Sign ‘O’ The Times was Prince’s first album after the breakup of The Revolution, and came in the middle of a sort of creative free-for-all. At the time of the Revolution’s demise, Prince had been working on a Revolution album (Dream Factory) as well as a solo album, Camille, which featured sped-up vocals and an androgynous new persona (named after the album’s title). After a flurry of activity, recording, and the breakup of the Revolution, Prince had the idea to release all of the above in a 3-LP set called Crystal Ball. Warner Bros. said no, because they have no sense of humour.
Instead, Prince culled down his recordings and released a double-LP set, solo, called Sign ‘O’ The Times. The album drew in large amounts from both cancelled records. “Housequake”, “Strange Relationship”, “U Got The Look”, and “If I Was Your Girlfriend” come from Camille and all bear the squeaky, sped-up vocals that Prince was experimenting with on those recordings. “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker” and “Starfish And Coffee” were part of the Dream Factory recordings right from the original demos. In lesser hands, such a hodgepodge of components would have ended up as a gigantic mess, a hymn to overreaching ambition. Prince, though, comes across on Sign ‘O’ The Times like he knows exactly what he’s doing and where he’s going at all times. Without hyperbole, the album is an encapsulation of everything that went right with pop music in the 1980s. The drum machine (a Linn LM-1 for the gear nerds among us) is precisely funky, and never comes off as mechanical or stiff. Prince’s expert sense of in-the-pocket grooves when it comes to bass is on point everywhere, especially on the rather apocalyptic twilight rhythm of the socially conscious title track and the sensual “If I Was Your Girlfriend”. There’s a decent balance between funk, soul, R&B, and that Eighties brassy pop. Underneath all of that, however, is evidence (provided on “The Cross” and to an extent on “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”) that Prince played rock ‘n’ roll guitar like a motherfucker.
Sign ‘O’ The Times would be the last great Prince album – unless you count The Black Album, which was supposed to be Prince’s followup to Sign ‘O’ The Times until he had a bad trip and became convinced the album was evil. Instead, he rushed out the half-baked Lovesexy, followed that up with the Batman soundtrack (which was okay as well) and then got into a horrendous, legendary fight with Warner Bros. that saw him change his name into a symbol and churn out a series of rushed albums to get out of his contract with the label (although Love Symbol is honestly pretty decent). Legend (and Kevin Smith) has it that Prince has a vault of music that could last us all until doomsday, but chances are good that, as far as quality goes, none of it is going to top what Prince was doing on Sign ‘O’ The Times.
The Idiot was Iggy Pop’s first release since the final (epic) Stooges album four years previous. The intervening years had been, to put it mildly, chaotic; the last Stooges show in 1974 had been highlighted by a brawl between the band and a group of bikers, and Pop had delved into cocaine in a heavy way in the years afterward. At one point in 1976, unable to keep himself from shoveling drugs up his nose, he checked himself into a mental hospital. An old friend and collaborator, David Bowie, visited him there often and when he was released Bowie took him out on the Station To Station tour, which probably didn’t do wonders for his inability to stay off drugs. They got busted together in Rochester, NY (although just for marijuana) and in 1977 decided to decamp to West Berlin to kick their habits. While there, Bowie started playing with the ambient, electronic textures that would inform his Berlin trilogy, and in many ways The Idiot is the first album of Bowie’s Berlin era. It is entirely unlike much of the rest of Pop’s discography, and musically it is far more reminiscent of, say, a connection between Station To Station and Low. It’s a funk-influenced R&B and soul album written and recorded by musicians surrounded by German electronic pioneers (Kraftwerk’s seminal Trans Europa Express also came out in March of 1977).
The Idiot may not be the most “Iggy Pop” album, per se, but it is a great album nonetheless. Bowie’s work in Germany is presaged in most ways by his work here, and he admitted several years later that he used Iggy Pop as a sort of guinea pig for the sound that he wanted to flesh out on his own records. As such, it features Iggy Pop crooning like the sort of deranged android Lothario that the Thin White Duke himself was at that time. Bowie himself would in fact nick a couple of the songs a few years later: the grinding “Sister Midnight” would become “Red Money” on 1979’s Lodger and of course the Bowie version of “China Girl” from 1983 was a much bigger hit. The Idiot is a perfect summation of where both of them were at when a desire to get the hell out of L.A. hit them in very early 1977: drugged-out, discoed-out, dragging themselves through the night and generally feeling as though the entire world had been struck down an octave or so in pitch (or, how “Mass Production” sounds). It would go on to have great influence on a number of up-and-coming goth, post-punk, and eventually industrial groups. Siouxsie Sioux and Martin Glover (of Killing Joke) both singled the album out as a favourite and it was still spinning on Ian Curtis’ turntable when he hung himself in 1980. The drum beat from “Nightclubbing” was reworked as “Closer”, the biggest hit Nine Inch Nails ever had; it was also appropriated by both Oasis and the Sneaker Pimps, proving a sort of bizarre cross-genre affection for The Idiot‘s Pop-Gone-Bowie charm. While the Sunset Strip bands would try to manufacture and sell a flashy, inclusive sort of sleaze, The Idiot was a piss-take of sleaze-rock that skewered all of those bands ten years in advance.
During the wild, chaotic run-up to the release of The Life Of Pablo, Kanye West announced that it would be a “gospel album”, inspired by the African-American tradition of blending worship in church with soaring choral music that God himself might hear. Despite the label, the only gospel moments on the album were the admittedly brilliant opener “Ultralight Beam” and “Lowlight”, an intro to the more traditional (and Young Thug guesting) “Highlight”.
Fellow Chicago musician Chance The Rapper was on the former, and it’s Chance The Rapper that is now bringing out what ‘Ye promised: a full-on gospel hip hop record, embracing the worldliness of life in often-violent Chicago, and simultaneously the glory and life guide of his religion. Rather than the lysergic uncertainty of his breakthrough Acid Rap, Coloring Book finds a man confident in his faith and in sorrow for his city and his people. “Blessings (Reprise)” has him saying “They never seen a rapper practice modesty, I never practice, I only perform”, and this serves as a good overarching theme for the record as a whole. It’s an album that stands in direct contrast to the nihilistic, violent drill scene that Chicago is known for; rather than a finger-waving sermon, though, tracks like “Summer Friends” seem to offer a prayer for those caught up in the summertime violence that is endemic to the drug and gang-ridden city streets. The problem with overtly “Christian” artists is that the music often seems to take a backseat to the message; they’re so concerned with connecting with “the kids” that they don’t take the time to actually figure out what makes the secular music so appealing in the first place. Chance succeeds exactly where “Christian rap” or “Christian rock” fails: he lets his faith infuse his music, rather than supersede it. He’s intensely relatable, even when you’re outside of the continuum of his experience.
