Weird Tales: Best of the Early Years 1923-25


Book Description

Thirteen tales of terror—from the macabre and morbid to unexplainable stories of the occult—from such authors as Harry Houdini, H. P. Lovecraft, and others. First hitting newsstands in 1923, Weird Tales magazine quickly became a literary monster in discovering and publishing the best horror, sci-fi and fantasy writers of its day. The pulp magazine was one of the earliest publications, if not the first, to feature strange tales of occultism and alien invasions that simply didn’t fit into any other magazine at that time. The stories struck a chord with those early audiences, and as a result, Weird Tales created a subgenre as “weird” could be attached itself to various genres. Marquee names like master magician Harry Houdini and cosmic horror creator H. P. Lovecraft graced the magazine’s pages during those early years with several debut stories, alongside authors who were already giants in their own right—Otis Adelbert Kline, Seabury Quinn, and Greye La Spina. Maybe lesser known, but no less influential, writers like Frank Belknap Long Jr., Mary S. Brown, Lyllian Huntley Harris, Hasan Vokine, Arthur J. Burks, and H. Warner Munn turned out disturbing yarns that have stood the test of time only to be resurrected nearly a century later. This collection features those early authors across thirteen spooky stories from the impactful years of 1923 to 1925 that are best enjoyed at the witching hour. Reading ritual aside, you’ve been warned.




7 best short stories - Weird Fiction


Book Description

Welcome to the book series 7 best short stories specials, selection dedicated to a special subject, featuring works by noteworthy authors. The texts were chosen based on their relevance, renown and interest. This edition is dedicated to Weird Fiction. Weird Fiction fiction utilises elements of horror, science fiction and fantasy to showcase the impotence and insignificance of human beings within a much larger universe populated by often malign powers and forces that greatly exceed the human capacities to understand or control them. The critic August Nemo has selected seven classic tales of the genre, especially for readers who want (and have courage!) to face the abyss: - The Dunwich Horror by H.P. Lovecraft. - Hell Screen by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. - An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce. - The White People by Arthur Machen. - Number 13 by M. R. James. - The Derelict by William Hope Hodgson. - The Repairer of Reputations by Robert W. Chambers.




The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection


Book Description

The twenty-three stories in this collection imaginatively take us far across the universe, into the very core of our being, to the realm of the gods, and the moment just after now. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents, including: Stephen Baxter, M.Shayne Bell, Rick Cook, Albert E. Cowdrey, Tananarive Due, Greg Egan, Eliot Fintushel, Peter F. Hamilton, Earnest Hogan, John Kessel, Nancy Kress, Ursula K. Le Guin, Paul J. McAuley, Ian McDonald, Susan Palwick, Severna Park, Alastair Reynolds, Lucius Shepard, Brian Stableford, Charles Stross, Michael Swanwick, Steven Utley, Robert Charles Wilson Supplementing the stories is the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.




The Year's Best Science Fiction: Seventeenth Annual Collection


Book Description

In science fiction's early days, stories often looked past 1984 to the year 2000 as the far unknowable future. Here now, on the brink of the twenty-first century, the future remains as distant and as unknowable as ever . . . and science fiction stories continue to explore it with delightful results: Collected in this anthology are such imaginative gems as: "The Wedding Album" by David Marusek. In a high-tech future, the line between reality and simulation has grown thin . . . and it's often hard to tell who's on what side. "Everywhere" by Geoff Ryman. Do the people who live in utopian conditions ever recognize them as such? "Hatching the Phoenix" by Frederik Pohl. One of science fiction's Grand Masters returns with a star-crossing tale of the Heechee---the enigmatic, vanished aliens whose discarded technology guides mankind through the future. "A Hero of the Empire" by Robert Silverberg. Showing that the past is as much a province of the imagination as the future, this novelette returns to an alternate history when the Roman Empire never fell to show us just how the course of history can be altered. The twenty-seven stories in this collection imaginatively take us to nearby planets and distant futures, into the past and into universes no larger than a grain of sand. Included here are the works of masters of the form and of bright new talents. Supplementing the stories are the editor's insightful summation of the year's events and a lengthy list of honorable mentions, making this book a valuable resource in addition to serving as the single best place in the universe to find stories that stir the imagination and the heart.




