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Gifted novelist Fowler (Sarah Canary and The Sweetheart Season) delights in the arcane, and, as a result, these 15 clever tales are occasionally puzzling but never dull.

In the long title story, temperance activist Carry Nation is resurrected in the 1990s (“We’re talking about a very troubled, very big woman,” says one shaken barman to reporters) and becomes such a nuisance that the DEA is forced to dispatch her with voodoo. Other plots are only slightly less outrageous in conceit. In “Lieserl,” a lovesick madwoman dupes Albert Einstein into believing he has a daughter; in “The Faithful Companion at Forty,” Tonto admits to second thoughts about his biggest life choice (“But for every day, for your ordinary life, a mask is only going to make you more obvious. There’s an element of exhibitionism in it”). “The Travails” offers a peek at the one-sided correspondence of Mary Gulliver, who wants Lemuel to come home already and help out around the house. The homage to Swift makes sense, for, when Fowler doesn’t settle for amusing her readers, she makes a lively satirist. The extraterrestrials who appear in her stories (whether the inscrutably sadistic monsters in “Duplicity” or the members of a seminar studying late-1960s college behavior in “The View from Venus: A Case Study”) seem stand-ins for the author herself, who, in elegant and witty prose, cultivates the eye of a curious alien and, along the way, unfolds eccentric plots that keep the pages turning.

Contents:
Black Glass (1991), Contention (1986), Shimabara (1995), The Elizabeth Complex (1996), Go Back (1998), The Travails (1998), Lieserl (1990), Letters from Home (1987), Duplicity (1989), The Faithful Companion at Forty (1987), The Brew (1995), Lily Red (1988), The Black Fairy’s Curse (1997), The View from Venus (1986), Game Night at the Fox and Goose (1989)

From the vaults of the SF Gateway, the most comprehensive digital library of classic SFF titles ever assembled, comes this republication of a trilogy of early, pseudonymous adventure tales by Robert Holdstock, WORLD FANTASY AWARD-winning author of MYTHAGO WOOD.

The Berserker books are raw, primeval stories of a young Norse warrior, cursed by the gods to a life of savage warfare. Possessed by an animal, ferocious rage – implacable, invincible – Harald Swiftaxe fights his way across the Celtic world in search of release from his curse and, finally, peace. The Berserker omnibus contains SHADOW OF THE WOLF, THE BULL CHIEF and THE HORNED WARRIOR.

When Odin’s curse fell upon him, Harald Swiftaxe, the young Norse warrior, lusty in love and battle, was fully human no longer. He was incensed with the animal rage of the god’s devotees, the Berserkers. The snarling ferocious savagery of the bear possessed him. Immune to fire and steel, frenzied by the smell of blood and the sight of torn human flesh, he was driven to the worst of human deeds . . . The stench of fear was meat and drink to him, and cowering women learned of his cruel, insatiable lust.

The bear screeched its ecstasy – yet at times the man dimly understood the horror. Could the demon god be killed, the spell lifted…? If there was a way, the price of failure would be high, greater than death itself . . .

In the Celtic tribal lands of Connacht, he came of age among the Druids and headhunters and the ghosts of the great Bronze Age people of Danann.

He fought his savage, bloodthirsty way to the west, as a naked warrior who had rejected the tribal laws. And there Arthur, Warlord of the Britons, came to find him, to exploit his skill and invulnerability in the war against the Saxons.

Yet Swiftaxe, the Berserker, wanted one thing only; to break the curse that condemned him to his life of frenzied violence and bloodlust.

But until the might of the Saxons was destroyed, he would never be free . . .

Most people think witches are old and ugly – but ANITA isn’t.

ANITA doesn’t cackle and hiss as she works dark curses, either. Oh, she casts witch’s spells and incantations, but not the usual kind.

ANITA’s main interest is boys, just like any other girl her age. And she doesn’t really need things like love potions – not with her face and figure.

But ANITA is a witch, and she’s young and a little reckless. Which means she sometimes makes mistakes (usually with boys), and when she does… all Hell might break loose….

This fourth volume of Theodore Sturgeon’s Complete Stories publishes the work of 1946-1948, wen Sturgeon’s early popularity among science fiction readers crystallized into a lasting reputation among a wider group of readers. “Maturity” and “Thunder and Roses” are the best-known of the stories in this period. “It Wasn’t Syzygy” display’s Sturgeon’s interest in psychological themes. “The Professor’s Teddy Bear” is an early prototype of the modern “horror story” as practiced by Clive Baker, Stephen King and many others.


