Weird Fiction

Most of us have at some point in our lives felt like an outsider, sometimes considering ourselves "too weird" to fit in. Growing up as a Russian immigrant in West Texas, Olga Khazan always felt there was something different about her. This feeling has permeated her life, and as she embarked on a science writing career, she realized there were psychological connections between this feeling of being an outsider and both her struggles and successes later in life.

A collection of 'neo-pulp' stories in the style of the classics but with a modern outlook and twist. Cichol's Children - Mythos/Weird Stain - Detective Shanks - Western The Black Rat - Masked vigilante The Dastard - Sword and Sorcery Wild - Jungle adventure Rink Rash - Exploitation/Post Apocalypse/Sport Mimsy Burogrove - Detective/Psychedelic Doc Osmium - Action/Adventure Tessa Coyle - Science Fiction/Detective Ace Slamm - Science Fiction One Man McCann - War/Science Fiction

Featuring all-new tales of dark fantasy, cosmic horror, supernatural revenge, and the sorcery of terror from masters of the craft, this issue includes stories and poems by Alma Katsu, Heather Graham, Maurice Broaddus, Fran Wilde, Priya Sharma, Anne Walsh, Yvonne Navarro, Jake Bible, Gabrielle Faust, and Christina Sng.

Jake Wind is trying to stay under the radar. Whose radar? Anyone who might be too interested in the fact that he has shape-shifting abilities he can’t control. Or that his parents found him as a ball of goo when he was a baby. Keeping his powers in check is crucial, though, if he wants to live a normal life and go to middle school instead of being homeschooled (and if he wants to avoid being kidnapped and experimented on, of course).

When nature gets up close and personal, it isn’t always pretty. A fallen tree sparks a poisonous feud between neighbors. A child searches the darkness for the gleam of a tiger’s teeth. A woman holds off a colony of oddly relentless prairie dogs. In unsettling stories that range from horror to magical realism, award-winning authors lay bare the secrets hidden in the land.

From the twisted mind that brought you The Case Of The Mad Doctor Clingman The London Years comes the chilling continuation of a tale that defies science and sanity alike... Deep in the windswept wilds of Cornwall, behind crumbling stone walls of an abandoned mine that locals now dare not name, Dr. Clingman and his notorious band of deranged misfits have found a new sanctuary for their unspeakable work. Forced to flee the smog-filled alleys of London, the Mad Doctor has not abandoned his grotesque vision—he has expanded it. Accompanied by his faithful companions—each more disturbed than...

Grimeswood, Alabama. After midnight as a heavy fog rolls in... When one of the town's finest residents, a sleepy sheriff's deputy, pulls over a mysterious car on a dark stretch of backwoods highway, he comes face to face with a deathly enchanting vampire of the night, the Empress of the Rose. But upon inspection of the vehicle and its strange driver, Oli Reeves just won’t hear what the lady has to say, nor does he heed the cryptic advice of the letters she uses as identification. A supernatural tale of the occult with creeping thorns based on the knowledge and imagery of the Tarot.

If you’ve just fallen into this beguiling treasure, then it’s in your best interest to just spank yourself and throw this book back in the vault where you found it. Because once opened, fabulous words that grow into sentences and paragraphs and stories will leave you with a massive rock-solid sense of the surreal. Leave now and we can both forget about this momentary plunge of lusciousness your eyes were about to feast on. Go! Prevail upon the legendary badassery life that is yours elsewhere. You have been thanked for your no-obligation, risk-free read of this secure blurb and I wish ...

Winter break is over, and it’s another five months until summer vacation. A.J. and his friends aren’t looking forward to school starting back up, but they’re even less excited when Dr. Carbles, president of the Board of Education, cancels ALL school holidays. No Presidents' Day, no Memorial Day, and forget about any snow days! Morale is down, but Mrs. Roopy, the librarian, has a trick up her sleeve. Instead of celebrating traditional holidays, the school will celebrate real holidays that no one has ever heard of!

