HORROR for Smart People
Discover the best horror books for intelligent readers. A curated list of thought-provoking, chilling reads designed to thrill smart horror enthusiasts.
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Cold Streak
by Lewis Aleman
When her family is murdered, Laura's dark journey of revenge takes off. Will her own lust for vengeance consume all that is left of her?
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Duma Key
by Stephen King
Donât miss the thrilling novel from undisputed King of Horror and #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King about what happens when the barrier between our world and that of the supernatural is breached... No more than a dark pencil line on a blank page. A horizon line, maybe. But also a slot for blackness to pour through... A terrible construction site accident takes Edgar Freemantleâs right arm and scrambles his memory and his mind, leaving him with little but rage as he begins the ordeal of rehabilitation. A marriage that produced two lovely daughters suddenly ends, and Edgar begins to wish he hadnât survived the injuries that could have killed him. He wants out. His psychologist, Dr. Kamen, suggests a âgeographic cure,â a new life distant from the Twin Cities and the building business Edgar grew from scratch. And Kamen suggests something else. âEdgar, does anything make you happy?â âI used to sketch.â âTake it up again. You need hedges...hedges against the night.â Edgar leaves Minnesota for a rented house on Duma Key, a stunningly beautiful, eerily undeveloped splinter of the Florida coast. The sun setting into the Gulf of Mexico and the tidal rattling of shells on the beach call out to him, and Edgar draws. A visit from Ilse, the daughter he dotes on, starts his movement out of solitude. He meets a kindred spirit in Wireman, a man reluctant to reveal his own wounds, and then Elizabeth Eastlake, a sick old woman whose roots are tangled deep in Duma Key. Now Edgar paints, sometimes feverishly, his exploding talent both a wonder and a weapon. Many of his paintings have a power that cannot be controlled. When Elizabethâs past unfolds and the ghosts of her childhood begin to appear, the damage of which they are capable is truly devastating. The tenacity of love, the perils of creativity, the mysteries of memory, and the nature of the supernaturalâStephen King gives us yet another novel as fascinating as it is gripping and terrifying.
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Edgar Allan Poe Complete Tales and Poems
by Edgar Allan Poe
The life of American writer Edgar Allan Poe was characterized by a dramatic series of successes and failures, breakdowns and recoveries, personal gains and hopes dashed through, despite which he created some of the finest literature the world has ever known. Over time his works have influenced such major creative forces as the French poets Charles Baudelaire and Andre Gide, filmmaker D.W. Griffith and modern literary legend Allen Ginsberg. Best known for his poems and short fiction, Poe perfected the psychological thriller, invented the detective story, and rarely missed transporting the reader to his own supernatural realm. He has also been hailed posthumously as one of the finest literary critics of the nineteenth century. In Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales and Poems fans may indulge in all of Poe's most imaginative short-stories, including The Fall of the House of Usher, The Murders in Rue Morgue, The Tell-Tale Heart, Ligeia and Ms. In a Bottle. His complete early and miscellaneous poetic masterpieces are here also, including The Raven, Ulalume, Annabel Lee, Tamerlane, as well as select reviews and narratives.
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Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre: The Best of H. P. Lovecraft
by H. P. Lovecraft
âH.P. Lovecraft has yet to be surpassed as the twentieth centuryâs greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.ââStephen King âThe oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.ââH.P. Lovecraft This is the collection that true fans of horror fiction must have: sixteen of H.P. Lovecraftâs most horrifying visions, including: The Call of Cthulu: The first story in the infamous Cthulhu mythosâa creature spawned in the stars brings a menace of unimaginable evil to threaten all mankind. The Dunwich Horror: An evil manâs desire to perform an unspeakable ritual leads him in search of the fabled text of The Necronomicon. The Colour Out of Space: A horror from the skiesâfar worse than any nuclear falloutâtransforms a man into a monster. The Shadow Over Innsmouth: Rising from the depths of the sea, an unspeakable horror engulfs a quiet New England town. Plus twelve more terrifying tales!
