Aberrations: Horror Stories

Description

Jeremy C. Shipp has brought together ten monster tales from today's masters of horror and supernatural suspense.

Stories by:
Scott Nicholson
Lisa Tuttle
Nate Kenyon
Lisa Morton
Kealan Patrick Burke
Simon Wood
Jeremy C. Shipp
Elizabeth Massie
Joe McKinney
Joseph Nassise

Praise for Jeremy C. Shipp:

“Jeremy C. Shipp’s boldness, daring, originality, and sheer smarts make him one of the most vital younger writers who have colonized horror literature in the past decade. Shipp’s modernist clarity, plus his willingness to risk damn near everything, put him up at the head of the pack with the very best.”
–Peter Straub, author of Ghost Story

"Shipp's clear, insistent voice pulls you down into the rabbit hole and doesn't let go."
--Jack Ketchum, author of The Girl Next Door

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The Mysteries

Description

From award-winning author Lisa Tuttle comes a riveting novel that combines the contemporary story of one man’s search for a missing young woman with history’s most enduring legends of the disappeared. Gripping and unforgettable, here is a spellbinding mix of the mysteries that inhabit our everyday lives–and a mind-bending exploration of what happens when someone vanishes without a trace.

Ever since his father disappeared when he was nine years old, Ian Kennedy has had a penchant for stories about missing people–and a knack for finding them. Now he’s a private investigator with an impressive track record. But when a woman enters his London office and asks him to find her lost daughter, Ian faces a case he fears he cannot solve–and one he knows he must.

Laura Lensky’s stunning twenty-one-year-old daughter, Peri, has been missing for over two years–a lifetime, under the circumstances. But when Ian learns the details of her disappearance, he discovers eerie parallels to an obscure Celtic myth–and to the haunting case that launched his career, an early success he’s never fully been able to explain. Though Ian suspects Peri may have chosen to vanish, his curiosity leads him to take on the search. Soon he finds himself drawing not only from the mysteries that have preoccupied his adulthood, but from the fables and folklore that pervaded his youth. What follows is a journey that takes Ian and those who care for Peri into the Highlands of Scotland, as the unknowns of the past and present merge in the case–and in their lives.
Rich in pathos and steeped in secrets, The Mysteries opens a thought-provoking door from one world into the heart of another, where some of our most perplexing enigmas–and their answers–are startlingly alive.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Ghosts and Other Lovers

Description

The introduction begins, "I’m fascinated by ghosts, and entertain all sorts of theories about what they really are. That hauntings are caused by the uneasy dead, by spirits unable to find rest, seems to me the least likely explanation. . . ." Veteran fantasy and horror author Lisa Tuttle has assembled thirteen of her imaginative inquiries into the nature of ghosts and the people they visit, covering territory from gothic romance to the just plain creepy. Incisive, moving, and unsettling, GHOSTS AND OTHER LOVERS should appeal to both fans of the classic ghost story and those seeking bold new psychological fantasy.

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The introduction begins, "I’m fascinated by ghosts, and entertain all sorts of theories about what they really are. That hauntings are caused by the uneasy dead, by spirits unable to find rest, seems to me the least likely explanation. . . ." Veteran fantasy and horror author Lisa Tuttle has assembled thirteen of her imaginative inquiries into the nature of ghosts and the people they visit, covering territory from gothic romance to the just plain creepy. Incisive, moving, and unsettling, GHOSTS AND OTHER LOVERS should appeal to both fans of the classic ghost story and those seeking bold new psychological fantasy.

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My Pathology

Description

What if the logic of the world reflected the bizarre logic of the unconscious? Each story in My Pathology explores the insanity just below the surface of normal life—especially the madness that unites and divides the sexes. A woman's obsession with her younger sister's nocturnal activities centers uneasily upon the attic of their shared home, where someone or something has built a room-sized nest. A man's desire to connect with aliens threatens his ability to form human relationships. And in the title story, a modern-day alchemist has enlisted sexuality itself into his quest for the philosopher's stone, with uncertain consequences for the women who love him. By turns disturbing and compelling, these sixteen multi-faceted tales reprise the career of one of SF's most emotionally insightful writers.

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What if the logic of the world reflected the bizarre logic of the unconscious? Each story in My Pathology explores the insanity just below the surface of normal life—especially the madness that unites and divides the sexes. A woman's obsession with her younger sister's nocturnal activities centers uneasily upon the attic of their shared home, where someone or something has built a room-sized nest. A man's desire to connect with aliens threatens his ability to form human relationships. And in the title story, a modern-day alchemist has enlisted sexuality itself into his quest for the philosopher's stone, with uncertain consequences for the women who love him. By turns disturbing and compelling, these sixteen multi-faceted tales reprise the career of one of SF's most emotionally insightful writers.

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The Silver Bough

Description

The award-winning author of The Mysteries returns with another captivating novel in which modern-day enigmas and age-old myths come together with spellbinding results. Here is an enchanting tale set in a land rich with folklore–and ripe for a rekindling of the old ways.

Nestled on the coast of Scotland, Appleton was once famous for its apples. Now, though the orchards are long gone, locals still dream of the town’s glory days, when an Apple Queen was crowned at the annual fair and good luck seemed a way of life. And outsiders are still drawn to the charming village, including three very different American women.

Enchanted by Appleton’s famously ornate, gold-domed library, divorcée Kathleen Mullaroy has left her cosmopolitan job to start anew as the town’s head librarian. Widowed Nell Westray hopes for a quiet life of gardening in the place where she and her husband spent their happiest moments. And young Ashley Kaldis has come to find her roots, and learns that the town’s fortunes turned when her grandmother was crowned Apple Queen–then mysteriously disappeared.

When a sudden landslide cuts Appleton off from the wider world–and the usual constraints of reality–the village reveals itself to be an extraordinary place, inhabited by legendary beings, secret rooms, and the blossoming of a rare fruit not seen in decades. Most unexpected is a handsome stranger who will draw all three women into an Otherworld in which luck and love will return to Appleton–if only one of them will believe.

Lush with the romance and allure of ancient traditions, The Silver Bough will propel you into a land where, as in Eden, the bite of a single apple can alter the whole course of reality.


From the Hardcover edition.

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Lost Futures

Description

When her brother dies tragically, Clare suddenly finds herself living several different lives--in a mental ward in one, doomed to a failed relationship in another, and with her dead brother in a third.

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