Dread State - A Political Horror Anthology


Book Description

Politics casts a long, cold shadow over every aspect of our lives. These tales find horror on the campaign trail, in the voting booth, the school room, the internet, and on the streets. Thunderdome Press brings some of the biggest names in horror together with up and coming voices to shed light on one of America's darkest seasons. Featuring stories by: Ray Bradbury * William F. Nolan * Dale Bailey * Paul Moore * Nick Mamatas * John Palisano * Ray Garton * Lisa Morton * Jason V Brock * Sunni K Brock * G. Ted Theewen * Tom Breen * Simon McCaffrey * Kevin Holton * David Perlmutter * Sarah Langan * Joseph Rubas * Bobby Wilson * Anthony Ambrogio * Nicholas Manzolillo * Hillary Lyon * Mark Allan Gunnells * Curtis VanDonkelaar * Luke Styer & Skip Johnson AND an introduction by Jeff Strand and an afterword by David Wellington




Horror Anthology


Book Description

This horror anthology is a remarkable collection that spans the gamut of the most chilling and macabre tales in English literature, from the eerie subtleties of psychological terror to the stark dread of the supernatural. The collection showcases a diverse range of literary styles, from the gothic to the modernist, encapsulating the evolution of horror as a genre across different periods. Standouts in the collection reveal the genre's capacity to explore the deepest fears of the human psyche, making manifest the anxieties of the times. The editors have meticulously curated works that not only entertain but also serve as a critical lens through which to examine the broader cultural and historical contexts from which these stories spring. The contributing authors and editors, hailing from varied backgrounds, bring a rich tapestry of cultural perspectives to the anthology, underscoring the universal appeal and adaptability of the horror genre. Figures such as Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft, whose work has defined and redefined horror literature, are presented alongside authors like Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Elizabeth Gaskell, who contribute uniquely feminist perspectives to the collection. This amalgam of voices aligns with notable literary movements, including Romanticism, Victorianism, and Modernism, providing readers with a comprehensive overview of the genre's evolution and its intersections with social and political issues. This anthology presents a unique opportunity for readers to engage with the horror genre in all its diversity and complexity. It encourages a deeper exploration of the themes of fear, the unknown, and the supernatural, showcasing how these themes resonate across different times and cultures. The collection is an invaluable resource for both aficionados of horror literature and those new to the genre, offering educational insights and prompts for further reflection. By fostering a dialogue between the works of different authors, this anthology serves not only as a testament to the enduring power of horror literature but also as an invitation to explore the shadows that linger in the human mind.




Tolkien's Ordinary Virtues


Book Description

For Christians who are fans of Tolkien, Smith compares the tales of the Hobbits to those of spirituality, wherein God calls those that listen to embark on a journey.




Generation Dread: Finding Purpose in an Age of Climate Anxiety


Book Description

“Generation Dread is a vital and deeply compelling read.”—Adam McKay, award-winning writer, director, and producer (Vice, Succession, Don’t Look Up) “Read this courageous book.”—Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything “Wray shows finally that meaningful living is possible even in the face of that which threatens to extinguish life itself.”—Dr. Gabor Maté, author of When the Body Says No When we’re faced with record-breaking temperatures, worsening wildfires, more severe storms, and other devastating effects of climate change, feelings of anxiety and despair are normal. In Generation Dread, Britt Wray reminds us that our distress is, at its heart, a sign of our connection to and love for the world. The first step toward becoming a steward of the planet is connecting with our climate emotions—seeing them as a sign of our humanity and empathy and learning how to live with them. Britt Wray, a scientist and expert on the psychological impacts of the climate crisis, brilliantly weaves together research, insight from climate-aware therapists, and personal experience, to illuminate how we can connect with others, find purpose, and thrive in a warming, climate-unsettled world.




100 Hair-raising Little Horror Stories


Book Description

Scared? You will be!




Overstated


Book Description

The popular comedian, social commentator, and star of Red State Blue State tackles the condition of our union today: “Thoroughly entertaining.” —Booklist (starred review) Utah: The Church of States Vermont: The Old Hippie State Florida: The Hot Mess State Arizona: The Instagram Model State Wisconsin: The Diet Starts Tomorrow State The United States is in a fifty-states-wide couples’ counseling session, thinking about filing for divorce. But is that really what we want? Can a nation composed of states that are so different possibly hang together? Colin Quinn, writer and star of Red State Blue State and Unconstitutional, calls us out state-by-state, from Connecticut to Hawaii. He identifies the hypocrisies inherent in what we claim to believe and what we actually do. Within a framework of big-picture thinking about systems of government—after all, how would you put this country together if you started from scratch today?—to dead-on observations about the quirks and vibes of the citizens in each region, Overstated skewers us all: red, blue, and purple. Ultimately, it’s infused with the same blend of optimism and practicality that sparked the United States into being. “The author lands his punches [and] spares neither right- nor left-leaning terrain.” —Kirkus Reviews “Quinn pulls off the remarkable feat of being both very informative and thoroughly entertaining. This delightful read is highly recommended.” —Booklist (starred review)




