Showing results for "Stories" in Dark Fantasy

Who would suspect that the same mind that created the most famous literary detective of all time also took on the eternally popular genre of vampires? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a contemporary of Bram Stoker, gave us some fascinating works of vampire fiction. From the bloodsucking plant in "The American's Tale" to the bloodsucking wife in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," he reveled in the horror created by creatures who survived on the blood of men and women.

What do you desire in exchange for your soul? Everlasting youth? A million dollars? Women? Power? Bored high-schooler Adam Staples wants for nothing. Such an offer could only be a prank, right? Who would have thought that the prankster is a demon in disguise? After selling his soul and turning into a half-demon, Adam finds himself orphaned and dragged into a realm outside of the world he knew. Training under his benefactor and enrolling in a school made for those who were gifted with powers, Adam ventures around the Outworld to hunt down the demon that turned his life inside out....

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers, these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world's leading vampire anthologists and experts.

James Crowley met his mortal end in a hail of gunfire. Now, he finds himself in purgatory, serving the White Throne to avoid falling to hell. Not quite undead, though not alive either, the best he can hope for is to work off his servitude and fade away. His not-so-sacred duty as a Hand of God? Use his new abilities to hunt down demonic beings that have infiltrated the mortal realm. This time, the White Throne has sent him to the middle of nowhere: a Western town called Dead Acre with a saloon, a moldy church, and little else worth talking about. There isn’t even a sheriff.

Violet has one job: protect humans from dangerous magical creatures. It's a job she's good at - until the cute human guy whose life she just saved follows her into the fae world. Now she's broken faerie law, risking her future at the Guild of Guardians. She needs to get Nate home and make him forget everything he's discovered. If only someone wasn't intent on hunting him down.

Once upon a time there was a boy with a wicked tongue... Before Cardan was a cruel prince or a wicked king, he was a faerie child with a heart of stone. In this sumptuously illustrated tale, Holly Black reveals a deeper look into the dramatic life of Elfhame's enigmatic high king. This tale...

Over the course of two award-winning collections and a critically acclaimed novel, The Croning, Laird Barron has arisen as one of the strongest and most original literary voices in modern horror and the dark fantastic. Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled noir, espionage, and a scientific backbone, Barron's stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.

Lunar New Year should be a time for familial reunions, ancestor worship, and consumption of an unhealthy amount of candied fruit. But when dragon prince Thuan brings home his brooding and ruthless husband Asmodeus for the New Year, they find not interminable family gatherings, but a corpse outside their quarters. Asmodeus is thrilled by the murder investigation; Thuan, who gets dragged into the political plotting he'd sworn off when he left, is less enthusiastic.

A chilling collection of Ray Bradbury short stories, The October Country combines dark fantasy, classic horror stories, imaginative tales, and gripping mystery and suspense, offering an unforgettable exploration of the human soul's darkest corners. “That country where it is always turning late...

This short story collection will take you into the depths of Beck’s dark imagination: from what happens when the deepest bore hole on Earth has just passed nine miles and hits a strange open space – and it's hellishly hot down there; to an Antarctic research team examining fragments from a deep ice glacier and discovers a tiny seed that, once thawed, grows into something terrifyingly unexpected.

At the heart of these stories, as with all the best of Lovecraft’s work, is the belief that the Earth was once inhabited by powerful and evil gods, just waiting for the chance to recolonise their planet. Cthulhu is one such god, lurking deep beneath the sea until called into being by cult followers who – like all humans – know not what they do.

Hundreds of years after the end of the world, the Appalachian community of Iron Hollow finds itself beset by demons. Such horrors are common these days in the outlands, where most folks die young—if they don’t turn into monsters first. When a legendary knight is summoned to hunt down the latest unearthly beast to haunt their woods, the town’s new oral historian, Shrike, has more reason than most to be concerned. Because that demon was her wife. And while Shrike is certain that May still recognizes her—that May is still herself, somewhere beneath it all—she can’t prove it.

This astonishing collection of all-new tales by some of the most acclaimed writers at work today is called, simply, Stories. Edited by Neil Gaiman (Sandman, The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline) and Al Sarrantonio (award-winning author of forty books and editor of numerous collections)...

In the shadowy world of "Blood and Roses: A Dark Cinderella Story," the figure of the stepmother emerges not just as an antagonist, but as a tragic embodiment of despair and ambition twisted by a curse. This subchapter, "The Curse of the Stepmother," delves into the depths of her character, unearthing the dark motivations that drive her actions. Once a woman of grace and beauty, her heart was poisoned by envy and heartbreak, leading her down a path where love turned to bitterness.

The Ultimate Gothic Horror Collection is a fully indexed collection of classic gothic stories, read by four Audie-winning narrators. Included here are stories by Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Sheridan Le Fanu, Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allan Poe.

The kids go into the bounce house, but when they come out…they’re not kids anymore. When a cam girl drives to the nearest grocery store, her GPS navigator takes her to another far more interesting location. Very pregnant Teresa has all her stuck-up friends coming for her baby shower, but there’s one guest who wasn’t invited, and his gift is most unusual: a jellyfish.

"Has your life here been so difficult? You seem to fail upward at every opportunity." So says Careena, the hag teaching Clyde Hatchett how to use magic. It certainly doesn't feel like that to Clyde, who's still got a day job scraping mud (at least he hopes it's mud) out of monster pits. And yet, Clyde's found himself at the center of a massive conspiracy to kill the Emperor. He's the only one with proof that could save the man, and take down an entire network of corrupt nobles, evil slavers, and power-hungry despots.

Emerson Clarke: Sarcastic. Independent. Possibly losing her mind. Because that's the only explanation for why she occasionally sees things that aren't there, right? But one night, an impossible power erupts from her, and Em realizes the truth is crazier than she ever thought: she isn't losing her mind; she's magical.

The Saint of War spares the life of a servant girl so she can fulfill her destiny as the kingdom’s greatest warrior in this short story of love and loyalty by New York Times bestselling author Alix E. Harrow.

Veos has quickly proved to be far more capable than your average Dungeon Core. In the eyes of his challengers, at least. He's instinctive and motivated, with a drive to craft an intricate story and create obstacles for all those who seek to explore what lies beneath Nerian-Silex. Though Veos is certainly an unusual dungeon, what truly sets him apart is unknown to most—even himself. But now he's stumbled upon intel about the realm's dark history that, if tampered with, could reawaken a horrific enemy.