In these years Sturgeon was recovering from the failure of his first marriage and a severe case of “writer’s block”. In March 1947 his luck turned around: a story he had failed to sell earlier won a short story contest sponsored by the prominent British magazine, Argosy, with the then-enormous prize of $1000. Later Sturgeon credited this event for restoring his faith in himself as a writer. The same year “Maturity” and “Thunder and Roses” were received with tremendous enthusiasm by his peers. Ray Bradbury, a few years short of his own success, wrote to Sturgeon in February 1947:


“Ted, I hate you!…MATURITY…is a damned nice story. Your sense of humour, sir, is incredible. I don’t believe you’ve written a bad story yet; I don’t think you ever will. This is not log-rolling, by God; I only speak the truth. I predict you’ll be selling at least six stories a year to Collier’s and The Post before long. You have the touch.” A month later, the day he learned he’d won the contest, Sturgeon wrote to his ex-wife, “It’s more than a thousand dollars. The curse is off with me. My faith in [the story’s] quality and my own is restored, and I don’t think that I shall ever again experience that mystic diffidence and childish astonishment when one of my stories sells or is anthologized. I know now why they do, and I’m proud of it, and I know how to use it.”


This fourth volume also features a major “undiscovered” story, “Wham Bop!”, from an obscure youth magazine in 1947. It may be one of the finest fictional portraits of a 1940s jazz band in American letters.


Additional delicacies awaiting the Sturgeon fan in Thunder and Roses are his first Western Story, “Well Spiced”, and a UFO saga, “The Sky Was Full of Ships”, written in 1947 and set in the Southwest. It could well be the true story of the Roswell incident.

College student Nicholas Dal shares the family talent, or curse – he is an empath, a man who experiences the emotions of other people. Too-powerful emotion can induce seizures, so to stay sane he must live alone and dull his senses with vodka.

This, in itself, would be enough for anyone to bear, but Nicholas ias also haunted by a secret from his family’s past in Russia. Now someone is looking for him and he fears the worst. To further complicate things, a relationship is forming with a young woman, Jack, and his feelings for her threaten to break through his isolation.

Will Nicholas risk his love, his sanity – his life – to be with Jack?

Tanith Lee today is one of the most versatile and respected writers of fantasy, horror, and science fiction, and DREAMS OF DARK AND LIGHT represents a massive mid-career retrospective of her achievements over the previous decade.

Here are unforgettable tales of werewolves that prowl chateaux, an Earthwoman in exile on a distant planet, demons that inhabit bodies of the living dead, a race of vampiric creatures who prey upon a cursed castle, and many other works of exotic vision, mythic science fiction, and contemporary horror. Also included are two stories that have received the World Fantasy Award, “Elle est Trois, (La Mort)” and “The Gorgon,” making DREAMS OF DARK AND LIGHT a distinguished one volume library of myth-weaving at its most eloquent and evocative.

Against all expectations, Krispos has won the crown of Videssos. But how long could he hope to keep head and crown together?
For trouble was brewing in every quarter. Civil war erupted under Petronas, the late Emperor’s uncle. A brilliant general and a canny politician, Petronas had a very personal score to settle against the upstart Krispos.
And even as rebel troops took the field against the untried Emperor, outland raiders swept down from the northlands in a tide of carnage. The power stemmed from foulest sorcery, and Videssos’ wizards could not counter its evil curse.
Krispos’ reign showed every sign of being brief – and very bloody…

Rhavas is a good, holy, and pious man, as befits a member of the clergy. He is also the cousin of the Avtokrator, ruler of the Empire. Hoping someday to become ecumenical patriarch of Videssos, he was reluctantly willing to bide his time in one of the smaller cities on the outskirts of the Empire.

Then civil war broke out, and the Avtokrator had to pull back the troops guarding the borders as he struggled for control of the Empire. Rhavas had to flee for his life as the fierce Khamorth nomads took advantage of the chaos and sacked the city he had come to love. He only survived because he accidentally discovered that he had an unsuspected power: Men often cursed each other – but Rhavas’s curse had the power to kill!

