspeed features a mix of originals and reprints, from a variety of authors—from the bestsellers and award-winners you already know to the best new voices you haven't heard of yet. Now, in Lightspeed: Year One, you will find all of the fiction published in Lightspeed's first year, from new stories such as Nebula Award finalists, Vylar Kaftan’s “I’m Alive, I Love You, I’ll See You in Reno” and “Arvies” by Adam-Troy Castro, and Carrie Vaughn’s Hugo Award-nominee “Amaryllis,” to classic reprints by Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, George R. R. Martin, and more

Includes brand-new stories by: James Crumley, Joe R. Lansdale, Claudia Smith, Ito Romo, Luis Alberto Urrea, David Corbett, George Weir, Sarah Cortez, Jesse Sublett, Dean James, Tim Tingle, Milton Burton, Lisa Sandlin, Jessica Powers, and Bobby Byrd. Bobby Byrd is the co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press in El Paso, Texas. As a poet, Byrd is the recipient of an NEA Fellowship, the D.H. Lawrence Fellowship awarded by the University of New Mexico, and an International Residency Fellowship. John Byrd, co-publisher of Cinco Puntos Press, is co-editor (with Bobby Byrd) of the anthology Puro Border: Dispatches, Snapshots Graffiti from La Frontera. He is also a Spanish-to-English translator and a freelance essayist

Since a mysterious childhood illness, Harry Wilkes has experienced horrific visions. Gruesome scenes emerge to replay themselves before his eyes. Triggered by simple sounds, these visions occur anywhere a tragic event has happened. Now in college, Harry feels haunted and turns to alcohol to dull his visionary senses. One night, he sees a fellow drunk easily best three muggers. In this man, Harry finds not only a friend that will help him kick the booze, but also a sensei who will teach him to master his unusual gift. Soon Harry’s childhood crush, Kayla, comes and asks for help solving her father’s murder. Unsure of how it will affect him, Harry finds the strength to confront the dark secrets of the past, only to unveil the horrors of the present. From Publishers Weekly In this superior East Texas crime thriller from Stoker-winner Lansdale (Sunset and Sawdust), Harry Wilkes discovers after a severe childhood ear infection that he has a peculiar "hindsight." Harry can not only see dead people but see and hear violent events as they occurred in the recent or distant past. "It's like I hear and see ghosts in sounds," he tells his father. By the time he's a college student, Harry's psychic abilities have driven him to booze. After meeting alcoholic Tad Peters, a retired martial arts expert, Harry becomes Tad's surrogate son and student. The two forge a pact to sober up together. Their resolve is tested when Harry agrees to help Kayla Jones, an old childhood crush now a cop, solve her father's murder, which her boss, the local police chief, has dismissed as a suicide. Lansdale's down-home prose erupts with explosive twists and razor sharp insights into how "echoes from the original sounds" can never be silenced until action is taken to defeat the fear that created them. From Booklist The prolific Lansdale returns, after sojourns in pulp, sf, and horror, to work his peculiar mojo on the supernatural crime thriller. Harry Wilkes has inherited his family's curse of experiencing "dark sounds," full-sensory recordings of traumatic events that can be unleashed by, for example, the banging of a toilet lid upon which a guy once blew his brains out. Booze helps hold the "ghosts in the noise" at bay, but his life as a drunken recluse isn't going well. He gets things under control with the help of an eccentric sensei named Tad, but when a boyhood girlfriend named Kayla comes home to find her father's killer, Harold grits his teeth and journeys into the dark once more. Lansdale's prose finds the perfect pitch between the laid-back cadences of front-porch storytelling and the thriller's demand for growing urgency. He is a bit unreconstructed when it comes to gender relations--or at least the vocabulary to describe them--but he's got both the charisma and the balls to pull it off. Funny and scary, with a barn-burner ending. 

