In The Country Of Dreaming Caravans

Once and now, a little girl who plays with ghosts and spirits is lost in the desert… No family, no friends, just memories of an old life in a world of cities and cars, and a head full of visions and dreams that don’t belong in the world. She likes to tell stories. She stinks of camel. Once, she will say, “The scorpion was not always a creature of pain, just as each of us was not always what we have become.” Many times, she wonders what she is worth to the living who sell her, buy and steal her, to the spirits and ghosts and djinn and ghuls she plays with, to the Caravan of the Dead she comes to belong to, to the dead who wake her and are awakened by her. Once and now, she wonders what others are willing to pay for her stories… “A redemptive story of the saving magic of story itself. Lose yourself, and find yourself, in the tale of Aini, a virgin storyteller cast adrift by selfish parents to the whims of the desert to make her way in the world…maybe all the way to the Caravan of Dreams. In this short novel, Houarner has crafted a fantastic, beautifully dark journey to the center of the secret heart!” — John Everson, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Covenant and NightWhere "Houarner, always a maestro of the “smart” horror tale, further hones his art in this scary provocative nod to The Thousand and One Nights and other ancient traditions of phantasmal story-telling. Chock full the macabre and populated by the arabesque horrors of a culture far older than ours, this great new work by Houarner is a Must Read for all venturers into weird fiction.” —Edward Lee, author of White Trash Gothic and City Infernal

Collection of extracts, translations, thoughts, and teachings of the Middle East and Central Asia.

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fights to survive their descent; An American band finds more than they bargained for in Mexico while scouting remote locations for a photo shoot; A young student’s exploration into the origins of a mysterious song leads him on a winding, dangerous path through the US’s deep south; A group of kids scaring each other with ghost stories discovers alarming consequences. The Best Horror of the Year showcases the previous year’s best offerings in horror short fiction. This edition includes award-winning and critically acclaimed authors Mark Morris, Kaaron Warren, John Langan, Carole Johnstone, Brian Hodge, and others. For more than three decades, award-winning editor and anthologist Ellen Datlow has had her finger on the pulse of the latest and most terrifying in horror writing. Night Shade Books is proud to present the tenth volume in this annual series, a new collection of stories to keep you up at night. TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction: Summation 2017—Ellen Datlow Better You Believe—Carole Johnstone Liquid Air—Inna Effress Holiday Romance—Mark Morris Furtherest—Kaaron Warren Where’s the Harm?—Rebecca Lloyd Whatever Comes After Calcutta—David Erik Nelson A Human Stain—Kelly Robson The Stories We Tell about Ghosts—A. C. Wise Endoskeletal—Sarah Read West of Matamoros, North of Hell—Brian Hodge Alligator Point—S. P. Miskowski Dark Warm Heart—Rich Larson There and Back Again—Carmen Maria Machado Shepherd’s Business—Stephen Gallagher You Can Stay All Day—Mira Grant Harvest Song, Gathering Song—A. C. Wise The Granfalloon—Orrin Grey Fail-Safe—Philip Fracassi The Starry Crown—Marc E. Fitch Eqalussuaq—Tim Major Lost in the Dark—John Langan Honorable Mentions About the Authors Acknowledgment of Copyright About the Editor

THE MAN WHO FLED When Tralane, an itinerant bard, was captured by the dread Sorcerer King, his only hope lay in stealing the Eye of Wyden. With that powerful amulet, he was able to escape to another variant world. But he could not so easily escape the destiny that seemed to pursue him. As he fled from world to world, each seemed to offer only greater misery and danger. And now he was stalked by the mocking figure of the Jade Warrior, a mysterious creature who waited patiently for his failure or death. The final world was that of the Worm-God Wyden, from whom the Eye had been ripped, and the Man of a Thousand Faces, who sought to trap him into an eternity of futile degradation. In the end, Tralane was forced to flee once more - back to face himself and his unknown beginnings. SPECIAL BONUS - This digital edition includes the previously unpublished story GHOST SWORD OF THE HEART

Max is a man. An assassin, to be exact. But within him lurks the Beast, an unholy demon that drives Max to kill – and to commit acts even more hideous. Throughout the years, the Beast has taught Max well, and Max has become quite proficient in his chosen field. He is an assassin unlike any other. To put it mildly. But now Max has a son, an unnatural offspring named Angel, born of Max's pain and hunger. Through Angel, the spirits of Max's former victims see a way to make Max suffer, to make him pay for his monstrous crimes. These vengeful ghosts fight hard to trap Angel in their world forever. And while angel battles his father's demons, Max himself must try to escape from the government agents intent on capturing him – dead or alive.

Twelve tales of the human condition as seen from the dark side, through the lens of myth, nightmare, romance, the weird and the surreal. The collection’s title story sets the table, turning over love’s joy to explore where such an emotion might come from, and what it might cost. Other stories include: -“The Question Man,” in which Derek is compelled to find the answers to the questions of a mysterious caller -“Spider Goes to Market” finds the trickster god Spider caught in the horrors of the African slave trade -“The Dead Mothers’ Club” seeks to answer the question of what happens to the children who cannot recover from the loss of their mothers - “Twelve Nights” is the length of time it takes for a man to transform into something else, once the reality of what he knew to be his life is broken Other stories included in this collection are "The Oddist", "The Lighted Window", "The Good Dead", "Five Pregnant Vampires", "The Abandoned Mother", "Our Lady of the Jars", and "Not an Exit". From the first print edition of this collection, John Pelan writes in his introduction: Gerard Houarner is an artist, one that’s not afraid to venture into new territories and try different hues and shades in his prose painting. The artist has hung an entirely new show in his gallery, and it’s well worth coming in to view, the admission fee is inexpensive and the memories will linger a lifetime. And, from Asimov’s SF Magazine, Paul Di Filippo writes in his On Books Review: …the stories that flesh out this book (flesh bruised and broken) are hardly romantic trifles, cynical or otherwise. They are instead Grand Guignolish shockers reminiscent of John Shirley’s work. Houarner’s introductions show a concerned and ethical individual at work, and his sharp literary skills insure that he always adheres closely to his personal moral compass, without sacrificing horrific impact. “Out Lady of the Jars” is my favorite here, straying as it does into the Borgesian territory of imaginary beings.

The sixth volume in one of the great ongoing works of American cultural history--Kevin Starr's monumental Americans and the California Dream--Embattled Dreams is a peerless work of cultural history following California in the years surrounding World War II. During the 1940s California ascended to a new, more powerful role in the nation. Starr describes the vast expansion of the war industry and California's role as the "arsenal of democracy" (especially the significant part women played in the aviation industry). He examines the politics of the state: Earl Warren as the dominant political figure, the anti-Communist movement and "red baiting," and the early career of Richard Nixon. He also looks at culture, ranging from Hollywood to the counterculture, to film noir and detective stories. And he illuminates the harassment of Japanese immigrants and the shameful treatment of other minorities, especially Hispanics and blacks. In Embattled Dreams, Starr again provides a spellbinding account of the Golden State, narrating California's transformation from a regional power to a dominant economic, social, and cultural force. "With a novelist's eye for the telling detail, and a historian's grasp of the sweep of grand events.... [Starr's] got it all down.... I read the book with absorbed admiration."--Herman Wouk, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Caine Mutiny and The Winds of War "The scope of Starr's scholarship is breathtaking."--Atlantic Monthly "A magnificent accomplishment."--Los Angeles Times Book Review "Brilliant and epic social and cultural history."--Business Week "Ebullient, nuanced, interdisciplinary history of the grandest kind."--San Francisco Chronicle