Rhavas had always followed Phos, the god of light and goodness, Videssos’ own god, just as he had always despised Phos’ evil rival Skotos. Those who fall off the Bridge of the Separator during judgment in the afterlife are doomed to dwell in Skotos’ ice and darkness forevermore. But Rhavas has reverenced logic as well as goodness, and knows the power to kill with a curse cannot be an attribute of Phos. As evil swallows up the world, Rhavas, ever the logician, decided that Skotos is actually the more powerful god, and becomes determind to change the official religion of Videssos. But in the end, it is he who will be changed, and neither the world nor he will ever be the same again…

For Mary Stevenson Crye, a beautiful young housewife, life had been wonderful. Loving husband, two delightful children, meaningful existence in a small Southern community. Then it all fell apart: with the sudden, unexpected death of her husband, Stevie must struggle to earn a living as a free-lance writer.

When her typewriter – the sole economic support for her surviving family – breaks down, Stevie begins to receive demonic messages through the machine, the prelude to a living nightmare of satanic emissaries, ghouls from beyond the grave, and the revelation of an unrequited curse over the Crye household.

For Mary Stevenson Crye, the nightmare is about to begin . . .

Kuttner’s two pulp heroic fantasy stories in the Conan style, “Cursed Be The City” and “The Citadel of Darkness”.

Doubleluck…Home…with its streets of flowing gold, waterfalls of diamonds, lakes of perfume – and its deadly curse! Jade is the one human with the will to challenge all odds and find the key to save her species. Fellow creatures fear her ability to dream. The powerful Rulon will exterminate all galactic life unless he can possess both Jade and the riches of Doubleluck. The brutal Dreens seek to mate with her to improve their inferior stock. Escape from each of them brings her one step closer to the perfect monument that is Doubleluck – a monument that covers a lonely grave.

They called him Bane the Bastard – though none said it to his face

Born of treachery, his name a curse, he grew up among the warriors of the Rigante. They valued his skills in war, but they feared the violence in his heart.

And when, as a Wolfshead and Outlaw, he left Rigante lands, they breathed sighs of relief.

But Bane would return, the destiny of the Rigante in his hands, the fate of the world resting on his skills with a blade.

Midnight Falcon continues the tale of the Rigante, which began in Sword in the Storm, and tells the epic story of Bane, the bastard son of Connavar the King, and his quest for vengeance in a world of blood, honour, betrayal and love.

Read by Adjoa Andoh
(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group

Suspects in the fatal bludgeoning of lowlife Ian Aston include his criminal pals – and Detective Chief Superintendent Colin Harpur’s superior officer Desmond Iles, whose wife, Sarah, was having an affair with Aston.

As Harpur appears to take Aston’s place in Sarah’s affections, local club owner Ralph Ember takes over the dead man’s spot in the criminal hierarchy, becoming a reluctant participant in a bank scheme that seems cursed from the start.

‘The tortuous private lives of James’s policemen are often more savage than the crimes they investigate . . . Mr James is bruisingly good’ Sunday Telegraph

‘A fine craftsman’ Ellery Queen

The man in the yellow robe had put the ancient curse of the Nine Times Nine on Wolfe Harrigan. And when Matt Duncan looked up from the croquet lawn that afternoon, he saw the man in the yellow robe in Wolfe Harrigan’s study.

When Matt got there, all the doors and windows were locked from the inside. But when the door was broken down, there was no man in a yellow robe in the room, and Wolfe Harrigan lay murdered on the floor. But at the time of the murder the man in the yellow robe was nowhere near the room.

Who better to explain this miracle than Sister Ursula, a nun, whose childhood ambition was to become a policewoman?

‘Mr J. J. Connington is a name revered by all specialists on detective fiction’ Spectator

In Clinton Driffield’s second case he must tangle with a plethora of crimes including robbery, murder and a disappearance – not to mention a Family Curse, and a less than sympathetic victim …

When American journalist Jon Harkness is reassigned to his paper’s London office, he quickly becomes embroiled in a bizarre tale involving an ancient family curse. Whilst out for a drive, his car is surrounded by an eerie fog and he finds himself on the wild Cornish coast by a medieval-looking pub named The Drowned Man.

It is here that Harkness overhears the locals talking about an ancient curse that haunts the prominent Manson family, which piques his interest. Upon visiting the family’s mansion, Harkness is plunged headlong into the chilling tale of a spell that has worked its power over the Manson clan for centuries.