Even better in this day and age, Chance is staunchly independent. He doesn’t need a label, and he doesn’t need to sell his album just to fulfill label quotas. Coloring Book is free, and as such it’s technically classified as a mixtape. It’s a subject he addresses on “No Problem” with Lil’ Wayne (no stranger to label problems himself) and “Mixtape” (with ultra-prolific fellow mixtaper Young Thug), but it’s also a subject he brought up originally on “Ultralight Beam”: “He said let’s do a good ass job with Chance 3 / I hear you gotta sell it to snatch the Grammy / Let’s make it so free and the bars so hard / That there ain’t one gosh darn part you can’t tweet”. Mixtapes are ineligible for Grammys, and if there’s an album that deserves a Grammy it’s Coloring Book – a fact that perhaps led Chance to release it on DatPiff and then shortly after make it a short-term iTunes exclusive. Nonwithstanding whether having it on a paid streaming service makes it “for sale”, Chance’s Twitter fans ended up tweeting all of the lyrics to Coloring Book. They’re a loyal group and Chance is the sort of artist to reward them for their loyalty with both quality and (between his own work, his guest spots, and his gig fronting Chicago experimental pop group The Social Experiment) quantity.
Chance deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as the other giants of modern hip hop – your Weezys, Drizzys, Yeezys, K. Dots, et al. He’s got a killer flow, has a Kendrick-like appreciation for intricate wordplay, and has the ability to ride a vibe for all it’s worth better than pretty much anyone else. In a genre dominated by a careful balance between artistry and crass mercenary sales grubbing, Chance takes the left hand path and is all the better for it.
The perennial also-ran to A$AP Rocky comes into his own with a solid album of hard-hitting verses backed with a staggering amount of high-profile guest spots.
Eight songs from 2015’s Wire record were redone for this mini-LP. As it turns out, the pioneers of jittery indie rock fall apart when they try to hold themselves still even for a moment.
Toronto has a reputation for noisy rock ‘n’ roll – emphasis on the noise part. In the grand tradition of METZ, Fucked Up, et al. comes Greys, who pile noisy parts on top of each other until they approximate songs. While their sound has expanded somewhat from their debut, it’s still fairly limited in terms of it’s overall impact. Still, for something to crank up to ten and annoy the neighbours with, you could do worse.
A pleasant surprise from a band that’s been very hit and miss since their stellar debut, Parc Avenue. Strives less for radio play than it does for campfire grit.
The veteran alt-country band has lost quite a bit of oomph over the years, and their ninth album can’t hold a candle to their earlier career. Decent enough stuff, but unexceptional.
The standard-bearers for the modern Riot Grrl movement get a little slicker and a bit more commercial on their third album. It works, but I miss the fireworks and slashing of old. At least the punk rock feminist righteousness is still intact.
Because there aren’t any albums in this list I want to take the time to commit more than 300 words to.
The veteran Brooklyn lo-fi folk group plays it safe on their latest album – entirely too safe. Everything here sounds like Woods, even when it’s trying hard not to.
Ben Harper’s first album with his Innocent Criminals backing band since the first Obama election is a solid return to form, a slick and professional amalgam of his styles: funk, rock, soul, reggae, and old school R&B.
The poster children for diminishing returns approach the singularity. Why even bother at this point?
The band doubles down on their folky Americana tracing, with a graver tone than the first time around. The best that can be said is that at least they didn’t just go full-on Coldplay like a certain other indie-folk band of saps.
The veteran Detroit rapper isn’t gunning for radio singles or memorable street bangers here. Instead, he leans on his top-notch lyrical skills to deliver a solid, message-driven album that also happens to feature some great hooks.
The French psych-garage band combines a variety of European traditions – Italian giallo soundtracks, French ye-ye music, Spanish guitar melodies – with hard-hitting American psychedelic garage rock. Features New Order bassist Peter Hook in an obvious cameo on one track.
Like Drew Storen, The Coathangers are a once-reliable outfit that has lost its velocity and therefore it’s meaning by 2016. They try to develop some new tricks but, also like Storen, it remains to be seen whether they can pull that off in the long-run.
The former Woods bassist puts out a lush album of moves cribbed from the Bob Dylan playbook. Not exactly essential, but not a throwaway album either.
A sort of lazy-eyed post-punk, like if Thom Yorke fronted an underground band. There’s nothing here that reinvents the wheel or even improves upon an aspect of their influences, but it passes the time well enough.
After putting Ministry to bed with a trio of albums that all said the same thing (“George W Bush sucks”), Al Jourgenson returns in 2016 with a project that blends industrial oblivion with the blurred effect of speed metal. It doesn’t have the hard-hitting punch of his Ministry days but it’s funnier than anything he’s done in years, and the latter half of the album has more hooks than a bait shop.
The Iron & Wine frontman teams up with Jesca Hoop to put together an album of rich country-tinged folk ballads that I can’t remember a blessed thing about as soon as they’re over.
When it comes to electronic music meant to get you moving, Utility is competent. That’s not really a compliment but it’s not altogether denigrating either. You could do worse.
An effective blend of the baroque majesty of Joanna Newsom and the cutting-edge mystique of St. Vincent. It would be a much better album if it wasn’t so overly long.
Dense, thick, and lo-fi, the hip-hop group’s first album in six years (with new members) hits all of the right notes from their previous, critically acclaimed efforts. Noisy without being willfully so, and brief without being truncated.
Friday is the day on /r/music where the mods like to turn off the ability to post YouTube videos in the hopes of the subreddit actually becoming one for music discussion and not, say, where Reddit likes to dump it’s garbage fire taste in music. Ha. Ha ha. Well, they try, that’s the important thing.
If you tuned in yesterday, you’ll get the basic gist: I take a look at the top ten songs posted on /r/music in the last 24 hours and tell you how terrible Reddit’s taste in music is. In much rarer occasions, I’ll tell you where they get it right. Fridays will be fun because of the phenomenon mentioned above: it’s going to be a collection of those songs with the staying power to make it through the discussion posts.
Also, for the record, no I don’t plan on this being an everyday thing, but I would like it to be an everyday I can manage it thing.
Anyway…
Reddit manages to kick it off with something weird and cool, courtesy of Mike “Weird and Cool” Patton. Goes through four different changes in tone and structure, each completely different than the one before. In anyone else’s hands, it would be a gigantic mess, but Mike Patton isn’t anyone else.
Sirius XMU’s favourite Dinosaur, Jr track is also Reddit’s most commonly posted DJ song. Thankfully it never gets old, although I’ve heard it three times today between the radio and this particular set. Two good tracks in a row, Reddit, maybe Fridays are your thing.
Ah, the new Beck track. The one that starts off like a generic hip hop beat, or maybe something like what Beyonce might have rejected for her self-titled 2013 album. Then Beck manages to bull through it in a display of sheer Beck-ness. Still, it feels a little empty and it’s not until 2/3 of the way through that Beck lets his freak flag fly in even a limited fashion. Honestly it feels a little like Beck chasing a hit and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Holding out opinions for the album, we’ll see.
The Cult were an Eighties goth band that scored some hits when they decided to be an AC/DC tribute band instead. My mom knew the lead singer in high school at one point, to no one’s surprise he was a dick. Trust Reddit to go ga-ga for generic hard rock because “it has guitars”.