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Something Wicked This Way Comes
by Ray Bradbury
Few American novels written this century have endured in th heart and mind as has this one-Ray Bradbury's incomparable masterwork of the dark fantastic. A carnival rolls in sometime after the midnight hour on a chill Midwestern October eve, ushering in Halloween a week before its time. A calliope's shrill siren song beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two inquisitive boys standing precariously on the brink of adulthood will soon discover the secret of the satanic raree-show's smoke, mazes, and mirrors, as they learn all too well the heavy cost of wishes -- and the stuff of nightmare.
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American Psycho
by Bret Easton Ellis
INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠In this modern classic, the acclaimed author of The Shards explores the incomprehensible depths of madness and captures the insanity of violence in our time or any other. "A seminal book.â âThe Washington Post One of The Atlanticâs Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront. âA masterful satire and a ferocious, hilarious, ambitious, inspiring piece of writing.... An important book.â âKatherine Dunn, bestselling author of Geek Love Look for Bret Easton Ellisâs latest novel, The Shards!
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It
by Stephen King
A group of teenagers stumbles upon an evil force that will eventually draw them all back to Derry, Maine, for a final showdown. Reissue.
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The Shining
by Stephen King
This inspiring and compelling book has won ten awards to date, including Honorable Mentions at the December 2012 New England and London Book Festivals, October 2012 Southern California Book Festival and June 2012 New York Book Festival in the category of Spiritual books; is winner of the North American Bookdealers Ě Exchange (NABE) Pinnacle Award for âInspirationalâ books in Spring 2011; and has become a much sought-after reference for people seeking to affect positive change around the globe. Readers are: * taught how to recognize, harness and channel positive personal power for the betterment of themselves, their loved ones, associates and our universe * provided an invaluable checklist of great leadership behaviors and attitudes * taught how to recognize controlling behaviors of others and the negative patterns in society * inspired to be the best they can be * compelled to ask themselves "why am I here; what good can I do for humanity?" * taught how to recognize a self-limiting posture so they can improve their level of self-awareness......to the point of real self-intelligence and, by so doing, break free of lifeâs boxes, labels and restrictions * encouraged to erase their fears, trust their abilities and remove their baggage........and take the journey to empowerment and fulfilment in everything they do!
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The Dead Zone
by Stephen King
Beware, The Wheel of Fortune⌠Johnny, the small boy who skated at breakneck speed into an accident that for one horrifying moment plunged him intoâŚthe dead zone. Johnny Smith, the small-town schoolteacher who spun the wheel of fortune and won a four-and-a-half-year trip intoâŚthe dead zone. John Smith, who awakened from an interminable coma with an accursed powerâthe power to see the future and the terrible fate awaiting mankind inâŚthe dead zone.
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Lightning
by Dean Koontz
#1 New York Times bestselling author Dean Koontzâs brilliantly thrilling novel of suspense. In the midst of a raging blizzard, lightning struck on the night Laura Shane was born. And a mysterious blond-haired stranger showed up just in time to save her from dying. Years later, in the wake of another storm, Laura will be saved again. For someone is watching over her. Is he the guardian angel he seems? The devil in disguise? Or the master of a haunting destiny beyond all time and space? âA gripping novelâŚfast-paced and satisfying.ââPeople
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The Graveyard Book
by Neil Gaiman
Nobody Owens, known to his friends as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a sprawling graveyard, being raised and educated by ghosts, with a solitary guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor of the dead. There are dangers and adventures in the graveyard for a boy-an ancient Indigo Man beneath the hill, a gateway to a desert leading to an abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible menace of the Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, then he will come under attack from the man Jackâwho has already killed Bod's family. . . . Beloved master storyteller Neil Gaiman returns with a luminous new novel for the audience that embraced his New York Times bestselling modern classic Coraline. Magical, terrifying, and filled with breathtaking adventures, the graveyard book is sure to enthrall readers of all ages.
