Bøger udgivet af JournalStone

Four novellas about the return of Cthulhu in a dystopian, climate-ravaged landscape.

"The effortless world building, buoyed by Dave's confident narration, immediately immerses readers in the intense unease, carrying them to its emotional conclusion. A character-centered and thought provoking tale that is as much about embracing life as it is about death, this title will appeal to fans of Elizabeth McCracken and Neil Gaiman" -Booklist Dave Gallagher mows the lawns and digs the graves at cemeteries in his hometown on Cape Cod. He also keeps the peace between the ghosts inhabiting those cemeteries. In the world of Living in Cemeteries, wrongdoing is atoned for by a person's descendants. Spirits decapitate relatives of serial killers and lay pox blankets over men responsible for the Trail of Tears. The only way Dave can learn of his pre-ordained death is by traveling the New England countryside, visiting haunted cemeteries, asking familial ghosts what fate has in store. A gruesome death, or a happily-ever-after with his longtime girlfriend, Jessica? Marauding Spirit-whipped bulls and deadly nightshade, a doomed roommate and a wayward crypt-sleeper each derail Dave's path to understanding, but nothing presents more of a challenge than his silent, long dead father. The man's refusal to speak leaves Dave wondering what evils his parents committed. How dark is the shade cast by his family tree? The only way to find out is to speak to the dead, but Dave's not always going to like the answers he receives. "Does friendship/love or ghostly determinism rule the day? The spirits are alive on Cape Cod in Corey Farrenkopf's Living in Cemeteries. A strange, beguiling, ghostly romp that reads as though Wes Anderson novelized Peter Jackson's The Frighteners. I'm here for it." -Paul Tremblay, the nationally best-selling author of The Cabin at the End of the World and A Head Full of Ghosts "How Corey Farrenkopf managed to write a novel that's simultaneously bighearted, wise, unnerving, and a wildly hallucinatory exploration of grief and love, I have no idea. But he did it with Living in Cemeteries, and it's fantastic." -Keith Rosson, author of Fever House "In Living in Cemeteries, Farrenkopf takes reality, deftly shakes up its bottle, and adds one fantastical element that changes the whole formula. An enticing and ultimately compassionate debut that uses death as a means to think through the myriad possibilities of life." -Brian Evenson, author of The Glassy, Burning Floor of Hell

Until recently, the land its people know only as the Unnamed Country has remained hidden from the eyes and minds of the rest of the world by dense jungles and formidable mountains. And within those jungles and mountains lurk mysterious and terrifying creatures: jade-green tigers, frighteningly intelligent wild pigs, and shadow people that may just be the precursor to human beings. Caught between their ancient history and the uncertainties of the future, the people who dwell there are ruled over by Ten Jeweled Gods...and the Ten Demon Lords of Hell. Acclaim for Jeffrey Thomas's Unnamed Country stories: "This is a modern classic of writing about another country or culture on the level of Lafcadio Hearn or Italo Calvino. It belongs on the shelf of any, and every, bookstore in any airport with a flight to Southeast Asia. Its stories are disturbing, insightful, macabre, vivid, grotesque, propulsive, engaging and endlessly inventive." -Paul StJohn Mackintosh, greydogtales, on The Unnamed Country."Jeffrey Thomas's unique flair for the unspeakable never shines brighter than when he visits the Southeast Asia of his dreams, and nowhere does he delve deeper into that strange green country than here." -Cody Goodfellow, author of Vertical, on Scenes From a Village."If you know something about Jeffrey Thomas's fiction, you'll know that when he's not writing Weird SF stories set in the infamous and crime-ridden Punktown he sometimes explores "the unnamed country." This country resembles the Viet Nam that Thomas has frequently visited, but...Viet Nam as seen through a lens slightly distorted by, or perhaps slightly sharpened by, imagination." -Brian Evenson, from his introduction to The Spirit of Place.