Why do metalcore bands have such fucking awful band names? Why do metalcore bands all recycle the same damn low-end chugging? Why do metalcore bands mistake sung choruses for depth? Why do metalcore bands insist on breakdowns that are cheesier than a Wisconsin hamburger?
Anyway, you can always tell when the pre-teens are posting, because there will be metalcore.
Okay, show of hands. Who was crying out for a Monkees comeback? Anyone? Put your hand down, dad, Jesus Christ. Wait, this is actually sort of good. I…I kind of like this. Noel Gallagher co-wrote it? I suppose that explains some things.
Who gave the indie kids access to the internet? They managed to find a Portugal. The Man track that isn’t all that great. It’s about as middling a work as you can find from a middling also-ran indie act. You thought you were doing something good, but instead you fucked it all up. Good work, Reddit.
The rest of the post title literally reads: “I know this has been posted before, but not for months & I think it’s well worth posting again.” Oh, well, I guess that makes sense except wait IT WAS LITERALLY POSTED YESTERDAY AS THE JOHNNY CASH COVER.
Who are you trying to fool, anyway? We all know where the inspiration to post this came from.
Decent tune though.
Link Wray poked a hole in his speaker cone with a pencil and invented hard rock single-handed. That might be a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much. Reddit of course knows it from its multiple pop cultural appearances, including Tarantino. At least it’s better than just posting the songs from Guitar Hero .
Lyrics are the only really halfway interesting part of this song, the rest is a really generic and straightforward electro-pop song, like what Hot Chip would write if they got really, really boring all of a sudden. The outro is rather nice though.
And now for a new sequence, brought to you by the…ahem…”tastemakers” of Reddit’s infamously awful /r/music community.
It’s often said that Reddit has shitty taste in music. Granted it’s usually 4chan’s /mu/ community saying that, but let’s be serious here. Whether it’s the constant love of Queen and Foo Fighters that makes me roll my eyes or the circlejerking over how superior they are because of their love of Tool, /r/music is a bottomfeeder in terms of music communities.
Or is it? I’ve decided to start an ongoing series where I listen to the top ten songs posted to /r/music in a 24 hour period and assign them completely subjective ratings based on my own insane whims and thought processes. Then we’ll see if /r/music’s taste actually sucks as badly as I’ve always thought.
Without further ado, I give to you:
The most poppy and milquetoast of all of the Clash-rip-off’s poppy and milquetoast songs. /r/music loves punk rock, but only if it’s from Le Nineties and it’s been beaten to death on the radio since then.
The first time since 2001 that Australian sample-stackers The Avalanches release new music AND it’s fucking stellar? You win this time Reddit. You win this time.
I’d say something snarky about how the only way metal gets to the top of Reddit is in cartoon form but I can’t hate on Dethklok. This isn’t completely dildos.
The best that can be said of this is that at least Reddit took a break from jerking off over “Hurt”. At least with “Rusty Cage” I don’t have to read about how “REZNOR TOTALLY SAID THAT SONG BELONGED TO JOHNNY CASH NOW BECAUSE THE COVER WAS SO MUCH BETTER!!1!11!”. In fact, one of the top comments is the exact opposite. Thank you, Jesus.
Man it has been a long time since I thought of Brody and The Distillers. It still sounds like Courtney Love fronting Rancid to me, and as the years have gone by that prospect appeals to me exponentially less. Also, those fucking spikes. Jesus Brody, how much money did you shell out to get that look down just right? How punk rock of you.
Jesus Christ Reddit, Bret Easton Ellis was being ironic. What the hell is wrong with you?
Apparently it’s awful pop punk day on Reddit. Lagwagon was that band that was there for you if Pennywise was too edgy for you. Completely indistinguishable from anything else on Epitaph in the mid-90s.
GFR got a lot of hate back in the day from critics because, well, they’re not really that good on average. Still, they were capable of moments of brilliance, and “I’m Your Captain” is one of those. For more on Grand Funk Railroad, consult your local library.
Goofy Eighties pop rock from the Gowan of Australia. I often wonder who posts these sorts of songs. Kids nostalgic for a time they never had to live through? Adults putting on rose-coloured nostalgia glasses? Mouthbreathers who listen to bland Mix FM stations at work? At least in dying you don’t have to deal with New Wave for a second time.
Reddit’s sizeable school shooter community comes through in the clutch.
News has just broken over the internet that Prince Rogers Nelson – better known by his sole artistic name of Prince – has died in his Minnesota mansion at the age of 57. Although it was originally sourced from TMZ – and therefore was suspect – Prince’s publicist has confirmed it just now via Twitter.
Prince was, to put it simply, a pop music legend. Hailing from the rather unlikely beginnings of Minneapolis, Prince came to define both the sound of a city and the sound of an era. Marrying disco, R&B, soul, funk, and rock ‘n’ roll into a signature brew all his own, Prince scored a series of best-selling albums throughout the 1980s: Prince, Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 were classics with his backing band The Revolution, and 1987’s Sign O’ The Times was a massive solo hit, both commercially and critically. Besides his music, he is also well-known for being a controversial figure in the music industry. In 1993, sick of the machinations of his record label, Warner Bros., he changed his name into an unpronounceable symbol and wrote the word “SLAVE” on his forehead before a prominent performance at the Brit Awards in 1995. He also banged out a large amount of material in a very short time in order to break himself out of his record contract, a tactic made possible by the fact that he was more prolific than the next fifteen musicians combined (excluding perhaps only Robert Pollard).
Now that he has passed on, that prolific nature will keep his name alive into the time of my grandchildren. Rumours of the insanely large size of his unreleased vault have abounded for years, and now that he’s died that vault will inevitably be opened and plundered for the wealth contained therein. Regardless of what comes out of there, however, he will always be best known for his creation of the post-disco sound of the early 1980s, which gave birth to the pop sound of the rest of the decade. It’s rare that one actually gets to use this line legitimately, but: Goodnight, sweet prince.
The dream of the Nineties is alive in more places than just Portland these days. With every second kid out there wearing a flannel overshirt and a fitted cap, and every second band trading in post-Dinosaur Jr. guitar crunch, one can be forgiven for thinking that they were reliving their memories of 1992. Unlike their fuzz-pedal worshipping contemporaries – Bully, Speedy Ortiz, Joanna Gruesome, the Crutchfield sisters – Japanese Breakfast takes their cues from a more esoteric place. Psychopomp is a little bit Isn’t Anything-era My Bloody Valentine, with the airy charm of vintage Asobi Seksu and a bit of the more out-there moments of Guided By Voices. “In Heaven” is a shoegaze paradise; “Everybody Wants To Love You” is a chug-along lo-fi anthem. “Jane Cum” and “Triple 7” are the highlights, soaring numbers that focus their attention on the impassioned vocals of Michelle Zauner.
