One of the most original and unsettling filmmakers of all time, Browning is also one of the most enigmatic directors who ever worked in Hollywood. Illustrated throughout with rare photos, Dark Carnival is both an artful and shocking portrait of a singular film pioneer and an illuminating study of the evolution of horror, essential to an understanding of our continuing fascination with the macabre.

The panoramic story of how the horror genre transformed into one of the most incisive critiques of unchecked American imperial power The American empire emerged from the shadows of World War II. As the nation’s influence swept the globe with near impunity, a host of evil forces followed—from racism, exploitation, and military invasion to killer clowns, flying saucers, and monsters borne of a fear of the other. By viewing American imperial history through the prism of the horror genre, Dark Carnivals lays bare how the genre shaped us, distracted us, and gave form to a violence as American as apple pie. A carnival ride that connects the mushroom clouds of 1945 to the beaches of Amity Island, Charles Manson to the massacre at My Lai, and John Wayne to John Wayne Gacy, the new book by acclaimed historian W. Scott Poole reveals how horror films and fictions have followed the course of America’s military and cultural empire and explores how the shadow of our national sins can take on the form of mass entertainment.

Though vampires have their intrigues, werewolves have their wars, mages have their realities, wraiths have their passions and changelings seek to return to their homeland, there are supernatural powers at work in the world that concern all of these beings. Indeed, there are people and forces in the world of Darkness that endanger all those who exist. Learn the secrets, alliances, enemies and plans of these shadowy beings in a series of world of Darkness books that can be integrated into all of the storyteller games. Something wicked this way comes, even in the World of Darkness.

'Let us now praise Ray Bradbury' THE TIMES Bradbury's first story collection is a must-read for any fan of the genre, spinning stardust and cobwebs in its wondrous wake. It contains twenty-seven stories, from science fiction's master storyteller.

Enjoy this fantasy series set in a magical carnival by urban fantasy author Trudi Jaye. A magical carnival. A deadly enemy. And a secret known only to a select few. Go behind the scenes at the Dark Carnival to find out more... As the Ringmaster's daughter, Rilla Jolly has always lived her life under the bright lights of the big top, and the shadowy magic of the Jolly Carnival runs powerfully through her veins. As gutsy as she is talented, Rilla is the one who keeps the Carnival running, while her father provides the showmanship and charisma that holds them all together. At every stop along their summer-long journey, the Carnival folk use their particular brand of alchemy to make the deepest wish of one lucky punter come true. But the magical balance has been disrupted, and their lives are about to change. When the unthinkable happens, and Rilla is thrust into leadership, she must do everything she can to uncover the identity of the deadly enemy determined to destroy them all. But just when she needs the carnival to be united as one, her right to lead the Carnival is threatened, and Rilla must prove to everyone—including herself—that she has what it takes to be the next Ringmaster. Can she keep her birthright as the last of the Jollys, as well as save the Carnival? Click the link above to read The Dark Carnival Boxed Set and find out. Three full-length novels set in the world of the magical Jolly Carnival, where danger, intrigue and magic lurk around every corner. BONUS CONTENT: two extra carnival novellas just for you!

Fantasy-roman.

Welcome to a land Ray Bradbury calls "the Undiscovered Country" of his imagination--that vast territory of ideas, concepts, notions and conceits where the stories you now hold were born. America's premier living author of short fiction, Bradbury has spent many lifetimes in this remarkable place--strolling through empty, shadow-washed fields at midnight; exploring long-forgotten rooms gathering dust behind doors bolted years ago to keep strangers locked out.. and secrets locked in. The nights are longer in this country. The cold hours of darkness move like autumn mists deeper and deeper toward winter. But the moonlight reveals great magic here--and a breathtaking vista. The October Country is many places: a picturesque Mexican village where death is a tourist attraction; a city beneath the city where drowned lovers are silently reunited; a carnival midway where a tiny man's most cherished fantasy can be fulfilled night after night. The October Country's inhabitants live, dream, work, die--and sometimes live again--discovering, often too late, the high price of citizenship. Here a glass jar can hold memories and nightmares; a woman's newborn child can plot murder; and a man's skeleton can war against him. Here there is no escaping the dark stranger who lives upstairs...or the reaper who wields the world. Each of these stories is a wonder, imagined by an acclaimed tale-teller writing from a place shadows. But there is astonishing beauty in these shadows, born from a prose that enchants and enthralls. Ray Bradbury's The October Country is a land of metaphors that can chill like a long-after-midnight wind...as they lift the reader high above a sleeping Earth on the strange wings of Uncle Einar.

Twisted bodies, deformed faces, aberrant behavior, and abnormal desires characterized the hideous creatures of classic Hollywood horror, which thrilled audiences with their sheer grotesqueness. Most critics have interpreted these traits as symptoms of sexual repression or as metaphors for other kinds of marginalized identities, yet Angela M. Smith conducts a richer investigation into the period's social and cultural preoccupations. She finds instead a fascination with eugenics and physical and cognitive debility in the narrative and spectacle of classic 1930s horror, heightened by the viewer's desire for visions of vulnerability and transformation. Reading such films as Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931), Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931), Freaks (1932), and Mad Love (1935) against early-twentieth-century disability discourse and propaganda on racial and biological purity, Smith showcases classic horror's dependence on the narratives of eugenics and physiognomics. She also notes the genre's conflicted and often contradictory visualizations. Smith ultimately locates an indictment of biological determinism in filmmakers' visceral treatments, which take the impossibility of racial improvement and bodily perfection to sensationalistic heights. Playing up the artifice and conventions of disabled monsters, filmmakers exploited the fears and yearnings of their audience, accentuating both the perversity of the medical and scientific gaze and the debilitating experience of watching horror. Classic horror films therefore encourage empathy with the disabled monster, offering captive viewers an unsettling encounter with their own impairment. Smith's work profoundly advances cinema and disability studies, in addition to general histories concerning the construction of social and political attitudes toward the Other.

The show crept into town late one dark October night to the eerie whine of a calliope. In the terrifying days that followed, everything changed... Two boys stumbled onto the first of the secrets - the nightmare merry-go-round that produced the grisly turnabout of human beings. But not until they actually became part of the dance of death did they discover the final mystery of all...

In her newest collection of fantasy stories, beloved author Jane Yolen's dark side has fully emerged. Her vivid, startling, and thrilling tales and poems of the supernatural--from icy-hearted witches to sometimes-innocent shapeshifters--reveal a classic storyteller at the height of her powers. "Look this way, look that; blazing her consummate imagination against the shadows of human sorrow, Jane Yolen has done it again."--Gregory Maguire, author of Wicked Jane Yolen is the Hans Christian Andersen of America" --The New York Times Welcome to the Midnight Circus--and watch your step. The dark imaginings of fantasy icon Jane Yolen are not for the faint of heart. In these sixteen brilliantly unnerving tales and poems, Central Park becomes a carnival where you can--but probably shouldn't--transform into a wild beast. The Red Sea will be deadly to cross due to a plague of voracious angels. Meanwhile, the South Pole is no place for even a good man, regardless of whether he is living or dead. Wicked, solemn, and chilling, the circus is ready for your visit--just don't arrive late. Other short story collections by Jane Yolen in this series The Emerald Circus: 2018 World Fantasy Award winner How to Fracture a Fairy Tale: 2019 Anne Izard Storytellers' Choice Award