Women, Monstrosity and Horror Film


Book Description

Women occupy a privileged place in horror film. Horror is a space of entertainment and excitement, of terror and dread, and one that relishes the complexities that arise when boundaries – of taste, of bodies, of reason – are blurred and dismantled. It is also a site of expression and exploration that leverages the narrative and aesthetic horrors of the reproductive, the maternal and the sexual to expose the underpinnings of the social, political and philosophical othering of women. This book offers an in-depth analysis of women in horror films through an exploration of ‘gynaehorror’: films concerned with all aspects of female reproductive horror, from reproductive and sexual organs, to virginity, pregnancy, birth, motherhood and finally to menopause. Some of the themes explored include: the intersection of horror, monstrosity and sexual difference; the relationships between normative female (hetero)sexuality and the twin figures of the chaste virgin and the voracious vagina dentata; embodiment and subjectivity in horror films about pregnancy and abortion; reproductive technologies, monstrosity and ‘mad science’; the discursive construction and interrogation of monstrous motherhood; and the relationships between menopause, menstruation, hagsploitation and ‘abject barren’ bodies in horror. The book not only offers a feminist interrogation of gynaehorror, but also a counter-reading of the gynaehorrific, that both accounts for and opens up new spaces of productive, radical and subversive monstrosity within a mode of representation and expression that has often been accused of being misogynistic. It therefore makes a unique contribution to the study of women in horror film specifically, while also providing new insights in the broader area of popular culture, gender and film philosophy.




Frost Burned


Book Description

Patricia Briggs “has reached perfection”* in this #1 New York Times bestseller, as Mercy Thompson faces a shapeshifter’s biggest fear... Mercy’s life has undergone a seismic change. Becoming the mate of Alpha werewolf Adam Hauptman has made her a stepmother to his daughter Jesse, a relationship that brings moments of blissful normalcy to Mercy’s life. But on the edges of humanity, what passes for a minor mishap on an ordinary day can turn into so much more... After a traffic accident in bumper-to-bumper traffic, Mercy and Jesse can’t reach Adam—or anyone else in the pack. They’ve all been abducted. Mercy fears Adam’s disappearance may be related to the political battle the werewolves have been fighting to gain acceptance from the public—and that he and the pack are in serious danger. Outmatched and on her own, Mercy may be forced to seek assistance from any ally she can get, no matter how unlikely. *The Nocturnal Library




The Spaces and Places of Horror


Book Description

This volume explores the complex horizon of landscapes in horror film culture to better understand the use that the genre makes of settings, locations, spaces, and places, be they physical, imagined, or altogether imaginary. In The Philosophy of Horror, Noël Carroll discusses the “geography” of horror as often situating the filmic genre in liminal spaces as a means to displace the narrative away from commonly accepted social structures: this use of space is meant to trigger the audience’s innate fear of the unknown. This notion recalls Freud’s theorization of the uncanny, as it is centered on recognizable locations outside of the Lacanian symbolic order. In some instances, a location may act as one of the describing characteristics of evil itself: In A Nightmare on Elm Street teenagers fall asleep only to be dragged from their bedrooms into Freddy Krueger’s labyrinthine lair, an inescapable boiler room that enhances Freddie’s powers and makes him invincible. In other scenarios, the action may take place in a distant, little-known country to isolate characters (Roth’s Hostel films), or as a way to mythicize the very origin of evil (Bava’s Black Sunday). Finally, anxieties related to the encroaching presence of technology in our lives may give rise to postmodern narratives of loneliness and disconnect at the crossing between virtual and real places: in Kurosawa’s Pulse, the internet acts as a gateway between the living and spirit worlds, creating an oneiric realm where the living vanish and ghosts move to replace them. This suggestive topic begs to be further investigated; this volume represents a crucial addition to the scholarship on horror film culture by adopting a transnational, comparative approach to the analysis of formal and narrative concerns specific to the genre by considering some of the most popular titles in horror film culture alongside lesser-known works for which this anthology represents the first piece of relevant scholarship.




Koba the Dread


Book Description

A brilliant weave of personal involvement, vivid biography and political insight, Koba the Dread is the successor to Martin Amis’s award-winning memoir, Experience. Koba the Dread captures the appeal of one of the most powerful belief systems of the 20th century — one that spread through the world, both captivating it and staining it red. It addresses itself to the central lacuna of 20th-century thought: the indulgence of Communism by the intellectuals of the West. In between the personal beginnings and the personal ending, Amis gives us perhaps the best one-hundred pages ever written about Stalin: Koba the Dread, Iosif the Terrible. The author’s father, Kingsley Amis, though later reactionary in tendency, was a “Comintern dogsbody” (as he would come to put it) from 1941 to 1956. His second-closest, and then his closest friend (after the death of the poet Philip Larkin), was Robert Conquest, our leading Sovietologist whose book of 1968, The Great Terror, was second only to Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago in undermining the USSR. The present memoir explores these connections. Stalin said that the death of one person was tragic, the death of a million a mere “statistic.” Koba the Dread, during whose course the author absorbs a particular, a familial death, is a rebuttal of Stalin’s aphorism.