Zauner is the real show here. The songs on Psychopomp are reworks of some lo-fi stuff she worked on when her old band, Little Big Leagues, was still active. She and collaborator Ned Eisenberg rebuilt them into something both strongly reminiscent of the shoegaze/dream-pop days of the late Eighties and early Nineties while retaining a vibrant mysteriousness that sets the music apart from the merely derivative. The fact that it breezes by in a scant 25 minutes only adds to it; unlike a lot of her contemporaries, Zauner knows when to call it a day. The quick runtime means that each of the songs on Pyschopomp stands out on its own as a strong contender, and lets the strengths of each song shine through, something that might have been lost in a much longer work. It’s wistful and heavy, pure indie pop at its finest.
Self-produced hip hop albums can get quite self-indulgent, and Dame Fortune is no exception. The producer’s long-standing talent is there, but only in fits and doses.
The Portland supergroup’s strongest album in quite some time. It’s not The Body, The Blood, The Machine, but then again what is? Solid, fist-in-the-air power-pop that often edges into punk.
A deeply human record, all the more so for its electronic starting point. Brooklyn producer James Hinton used samples gleaned from YouTube for the vocals on this record, which is something I do that I didn’t realize was actually legitimate. Off to the DAW I go.
Like his fellow Milo on the (now-defunct) Hellfyre Club label, Open Mike Eagle twists words, scratches out lyrics, courts controversy, and lives in the interstitial zone of the black middle class in America. Like Milo, he lets his desire for alt-hip hop vibes and out-there production overshadow the songs at times.
Another record from a man who seemingly just can’t stop recording them, former Husker Du and Sugar frontman Bob Mould may not be Robert Pollard but he’s close. Patch The Sky is one of the best albums he’s ever released, a stripped-down collection of power-guitar songs that bring to mind what his legendary punk band might have sounded like had they allowed it to age gracefully.
Solid white-boy funk and soul, Stiff is a breezy, poppy album that sounds like it’s the 1970s that have come around again, and not the 1990s. It’s the sort of album that invites you to have a great ol’ time, and then helps you get there.
An abrasive, jittery album that is secretly formed of big hooks and a lot of punk rock swagger. Like a serrated switchblade, it’ll stab right into your gut and then stay there.
The instant USA Today bestseller by Chuck Tingle about what it takes to succeed in a world that wants you dead.
“Brilliantly bloody, wildly fun, and extremely scary, Bury Your Gays brings a sledgehammer down on tired tropes and makes a masterpiece of their guts.”―Rachel Harrison, national bestselling author of Black Sheep
Misha knows that chasing success in Hollywood can be hell.
But finally, after years of trying to make it, his big moment is here: an Oscar nomination. And the executives at the studio for his long-running streaming series know just the thing to kick his career to the next level: kill off the gay characters, “for the algorithm,” in the upcoming season finale.
Misha refuses, but he soon realizes that he’s just put a target on his back. And what’s worse, monsters from his horror movie days are stalking him and his friends through the hills above Los Angeles.
Haunted by his past, Misha must risk his entire future―before the horrors from the silver screen find a way to bury him for good.
One of the Best Horror Books of 2024 by Esquire!
One of the Best Books of Summer 2024 by Paste, HuffPost, Esquire, and Publishers Weekly!
A city’s haunted history and fairy-tale horrors converge for two women in an addictive novel of psychological suspense by a multiple Bram Stoker Award–nominated author.
Sisters Anna and Jennie live in a historic bungalow on the Chicago River. They’re tethered to a disquieting past, and with nowhere else to go, nothing can part them from their family home. Not the maddening creaks and disembodied voices that rattle the old walls. Not the inexplicable drownings in the area, or the increasing number of bodies that float by Anna’s window.
To stave off loneliness, Anna has a podcast, spinning ghostly tales of Chicago’s tragic history. But when Anna captures the attention of an ardent male listener, she awakens to the possibilities of a world outside.
As their relationship grows, so do Jennie’s fears. More and more people are going missing in the river. And then two detectives come calling.
They’re looking for a link between the mysteries of the river and what’s housed on the bank. Even Anna and Jennie don’t understand how dreadful it is―and still can be―when the truth about their unsettled lives begins to surface.
The instant USA Today bestseller from CJ Leede, author of Maeve Fly―a scorching and sweeping new novel about the end of the world as we know it.
One of Esquire and Vulture’s Best Horror Books of 2024 • A GoodReads and Publishers Weekly Editors’ Pick • An Indie Next Pick!
“A blistering, feverish ride through a uniquely American apocalypse.”―Chuck Wendig, New York Times bestselling author
A virus is spreading across America, transforming the infected and making them feral with lust.
Sophie, a good Catholic girl, must traverse the hellscape of the midwest to try to find her family while the world around her burns. Along the way she discovers there are far worse fates than dying a virgin…
The end times are coming.
“I’ve loved Maggie Thrash’s work for years, and Rainbow Black is going to set so many new hearts aflame—murder, intrigue, queer love, dark humor AND satanic panic? Welcome to the Maggie Thrash Fan Club, world!”—Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of This Time Tomorrow
For readers of Donna Tartt and Ottessa Moshfegh comes a brilliant, deliriously entertaining novel from the acclaimed author of Honor Girl. Rainbow Black is part murder mystery, part gay international fugitive love story—set against the ’90s Satanic Panic and spanning 20 years in the life of a young woman pulled into its undertow.
Lacey Bond is a 13-year-old girl in New Hampshire growing up in the tranquility of her hippie parents’ rural daycare center.
Then the Satanic Panic hits. It’s the summer of 1990 when Lacey ’s parents are handcuffed, flung into the county jail, and faced with a torrent of jaw-dropping accusations as part of a mass hysteria sweeping the nation. When a horrific murder brings Lacey to the breaking point, she makes a ruthless choice that will haunt her for decades.
As an adult, Lacey mimes a normal life as the law clerk of an illustrious judge. She has a beautiful girlfriend, a measure of security, and the world has mostly forgotten about her. But after a tiny misstep spirals into an uncontrolled legal disaster, the hysteria threatens to begin all over again.
Rainbow Black is an addictive, searing, high-octane triumph, an imaginative tour de force about one woman’s tireless desire to be free.
Twenty four years ago, Olive and Stacia went into the woods. Only Olive returned, with no memory of what happened. Now, Olive’s father has vanished, leaving behind research which indicates that he has found out what lives in the woods.
It wakes up every twelve years, taking only children. It has been doing so for at least two hundred years. And it is waking again.
Forced to return to her hometown, Olive finds her memories returning.
What she remembers from the days leading up to Stacia’s disappearance is magical, almost impossible to believe, but she knows that she must return to the woods–to face what lurks there, to save her father, and to find out what happened to Stacia.
“Beautiful, poetic, and gutting. Hollow Girls is a captivating novel that will lure you deep into the woods where magic and darkness entwine. There is so much heart to this story of friendship and blood where oaths and secrets continue to unravel until the very last page. Bring an offering to the Fae, and come along on this memorable journey.”
–Sara Tantlinger, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Devil’s Dreamland.
Winnie Campbell is sixteen and a burgeoning serial killer. Her father blames her for her mother’s death, dotes on her little sister, and executes increasingly cruel punishments meant to humiliate Winnie. As the punishments morph into torture, she begins fantasizing about regaining some semblance of power, eventually working through her rage by killing small animals.
