Search Results for: terrors

Ranging from the mysterious to pulp action to the Lovecraftian, this vivid collection of short fiction explores a world of radio heroes, masterful villains, and creatures from places unknown.

Trouble aboard the satellite observatory which has been established to circle the Earth every four hours. It is under the despotic control of a brilliant but unbalanced scientist, Commander Hendricks, who refuses to allow his staff any means of communicating with Earth on their own account. But he doesn’t know that Tony Hale, who is one of the engineers in the observatory, has smuggled in his homemade transistor radio.

Scientists everywhere are baffled when three brown streaks appear on the Earth’s surface, destroying all the vegetation in their path. No one can find the explanation until it is realised that the streaks lie in the direction of the satellite’s orbit. Hendricks first refuses to reply to any questions and then announces that he intends to be the world dictator; if the governments of the world refuse to agree he will starve them into surrender by destroying all the vegetation on Earth. The situation seems desperate. But Tony has already used his transistor radio to get in touch with a friend on Earth. His homemade set is now the only means of contact between Earth and the observatory, and through it plans can be made to deal with Hendricks – plans in which Chris Godfrey has a leading role to play.

The radar-complex had picked up the strange object in space just as it neared the earth’s surface. It was described as “an object of considerable size.” The impact of its landing at Boulder Lake Park, Colorado, was felt on every seismograph in the world. Then the first reports began to trickle in: there were “creatures” on board? Creatures who soon left their ship and began exploring the area …

Where was the ship from, and what was the quest of the strange visitors? These visitors who were armed with a terrifying paralysis ray that blinded its victims, filling their nostrils with a reptilian odor of the jungle?

Only one man in the Boulder Lake Park area could hope to solve the mystery of the “Aliens” who had come to call on earth …

If you have ever wondered what a civilized man of the twentieth century would do if catapulted into an Old Stone Age where huge cave bears, saber-toothed tigers, monstrous carnivorous dinosaurs, mammoths, and mastodons roamed the savage terrain, you need look no further thanLand of Terror, the sixth installment of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Pellucidar series. Years ago David Innes and Abner Perry bored straight down through five hundred miles of the earth’s crust and landed in Pellucidar, the savage, primeval world that lies at the center of the earth. This is the story of their continuing adventures in the timeless land of perpetual noon and their encounters with the hideous creatures and savage men who pursue them. Although they encounter enemies at every turn, David and Abner find a few loyal friends as they embark on exhilarating adventures.

The first exploratory expedition to Pluto returns with only one crewman aboard-the Captain, Jules Carmodine. There is a profound mystery as to what has happened to the original crew: Carmodine is suffering from an amnesiac block, and is broken in health-almost insane, and full of self-loathing.

Medical treatment restores his health but the amnesia as to what had happened on Pluto remains. Carmodine is then forced to go back on a second expedition to Pluto to exorcise his tortured memories of abandoning his crew. And unless he can remember what happened, the second expedition will fall victim to whatever decimated the first. It is a journey he does not wish to make-a journey into terror!

Spatial Body 232: Zone K, because of its valuable strategic position as a satellite of Zennor, was the goal set by the exploratory expeditions from the Earth controlled ports of Zennor itself. A base on 232 offered many advantages for defence of the spaceways, and establishing a settlement there was a must lest rival races in the Galaxy gain a foothold on it first. But though successive ships blasted off with the avowed intent of claiming the cheerless grey satellite none had ever been heard of again, save one whose crew had returned to report fantastic storms of unknown origin. It was not until Tony Wayne and John Reece crash-landed their ship on 232 that they learnt its incredible secrets – and found there a fellow whose story was akin to a nightmare . . .

When Cook’s newborn baby entered the world, he had nothing but hope for its future. However, it was immediately clear that this was no ordinary child – it’s murderous screams seemed a dark portent. As it grew, things only got worse, and the child’s mother began to despair. The new parents hoped their child would grow out of it, but soon came to realise that its inauspicious beginnings were only a sign of things to come.

An itinerant French mercenary stumbles into the Valley of the Kings; driven by thirst and crazed by the eastern sun, he crawls through a crevice in an ancient wall…

The papyrus roll he found contained weird hieroglyphics, an owl, a bolted door, an eagle, an axe and, strangest of all, Xerefu and Akeru – the lions of Yesterday and Today. The scroll found its way to Paris. The year was 1798. The Terror was born. Behind the welter of blood that was revolution, older, darker, more sinister forces were at work. The Revolution was only a means to an end… only a symptom of a deadlier peril, a terror behind the Terror.

Ancient Egyptian power was stronger than the guillotine…

When experimental drilling on the pacific sea-bed breaks through the earth’s thin mantle, vast quantities of nitrogen, trapped for untold millions of years, are released into the atmosphere. As a result, the oxygen in the air becomes dangerously diluted. Whole areas of America are thrown into chaos as the inhabitants literally fight for breath. Two men and two girls put to sea in a yacht in a desperate effort to escape the terror, but terror, in a different and no less deadly form, pursues them relentlessly.