"Grasshands fulfills the promise of the term 'mindbending' in ways drugs never could. Prose and dialog that are effortlessly engaging, horror that builds in an almost absurdist fashion making the dread that much more effective when it drops. And oh, how it drops. More than the sum of its parts-and damn, those parts are impressive on their own-Grasshands is a vehicle for experiencing the human condition, the ultimate drive for horror. I'll be thinking about it for a long, long time." - Laurel Hightower, author of Below and CrossroadsEverything wrong with the world is wrong with books. When overworked assistant Sylvia Hix finds a strange moss smothering the library books, there's little to worry about. But when patrons start eating it, gaining direct knowledge of the books, then losing their minds-Sylvia has deep problems. Moreover, her supervisor is a glue addict, her best friend Albert is growing into a giant, and Clara Gamelin, the Library Board Director, is shaping her to be the next ball busting head librarian. It is a job she does not want. Sylvia is haunted by the moss, because it's somehow connected to a horrific creature from her childhood. A creature she once named Grasshands and since forgotten. Stopping Grasshands from decaying the town's mind, the library's books, and the slow rot of time is the only job now available to her, whether she wants it or not. A novel of biblio-horror, body horror, and melancholic friendship, Grasshands is ready for check-out. Get your library card ready. "In his novel Grasshands, Kyle Winkler once again renders the deeply familiar pervasively uncomfortable. I find no place to rest in his work, where time keeps shifting, good and evil constantly switch positions like mobile surfaces on a semantic Rubik's cube, and the nostalgia of beloved fairy tales clashes with the modern reality of bills, eviction, imperfect love, and existential uncertainty. Grasshands is both mournful and hopeful, passionate and disappointed; a gorgeous romp through the conflicted folklore of our everyday lives." - Joe Koch, author of The Wingspan of Severed Hands and Convulsive "Grasshands is an enchanting and lovely dark fantasy novel, with echoes of Bradbury, Jackson, and Gaiman-yet its own, startlingly original creation. Kyle Winkler is a distinctive and inventive young writer with an exciting future ahead of him." - Dan Chaon, author of Sleepwalk

"With anything Ottone writes you know you'll get solid storytelling set within dark themes. The beauty of his writing, though, is that he is willing to go to those places many authors fear. A phenomenal collection from start to finish, these stories will leave you shattered and shaking!" -Steve Stred, Splatterpunk-Award nominated author of Sacrament and Mastodon Seventeen stories claw at you from that dark space in the corner of your eye in this new collection by Bram Stoker Award-winning author Robert P. Ottone. In "Only That You Are Still Sane," uncover the accidental and bizarre discovery of time travel. Meet an ordinary couple with sexual desires that are anything but ordinary in "Nibble." Follow the harrowing story of Sleepy Hollow's town constable in "A Mourning in Sleepy Hollow." Tread carefully along the precipice of darkness in "A Most Curious Tome." And in the title story, meet a lonely civil service worker who comes face to face with the darkness eating away at him. Featuring six previously unpublished stories, Wrapped in Plastic & Other Sweet Nothings will force you to stare into the darkness within. Pray you don't blink. "Ottone captures east coast spooks, specters and evil spirits like nobody's business. Wrapped in Plastic has new takes on classic genre themes. This collection is packed with creepy fireside stories." -Freddy Morris, Night of the Living Podcast "This collection is full of heart and Ottone's innate sense of what disturbs. With something for everybody contained within, this book is a panacea for the indecisive reader." -Somer Canon, author of You're Mine