When her violent games escalate and she accidentally kills an infant while babysitting, Winnie gets a taste of a power she doesn’t want to let go of. Her obsession with killing grows, and so does her fascination for Leigh, a girl that reminds her of her younger self.
Winnie wants to kill. She wants to die. She wants to be someone other than herself. And killing Leigh, a symbolic suicide, could be the key to her metamorphosis.
“A shocking and utterly harrowing examination of the creation of a murderer. Although Crushing Snails excels in many areas, this novel is perhaps most skillful at effectively illustrating the very human compulsion for violence and depravity. Murray’s excellent novel showcases the very human possibility of carnage—the horrifying prospect of brutality—when curiosity is sated and when we finally surrender to our most feral desires.”—Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
“Masterfully executed and chilling to the core, Crushing Snails is a terrifying look into the darkest depths of the human mind and the ways in which monsters are formed. With the intensity level set to high, Murray draws you into complicity as you witness one girl’s spiral into obsession and depravity, culminating in a horrifying conclusion you’ll never forget.”—Kelsea Yu, Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of Bound Feet
“A nightmare of power and control, or perhaps even something more wayward. Crushing Snails is provocative and demanding, spiraling and unapologetic. Emma Murray is an exciting emerging voice in horror challenging what is normal and what is safe.”—Cynthia Pelayo, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Crime Scene
“Sick, twisted, and compulsively readable—Emma E. Murray’s Crushing Snails is a coming-of-age story that goes to dark and darker places, leaving me constantly hanging between two modes of thought: one-more-chapter and holy-fucking-shit.”—Carson Winter, author of The Psychographist
A woman checks herself into an insane asylum to solve the mystery of her sister’s murder, only to lose her memory and maybe her mind.
From the subversive voice behind The Phlebotomist comes a story that combines the uncanny atmosphere of Don’t Worry Darling with the narrative twists of The Last House on Needless Street
What would guilt make you do?
Hadleigh Keene died on the road leading away from Hollyhock Asylum. The reasons are unknown. Her sister Morgan blames herself. A year later with the case still unsolved, Morgan creates a false identity, that of a troubled housewife named Charlotte Turner, and goes inside.
Morgan quickly discovers that Hollyhock is… not right. She is shaken by the hospital’s peculiar routines and is soon beset by strange episodes. All the while, the persona of Charlotte takes on a life of its own, becoming stronger with each passing day. As her identity begins unraveling, Morgan finds herself tracing Hadleigh’s footsteps and peering into the places they lead.
The terrifying reality of The Redemption of Morgan Bright unfolds over the course of chapters told from the points of view of both Charlotte and Morgan, police interviews, and text messages.
Once there were four Lasco siblings banded together against a world that failed to protect them. But on a hellish night that marked the end of their childhood, eldest brother Shawn died violently after being dragged behind closed doors. Though the official finding was accidental death, Nathan Lasco knows better, and has never forgiven their mother, Stella.
Now two decades later, Stella promises to finally reveal the truth of what happened on The Day of the Door. Accompanied by a paranormal investigative team, the Lasco family comes together one final time, but no one is prepared for the revelations waiting for them on the third floor.
A National Bestseller
The final installment in the most lauded trilogy in the history of horror novels picks up four years after Don’t Fear the Reaper as Jade returns to Proofrock, Idaho, to build a life after the years of sacrifice—only to find the Lake Witch is waiting for her in New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones’s finale.
It’s been four years in prison since Jade Daniels last saw her hometown of Proofrock, Idaho, the day she took the fall, protecting her friend Letha and her family from incrimination. Since then, her reputation, and the town, have changed dramatically. There’s a lot of unfinished business in Proofrock, from serial killer cultists to the rich trying to buy Western authenticity. But there’s one aspect of Proofrock no one wants to confront…until Jade comes back to town. The curse of the Lake Witch is waiting, and now is the time for the final stand.
New York Times bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones has crafted an epic horror trilogy of generational trauma from the Indigenous to the townies rooted in the mountains of Idaho. It is a story of the American west written in blood.
“Simply put—and I do not say this lightly—Incidents Around the House is the most purely effective horror novel I have ever read.”—Neil McRobert, Esquire (Best Horror Books of 2024, So Far)
A chilling horror novel about a haunting, told from the perspective of a young girl whose troubled family is targeted by an entity she calls “Other Mommy,” from the New York Times bestselling author of Bird Box
“This book isthe monster that lives inside your closet.”—Grady Hendrix, New York Times bestselling author of How to Sell a Haunted House
To eight-year-old Bela, her family is her world. There’s Mommy, Daddo, and Grandma Ruth. But there is also Other Mommy, a malevolent entity who asks her every day: “Can I go inside your heart?”
When horrifying incidents around the house signal that Other Mommy is growing tired of asking Bela the question over and over, Bela understands that unless she says yes, her family will soon pay.
Other Mommy is getting restless, stronger, bolder. Only the bonds of family can keep Bela safe, but other incidents show cracks in her parents’ marriage. The safety Bela relies on is about to unravel.
But Other Mommy needs an answer.
Incidents Around the House is a chilling, wholly unique tale of true horror about a family as haunted as their home.
A chilling twist on the “cursed film” genre from the bestselling author of The Pallbearers Club and The Cabin at the End of the World.
In June 1993, a group of young guerilla filmmakers spent four weeks making Horror Movie, a notorious, disturbing, art-house horror flick.
The weird part? Only three of the film’s scenes were ever released to the public, but Horror Movie has nevertheless grown a rabid fanbase. Three decades later, Hollywood is pushing for a big budget reboot.
The man who played “The Thin Kid” is the only surviving cast member. He remembers all too well the secrets buried within the original screenplay, the bizarre events of the filming, and the dangerous crossed lines on set that resulted in tragedy. As memories flood back in, the boundaries between reality and film, past and present start to blur. But he’s going to help remake the film, even if it means navigating a world of cynical producers, egomaniacal directors, and surreal fan conventions—demons of the past be damned.
But at what cost?
Horror Movie is an obsessive, psychologically chilling, and suspenseful feat of storytelling genius that builds inexorably to an unforgettable, mind-bending conclusion.
A visceral and heartbreaking work of gothic horror about small town mysteries, local folklore and the things we leave behind when we’re gone, from the Bram Stoker Award winning author of Queen of Teeth.
What really happened to Cabrina Brite?
Ivory’s life changes irrevocably when she discovers the body of Cabrina Brite on the sands of Cape Morning, along with a mysterious poem. How did she die, and why does it seem she was trying to swim to Ghost Cat Island, the center of so many local mysteries?
Desperate to uncover the answers surrounding Cabrina’s death, and haunted by her discovery, Ivory begins to see the pale ghost of Cabrina, only to shake it off as a mere hallucination. But Ivory is not alone. Cabrina’s closest friends have also seen a similar apparition, and as they toy with occult possibilities, they begin to unravel the truth behind Cabrina’s death.
Because Cape Morning isn’t a ghost town, but a town filled with ghosts, and Ivory is about to discover just what happens when you let one in.