The sixteen stories and two screenplays that make up Volume One of the Emmy® award-winning Netflix Original series Love, Death & Robots. Featuring best-selling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher. Stories and screenplays by Alastair Reynolds, Alberto Mielgo, Claudine Griggs, David W. Amendola, Joe Lansdale, John Scalzi, Ken Liu, Kirsten Cross, Marko Kloos, Michael Swanwick, Peter F. Hamilton, Steven Lewis, and Vitaliy Shushko

The seventeen stories that make up Volumes Two and Three of the Emmy® award-winning Netflix Original series Love, Death & Robots. Featuring best-selling authors and screenwriters from all over the globe, curated by filmmakers Tim Miller and David Fincher, and Supervising Director Jennifer Yuh Nelson. Stories by Neal Asher, Paolo Bacigalupi, J. G. Ballard, Alan Baxter, Justin Coates, Harlan Ellison, Joachim Heijndermans, Joe Lansdale, Rich Larson, Alberto Miego, Jeff Fowler & Tim Miller, John Scalzi, Bruce Sterling, Michael Swanwick

Spanning over twenty years, 20 masters and modern authors of hardcore horror share their most bad-ass stories in this special edition from Comet Press. Many hard to find and out of print, some that were banned, Necro Files covers every imaginable mode of mayhem including serial killers, necrophilia, cannibals, werewolves, zombies, sex fetishes, psychopaths, snuff, occult, and more stories that dial into the dark side of human nature

Fifteen all-new stories by science fiction's top talents, collected by bestselling author George R. R. Martin and multiple-award winning editor Gardner Dozois Burroughs's A Princess of Mars. Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles. Heinlein's Red Planet. These and so many more inspired generations of readers with a sense that science fiction's greatest wonders did not necessarily lie far in the future or light-years across the galaxy but were to be found right now on a nearby world tantalizingly similar to our own - a red planet that burned like an ember in our night sky …and in our imaginations. This new anthology of fifteen all-original science fiction stories, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois, celebrates the Golden Age of Science Fiction, an era filled with tales of interplanetary colonization and derring-do. Before the advent of powerful telescopes and space probes, our solar system could be imagined as teeming with strange life-forms and ancient civilizations - by no means always friendly to the dominant species of Earth. And of all the planets orbiting that G-class star we call the Sun, none was so steeped in an aura of romantic decadence, thrilling mystery, and gung-ho adventure as Mars. Join such seminal contributors as Michael Moorcock, Mike Resnick, Joe R. Lansdale, S. M. Stirling, Mary Rosenblum, Ian McDonald, Liz Williams, James S. A. Corey, and others in this brilliant retro anthology that turns its back on the cold, all-but-airless Mars of the Mariner probes and instead embraces an older, more welcoming, more exotic Mars: a planet of ancient canals cutting through red deserts studded with the ruined cities of dying races

If you’re a fan of fiction that is more than just black and white, this latest story collection from #1 New York Times bestselling author George R.R. Martin and award-winning editor Gardner Dozois is filled with subtle shades of gray. Twenty-one all-original stories, by an all-star list of contributors, will delight and astonish you in equal measure with their cunning twists and dazzling reversals. And George R.R. Martin himself offers a brand-new A Game of Thrones tale chronicling one of the biggest rogues in the entire history of Ice and Fire. Follow along with the likes of Gillian Flynn, Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch, Cherie Priest, Garth Nix, and Connie Willis, as well as other masters of literary sleight-of-hand, in this rogues gallery of stories that will plunder your heart—and yet leave you all the richer for it

An anthology of stories edited by Todd Robinson My fingers can't find the bullet holes. They're there, because they brought me down. Like a guitar riff sharp enough to slit a throat or the devil's amplifiers shrieking through the lonely night, this bonanza of blood and brawn rings with the vibe of the best new noir suspense. Culled from the net's most hardcore, award-winning site, these fresh, raw, and uncut stories pack a stiff punch… "As long as she keeps calling me, there's hope. Hope is a dangerous thing." No matter where you turn-a pair of bisexual, ass-kicking Vikings on a slaughter trip; a sexy forty-something thief with angles as lethal as her curves; a porn-comic artist up against one deadly last laugh; a city's most savage gang under the gun and way out of time; or a south-of-the-borderland sleaze pit where everyone's a winner-no one gets out alive… "Escape is a bitch. A man alone and on foot would have to be crazy to try. Apparently he was." Rev up for a speed-fueled hell-trip through the dark side, where a backbeat can kill, no scene falls short of badass, and the hooligans bay at the moon… "This book is dripping so much blood and guts and marrow, it's impossible to read it in more than a single sitting. Be prepared to be shattered, shell-shocked and bruised, as Thuglit's emissaries continue to write wrongs that are very, very right." -Sarah Weinman Big Daddy Thug/Todd Robinson's writing has appeared in Plots With Guns, Danger City, Demolition, Out Of The Gutter, Pulp Pusher, Crimespree and Writers Digest's The Year's Best Writing 2003. He was nominated for a 2006 Derringer Award from the Short Mystery Fiction Society, and is the creator and chief editor of Thuglit.com. The stories he's edited for Thuglit.com have been nominated for several awards, including The Derringer and The Million Writer's Award, and been have been selected for The Best American Mystery Stories and Best Noir 2006. He lives and works in New York with his wife (Lady Detroit), a ferret named Matilda, and three freakin' cats

