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Since I was a young boy, I’ve been fascinated with the concept of time. I’ve spent hours studying the physics of time as a hobby, and to this day, as an adult, that fascination continues. Whenever the topic of time arises in conversation, I will be the first to contribute my understanding of this mystery that has baffled humankind since the beginning of...well, time.
This book did something amazing to me. I was mesmerized by Finney’s narrative of the past, which negated the method of self-hypnosis he used to bring the protagonist from the future to the past, so it no longer seemed far-fetched.
The narrative recreation of the late 19th century captivated my imagination, enabling me to feel the protagonist’s awe at seeing, feeling, and smelling the past as actual reality. Isn’t this every writer’s dream?
Si Morley is bored with his job as a commercial illustrator and his social life doesn't seem to be going anywhere. So, when he is approached by an affable ex-football star and told that he is just what the government is looking for to take part in a top-secret programme, he doesn't hesitate for too long. And so one day Si steps out of his twentieth-century, New York apartment and finds himself back in January 1882. There are no cars, no planes, no computers, no television and the word 'nuclear' appears in no dictionaries. For Si, it's very like Eden,…
When I was about twelve years old I noticed a tattered old paperback in a box at a flea market. Titled Third From the Sun and Other Stories,it featured a colorfully bizarre illustration on the cover along with the author’s name: Richard Matheson. I bought the book—nearly fifty years later I still have it—and so began my journey into the works of one of America’s greatest fantasists. Decades later, I had the honor of working with the man himself, which ultimately led to the creation of my anthology,He Is Legend. Richard is gone now, but his timeless works live on.
Charles Beaumont was close friends with Richard Matheson, and they worked together on such projects as the Roger Corman Edgar Allan Poe films and Rod Serling’s original Twilight Zone. Beaumont’s stories are as rich and varied as Matheson’s, with delightfully witty language and fantastic plot twists. If you love classic Matheson short stories like “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” and “Death Ship,” you’re bound to love Beaumont.
That Charles Beaumont would make a name for himself crafting scripts for The Twilight Zone is only natural: for his was an imagination so limitless it must have emerged from some other dimension. So take one uneasy step and fall headlong into his world: a world where lions stalk the plains, classics cars rove the streets, and spacecraft hover just overhead. Here roam musicians, magicians, vampires, monsters, toreros, extraterrestrials, androids, and perhaps even the Devil himself. Perchance to Dream contains a selection of Beaumont's finest stories, including five stories that he later adapted for Twilight Zone episodes.
When I was about twelve years old I noticed a tattered old paperback in a box at a flea market. Titled Third From the Sun and Other Stories,it featured a colorfully bizarre illustration on the cover along with the author’s name: Richard Matheson. I bought the book—nearly fifty years later I still have it—and so began my journey into the works of one of America’s greatest fantasists. Decades later, I had the honor of working with the man himself, which ultimately led to the creation of my anthology,He Is Legend. Richard is gone now, but his timeless works live on.
The Ritual of Illusion is a brilliant short novel by Richard Christian Matheson (Richard Matheson’s son). Written entirely in dialogue from the points of view of numerous different witnesses, it tells the story of Hollywood star Sephanie Vamore’s strange rise and bizarre fall. This is Sunset Boulevard Matheson-style…another generation of Matheson, that is.
A sinister love letter to the movies, acclaimed author Richard Christian Matheson’s The Ritual of Illusion is a novella of modern fear about where stars truly come from. Oscar-winning film siren, Sephanie Vamore, meteors to iconic fame … but like cinema itself, nothing is as it appears. The fifty witnesses to her mythic ascent and bizarre fate are film royalty … many based on Hollywood glitterati; directors, stars, agents, studio heads, screenwriters, lovers, producers.
Widescreen with lies and revelation, Vamore’s story is told Rashomon-style with dialogue alone—each hypnotic character adding poignant or lurid details to the shocking truth of what…
On the surface, Dawn Easton seems to have it all. Heiress to a fashion empire, and with a gorgeous younger boyfriend, there’s almost nothing she can’t have. Yet, despite her wealth and power, there’s one thing that’s remained out of reach her entire life—giving birth. As her 40th birthday inches…
When I was about twelve years old I noticed a tattered old paperback in a box at a flea market. Titled Third From the Sun and Other Stories,it featured a colorfully bizarre illustration on the cover along with the author’s name: Richard Matheson. I bought the book—nearly fifty years later I still have it—and so began my journey into the works of one of America’s greatest fantasists. Decades later, I had the honor of working with the man himself, which ultimately led to the creation of my anthology,He Is Legend. Richard is gone now, but his timeless works live on.
