Bestselling Pre-ordered Horror Books for May 2010

Sarah Court

Author: Davidson, Craig
Cover Art: Erik Mohr
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 285pp.
Pub. Date: September 15, 2010
Publisher: ChiZine Publications

Sarah Court. Meet the residents . . .

The haunted father of a washed-up stuntman. A disgraced surgeon and his son, a broken-down boxer. A father set on permanent self-destruct, and his daughter, a reluctant powerlifter. A fireworks-maker and his daughter. A very peculiar boy and his equally peculiar adopted family.

Five houses. Five families. One block.

Ask yourself: How well do you know your neighbours? How well do you know your own family? Ultimately, how well do you know yourself? How deeply do the threads of your own life entwine with those around you? Do you ever really know how tightly those threads are knotted? Do you want to know?

I know, and can show you. Please, let me show you.

Welcome to Sarah Court: make yourself at home.

The hardcover will have bonus material not in the paperback!

The Hair Wreath and Other Stories

Author: Villegas, Halli
Art: Erik Mohr
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Short Story Collection
Page Count: 250pp.
Pub. Date: September 15, 2010
Publisher: ChiZine Publications

Girls and boys disappear; couples caught in the heat and suppressed rage of urban life are haunted by the ghosts of their own making; neighbourhoods drift in the murky atmosphere of buried emotions, where the echoes of distrust and dissonance prove that something just isn’t . . . right.

These strange stories gather and weave themselves together into a wreath of memories, rife with an atmospheric and ominous creep redolent of Shirley Jackson. This eerie collection illustrates the disconnect amongst people and the places they inhabit — the gap that allows the supernatural to flourish.

The hardcover will include bonus material not available in the paperback!

Black Ink Horror #6

Cover Art: Jacob Parmentier
Format: Trade Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 240pp.
Pub. Date: July 12, 2010
Publisher: Sideshow Press

Just in time for summer, Sideshow Press’ flagship publication returns with a brand new look and format.

Our sixth issue contains even more horror fiction and, for the first time, is offered in as a numbered trade hardcover limited to 125 copies.

Fans of this journal of horror fiction and pen-and-ink art will feel right at home with 14 original stories and 28 full-page illustrations all in a more durable package.

Horror never looked so good . . .

Table of Contents:

• Like Romeo and Juliet by Adam La Rusic
• Theater Magic by Erik Williams
• The Death of Nathan Crabtree by Alex Smith
• Wax and Mountains by Bret Tallman
• The Crimson Sword of the Sands by Stephen Patrick
• Creatures of Love by Joel Arnold
• The Choice by Shadow Kain
• The Piper at the Edge of Winter by Joshua Reynolds
• Meat Market by Lisa von Biela
• Slow Itch by Kelly James
• Bad Habits by Liz Bates
• A Stern Recollection by Benjamin Hayes
• Memories for the Dead by Chris Stageman
• Crossing Lake Serene on a Dare by Pete Mesling

Sideshow

Author: Ollie, William
Art: Wayne Miller
Format: Signed Limited Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 214pp.
Pub. Date: June 25, 2010
Publisher: Dark Regions Press

The smoke ring rose, higher and higher, changing shape as it went, until it disappeared into a cloud that moments ago had looked like the caboose of a train, a cloud that now began to change, to mold and meld, to twist and turn and take on the shape of the thing that had entered it. This thing, this dark entity, hung frozen in the sky, calling those chosen few out from their houses, their bars and their factories, calling them forth to face what waited in that dark and foreboding night.

Justin Henry didn’t believe his friend had seen a Ferris wheel rise up from the ground like a runaway vine. But he followed Mickey Reardon out to the overgrown field at the edge of their little country community anyway.

Now two thirteen-year-old boys have seen something they shouldn’t have, witnessed something they couldn’t have, and neither of their lives will ever be the same again.

The carnival is in town, a very different kind of carnival this year.

One no one will be coming home from.

Long After Dark

Author: Gifune, Greg F.
Art: Zach McCain
Format: Trade Paperback
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 206pp.
Pub. Date: June 2010
Publisher: Delirium Books

Harry Fremont hasn’t slept in days. He’s down with a terrible flu: runny nose, fever, a sore throat, the chills, and worst of all, a horrible cough that keeps him up all night.

His wife Kelly is away on a business trip and their son Garret is at college, leaving Harry alone in the house. Though worn out, Harry has been unable to sleep . . . and things are starting to change. He’s seeing unusual things outside, just beyond the windows and confines of his home . . . hearing things . . . experiencing unsettling things that make no sense. And they’re getting worse.

Are they simply figments of a tortured and exhausted mind, or clues to an intricate mystery steeped in evil and deception Harry cannot yet comprehend?

Haunted by remnants of earlier nightmares, disturbing questions about his life and marriage, strange shadowy figures, odd noises, cryptic writings on his doors and glimpses of a hideously disfigured being wrapped in bloody bandages, Harry free-falls into a horrifying world of paranoia, agony and terror where nothing is what it seems.

Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us . . . long after dark.

Sleep while you still can.

The Passage

Author: Cronin, Justin
Cover Art: Tomislav Tikulin
Interior Art: Jill Bauman
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 1000pp.
Pub. Date: June 2010
Publisher: Cemetery Dance

It happened fast.

Thirty-two minutes for one world to die, another to be born.