He has been called "hilarious… refreshing… a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country-boy wit" (Washington Post Book World), and praised for his "folklorist's eye for telling detail and [his] front-porch raconteur's sense of pace" (New York Times Book Review). Now, Joe R. Landsdale gives us a fast-moving, electrifying new novel: a murder mystery set in a steamy backwater of Depression-era East Texas. It begins with an explosion: Sunset Jones kills her husband with a bullet to the brain. Never mind that he was raping her. Pete Jones was constable of the small sawmill town of Camp Rapture (" Camp Rupture " to the local blacks), where no woman, least of all Pete's, refuses her husband what he wants. So most everyone is surprised and angry when, thanks to the unexpected understanding of her mother-in-law-three-quarter owner of the mill-Sunset is named the new constable. And they're even more surprised when she dares to take the job seriously: beginning an investigation into the murder of a woman and an unborn baby whose oil-drenched bodies are discovered buried on land belonging to the only black landowner in town. Yet no one is more surprised than Sunset herself when the murders lead her-through a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice-not only to the shocking conclusion of the case, but to a well of inner strength she never knew she had. Landsdale brings the thick backwoods and swamps of East Texas vividly to life, and he paints a powerfully evocative picture of a time when Jim Crow and the Klan ruled virtually unopposed, when the oil boom was rolling into and over Texas, when any woman who didn't know herplace was considered a threat and a target. In Sunset, he gives us a woman who defies all expectations, wrestling a different place for herself with spirit and spit, cunning and courage. And in Sunset and Sawdust he gives us a wildly energetic novel-galvanizing from first to last

Bestselling novelist James Ellroy introduces this year’s collection of the finest mystery writing. Many of the contributors herein are novelists themselves, displaying their talents in short story form: Michael Connelly tells a fatal tale of revenge in “Two-Bagger.” In Joe Gores’s “Inscrutable,” the Feds beat the Mafia at their own game. Stuart Kaminsky demonstrates how horribly wrong things go when a robber gets cocky in “Sometimes Something Goes Wrong.” And Robert B. Parker shows just how important Jackie Robinson’s fans can be in “Harlem Nocturne.” Also featured are veterans of the short story form and favorites of this series. Brendan DuBois’s “A Family Game” introduces a former Mafia family trying to lead a normal life in the Witness Protection Program. Joyce Carol Oates tells a chilling tale of a crush taken too far in “The High School Sweetheart.” A tenant sneaks into the murder crime scene next door in Michael Downs’s “Man Kills Wife, Two Dogs.” Readers will be captivated by all the stories herein, whether by famed novelists or masters of the short story

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

By turns absurd, hilarious, and terrifying, this outrageous collection features the best writings of the high priest of Texan weirdness. Odd-ball detectives, malicious rocks, spectral prehistoric fish, and vampire hunters permeate these vividly detailed stories. Featuring cult-classic award-winning tales such as “Night They Missed the Horror Show” and “Mad Dog Summer,” along with nonfiction forays into drive-in theaters and low budget films, this dynamic retrospective represents the broad spectrum of Lansdale’s career. “Bubba Hotep”—the tale of Elvis, John F. Kennedy, and a soul-sucking mummy, which was made into an award-winning film — is included along with the acclaimed novella, “On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks,” and never before collected works. Original, compelling, and downright odd, this unforgettable compilation is essential reading for fans of horror, mystery, and southern gothic

“When there’s no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth!” From White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead, Resident Evil to World War Z, zombies have invaded popular culture, becoming the monsters that best express the fears and anxieties of the modern west. Gathering together the best zombie literature of the last three decades from many of today’s most renowned authors of fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, including Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale, The Living Dead covers the broad spectrum of zombie fiction