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Neverwhere
by Neil Gaiman
Richard Mayhew is a young man with a good heart and an ordinarylife, which is changed forever when he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. His small act of kindness propels him into a world he never dreamed existed. There are people who fall through the cracks, and Richard has become one of them. And he must learn to survive in this city of shadows and darkness, monsters and saints, murderers and angels, if he is ever to return to the London that he knew.
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American Gods
by Neil Gaiman
Released from prison, Shadow finds his world turned upside down. His wife has been killed; a mysterious stranger offers him a job. But Mr. Wednesday, who knows more about Shadow than is possible, warns that a storm is coming -- a battle for the very soul of America . . . and they are in its direct path. One of the most talked-about books of the new millennium, American Gods is a kaleidoscopic journey deep into myth and across an American landscape at once eerily familiar and utterly alien. It is, quite simply, a contemporary masterpiece.
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Anansi Boys
by Neil Gaiman
Fat Charlie Nancy's normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother. Now brother Spider's on his doorstepâabout to make Fat Charlie's life more interesting . . . and a lot more dangerous.
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World War Z
by Max Brooks
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ⢠âPrepare to be entranced by this addictively readable oral history of the great war between humans and zombies.ââEntertainment Weekly We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic. The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years. THE INSPIRATION FOR THE MAJOR MOTION PICTURE âWill spook you for real.ââThe New York Times Book Review âPossesses more creativity and zip than entire crates of other new fiction titles. Think Mad Max meets The Hot Zone. . . . Itâs Apocalypse Now, pandemic-style. Creepy but fascinating.ââUSA Today âWill grab you as tightly as a dead manâs fist. A.ââEntertainment Weekly, EW Pick âProbably the most topical and literate scare since Orson Wellesâs War of the Worlds radio broadcast . . . This is action-packed social-political satire with a global view.ââDallas Morning News
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Gates of Fire
by Steven Pressfield
NATIONAL BESTSELLER ⢠âSteven Pressfield brings the battle of Thermopylae to brilliant life.ââPat Conroy At Thermopylae, a rocky mountain pass in northern Greece, the feared and admired Spartan soldiers stood three hundred strong. Theirs was a suicide mission, to hold the pass against the invading millions of the mighty Persian army. Day after bloody day they withstood the terrible onslaught, buying time for the Greeks to rally their forces. Born into a cult of spiritual courage, physical endurance, and unmatched battle skill, the Spartans would be remembered for the greatest military stand in historyâone that would not end until the rocks were awash with blood, leaving only one gravely injured Spartan squire to tell the tale. . . .
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The Living Dead
by John Joseph Adams
Ideal for fans of iZombie, Colin Morgan, The Walking Dead, iZombie comics, Resident Evil anthology, Evil Dead anthology, and the Joe Hill graphic novel collection A compilation of the best zombie literature of the past 30 years Highlights works by todayâs most well-known and respected authors of speculative fiction, horror, and fantasy Zombies have invaded popular culture, from White Zombie to Dawn of the Dead and from Resident Evil to World War Z. They have become the monsters that best express the anxieties and fears of the modern west. This collection gathers together zombie works by Stephen King, Harlan Ellison, Robert Silverberg, George R. R. Martin, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Poppy Z. Brite, Laurell K. Hamilton, and Joe R. Lansdale. These brilliant minds, and The Living Dead, cover the many types of zombie fiction. Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.