"With masterful pacing, Gifune and DeLuca create an atmosphere of nonstop suspense as they draw the reader into a world of obsession, occult worship, and madness. So much so that, long after the last page was turned, I couldn't stop thinking about The Still Place and its shattering conclusion." -Lucy Taylor, author of Desolation "Greg F. Gifune and Sandy DeLuca are two formidable writers in their own right. Together, they have crafted a vibrant, haunting novel that I drank in like a fine wine, and you will, too." - L.L. Soares, author of Teach Them How to Bleed and Something Blue and Other Colorful Deaths When Mina, a troubled and struggling young painter, is awarded an artist's residency offered by a small collective of eccentric artists in the mysterious coastal town of Crow's Cry, she's hopeful the opportunity will help get both her career and life back on track. Headed by the enigmatic, elderly, and internationally distinguished German artist Klaus Riker, a brilliant painter known for his unorthodox practice of combining art with spiritualism, the collective warmly welcomes Mina into their fold and provides her with every opportunity to take full advantage of the residency program. But in time Mina senses there may be something more going on in Crow's Cry than meets the eye. There is something strange and unsettling about the collective, about the dark old house on the cliffs where Klaus lives and hosts his community of artists, about the horrifying dreams Mina keeps having, and even something disturbing about the paintings Mina's working on herself. As she becomes increasingly isolated from the outside world and drawn deeper into the collective and their unusual practices, Mina begins to suspect that Klaus and the others may not be exactly what they seem. Could their motivations for selecting her be far darker and dangerous than she imagined, or is it only Mina's personal demons and paranoia at play? As she delves deeper into what may actually be going on, Mina creeps closer to the truth behind not only her own troubled soul, but the collective, their plans for her, and the unspeakable horror that awaits her in THE STILL PLACE.

"Donahue at his best plumbs the souls of his characters. In this tale of a crushing apocalypse undreamed of by man, beast, or Bibliomancy, he redefines humanity as well as the nature of monsters." -Ef Deal, author of Esprit de Corpse "Masterfully crafted cosmic horror, vivid and visceral, with dynamic characters driving the story to its epic conclusion, Donahue is quickly forging his place among the likes of John Langan, Laird Barron, and Thomas Ligotti." -Candace Nola, author of Bishop, creator of UncomfortablyDark¿¿Jillian Futch relocates to the peculiar coastal town of Pell, Rhode Island, to pursue her work as a mortician's apprentice. Having spent most of her life as a misfit, she believes she has finally found a home where she can blend in among her fellow "freaks." Her peaceful existence turns to chaos when a horde of tentacled monsters descends from the clouds and destroys the civilized world. As the invaders retreat, Jillian emerges from the rubble intent on rebuilding her life. She helps her fellow survivors heal from unimaginable loss by hosting primitive funerals for loved ones killed in the months-long apocalypse. When a cadaver enters her embalming room bearing an impossible surprise, Jillian realizes the otherworldly horrors have only just begun.

Someone is stalking Devon Woodward. They've been there all along, since before she was born, going back to her grandmother's time. Waiting for her. Watching. And the people who should be able to help, her own parents, are making everything worse.Devon is right to be afraid. Verushka, both victim and villain, is a half-human witch from the other side of the world. She will do anything to get what she needs from the Woodward family, but she may have finally met her match in young Devon.Will family conflict sabotage Devon's efforts to escape and put her in even greater danger? In this multi-perspective novel that is part fairy tale and part horror story, a young girl fights to uncover the truth and save her own life.

Crayton Breaux makes minimum wage clerking in a French Quarter voodoo shop aimed at tourists. It's enough to pay the rent and keep him in beer and partying because, in New Orleans, every day is Fat Tuesday, brah! As for the "voodoo"? Well, the shop, with its skull-and-candles altar and clouds of incense, definitely spooks the tourists in from Iowa or Delaware. They clutch their go-cup hurricanes and nervously joke about sticking pins in dolls and gris-gris bags full of REVENGE ON YOUR ENEMY! spell powder. Crayton thinks it's hilarious. More than a few of these idiots think this stuff's real ... He won't be laughing long.