If someone asked me to name the greatest American horror story writer of the second half of the twentieth century, I would say “Richard Matheson” without hesitation. But if I were allowed two names, the other—equally without hesitation—would be Dennis Etchison, a writer who resembles Matheson in his economy of language, Southern California settings, and intense, twisty plots. His stories are as dark and disturbing as Matheson’s—and that’s really saying something.
In this second printing, Cycatrix Press is proud to bring the highly acclaimed collection Dennis Etchison's It Only Comes Out at Night, previously only available as a limited-edition hardcover (out of print) from Centipede Press to an affordable trade paperback with the addition of previously uncollected fiction, new illustrations, and unpublished appreciations by fellow authors.
More about It Only Comes Out at Night: Few writers of horror fiction are held in such high regard as Dennis Etchison. This career retrospective takes his best fiction, culled from nearly fifty years in the field.
Dennis Etchison (1943-2019) was an American writer and…
Steven Ramirez is a lifelong fan of the movies—especially gripping thrillers and nail-biting horror. An award-winning author, he wrote the supernatural suspense series, Sarah Greene Mysteries, and the horror-thriller series, Tell Me When I’m Dead. His latest novel is Faithless, a thriller. A former screenwriter, Steven lives in Los Angeles with his family. He enjoys Mike and Ikes with his Iced Caffè Americano, doesn’t sleep on planes, and wishes Europe were closer.
The way the author describes Sammy’s state of mind as he tells the story—accompanied often by wry, even side-splitting observations—drew me into this strange family, wanting more than anything to learn how they would extricate themselves from their collective morass. If you like ghost stories that are fresh and modern and feature plenty of humor, then I highly recommend From Away.
Sammy Kehoe, his sister, Charlotte, and her four-year-old daughter, Maggie, are all each other have left since the car accident that killed the rest of their family. When they visit their beloved old family home on remote Fox Island, Maine, Sammy and Charlotte each have relationship sparks with island locals. But the budding idyll is shattered when Sammy and Maggie’s unexplained abilities to “see things” are put to the test when dangerous ghosts from the past resurface. At first, this novel about an unusual and loving family draws readers in with warmth and intrigue―and then it builds with suspense that…
I’ve long been intrigued by what makes a woman a hero in her own life. My three novels feature characters who are not obvious heroes—they are trying to shed a difficult past, they may run towards risky second chances, and they eventually stand up to their history and heal it and themselves. A lot of my inspiration for my stories comes from my mother, who was a pilot in World War II. I grew up with the legacy of women as heroic; it fostered an intense curiosity about female ambition and morality, women who would risk personal freedom and safety to find something greater than they expected.
Olive is not a likable character, yet so many readers related to her in the first book, as I did. Strout took a completely different approach in this sequel, which appealed to me even more. We see the larger community in Olive’s life, looking at her through her interactions with friends, neighbors, and a lover who becomes her second husband.
Strout weaves present and past using these different perspectives, showing the rare kindnesses that Olive allows herself. By the end, she was a hero to me because of her changes as a person—the increased compassion tempered her frankness. A brilliant and realistic exploration of aging, illness, and death.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning, Number One New York Times bestselling author of Olive Kitteridge and My Name is Lucy Barton
'A terrific writer' Zadie Smith
'A superbly gifted storyteller and a craftswoman in a league of her own' Hilary Mantel
'A novel to treasure' Sunday Times
Olive, Again follows the blunt, contradictory yet deeply loveable Olive Kitteridge as she grows older, navigating the second half of her life as she comes to terms with the changes - sometimes welcome, sometimes not - in her own existence and in those around her.
Curiosity is certain she saw fairies at the bottom of the garden. Little does she know . . . they saw her first.