‘My favourite American crime-writer’ New York Herald Tribune

Nick Walker can pass for eighteen, which comes in useful while living on the streets. But Nick isn’t eighteen. He’s fourteen. He’s been fourteen for years . . .

A chance encounter with Manta, an exceedingly powerful witch, sees Nick cursed with changelessness. Not only will he never age, but, more usefully to Manta, broken bones and sliced flesh, while excruciatingly painful, will mend themselves in a short space of time – making Nick the perfect weapon against the demonic assassins sent by the evil Cartel. Constantly hunted, Nick is forced to run – evading his enemy when he can and facing gruesome and bloody battles when he can’t.

But, help comes from a surprising source – April, a young girl Nick rescues from some occult enthusiasts intent on sacrificing her, has powers beyond her control or understanding. Together, might they be a match for the sinister forces that stalk them?

George Mallory was out for a quiet day’s shooting. A typical country-man, in typical English country. His day’s sport was interrupted by the beginning of the greatest catastrophe in man’s history – an alien space ship was crashing as his feet.
The ghastly monstrosity that emerged was so hideously repulsive that no one would have guessed at the degree of intelligence and potential friendliness in its strange mind.
Mallory shot first and asked questions afterwards. With its dying strength, the alien cursed the earth with a scientific horror beyond the comprehension of man, a horror that turned the beasts against us.
The only escape seemed to lie out in space… but the devastating effect of the cosmic rays wrought havoc in the minds of the space men and the lunar expedition turned on itself in deadly carnage.
What would be the outcome of the terrible conflict between man and beast?

Since the first classical ghost story was written, and since the unexplainable caught the imaginations of men, the mysteries of ancient Egypt have captivated the reading public in both fact and fiction.
Non one who walks through the Egyptian exhibits of a museum can fail to be impressed by the immense number and complexity of the exhibits.
What meanings lie hidden in that ageless heiroglyphic writing?
What forbidden knowledge lurks behind the inscrutable eyes of Nephthys, Guardian of the Dead?
What dreadful secrets are revealed when the seals around the lid of a sarcophagus are broken?
Do the falcon-headed gods Horus and Set still walk the earth?
Do the carnivorous fangs of the weird Anubis still seek the human blood.
Does Mont, the macabre bull-headed god still hold sinister sway in forgotten corners of the Delta?
The explorers who raided the timeless tomb at Luxor discovered to their cost, that an Egyptian curse was independent of time and space…

Everyone in the kingdom of Serre avoids the Mother of All Witches, an ugly, powerful and dangerous woman who lives in the forest. When the Prince of Serre, blinded by grief at the death of his wife and their newborn, rides down the witch’s white hen, he earns her curse. Prince Ronan believes nothing can be worse than what he has already experienced, but he soon discovers that he is wrong. The curse of the witch in the Forest of Serre has only begun to exert its baleful influence…

The firebird came at night – a magnificent creature whose magical cry seemed to transform objects at random. Gifted with powers of her own, Meguet tried to reach out to the bird. But at moonrise, the firebird became human, a prince cursed by dark magic. Meguet bowed to help him. But then the mystery carried her away, on alien winds, to a land far from her home…

At the edge of the world, the Luxor Desert awaits – a barren land where a sorcerer’s war rages. Where invisible dragons cast shadows over ruined castles. And where Meguet’s own fate depends upon a secret locked away in a tower for centuries…

Sorrow and trouble and bitterness will bound you and yours and the children of yours…

Some said the dying words of Nial Lynn, murdered by his own son, were a wicked curse. To others, it was a winter’s tale spun by firelight on cold, dark nights. But when Corbet Lynn came to rebuild his family estate, memories of his grandfather’s curse were rekindled by young and old – and rumours filled the heavy air of summer.

In the woods that border Lynn Hall, free-spirited Rois Melior roams wild and barefooted in search of healing herbs. She is as hopelessly unbridled – and unsuited for marriage – as her betrothed sister Laurel is domestic. In Corbet’s pale green eyes, Rois senses a desperate longing. In her restless dreams, mixed with the heady warmth of harvest wine, she hears him beckon. And as autumn gold fades, Rois is consumed with Corbet Lynn, obsessed with his secret past – until, across the frozen countryside and in flight from her own imagination, truth and dreams become inseparable…