A Goodreads Best Fantasy Choice Award Nominee!
From New York Times bestselling and Hugo Award-winning author T. Kingfisher comes A Sorceress Comes to Call―a dark reimagining of the Brothers Grimm’s “The Goose Girl,” rife with secrets, murder, and forbidden magic.
*The hardcover edition features a foil stamp on the casing and custom endpapers illustrated by the author.*
Cordelia knows her mother is . . . unusual. Their house doesn’t have any doors between rooms―there are no secrets in this house―and her mother doesn’t allow Cordelia to have a single friend. Unless you count Falada, her mother’s beautiful white horse. The only time Cordelia feels truly free is on her daily rides with him.
But more than simple eccentricity sets her mother apart. Other mothers don’t force their daughters to be silent and motionless for hours, sometimes days, on end. Other mothers aren’t evil sorcerers.
When her mother unexpectedly moves them into the manor home of a wealthy older Squire and his kind but keen-eyed sister, Hester, Cordelia knows this welcoming pair are to be her mother’s next victims. But Cordelia feels at home for the very first time among these people, and as her mother’s plans darken, she must decide how to face the woman who raised her to save the people who have become like family.
Embark on a darkly humorous journey of reality TV meets the macabre. On the set of The Groom, a group of women must compete for the heart of Midwestern bachelor Tristan by spending a week in a haunted house. Divorcee Linda, resigned to her role as the show’s underdog, finds her resolve cracking when she begins to fall for fellow castmate Charity. Meanwhile, Sabrina, groomed by her witchy mother to deliver their family from poverty by marrying a rich man, sees winning the competition as her predestined path.
But after a shocking demise, the game takes a sinister turn. As the remaining contestants grapple with their desires for love and survival, they uncover dark secrets within and without the house’s walls. Trapped in a twisted new competition, they must confront their own demons or face elimination.
Sixty-three-year-old Los Angeles stoner, Hank Wallace, is just trying to get by and get high when he takes a gig distributing ads for a local company. But the job quickly turns into more than it seems. Hank begins hearing voices and experiencing strange visions while passing out the ads. Before he knows it, he’s fallen prey to his employer, a demon from another world.
Possessed by the demon, Hank absorbs nightmares from others living in his corner of LA. He becomes a conduit that feeds anxiety and dread to the demon. The nightmares pour in, but they aren’t enough. The demon requires more sustenance than the nightmares provide.
And the demon is in luck. Hank learns that his estranged sister, Carla, his only living relative, is terminally ill with cancer. He has steered clear of close relationships with family for decades, but he cannot avoid it any longer. The demon insists. Carla and her family’s grief is a siren’s call.
Hank drives to Sacramento bearing an invisible gift. The demon can erase their grief, but at what cost? Unless Hank can get his head together and snap out of it, the demon will consume every last one of them.
A USA TODAY Bestseller
From New York Times bestselling horror writer Stephen Graham Jones comes a classic slasher story with a twist—perfect for fans of Adam Cesareand Grady Hendrix.
1989, Lamesa, Texas. A small west Texas town driven by oil and cotton—and a place where everyone knows everyone else’s business. So it goes for Tolly Driver, a good kid with more potential than application, seventeen, and about to be cursed to kill for revenge. Here Stephen Graham Jones explores the Texas he grew up in, and shared sense of unfairness of being on the outside through the slasher horror Jones loves, but from the perspective of the killer, Tolly, writing his own autobiography. Find yourself rooting for a killer in this summer teen movie of a novel gone full blood-curdling tragic.
In this “stunningly visceral” (New York Times Book Review) novel, a group of young men seek vengeance after one of their mothers is murdered in a Puerto Rican slum; STAND BY ME with a haunted, obsidian-dark heart.
One of B&N’s Best Horror Books of the Year
For childhood friends Gabe, Xavier, Tavo, Paul, and Bimbo, death has always been close. Hurricanes. Car accidents. Gang violence. Suicide. Estamos rodeados de fantasmas was Gabe’s grandmother’s refrain. We are surrounded by ghosts. But this time is different. Bimbo’s mom has been shot dead. We’re gonna kill the guys who killed her Bimbo swears. And they all agree.
Feral with grief, Bimbo has become unrecognizable, taking no prisoners in his search for names. Soon, they learn Maria was gunned down by guys working for the drug kingpin of Puerto Rico. No one has ever gone up against him and survived. As the boys strategize, a storm gathers far from the coast. Hurricanes are known to carry evil spirits in their currents and bring them ashore, spirits which impose their own order.
Blurring the boundaries between myth, mysticism, and the grim realities of our world, House of Bone and Rain is a harrowing coming of age story; a doomed tale of devotion, the afterlife of violence, and what rolls in on the tide.
An instant USA Today bestseller!
From Gretchen Felker-Martin, the acclaimed author of Manhunt, comes a vicious new novel about a group of teens who must stay true to themselves while in a conversion camp from hell.
“A soaring, boundless ode to queer survival. It’s flat-out mesmerizing.”―Paul Tremblay, author of The Pallbearers Club
Something evil is buried deep in the desert. It wants your body. It wears your skin.
In the summer of 1995, seven queer kids abandoned by their parents at a remote conversion camp came face to face with it. They survived―but at Camp Resolution, everybody leaves a different person.
Sixteen years later, only the scarred and broken survivors of that terrible summer can put an end to the horror before it’s too late.
The fate of the world depends on it.
“Tense and frighteningly visceral, Cuckoo is a masterwork of body horror thrumming with high octane viciousness.” ―Eric LaRocca, author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke
A woman builds her lover from carefully scavenged pieces and parts. A young girl is groomed for madness by one who loves her most. A neurodivergent boy organizes his life, and loss, by the ticking of a clock. And love can be the most splendid and destructive force in the entire world.
Love is a Crematorium and Other Tales is a collection of seventeen stories that are both bleak and beautiful, devastating and sweet. Enter the crematorium to experience grief, starlit nights, and gorgeous tragedy that make our souls burn from the inside out.
One of Paste Magazine’s “Most Anticipated Horror Books of 2024”
It’s about to get very dark.
Bram Stoker Award-winning author Laird Barron returns to the dark and dreadful with his fifth horror collection, which weaves sixteen weird tales into a mosaic of the bloody and the macabre.
Bring a flashlight and a book of matches.
Where we’re going, there’s not a speck of light.
It is in the darkest moments, during the loss of hope, that the language of crows is most clearly heard. The words are as menacing as piercing beaks, the events as perilous as a sea of black feathers. The corvid tongue spreads diabolical thoughts and devious visions.
Legend has it that crows prophesize offenses of the worst kind, their harsh tones are harbingers of horror. Collectively, crows are a murder, and they call out orders about their own name. The Language of Crows and other stories contains dark fairy tales, historical horror, and psychological horror in voices of the violent and the violated. It is a collection of witches’ spells, monsters’ murmurs, and voices within one’s head.
Do you dare to listen to the language of crows?
A brand-new collection of four intense, claustrophobic and terrifying horror tales from the Bram Stoker Award®-nominated and Splatterpunk Award-winning author of Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke.