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Old Man's War
by John Scalzi
John Perry did two things on his 75th birthday. First he visited his wifeâs grave. Then he joined the army. The good news is that humanity finally made it into interstellar space. The bad news is that planets fit to live on are scarceâand alien races willing to fight us for them are common. So: we fight. To defend Earth, and to stake our own claim to planetary real estate. Far from Earth, the war has been going on for decades: brutal, bloody, unyielding. Earth itself is a backwater. The bulk of humanityâs resources are in the hands of the Colonial Defense Force. Everybody knows that when you reach retirement age, you can join the CDF. They donât want young people; they want people who carry the knowledge and skills of decades of living. Youâll be taken off Earth and never allowed to return. Youâll serve two years at the front. And if you survive, youâll be given a generous homestead stake of your own, on one of our hard-won colony planets. John Perry is taking that deal. He has only the vaguest idea what to expect. Because the actual fight, light-years from home, is far, far harder than he can imagineâand what he will become is far stranger. "Solid . . . [Scalzi] sidesteps most of the clichĂŠs of military science fiction, delivers fast-paced scenes of combat and pays attention to the science underpinning his premise." âSan Francisco Chronicle "Scalzi's imagined interstellar arena is coherently and compellingly delineated . . . His speculative elements are top-notch. His combat scenes are blood-roiling. His dialogue is suitably snappy and profane. And the moral and philosophical issues he raises . . . insert useful ethical burrs under the military saddle of the story." âPaul Di Filippo, The Washington Post "Thought-provoking!" âEntertainment Weekly "Smartly conceived and thoroughly entertaining, Old Manâs War is a splendid novel." âCleveland Plain Dealer "When humanity reaches the stars, it discovers that it must defend its claim to new planets against alien races with similar expansionist tendencies. To ensure the expertise of its soldiers, Earth creates the Colonial Defense Force, an army of men and women otherwise classified as senior citizens, who give up their lives on Earth for an uncertain and perilous future among the stars. Scalzi's first novel presents a new approach to military sf, boasting an unusual cast of senior citizens as heroes. A good choice for most libraries." âLibrary Journal "Though a lot of SF writers are more or less efficiently continuing the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein, Scalziâs astonishingly proficient first novel reads like an original work by the late grand master . . . This virtuoso debut pays tribute to SFâs past while showing that well-worn tropes still can have real zip when theyâre approached with ingenuity." âPublishers Weekly (starred review) "Gripping and surpassingly original. It's Starship Troopers without the lectures. It's The Forever War with better sex. It's funny, it's sad, and it's true." âCory Doctorow "John Scalzi is a fresh and appealing new voice, and Old Man's War is classic SF seen from a modern perspectiveâa fast-paced tour of a daunting, hostile universe." âRobert Charles Wilson "I enjoyed Old Man's War immensely. A space war story with fast action, vivid characters, moral complexity and cool speculative physics, set in a future you almost want to live into, and a universe you sincerely hope you don't live in already." âKen MacLeod
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Wastelands
by John Joseph Adams
With stories from George R.R. Martin (author of Game of Thrones), Gene Wolf, Carol Emshwiller, Stephen King, and more! "I can't help but give this collection the highest recommendation. I think this will be a cornerstone for most reader's shelves."âSFF World From the Book of Revelation to ''The Road Warrior'', from ''A Canticle for Leibowitz'' to ''The Road'', storytellers have long imagined the end of the world, weaving eschatological tales of catastrophe, chaos, and calamity. In doing so, these visionary authors have addressed one of the most challenging and enduring themes of imaginative fiction: the nature of life in the aftermath of total societal collapse. Gathering together the best postapocalyptic literature of the last two decades from many of today's most renowned authors of speculative fiction - including George R. R. Martin, Gene Wolfe, Orson Scott Card, Carol Emshwiller, Jonathan Lethem, Octavia E. Butler, and Stephen King - Wastelands explores the scientific, psychological, and philosophical questions of what it means to remain human in the wake of Armageddon. Whether the end of the world comes through nuclear war, ecological disaster, or cosmological cataclysm, these are tales of survivors, in some cases struggling to rebuild the society that was, in others, merely surviving, scrounging for food in depopulated ruins and defending themselves against monsters, mutants, and marauders. Wastelands delves into this bleak landscape, uncovering the raw human emotion and heart-pounding thrills at the genre's core.