"Hey." With that one word, uttered in the dead of night, young Charlie's life veers down a dark and unbelievable road. Some thirty years later, Dr. Charles Barry teaches physics at a small California college. Only in dreams do those childhood events reach him: the strange presence in the house, the otherworldly visits and the shadow over his beloved older sister, Megan, whose troubled inward life he could only glimpse. That is, until his father dies, and Megan, now an artistic wanderer, comes back into his life. With her come memories of unearthly creatures, a predatory entity, and a harrowing trek behind the walls of the known cosmos in order to save the very essence of his sister. Now, caught once more by the same forces, Charles returns to those places in the hopes of setting certain things right-and to keep Megan from slipping away forever. With Walking the Dusk, Mike Robinson delivers a contemporary Dantean vision, one of both sweepingly surreal vistas and intimate bonds, a mind-and-genre-warping journey into the twin infinities of the universe within, and the universe without.¿"Walking the Dusk is a wonderfully skin-crawling, page-turning blend of Stephen King's IT and Dante's Inferno. Robinson taps into childhood fear and adult understanding for a fantastic descent into madness, loss, and identity." -Peter Clines, New York Times bestselling author of The Broken Room

"As a writer, L.L. Soares knows how to grip us and scare us, but he also knows how to move us. These stories never let go of their sense of compassion. Soares in damned good! I wish I'd started reading him a lot sooner, but I intend to read everything he writes from now on." -Ray Garton, author of Live Girls and Sex and Violence in Hollywood Something Blue and Other Colorful Deaths is a career-spanning short story collection by L.L. Soares, winner of the Bram Stoker Award for his first novel Life Rage in 2012. From "Little Black Dress," his first professional sale in 2001, to two new stories presented for the first time in this collection, Something Blue offers the reader a selection of some of Soares's best short stories. "When I started Something Blue and Other Colorful Deaths, those first tales jabbed me like an emotional icepick to the heart. As I read further, the author lowered his aim. Those stories were like repeated stabs to the gut. These diverse tales could only be pulled off by a master horror author, and L.L. Soares leaves the reader with no doubt he is in that category. Heartbreaking, gut-wrenching, and terrifying." -Tony Tremblay, author of The Moore House and Do Not Weep for Me

A flyboy volunteers for a suicide mission with a copilot from beyond the stars. A painter's body is possessed by a malevolent force to render a likeness of its hellish beloved. Hundreds of adults mysteriously drown themselves along a one-mile stretch of beach. Two bandits mistakenly steal a severed head-and inherit a nightmare. These and more are the narratives within Nightfall & Other Dangers: stories of ecstasy and terror, memory and madness. Quietly apocalyptic, intimately brutal, and above all else devilishly frightening, this is the beginning of the Nightfall, from which there is no reprieve of dawn.

Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts debuts a meteoric new voice in modern dark fiction. In these tales, you'll discover the humanity of horror, and the traumas that birth ghosts of all kinds. From inner demons to the bloodied fields of war, Edwards maintains his unique voice while whispers of classic writers such as Arthur Machen and Thomas Ligotti shine through. Edwards enters the contemporary dark fiction crowd with a standout collection that is likely to cement his position amongst the modern greats. With a new introduction to the second edition by Mer Whinery,the original introduction by Gwendolyn Kiste, and artwork by Yves Tourigny. "S.L. Edwards is a natural storyteller, with a keen command of voice, a delightfully twisted imagination and a wily, prodigious intellect. Whiskey and Other Unusual Ghosts lives up to its inventive title with tales of hauntings that are chilling, funny, moving and-quite often-all three at once. I loved this collection." - Jon Padgett, author of The Secret of Ventriloquism "In these perfectly constructed, intimately detailed, and emotionally charged tales, Edwards isolates the silent horrors underscoring our lives and woven into our closest relationships, urging them to take psychological and physical form. In the cold hours before dawn his creatures rise, arch their backs, and begin the search for sustenance, feeding off of childhood fears and lifelong grievances. Hidden in memories, abandoned rooms, and forgotten trails, adorned with the fantasies we invent to conceal their nature, our monsters merely postpone the moment of revelation until we're far too vulnerable to escape." - S.P. Miskowski, author of The Worst Is Yet to Come

The Slave State: A place where dogs tire of their lovesick masters and compose novels for benign publishers. A place where love and murder are equally important to the development of young men. A place where everyone is a slave to their minds and their hearts. From one of literature's most daring writers, Chris Kelso invites you to explore his mind-bending universe with nine short stories-a collection that challenges the boundaries of genre and the limits of the heart.