THIS SKIN WAS ONCE MINE
When her father dies under mysterious circumstances, Jillian Finch finds herself grieving the man she idolized while struggling to feel comfortable in the childhood home she was sent away from nearly twenty years ago. Then Jillian discovers a dark secret that will threaten to undo everything she has ever known about her father.
SEEDLING
A young man’s father calls him early in the morning to say that his mother has passed away. He arrives home to find his mother’s body still in the house. Struggling to process what has happened he notices a small black wound appear on his wrist. Then he discovers his father is cursed with the same affliction.
ALL THE PARTS OF YOU THAT WON’T EASILY BURN
Enoch Leadbetter goes to buy a knife for his husband to use at a forthcoming dinner party. He encounters a strange shopkeeper who draws him into an intoxicating new obsession and sets him on a path towards mutilation and destruction…
PRICKLE
Two old men revive a cruel game with devastating consequences…
From legendary storyteller and master of short fiction Stephen King comes an extraordinary new collection of twelve short stories, many never-before-published, and some of his best EVER.
“You like it darker? Fine, so do I,” writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life—both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King writes to feel “the exhilaration of leaving ordinary day-to-day life behind,” and in You Like It Darker, readers will feel that exhilaration too, again and again.
“Two Talented Bastids” explores the long-hidden secret of how the eponymous gentlemen got their skills. In “Danny Coughlin’s Bad Dream,” a brief and unprecedented psychic flash upends dozens of lives, Danny’s most catastrophically. In “Rattlesnakes,” a sequel to Cujo, a grieving widower travels to Florida for respite and instead receives an unexpected inheritance—with major strings attached. In “The Dreamers,” a taciturn Vietnam vet answers a job ad and learns that there are some corners of the universe best left unexplored. “The Answer Man” asks if prescience is good luck or bad and reminds us that a life marked by unbearable tragedy can still be meaningful.
King’s ability to surprise, amaze, and bring us both terror and solace remains unsurpassed. Each of these stories holds its own thrills, joys, and mysteries; each feels iconic. You like it darker? You got it.
A young queer man finds love at a magical clothing shop-and the courage to stand up to the homophobic cops. A witch who makes custom nightmares wonders why all her victims are connected to the Black Panthers-and who she’s really working for. A soon-to-be father encounters a mysterious hitchhiker who tries pulling him back to the days of his violent past. A brand-new vampire, freshly hired at the blood bank, delights in her heightened sexual desire and superhuman strength.
Cynthia Gómez’s debut collection is a magic-soaked love letter to Oakland, brimming with feminist rage. Its twelve stories center ordinary people-Latine, queer, working class-as they wield supernatural powers against oppression, loneliness, and dread.
Christi Nogle has established herself as a modern Ray Bradbury, this collection adds fantasy, slipstream, and fabulism to her canon.
One Eye Opened in That Other Place collects Christi Nogle’s best weird and fantastical stories. The collection focuses on liminal spaces and the borders between places and states of mind. Though you might not find a traditional portal fantasy here, you will travel across thresholds and arrive at other places and times that are by turns disquieting, terrifying, and wonderful. Get up close with the local flora and fauna, peruse the weird art exhibits and special shows, and consider taking a dip in the mossy, snail-filled tank of water. Make sure to bring your special glasses
This new collection will appeal to readers of Jeff VanderMeer, Charles Wilkinson, Steve Rasnic Tem, M. Rickert, Lynda E. Rucker and Stephen King’s novel Lisey’s Story.
The Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author returns with a new collection of literary horror and weird fiction that glitters with startling prose and tortured souls.
Invaginies is an invasion, it is a perception that is bodily and transcendent creating holes, paths, or pockets of alternate truth-and not always voluntary–enlightenment.
Every line sings and strikes like grotesque poetry of the possessed. With 17 disturbing tales exploring plagues, possessions, gender & corruption, set in apocalyptic eras not much unlike our own, Joe Koch brings the terrors of a postmodern world into vivid focus.
Haunting and beautiful, Koch takes their place among the great names of the weird like Brian Evenson, exploring the queer perspective in horror as Billy Martin and Clive Barker, and contemporary rising voice, Eric LaRocca.
Literary prose meets the grotesque in this collection of stories to galvanize lovers of horror and weird fiction. With a growing cult audience, this collection is sure to shoot to the top of readers’ tbr piles.
At a Halloween party in 1999, a writer slept with the devil. She sees him again and again throughout her life and she writes stories for him about things that are both impossible and true.
Lima lures readers into surreal pockets of the United States and Brazil where they’ll find bite-size Americans in vending machines and the ghosts of people who are not dead. Once there, she speaks to modern Brazilian-American immigrant experiences–of ambition, fear, longing, and belonging―and reveals the porousness of storytelling and of the places we call home.
With humor, an exquisite imagination, and a voice praised as “singular and wise and fresh” (Cathy Park Hong), Lima joins the literary lineage of Bulgakov and Lispector and the company of writers today like Ted Chiang, Carmen Maria Machado, and Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah.
Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil includes: “Rapture,” “Ghost Story,” “Tropicália,” “Antropógaga,” “Idle Hands,” “Rent,” “Porcelain,” “Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory,” and “Hasselblad.”
A great next read for fans of Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties and V. E. Schwab’s The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue.
Recommended reading by Chicago Review of Books, Electric Literature, The Kenyon Review, and more!
The World is Weird.
You will be discouraged from participating in it.
However, your participation is not optional.
Zip up your human suit and set sail, imbibing every perspective you can
in order to perfect the persona.
Push to the outer edges. Document your travels, and forget to return.
There will be a test.
Learn what it means to be human.
Forget what it means to be human.
Learn what it means to be human.
Forget what it means to be human.
Do not panic.
BRAVE NEW WEIRD: The Best New Weird Horror, Volume Two encompasses the finest Weird speculative fiction published in (roughly) 2023. Edited by Alex Woodroe.
Table of contents:
Nelly Geraldine García-Rosas – Lullaby for the Unseen
Thomas Ha – In That Crumbling Home
Hussani Abdulrahim – The Library Virus
Patrick Malka – Show Me
Eirik Gumeny – A Balanced Breakfast
David Simmons – Food is Poison
Premee Mohamed – Quietus
Perfect Kiss Strickoll – punctum (o baked alaska for you i am a former american)
LC von Hessen – Transmasc of the Red Death
Simone le Roux – The Man Outside
KS Walker – River Bargain Baby
M.M. Olivas – The Prince of Oakland
Amitha Jagannath Knight – My Mother, The Exoskeleton
Rachael K. Jones – The Sound of Children Screaming
Judith Shadford – Endless Yearning
Daniel DeRock – Guest Opinion: We must take action regarding the [REDACTED] High School janitor
Geneve Flynn – A Box of Hair and Nail
Anemone Moss – Everything You Dump Here Ends Up in the Ocean
Karlo Yeager Rodríguez – Up In the Hills, She Dreams of Her Daughter Deep In the Ground
Elena Sichrovsky – Embryo
Ivan Zoric – Our Roots Will Dry Out in the End
Michael Bettendorf – As the Music Plays Groovy
Chris Kuriata – Family Not Going To Heaven
If books have no power, why are they trying so hard to keep them from people?