All the magic and mystery of fabled India is woven into these marvel tales of seven strange nights. For that vast land which many have conquered and none have subdued is the home of ten thousand gods and a hundred thousand demons – and the teeming races that dwell on its shrouded plains and marbled cities have kept their mystic secrets. Here are hidden gods and demonic possession, here are were-beasts and subterranean terrors, here are beings transformed and souls reborn, here is Terror and Wonder.

Even in today’s world there are corners where past evils still cast their terror-haunted shadows. When the young man, Christian, came to his inheritance – a once grand mansion in just such a remote corner of France – he knew only that there was some sort of alternate claim to that ancient building and its lands. Even as the villagers acknowledged him as lord of the manor, there came two from the forest to stake out their interest. And with them came fear and desire, terror and love…a combination which could be irresistible – and also fatal.

Must Professor George Challenger and friends, barricaded in a room, see Earth die? As our globe passes through a belt of poisonous ether, terror sweeps mankind; cities riot; communications cease.

Twenty-five men and women against a world of evolution gone mad!

Here is the vivid story of their adventures and terrors – the monster in the forest – the city of giant beavers – and the secret of the incredible race that had supplanted mankind.

Earth is dead – murdered from the depths of space. But how? And by whom? Poul Anderson, as versatile and ingenious as ever, admirably confirms with this tale of interplanetary terror that he possesses one of the most awe-inspiring talents in the whole field of science fiction.

THE COMBATANTS

Two godlike blood enemies engaged in a war older than history.

THE BATTLEGROUND

An out-of-control nuclear plant whose cataclysmic destruction will spell the end of the Earth.

REFUGE

None – on a planet swept up in the awesome terror of the last panic.

WIKIPEDIA says: ‘H.P. Lovecraft’s reputation has grown tremendously over the decades, and he is now commonly regarded as one of the most important horror writers of the 20th century, exerting an influence that is widespread, though often indirect.’

H.P. Lovecraft’s tales of the tentacled Elder God Cthulhu and his pantheon of alien deities were initially written for the pulp magazines of the 1920s and ’30s. These astonishing tales blend elements of horror, science fiction and cosmic terror that are as powerful today as they were when they were first published.

This electronic tome collects together Lovecraft’s tales of terror, including the complete Cthulhu Mythos cycle, just the way they were originally published. It will introduce a whole new generation of readers to Lovecraft’s fiction, as well as being a must-buy for those fans who want all his work in a single, definitive volume.

Superb Art Deco suspense set in the glamorous world of high society New York from ‘An author with a flair for terror’ The New Yorker

‘If you wake up in the night screaming with terror, don’t say we didn’t warn you’ New York Times

Once the dashing, top-hatted twins, Danny and David, who share nice college boy laughs, have the marble, they will do to Griselda what they have done to the others.

Her estranged husband, Con, is a thousand miles away, and can’t save her.

A bloody trail has wound around the so blue marble: years of theft, torture, violence; whispers of secret riches, gold, diamonds, rubies as big as the moon. Soon it would be Griselda’s turn.

But Griselda believes that nothing ever happens to nice people, and that there is no reason to feel nervous at night, not even in the heart of New York, and knowing what she does about the marble . . .

Along the wild hills and forests of Britain, he was reborn as the Celt’s mightiest warrior. Even as a boy, his mad bloodlust spread superstitious terror among friend and enemy alike. He was Swiftaxe, known as the Horned Warrior: half ghost, half man – and all killer . . .

Joseph Visco had come to the remote Norwegian village to find work. Instead he found terror, lynch-fever and death. A village girl had been murdered and rumour was prevalent that a follower of the Norse myth – half wolf, half man with the power to take on the shape of its victim – was responsible.

Put yourself in the place of Kim Rendall, a handsome, idealistic young man living on a distant planet ruled by a super-efficient government. Here is industrialization carried to its illogical conclusion. Kim Rendall lives in the shadow of mechanized terror, for machines have taken over, and the disciplinary circuit keeps the inhabitants in check . . .

Set on the island of Ponape, full of ruins from ancient civilizations, the novel chronicles the adventures of a party of explorers who discover a previously unknown underground world full of strange peoples and super-scientific wonders. From the depths of this world, the party unwittingly unleashes the Dweller, a monstrous terror that threatens the islands of the South Pacific.

In the hard years of the Depression, young Travis lives with his uncle and aunt. Upstairs lives the mysterious Anna. Anna says she’s going to be “changing”, and she needs Travis’s help…for purposes she won’t explain. What follows is a tale of passion, terror, and hope, opening out to a great, dark, and unsuspected universe.

To wake the devil, Lucinda summoned the arch fiend with the ancient invocation, and from the secret room where her friend Vanya had agreed to hide came the eerie response. The rapping called up all the terror of the old tales, and the joke was going marvellously.

Until Lucinda realised that Vanya had never arrived at the old house …

He reached for Churan’s throat and his hands closed on air…

…yet the alien had not moved. With a chill of terror, Naismith realized that his arm had passed completely through the ugly, green-skinned body.

The aliens’ laughter swelled out, malicious and mocking. Behind him, Lall’s voice said, “A nice try. But not good enough.”