Morpheus Tales: The Best Weird Fiction Volume 4


Book Description

For the first time collected together, the best weird fiction from Morpheus Tales, the UK's most controversial weird fiction magazine! Only the very best weird fiction has been hand-picked from the Morpheus Tales archives to create the fourth collected volume of the magazine Christopher Fowler calls "edgy and dark." Featuring fiction by Gary Budgen, Alex Davis, James Everington, R. K. Gemienhardt, Dean M. Drinkel, Michael W. Garza, John S. Barker, Brick Marlin, Kurt Fawver, John F. D. Taff, Charles A. Muir, Martin Slag, Lenora Farrington-Sarrouf, Deborah Walker, Cate Caldwell, Richard Smith, Alex Gonzalez, Erik T. Johnson, Brian Kutco, Heather Smith, John Morgan. Established horror best-sellers rub shoulders with rising stars and newcomers in this diverse collection of short weird fiction.




Morpheus Tales: The Best Weird Fiction Volume 5


Book Description

Collected together for the first time, the best weird fiction from Morpheus Tales, the UK's most controversial weird fiction magazine! Only the very best weird fiction has been hand-picked from the Morpheus Tales archives to create the fifth collected volume of the magazine Christopher Fowler calls "edgy and dark". Featuring fiction by David Lear, Brockton McKinney, Lee Clark Zumpe, Robert Sagirs, Sean Logan, Adrian Ludens, Candra Hope, Ed Plotts, Glen Garrick, Matthew Piskun, Deborah Walker, Paul Johnson-Jovanovic & James Brooks Anthony Baynton, Sharon Baillie, Matt Leyshon, Matthew Acheson, Kyle Hemmings, James Gabriel, Gary Budgen. Established horror best-sellers rub shoulders with rising stars and newcomers in this diverse collection of short weird fiction.




The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection


Book Description

In the new millennium, what secrets lay beyond the far reaches of the universe? What mysteries belie the truths we once held to be self evident? The world of science fiction has long been a porthole into the realities of tomorrow, blurring the line between life and art. Now, in The Year's Best Science Fiction: Thirty-Third Annual Collection, the very best SF authors explore ideas of a new world. This venerable collection brings together award-winning authors and masters of the field. With an extensive recommended reading guide and a summation of the year in science fiction, this annual compilation of short stories has become the definitive must-read anthology for all science fiction fans and readers interested in breaking into the genre.







Weird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939


Book Description

This book is the first study of how ‘weird fiction’ emerged from Victorian supernatural literature, abandoning the more conventional Gothic horrors of the past for the contemporary weird tale. It investigates the careers and fiction of a range of the British writers who inspired H. P. Lovecraft, such as Arthur Machen, M. P. Shiel, and John Buchan, to shed light on the tensions between ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ fiction that continue to this day. Weird Fiction in Britain 1880–1939 focuses on the key literary and cultural contexts of weird fiction of the period, including Decadence, paganism, and the occult, and discusses how these later impacted on the seminal American pulp magazine Weird Tales. This ground-breaking book will appeal to scholars of weird, horror and Gothic fiction, genre studies, Decadence, popular fiction, the occult, and Fin-de-Siècle cultural history.




The American Weird


Book Description

Hitherto classified as a form of genre fiction, or as a particular aesthetic quality of literature by H. P. Lovecraft, the weird has now come to refer to a broad spectrum of artistic practices and expressions including fiction, film, television, photography, music, and visual and performance art. Largely under-theorized so far, The American Weird brings together perspectives from literary, cultural, media and film studies, and from philosophy, to provide a thorough exploration of the weird mode. Separated into two sections – the first exploring the concept of the weird and the second how it is applied through various media – this book generates new approaches to fundamental questions: Can the weird be conceptualized as a generic category, as an aesthetic mode or as an epistemological position? May the weird be thought through in similar ways to what Sianne Ngai calls the zany, the cute, and the interesting? What are the transformations it has undergone aesthetically and politically since its inception in the early twentieth century? Which strands of contemporary critical theory and philosophy have engaged in a dialogue with the discourses of and on the weird? And what is specifically “American” about this aesthetic mode? As the first comprehensive, interdisciplinary study of the weird, this book not only explores the writings of Lovecraft, Caitlín Kiernan, China Miéville, and Jeff VanderMeer, but also the graphic novels of Alan Moore, the music of Captain Beefheart, the television show Twin Peaks and the films of Lily Amirpour, Matthew Barney, David Lynch, and Jordan Peele.