Have you ever sensed an enigmatic presence lingering in the cosmos around you? A deadly force, held in check by either vigilant individuals or those fortunate souls who navigated the right path? Has your intuition ever stirred, hinting at something concealed beneath your bed or in the dim corners of your room? Does your small town or large city veil themselves in secrets, or do the stars above harbor a sinister malevolence, casting a looming threat upon our very existence? Dear readers, prepare to be immersed in an anthology that will transport you into the depths of every conceivable fear....

Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol. Within minutes of his arrival, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object is discovered in the Capitol Building. The object is an ancient invitation, meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom. And when Langdon's mentor is kidnapped, Langdon's only hope of saving him is to accept this invitation and follow wherever it leads him.

The Atchafalaya Basin is a home to giants. Alligators, boars and other strange things that an unwary traveler may fall prey to when traversing the swamp alone. Such foul creatures stalk the waterways and pockets of dry land, shrouded by ancient trees that survive amongst the muck, that only a fool would travel through such a place on foot. Let alone late at night. The sucking sound of mud on boots added to the deluge of noises in the twilight of the swamp. A narrow path made its way through the swamp, but the man from Salem, Massachusetts, was unbothered by the noises or the fading light of...

A.J. and his friends are forming a band! At least, they are taking band classes. Their new teacher, Mrs. Bacon, can teach any instrument, from the kazoo to the tuba. But can she get A.J.’s class to play well enough during their recital to impress crabby Dr. Carbles? Or will their concert turn into a musical mess?

Interracial Gender Bender Erotica Tanya continues to rise as a rock star. He forgets for a while that he was once a man named Tony and not a beautiful black woman who could get whatever she wanted from most people. Tamantha, the stripper who cast the gender swap magic spell on him, is out of the picture as Tanya releases another hit single as she follows her plan to freedom. When Tera comes into the picture, everything changes. She's a white woman with a special surprise between her legs. When Tanya meets her, he falls head over heels in love with her. And then things get really interesting...

Mr. Klutz is retiring! (A surprise even to him, courtesy of scheming Dr. Carbles.) Vice principal Mrs. Jafee thinks it’s her time to shine, but Dr. Carbles has hired someone else for the job! Stand-up comedian Mrs. Stoker is ready to defend her place as principal in a joke-off against Mrs. Jafee.

Dances With Drumsticks is a darkly imaginative collection of science fiction, fantasy, and horror short stories by David Lee Stone. Each tale pulls you into a world where the bizarre and the eerie collide. A tormented child with a sinister imaginary friend. A dystopian future where society is gripped by a deadly disease A long-abandoned spaceship with a very odd crew and morePrepare for a journey through twisted realities, where the line between the mundane and the macabre is constantly blurred.

In this third book in the My Weirder-est School series, A.J. and his friends learn about good oral hygiene. Grab your toothbrushes! It’s National Dessert Day, and Ella Mentry School has asked local dentist Dr. Floss to educate A.J. and his friends on the dental dangers of sweets. But Dr. Floss has other plans. She wants the kids to eat as much sugar as possible so that they’ll need a dentist! Will someone get a cavity?

To celebrate National Poetry Month, Ella Mentry School will have a schoolwide poem-writing contest, and all the students have to enter. There’s just one problem: A.J. has no time for rhymes! But when an amazing secret prize is revealed, will A.J. be inspired to write a winning poem? And can he beat Little Miss Know-It-All Andrea—the best poet in school?

In this volume, six months have passed since the events of DH:Second Coming and while most of the world has no memory of what happened, Jake and a few of his allies still remember. Everyone is still recovering, but Jake's worries are just beginning. The Black List looms over his head and one name upon it has him troubled.When his hand is forced, Jake must finally see to the list, but before he can start, names are being crossed off already and it's a race against time to stop whoever is killing those on the list before they set their sights on someone near and dear to Jake.His efforts ...

Directly after the events of the first epic adventure, Jake finds himself in one of the strangest situations of his life, and that's saying something. As he and Ivar deal with this odd situation, a series of ritualistic killings occur. Bodies are found drained of blood and bearing a strange mark on their foreheads. Jake soon discovers that these murders could be heralds of something far more ominous and destructive, something that Dontavius DeMarco is closely linked to.Soon, Jake is embroiled in a vast and ancient conspiracy to bring about an old evil that could mean the end of not only the...