This new volume of the world's most acclaimed Year's Best Horror series includes a masterful selection of the finest supernatural short stories and terrifying novellas from many of the biggest names and most exciting newcomers currently working in the genre. This is the very best of new short stories and novellas by today's masters of the macabre. Contributors include such names as Neil Gaiman, Michael Marshall Smith, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman and Glen Hirshberg. This is required reading for any fan of ghoulish fiction. Winner of the 2009 British Fantasy Award

This new anthology presenting a selection of some of the very best, and most chilling, short stories and novellas of horror and the supernatural by both contemporary masters of horror and exciting newcomers. As ever, the latest volume of this record-breaking and multiple award-winning anthology series also offers an in-depth overview of the year in horror, a fascinating necrology of notable names, and a useful directory contact information for dedicated horror fans and writers. The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror remains the world's leading annual anthology dedicated solely to showcasing the best in contemporary horror fiction on both sides of the Atlantic

We now live in enlightened times that reassure us that, far from being a lower form of literature, pulp fiction is the term for what the best storytelling provides — pyrotechnic thrills, shocks galore and excitement by the bucketload! From cops, both straight and crooked, to ruthless bigshots, shady operators, femmes fatales and damsels in distress. Including gangsters, drifters, common crooks, shady attorneys to molls with a heart of gold, enjoy a rollercoaster ride through popular literature’s best pulp writers. The MBO of Pulp Action includes the talents of Charles Willeford, Ed McBain, Bill Pronzini, Ed Gorman, Lawrence Block, John D. Macdonald, William Campbell Gault, Bruno Fischer, Mark Timlin, Joe R. Lansdale and many of the classic Black Mask magazine

IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT… For decades, the apocalypse and its aftermath have yielded some of the most exciting short stories of all time. From David Brin’s seminal “The Postman” to Hugh Howey’s “Deep Blood Kettle” and Tananarive Due’s prescient “Patient Zero,” the end of the world continues to thrill. This companion volume to the critically acclaimed WASTELANDS offers thirty of the finest examples of post-apocalyptic short fiction, with works by: Ann Aguirre Megan Arkenberg Paolo Bacigalupi Christopher Barzak Lauren Beukes David Brin Orson Scott Card Junot Díaz Cory Doctorow Tananarive Due Toiya Kristen Finley Milo James Fowler Maria Dahvana Headley Hugh Howey Keffy R. M. Kehrli Jake Kerr Nancy Kress Joe R. Lansdale George R. R. Martin Jack McDevitt Seanan McGuire Maureen F. McHugh D. Thomas Minton Rudy Rucker & Bruce Sterling Ramsey Shehadeh Robert Silverberg Rachel Swirsky Genevieve Valentine James Van Pelt Christie Yant Award-winning editor John Joseph Adams has once again assembled a who’s who of short fiction, and the result is nothing short of mind-blowing

The living dead are more alive than ever! Zombies have become more than an iconic monster for the twenty-first century: they are now a phenomenon constantly revealing as much about ourselves—and our fascination with death, resurrection, and survival—as our love for the supernatural or post-apocalyptic speculation. Our most imaginative literary minds have been devoured by these incredible creatures and produced exciting, insightful, and unflinching new works of zombie fiction. We've again dug up the best stories published in the last few years and compiled them into an anthology to feed your insatiable hunger

Бекки и Монтгомери Джоунсы пытаются выстроить жизнь заново, после того как на Бекки было совершено жестокое нападение. Теперь ее преследуют жуткие видения смерти, и она уверена, что напавший на нее преступник снова придет за ней, хотя он повесился в камере после ареста. Муж, уверенный, что это всего лишь посттравматические галлюцинации, решает увезти жену из города. Он еще не знает, что они едут навстречу настоящему кошмару, что зловещие предзнаменования, преследующие Бекки, – не просто фантазии измученного разума, а преступники, с которыми предстоит встретиться этой семье, одержимы Богом Лезвий, древним чудовищем, и оно с незапамятных времен требует жертв и крови от своей паствы.Книга содержит нецензурную брань

