What are "astounding" stories?Well, if you lived in Europe in 1490, and someone told you the earth was round and moved around the sun—that would have been an "astounding" story. Or if you lived in 1840, and were told that some day men a thousand miles apart would be able to talk to each other through a little wire—or without any wire at all—that would have been another. Or if, in 1900, they predicted ocean-crossing airplanes and submarines, world-girdling Zeppelins, sixty-s...

What would you do if like Quest you were tricked and your very Mind and Will stolen from your body?

Hours of great reading await, with tales from some of the 20th century's most renowned horror and dark fantasy authors. Included are:DAGON, by H.P. LovecraftTHE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT, by Robert E. HowardMOTHER OF PEARL, by Fitz-James O'BrienTHE WALKING DEAD, by E. Hoffmann PriceSOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SHOUT ABOUT IT, by Darrell SchweitzerTHE STORY OF MING-Y, by Lafcadio HearnBY MOONLIGHT, by John Gregory BetancourtTHE GATEWAY OF THE MO...

"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."--H. P. LOVECRAFT, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"Howard Phillips Lovecraft forever changed the face of horror, fantasy, and science fiction with a remarkable series of stories as influential as the works of Poe, Tolkien, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. His chilling mythology established a gateway between the known universe and an ancient dimension of otherwo...

H. P. Lovecraft was the eerily prescient genius who first electrified readers in Weird Tales magazine. His tales changed the face of horror forever and inspired the bloodcurdling offerings of a new generation. These brilliant dark visionaries forge grisly trails through previously uncharted realms of mortal terror.THE PLAIN OF SOUND by Ramsey Campbell: In the beginning they could find no source for the throbbing vibrations; in the end they...

The opening of The Fugitive Worlds finds Toller Maraquine II - grandson of the hero of The Ragged Astronauts and The Wooden Spaceships - bemoaning the fact that life on the twin planets of Land and Overland has become dull and uneventful compared to the stirring times in which his illustrious forebear lived. Then, while on a balloon flight between the worlds, he makes an astonishing discovery - a rapidly growing crystal disc, many miles across, is creating a barr...

SOMETHING WAS WRONG WITH THE WORLD The pendulum clock struck slowly, its every other chime as usual setting up a sympathetic vibration in the pewter vase that stood upon the mantel. Mr. Chambers got to his feet, strode to the door, opened it and looked out. Moonlight tessellated the street in black and silver, etching the chimneys and trees against a silvered sky. But the house directly across the street was not the same. It was strangely lopsided, its dimensions out of proportion, like a ...

The Best of Philip E. HighWelcome to the Bizarre Imagination of Philip E. High.-A world without laws where the basest criminal activity flourishes unchecked in a dog-eat-dog society;-When the crew of a submarine find themselves flung millions of years into the past the consequences are devastating;-The minds of the entire population of a city are infected by the thoughts of a madman, and become insane themselves - and the contagion is spreading;-Mankind...

Phineas Magnetron is an eccentric Nineteenth Century inventor and former Union soldier who sustained a war injury which has unaccountably bestowed upon him a strange gift he doesn't completely understand. No stranger to peril and derring-do, Phineas is asked to join the Hogalum Society, an inscrutable secret organization of crime fighting adventurers, by none other than Society founder Dr. Yngve Hogalum.Traveling the globe in their Luftigel electric airship, Phineas Magnetron and h...

He made a sound of pleasure as the hot water needled his tired skin. Yet he heard nothing. The silence was more absolute than any he had experienced before. After more than fifty shifts, a lifetime among the stars, this was his first rehabilitation problem, and he was not unduly worried...In Eric Brown's landmark first collection of stories, fear, desire, love and redemption are forged with an innovative and stunning science-fiction imagination, creating eight exotic tales of tomor...

Two Men. A Bitter Rivalry. And a Quarter-Century of Unspeakable Horrors.Herbert West’s crimes against nature are well-known to those familiar with the darkest secrets of science and resurrection. Obsessed with finding a cure for mankind’s oldest malady, death itself, he has experimented upon the living and dead, leaving behind a trail of monsters, mayhem, and madness. But the story of his greatest rival has never been told.Until now.Dr. Stuart Hartwell, a colleague and contem...

H.G. Wells was a legendary British author who wrote in many genres. Wells’ most famous works were science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds, The Time Machine, and The Invisible Man. This edition of Wells’ The Secret Places of the Heart includes a table of contents.