Shielded by his mother and sisters from his father’s obsessive construction of a haunted house attraction, young Noah considers an ultimate sacrifice when he chooses to acknowledge a monster that his family members have tried to ignore.

At Eric’s Rotisserie, Bing sat outside by himself, nursing white zinfandel beneath the large sunshade that jutted from the center of his table, while blustery wind roamed across campus—swirling dead leaves and bits of trash around the chairs and tables, flapping the awnings on the massive umbrellas. The weather kept the patio abandoned, and Bing preferred it that way—no chatty couples nearby, no loudmouth students talking about sports, or, even worse, popular music. On this chilly afternoon, he didn’t care that he was alone. He didn’t care that he’d left his coat in his office. And, for a moment, he almost didn’t mind that his head wasn’t quite screwed on tightly today. In The Cosmology of Bing Mitch Cullin offers a tale of intersecting lives during one school year in Houston: the college student and his artist roommate, the reclusive poet, the astronomer studying a supernova at a remote West Texas observatory, the young Japanese woman hopelessly in love with her gay friend—and at the center of this group is Bing Owen, a college professor who drowns his heartbreak, paranoia, and secret desires with alcohol. It’s a darkly humorous novel about longing, buried feelings and muted relationships, forgotten poetry and thrown pies—in which the mysteries of love, the interconnectedness of individuals, and the inexplicable nature of attraction occupy the same microcosm as exploding stars, ghost lights, and specters from the past.

"If John Irving ever wrote a horror novel, it would be something like this. I loved it.” —Stephen King ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: ESQUIRE • THE NERD DAILY • THE NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY A GOODREADS CHOICE AWARDS FINALIST Monsters both figurative and very literal stalk the Turner family. The youngest child, Noah, narrates the family history: how in the late '60s, his bookish mother, Margaret, marries Lovecraft-lover Harry against her better judgment. The couple has two daughters--Sydney, born for the spotlight, and the brilliant but awkward Eunice, a natural writer and storyteller. But finances are tight, Margaret and Eunice are haunted by horrific dreams, and Harry starts acting strangely. He becomes obsessed with the construction of an elaborately crafted haunted house attraction, christened the Wandering Dark. The family tries to shield baby Noah from the house's faux horrors, but unbeknownst to them, he's being visited by a furry beast with glowing orange eyes--the same ghastly being glimpsed by both his mother and sister. However, unlike them, Noah decides to let the creature in. . . . As he approaches the conclusion of his family's tale, it becomes more and more apparent that there's only one way the story can end: with Noah making the ultimate sacrifice.

"If John Irving ever wrote a horror novel, it would be something like this. I loved it.” —Stephen King Noah Turner sees monsters. His father saw them—and built a shrine to them with The Wandering Dark, an immersive horror experience that the whole family operates. His practical mother has caught glimpses of terrors but refuses to believe—too focused on keeping the family from falling apart. And his eldest sister, the dramatic and vulnerable Sydney, won't admit to seeing anything but the beckoning glow of the spotlight . . . until it swallows her up. Noah Turner sees monsters. But, unlike his family, Noah chooses to let them in . . .

From the acclaimed author of A Cosmology of Monsters ("I loved it" —Stephen King) comes an epic contemporary fantasy, a mixture of The Magicians and It: a story of dark magic, terrible mistakes, and second chances. "You can never go home again," the saying goes—but Hal, Athena, and Erin have to. In high school, the three were students of the eccentric Professor Marsh, trained in a secret system of magic known as the Dissonance, which is built around harnessing negative emotions: alienation, anger, pain. Then, twenty years ago, something happened that shattered their coven, scattering them across the country, stuck in mundane lives, alone. But now, terrifying signs and portents (not to mention a pointed Facebook invite) have summoned them back to Clegg, Texas. There, their paths will collide with that of Owen, a closeted teenager from Alabama whose aborted cemetery seance with his crush summoned something far worse: a murderous entity whose desperate, driving purpose includes kidnapping Owen to serve as its Renfield. As Owen tries to outwit his new master, and Hal, Athena, and Erin reckon with how the choices they made as teens might connect to the apocalyptic event unfurling over the Lone Star State, shocking alliances form, old and new romances brew, and three unsuccessful adults and one frightened teen are all that stand between reality and oblivion. From one of the boldest, most brilliant voices in modern fantastical horror, The Dissonance is a thrilling and beautifully written story of magic and monsters, forgiveness and friendship.

Eighteenth-century England did not only see the rise of the novel, but also the rise of genres of what we now call the fantastic, such as imaginary voyages and apparition narratives. Combining theoretical reflection and cultural analysis, the author of this book investigates the origins, and demonstrates the formal and historical identity of a great variety of texts, which have never been considered as part of the same family. The fantastic, he argues, is an intrinsically modern mode, which uses the devices of realistic representation to describe supernatural phenomena. Its origins can be found in the seventeenth century, when the rise of modern empiricism threatened the ontological and epistemological underpinnings of traditional religious culture. The author shows how a broad range of discursive formations - demonology, providential literature, teratology, and natural philosophy - attempted to reconcile world-views that were felt to be increasingly incompatible, and traces the development of a new kind of fiction that gradually replaced them and took over their work of reconciliation. Coalescing as an autonomous system of genres, free from the restrictions of modern science and at the same time self-consciously aesthetic, the fantastic emerged as an instrument both to affirm and to transcend the empirical vision.

The Oxford Handbook of Monsters in Classical Myth presents forty chapters about the unique and terrifying creatures from myths of the long-ago Near East and Mediterranean world, featuring authoritative contributions by many of the top international experts on ancient monsters and the monstrous. The first part provides original studies of individual monsters such as the Chimaera, Cerberus, the Hydra, and the Minotaur, and of monster groups such as dragons, centaurs, sirens, and Cyclopes. This section also explores their encounters with the major heroes of classical myth, including Perseus, Jason, Heracles, and Odysseus. The second part examines monsters of ancient folklore and ethnography, encompassing the restless dead, blood-drinking lamiae, exotic hybrid animals, the so-called dog-headed men, and many other unexpected creatures and peoples. The third part covers various interpretations of these creatures from multiple perspectives, including psychoanalysis, colonialism, and disability studies, with monster theory itself evident across the entire volume. The final part discusses reception of these ancient monsters across time and space--from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance to modern times, from Persia to Scandinavia, the Caribbean, and Latin America-and concludes with chapters considering the use and adaptation of ancient monsters in children's literature, science fiction, fantasy, and modern scientific disciplines. This Handbook is the first large-scale, inclusive guide to monsters in antiquity, their places in literature and art across the millennia, and their influence on later literature and thought.

This volume aims to inspire a return to the energetics of Nietzsche's prose and the critical intensity of his approach to nihilism and to give back to the future its rightful futurity. For too long contemporary thought has been dominated by a depressed 'what is to be done?'. All is regarded to be in vain, nothing is deemed real, there is nothing new seen under the sun. Such a 'postmodern' lament is easily confounded with an apathetic reluctance to think engagedly. Hence our contributors draw on the variety of topical issues: the future of life, the nature of life-forms, the techno-sciences, the body, religion...as a way of tackling the question of nihilism's pertinence to us now.