«Боги Лавкрафта» – антология, включающая двенадцать эксклюзивно написанных историй мастеров темного жанра. Ктулху, Азатот, Шаб-Ниггурат и Адам Нэвилл, Лэрд Баррон, Бентли Литтл, Джо Лансдейл, Дуглас Уин. Каждый рассказ посвящен одному из божеств «Мифов Ктулху» и снабжен комментарием современного автора «Некрономикона», писателя и демонолога Дональда Тайсона

Красивата Мей Лин мечтае да стане холивудска звезда, но мистериозен убиец отнема живота й. Нейните приятели Сю Елън, Тери и Джинкс откриват сред нещата й карта, която ги отвежда до голяма сума откраднати пари. Всеки от тях има причина да иска да избяга от тежестта на живота в американския юг, затова и с лекота стигат до плана да изкопаят тялото на Мей Лин, да го изгорят и да отнесат пепелта й в Холивуд, за да сбъднат поне част от мечтата й. Бягството се превръща в кошмар. Децата са преследвани както от корумпиран полицай и от безскрупулния им чичо, така и от чудовищен сериен убиец… и скоро става ясно, че най-ужасните им кошмари са на път да се сбъднат

Король рок-н-ролла Элвис Пресли решил уйти на покой, но для исполнения своих обязанностей он нашёл двойника, с которым заключил договор

Завтра они все пойдут по своим процветающим делам, и они больше не будут думать об этой ночи

Древний вампир оказывается в ловушке на тонущем «Титанике», но рано или поздно он вновь увидит лунный свет… Лучший друг человека превращается в его самый страшный кошмар… Исполняя последнюю волю умершего отца, сын проводит ночь в склепе и попадает в водоворот дьявольского ритуала… С того света не возвращаются, но, если тебя лишили жизни на потеху публике, ты вернешься, чтобы отомстить… Более 50 авторов — от всемирно известного писателя Рэя Брэдбери до сценаристки Нэнси Холдер, чье имя мы привыкли видеть в титрах культового сериала «Баффи — истребительница вампиров». Более 50 произведений — от научной фантастики до готического романа. Более 50 ваших самых страшных кошмаров о кровожадных вампирах и мстительных призраков

«Истории о воинах люди рассказывали с тех самых пор, как они вообще начали рассказывать истории. С тех пор, как Гомер воспел гнев Ахилла, а древние шумеры поведали нам о Гильгамеше, воины, солдаты и герои всегда пленяли наше воображение. Они являются частью любой культуры, любой литературной традиции, любого жанра. <...> Авторы рассказов и повестей, вошедших в этот сборник, — известные писатели, создатели бестселлеров и лауреаты многих наград, печатающиеся во многих издательствах и пишущие в разных жанрах. Всех их мы попросили об одном: написать рассказ про воина. Некоторые выбрали тот жанр, в котором написаны самые известные их работы. Другие решили попробовать что-нибудь новенькое. На этих страницах вы встретите воинов всех видов, размеров и цветов, воинов всех эпох человеческой истории, вчерашних, сегодняшних, завтрашних, и воинов из миров, которых никогда не существовало. Некоторые из этих историй печальные, некоторые — смешные, многие — захватывающие». Джордж Мартин В сборнике впервые на русском языке публикуется рассказ из цикла «Песнь Льда и Пламени»!

Боевые искусства — это нечто большее, чем хорошо поставленный удар, мгновенная реакция и умение видеть ошибки врага. Это образ жизни, в основе которой гармония и спокойствие, какие бы шутки не выкидывала судьба. Герои этой книги — бойцы карате и кэндо, кэмпо и нин-дзюцу. Их путь — путь меча и кулака, путь романтики и благородства, путь приключений и подвигов, к вершинам славы и мастерства

Это не добрые рождественские сказки, которые так хорошо читать детям на ночь. Это страшные истории о тьме, которая стоит за порогом и ждет, когда ты сделаешь один неверный шаг, о странных и жутких существах, которые бродят за окном и иногда заглядывают по твою душу. Нил Гейман и Эл Саррантонио собрали лучшие рассказы в жанре хоррор и саспенс, написанные признанными мастерами американской прозы (Чак Паланик, Майкл Муркок, Уолтер Мосли, Майкл Суэнвик…). Перед вами — коллекция умных, тонких, изысканно интеллектуальных, захватывающих и по-настоящему страшных историй: дверь, через которую Бездна всматривается в человека