A professor and a graduate student escort a group of soldiers to a remote Scottish island to find out what’s buried there; a man plays an audio tape left by his late father and unearths a family history of monstrous deeds; a student receives intimidating lessons at a surreal learning center; a young couple struggle to hold their own against a group of brutal pursuers in a devastated landscape; an artist discovers and becomes obsessed with a mysterious statue.

From Bram Stoker Award-winning author John Langan comes this new Word Horde edition of his debut collection, Mr. Gaunt and Other Uneasy Encounters, a collection of tales both elegant and macabre, steeped in the tradition of the literary weird.

Includes extensive story notes, an introduction by Elizabeth Hand, and a brand new story exclusive to this edition!

A family’s Halloween haunted house becomes a conduit to something ancient and uncanny; a young man’s effigy of a movie monster becomes instrumental in his defense against a bully; a family diminishes while visiting a seaside town, leaving only one to remember what changed; a father explores a mysterious tower, and the monster imprisoned within; a man mourning the death of his father travels to his father’s hometown, seeking closure, but finds himself beset by dreams of mythic bargains and a primeval, corpse-eating titan.

John Langan, author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel The Fisherman, returns with ten new tales of cosmic horror in Corpsemouth and Other Autobiographies. In these stories, he continues to chart the course of 21st century weird fiction, from the unfamiliar to the familial, the unfathomably distant to the intimate.

Includes extensive story notes and an introduction by Sarah Langan.

From World Fantasy Award-winning author Scott Nicolay comes And at My Back I Always Hear, a new collection of eight tales of the macabre and the uncanny.

“[Nicolay’s] perspective is always outsider-identified, entirely concerned with characters who refuse to settle, both literally and figuratively; his protagonists often hover on a knife’s edge, caught in some sadly inescapable moment of realization. They’ve failed and been failed, left discarded amongst the wreckage of systemic inequity. And now that they have nothing left to cling to, their inner eye pops open, suddenly able to see the darkness lurking inherent in every crevice, the emptiness revolving inside every atom.”
—from the introduction by Gemma Files

Word Horde Presents: The Molly Tanzer Collection!

Back in print after some time, this new Author’s Preferred Edition of The Pleasure Merchant features refreshed content, new introductory material and notes, and a new Matthew Revert cover!

The Pleasure Merchant by Molly Tanzer

When apprentice wig-maker Tom Dawne’s greatest creation is used as part of a revenge scheme against a powerful gentleman, he is dismissed by his embarrassed master and forced to abandon his dreams of completing his training, setting up a shop of his own, and marrying his master’s daughter. Determined to clear his name, Tom becomes the servant of the man he suspects set him up. Tom finds himself caught up in a web of ambition, deceit, mesmerism, sex, and power…and at its center, a man able to procure pleasure for anyone–for a price–and a woman whose past has been stolen.

Word Horde Presents: The Molly Tanzer Collection!

Back in print after some time, this new Author’s Preferred Edition of A Pretty Mouth features refreshed content, new introductory material and notes, and a new Matthew Revert cover!

A Pretty Mouth by Molly Tanzer

A faithful valet is forced into the service of a decadent lord. A young writer of erotica returns to the family estate after many years in exile. A pair of twins conspires to explore the most eldritch and macabre debaucheries. A troupe of soldiers face off against unimagined barbarity. A young man determines to be part of the in crowd…at any cost.

Silence…

The skald pauses her tale. Time passes in heartbeats. Every sound echoes, continues a fragment of the story. The crash of distant waves invokes the whale-road, long ships traveling its path, their sides covered with brightly painted shields. The creak of ropes reminds you of Jormungandr, the Midgard Serpent, the world wrapped in its scaly embrace. Faraway wolves howl and call, echoing along the path to Niflheim, Hel’s realm of the dead.

You listen…

The skald gives you a knowing glance, then takes a drink of her mead before continuing. And then, her voice: low and sonorous, musical and rhythmic, begins once again to weave the tapestry, telling tales of heroism and horror, glory and loss. She sings of heroes and everyday folk, tricksters and tale-tellers, standing tall and facing gods and monsters. Vikings!

For more than a decade, author Christine Morgan’s Viking stories have delighted readers and critics, standing apart from the anthologies they appeared in. Now, Word Horde brings you The Wolf’s Feast, a new collection of Christine Morgan’s Vikings, from “The Viking in Yellow” to “Odin’s Eagle” and beyond. These tales of adventure, fantasy, and horror will be sure to rouse your inner Viking.

John Langan, author of the Bram Stoker Award-winning novel The Fisherman, returns with a new book of stories.

An aspiring actress goes to an audition with a mysterious director. An editor receives the last manuscript of his murdered friend. A young lawyer learns the terrible connection between her grandfather and an ancient race of creatures. A bodyguard drives her employer across a frozen road toward an immense hole in the earth. In these stories and others, John Langan maps the branches of his literary family tree, tracing his connections to the writers whose dark fictions have inspired his own.

Introduction by Stephen Graham Jones.

“Other countries have conquered us over our long history, and sometimes they changed our name. Hundreds of years ago, our Emperor Tho tried to think of ways to protect his country from being attacked again, after he managed to drive out the last invaders. And he knew he had to change the name his enemies had given to his country. Then Tho had an idea… a way to keep other people from wanting to come here and steal his empire. He would hide it from their eyes, and their minds, and the eyes and minds of any demon lords who might try to bring more bad luck to his empire. So he gave our land the name it has to this day.”

“And what name is that?”

“The Unnamed Country.”

From Jeffrey Thomas, creator of Punktown, comes The Unnamed Country, a mosaic novel weaving tales of a land and people poised between the ancient traditions of the past and the burgeoning technology of the future. Where devils, gods, and ghosts still haunt the land, and where you may just discover a unicorn.

From the earliest depictions of winged goddesses to the delicate, paperwinged fairies of the Victorians, from valiant Valkyries to cliff-dwelling harpies, from record-setting pilots to fearless astronauts, women have long since claimed their place in the skies, among the clouds and beyond.

Word Horde presents Fright Into Flight, the debut anthology from Amber Fallon (The Terminal, The Warblers), in which women take wing. In these stories connected by the unifying thread of flight, authors including Damien Angelica Walters, Christine Morgan, and Nadia Bulkin have spread their wings and created terrifying visions of real life angels, mystical journeys, and the demons that lurk inside us all. Whether you like your horror quiet and chilling or more in-your-face and terrifying, there’s something here for every horror fan to enjoy.

You’re in for a bumpy ride… So fasten your seatbelt, take note of the emergency exits, hold on to your airsick bag, and remember that this book may be used as a flotation device in the event of a crash landing.

When newscaster Abby Waite is diagnosed with a potentially terminal illness, she decides to do the logical thing… break her twin sister Martha out of prison and hit the road. Their destination is the Waite family cabin in Minnesota where Abby plans a family reunion of sorts. But when you come from a family where your grandfather frequently took control of your body during your youth, where your mother tried to inhabit your mind and suck your youthful energies out of you, and where so many dark secrets–and bodies, even–are buried, such a family meeting promises to be nothing short of complicated…