4,240 unique book titles were targeted for censorship or banning in 2023 alone.
Shadows in the Stacks was published to raise funds for the Books Unbanned Initiative through the Library Foundation SD. All proceeds from sales go to the Library Foundation SD.
This collection of terrifying tales was edited by Vincent V. Cava, James Sabata, and Jared Sage, with a foreword by Laurel Hightower, and features all-new stories from…
Kevin David AndersonZachary AshfordS.A. BradleyBridget D. BraveKel ByronVincent V. CavaClay McLeod ChapmanRebecca CuthbertAlexis DuBonJamie FlanaganDouglas FordEvelyn FreelingAi JiangLucy LeitnerJonathan MaberryJ.A.W. McCarthyTim McGregorJohn PalisanoJames SabataWilliam SterlingAlvaro Zinos-Amaro
Each limb tells a story. Every organ shares a secret.
A woman saves the leg of her dead child. A man leaps from soul to soul, trying to find a pure heart. Uteri wander, skin peels back, and human bodies liquify all over this world.
Slice into the anatomy of this collection to discover all the unseen horrors the human body can deliver.
Brand new stories from Alex Wolfgang, Ai Jiang, Mary Rajotte, Julie Sevens, Christopher O’Halloran, Sasha Brown, Bridget D. Brave, Taylor Ketterer, Demi-Louise Blackburn, Lindsey Ragsdale, Emma E. Murray, Johnathon Heart, P.L. McMillan, Rachel Searcey, Bryan Young, Kai Delmas, and David Worn, with a foreword from Paula D. Ashe.
A manifestation of ecstasy, heartache, horror and suffering rendered in feverish lyrical prose. Inside are sixteen new stories by some of the genre’s most visionary queer writers. Young lovers find themselves deliriously lost in an expanding garden labyrinth. The porter of a sentient hotel is haunted within a liminal time loop. A soldier and his abusive commanding officer escape a war in the trenches but discover themselves in an even greater nightmare. Parasites chase each other across time-space in hungry desperation to never be apart. A graduate student with violent tendencies falls into step with a seemingly walking corpse. Featuring stories from Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, Gretchen Felker-Martin, Robbie Banfitch, August Clarke, Son M., Jonathan Louis Duckworth, M.V. Pine, Ed Kurtz, LC Von Hessen, Matteo L. Cerilli, November Rush, Meredith Rose, Charlene Adhiambo, Violet, and Thomas Kearnes.
It’s the question asked of any story about a haunting: why didn’t you just leave? But if accounts of people who have stayed in haunted houses are any indication … it’s never that simple.
In this book, you’ll find twenty-two all-new stories about the reasons people don’t leave scary situations-parents who stay in haunted houses to protect their children, convicts who literally can’t leave their prison, retail workers who need a paycheck even if it’s from a haunted workplace, trauma survivors suffering from agoraphobia, and more.
Featuring Shauntae Ball, I.S. Belle, Die Booth, Max Booth III, Christa Carmen, Raquel Castro, Alberto Chimal, Gabe Converse, Lyndsey Croal, Victoria Dalpe, Alexis DuBon, Corey Farrenkopf, Cassandra Khaw, Joe Koch, E.M. Linden, Steve Loiaconi, R. Diego Martinez, J.A.W. McCarthy, Suzan Palumbo, Tonia Ransom, Rhiannon Rasmussen, and Eden Royce. With illustrations by Luke Spooner, Yves Tourigny, and Yornelys Zambrano.
An empowering cross-genre YA anthology that explores what it means to be a monster, exclusively highlighting trans and queer authors who offer new tales and perspectives on classic monster stories and tropes.
Be not afraid! These monsters, creatures, and beasties are not what they appear. We Mostly Come Out at Night is a YA anthology that reclaims the monstrous for the LGBTQA+ community while exploring how there is freedom and power in embracing the things that make you stand out. Each story centers on both original and familiar monsters and creatures—including Mothman, Carabosse, a girl with thirteen shadows, a living house, werebeasts, gorgons, sirens, angels, and many others—and their stories of love, self-acceptance, resilience, and empowerment. This collection is a bold, transformative celebration of queerness and the creatures that (mostly) go bump in the night.
Contributors include editor Rob Costello, Kalynn Bayron, David Bowles, Shae Carys, Rob Costello, H.E. Edgmon, Michael Thomas Ford, Val Howlett, Brittany Johnson, Naomi Kanakia, Claire Kann, Jonathan Lenore Kastin, Sarah Maxfield, Sam J. Miller, Alexandra Villasante, and Merc Fenn Wolfmoor.
Be warned, dear reader: The Black girls survive in this one.
Celebrating a new generation of bestselling and acclaimed Black writers, The Black Girl Survives in This One makes space for Black girls in horror. Fifteen chilling and thought-provoking stories place Black girls front and center as heroes and survivors who slay monsters, battle spirits, and face down death. Prepare to be terrified and left breathless by the pieces in this anthology.
The bestselling and acclaimed authors include Erin E. Adams, Monica Brashears, Charlotte Nicole Davis, Desiree S. Evans, Saraciea J. Fennell, Zakiya Dalila Harris, Daka Hermon, Justina Ireland, L.L. McKinney, Brittney Morris, Maika & Maritza Moulite, Eden Royce, and Vincent Tirado. The foreword is by Tananarive Due.
A death row cell that recounts the dark stories of its inmates. An informant who consumes shards of crystallized skulls to see the past. A world where to speak of the dead is a violation of an unjust society’s rules. Heists, drugs, cults, detectives, murder, monsters, revenge.
Commit yourself to Howls from the Scene of the Crime, an anthology of crime horror laced with blood, secrets, and occult compulsions from some of the best established and emerging horror authors writing today. Featuring a foreword by Bram Stoker Award(R) winning crime horror author, Cynthia Pelayo.
Beyond The Bounds Of Infinity: An Anthology of Diverse Horror
Raw Dog Screaming Press
Welcome to a world of horror viewed through a kaleidoscope lens. Embark on a journey to untangle the writhing tendrils of human terror in a dimension where the possible and impossible blend-an unstable realm where comfort can be found in the coldest pits, and dark gods feast upon the sweetest suffering-where infernal sounds birth silent letters that drift along midnight shores and the unexplained lurks beneath crumbling urban structures. Step over the edge of what you think you know, and find yourself…Beyond the Bounds of Infinity!
Featuring stories by L. Marie Wood, S.A. Cosby, Jessica McHugh, and Mary SanGiovanni-alongside newer voices like Cassius Kilroy, Jessica L. Sparrow, and Vicky Velvet-Beyond the Bounds of Infinity offers a collection of weird fiction and cosmic horror stories that are diverse down to the cellular level. From Taíno folk horror to the horror of identity in a world that just doesn’t understand, from cozy to apocalyptic, and everything in between, let these authors show you what fear really is, and what it means to them.