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Description:
Too often contemporary horror fiction denies, forgets or is even unaware of its roots in classic dark literature. The man legitimately called the father of the genre, Edgar Allan Poe, thrust terror into the soul of humanity, while his illegitimate descendants located it in the cosmos, across nations, in science, through history, in nature, in the city - in short, wherever people come together and invariably attempt to dull their imaginations. But experience is always too cruel.
These themes are of course relevant today.
This book aims to show how the ideas and techniques of the greats might be utilised to explore the modern world. Here you'll find neither pastiche nor period prose, rather thoroughly contemporary visions whose aging, tell-tale heart still beats with dismaying memory of the past and irrepressible fear for the future...
30 original stories from some of the finest practitioners in the field, including a brand new tale from modern master Ramsey Campbell.
Contents:
Introduction by Michael Marshall Smith
Mike O'Driscoll - The Hurting House (Edgar Allan Poe)
Mark Morris - The Places They Hide (Algernon Blackwood)
Antony Mann - Save The Snutch (Frankenstein)
Melvin Cartagena - Bottom Feeders (Vampires)
Tim Lebbon - A Ripple In The Veil (Arthur Machen)
Steve Savile - Idiot Hearts (Brothers Grimm)
Joel Lane - A Night On Fire (Cornell Woolrich)
Greg Beatty - Dr Jackman's Lens (Mad Science)
Jon Hartless - Earth, Water, Oil (Stoker/Collins Documents)
Chico Kidd - Unfinished Business (Genre Character)
Conrad Williams - Once Seen (H. P. Lovecraft)
Nicholas Royle - Sitting Tenant (Haunted House)
Kathy Sedia - Making Ivy (H. G. Wells)
Dominick Cancilla - The Cubicle Wall ('The Yellow Wallpaper')
Stephen Volk - The Good Unknown (The Movies)
Gary Fry - The Strange Case Of Jack Myride And Company (R. L. Stevenson)
Andrew Hook - The Pregnant Sky (Franz Kafka)
Gene Stewart - Evidence (Femme Fatale)
Rhys Hughes - The Jam Of Hypnos (Jorge Luis Borges)
Gary McMahon - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Fritz Leiber)
Adam L. G. Nevill - Where Angels Come In (M. R. James)
John L. Probert - The Volkendorf Exhibition (Conte Cruel)
Allen Ashley - Turbulent Times (Ambrose Bierce)
Richard Gavin - The Pale Lover (Guy du Maupassant)
Kevin L. Donihe - Living Room Zombies (Zombies)
Neil Ayres - The Scent Of Nostalgia (Werewolf)
Robert Swartwood - Goodbye (Ghost Story)
Simon Clark - One Man Show (Pulp, With A Nod Of The Head To W. H. Hodgson)
Donald R. Burleson - Papa Loaty (American Gothic)
Ramsey Campbell - Just Behind You (Modern Master)
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