First, the unthinkable: a security breach at a secret U.S. government facility unleashes the monstrous product of a chilling military experiment. Then, the unspeakable: a night of chaos and carnage gives way to sunrise on a nation, and ultimately a world, forever altered.

All that remains for the stunned survivors is the long fight ahead and a future ruled by fear — of darkness, of death, of a fate far worse. As civilization swiftly crumbles into a primal landscape of predators and prey, two people flee in search of sanctuary.

FBI agent Brad Wolgast is a good man haunted by what he’s done in the line of duty. Six-year-old orphan Amy Harper Bellafonte is a refugee from the doomed scientific project that has triggered the apocalypse. He is determined to protect her from the horror set loose by her captors. But for Amy, escaping the bloody fallout is only the beginning of a much longer odyssey — spanning miles and decades — towards the time and place where she must finish what should never have begun.

With The Passage, award-winning author Justin Cronin has written both a relentlessly suspenseful adventure and an epic chronicle of human endurance in the face of unprecedented catastrophe and unimaginable danger.

Its inventive storytelling, masterful prose, and depth of human insight mark it as a crucial and transcendent work of modern fiction.

The Undead Rat’s Note:
This edition of The Passage by Justin Cronin is sold out but you can click on the book cover or icon below and leave a request to be notified if and when this book becomes available again.

The Last Zombie (The Last Zombie #1)

Author: Keene, Brian
Artist: Joseph Wight
Format: Comic Book
Type: Horror Comic
Page Count: 32pp.
Pub. Date: June 2010
Publisher: Antarctic Press

Check your fuel tanks, weapons and supplies; buckle down tight; and get ready for a thrill ride that may leave you breathless — or not even breathing!

Follow the frantic journey of a man seeking his one ray of hope in a post-apocalyptic nightmare United States. The zombies have come and (mostly) gone, but the disease is still out there, threatening the survivors. The country swarms with roving packs of wild animals — and worse, desperate humans — ready to do whatever it takes to survive.

Through it all, one man must drive from California to New York to reunite with the woman he loves . . . before it’s too late for either of them!

Nexus: Ascension

Author: Boyczuk, Robert
Cover Artist: Erik Mohr
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 400pp.
Pub. Date: August 15, 2010
Publisher: ChiZine Publications

After returning from a thirty-year trade mission, the crew of the Ea wake from cryonic suspension to find that their home world, Bh’Haret, is dead.

“Screamer” satellites have been strung around their planet warning of a plague.

A scan of the surface of Bh’Haret reveals no trace of human life — only crumbling cities. Their fuel and other supplies nearly exhausted, the crew has little choice but to make planet fall on Bh’Haret, infected with a virulent and deadly disease.

In a desperate scramble to save themselves, the crew members of the Ea must each, in his or her own way, come to terms with the death of their world — and try to rekindle a belief in the possibility of life.

No more than 150 signed and numbered hardcover copies will be published.

Major Karnage

Author: Zajac, Gord
Cover Artist: Erik Mohr
Format: Limited Edition Hardcover
Type: Horror Novel
Page Count: 324pp.
Pub. Date: August 15, 2010
Publisher: ChiZine Publications

Don’t talk to him about the war!!!!

It has been 20 years since The War, and Major John Karnage has finally settled into retirement: locked up in an insane asylum, with an explosive device embedded in the back of his neck to curb his violent tendencies.

Karnage and his troopers have been deemed unfit to live in normal society. Like a bit of old chewing gum stuck under a coffee table, the world has left The War and its scarred, unstable veterans behind.

The military has been disbanded and World Peace has descended upon the Earth. Its inhabitants live happy, profitable lives under the global rule of the benevolent Dabney Corporation. All is tea and roses in this new, sanitized world . . .

Until a terrifying threat from beyond the stars rears its squiggly head!

An invading armada of aliens threatens to destroy the Earth, and it’s up to Major Karnage to stop them — as long as he doesn’t accidentally blow his own head off first.

Only 150 signed limited edition hardcover copies will be published.

The Conspiracy Against the Human Race

Author: Ligotti, Thomas
Art: Zach McCain
Format: Limited Hardcover
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count: 240pp.
Pub. Date: Jun 28, 2010
Publisher: Hippocampus Press

“The Conspiracy against the Human Race sets out what is perhaps the most sustained challenge yet to the intellectual blackmail that would oblige us to be eternally grateful for a ‘gift’ we never invited.”

–From the Foreword by Ray Brassier

“The Conspiracy against the Human Race is renowned horror writer Thomas Ligotti’s first work of nonfiction.

Through impressively wide-ranging discussions of and reflections on literary and philosophical works of a pessimistic bent, he shows that the greatest horrors are not the products of our imagination. The worst and most plentiful horrors are instead to be found in reality.

Mr. Ligotti’s calm, but often bloodcurdling turns of phrase, evoke the dreadfulness of the human condition. Those who cannot bear the truth will pretend this is another work of fiction, but in doing so they perpetuate the conspiracy of the book’s title.”

–David Benatar, author of Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence; Department of Philosophy, University of Cape Town, South Africa

Table of Contents:

• Foreword by Ray Brassier
• Introduction: Of Pessimism and Paradox
• The Nightmare of Being
• Who Goes There?
• Freaks of Salvation
• Sick to Death
• The Cult of Grinning Martyrs
• Autopsy on a Puppet: An Anatomy of the Supernatural
• Notes