Emotionally abandoned by her mother and infatuated by a figurine of a fairy ballerina she discovers in an old toy shop, eight-year-old Curiosity Portland steals the figurine,…
As a child, I received an electronic typewriter as a gift and immediately got to work on a story about a family living on an island. Even at ten, I recognized the power of islands, with their built-in problems of isolation and rich possibilities for metaphors. So it only made sense I’d one day publish a book set on one. If you’re like me and can’t resist books with island settings, you’ll love these book recommendations. Each island in this collection has its own personality that becomes a character of its own, and none of these books could exist in the same way without their unique settings.
This was my first delightful introduction to Susan Elizabeth Phillips's romantic comedies. I adore genre-benders, and this romance also has suspense and mystery.
I was curious by the unconventional set-up: a female ventriloquist who talks to her puppets has to live on a remote island off the coast of Maine in winter. There, she encounters an unlikable boy from her childhood—now a man who’s become a huge horror author and may or may not be a killer. The rugged island setting and its quirky cast of characters let Phillips have some fun with gothic tropes, a favorite of mine.
New York Times Bestselling Author Susan Elizabeth Phillips is back with a delightful novel filled with her sassy wit, dazzling charm, and a threat of danger-a modern Jane Eyre It's going to be a long, hot winter. He is a reclusive writer whose imagination creates chilling horror novels. She is a down-on-her-luck actress who's given up far too much. He knows a dozen ways to kill his characters with his bare hands. She knows a dozen ways to kill an audience with laughs. But she's not laughing now. Annie Hewitt has been forced to return to an isolated island off…
Foreign cultures have always intrigued me. I am a Midwesterner who lived for several years in Latin America, teaching English and later doing field work in anthropology. As a young woman, I lived through a violent coup d’état in Chile, and I drew on that experience when I later wrote about political upheaval in Guatemala. A Ph.D. in anthropology gave me the opportunity to spend time in Guatemala and Mexico, some of it in Mayan towns. My love of historical fiction stems from my desire to enter and understand other worlds, and I am grateful to authors who spin their magic to bring far-off places and times to life.
This is a darkly beautiful novel, set in the period after the American Revolution, a time of great hardship for many Americans. Hannah Trevor has lost her husband and three children, and she cobbles out an independent if marginal life for herself as a midwife in rural Maine. She finds love with a married man, and when he is falsely accused of rape and murder, Hannah sets out to uncover the truth. I was drawn in by Lawrence’s striking prose and by Hannah, who is strong, resourceful, and in many ways, a loner.
Hanna Trevor, a midwife in 1780s Maine, is drawn into the investigation into the rape and murder of a young woman when an honorable man--her former lover and the father of her child, is accused of the crime. Reprint.
I never stopped reading children’s books and started writing my own when I hit the age of 40. I gravitate toward crisp drawing styles and illustrations that bring out the magic in the everyday. These books are a few of my favorites.
The fascinating thing about this book is the overall lack of a plot.
It pairs McCloskey’s crisp pen-and-ink drawings with simple prose to evoke the bucolic feeling of life on the coast of Maine. Although not as universally known as McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings or Blueberries for Sal, this entry can bring one to a calm place and let them breathe for a while.
Today is a specidal day for Sal because she gets to go to Buck's Harbour with her dad. But when she wakes up to brush her teeth with her baby sister, she discovers something shocking.... Her tooth is loose!
An eviction. A stolen gemstone. a hidden network. Will retrieving her precious obsidian get Tricky killed?
After her cottage is ransacked, new-age witch Tricky knows she’s been targeted by the district. Now she must use her magical ability to discover who stole her prized gemstone—and what they’re plotting.
With every book we read, we engage in a complex act of telepathy and empathy. We are entering another human’s thoughts, interpreting them with our own, and come out changed from this colossal encounter. These five books I mentioned, with their extraordinary kindness, insight, humor, wisdom, warmth, compassion, and wholeness—many of them fantasies, many of them focusing on communities—have informed the writer I am today: a World Fantasy Award Winner. But I wouldn’t be without all the books that helped make me. These books are some of the best that built me, and keep building in me: the kind of books I try to write myself.
Here If You Need Me is a non-fiction memoir I read years ago on a whim. It still sticks with me. A woman with four children is happily married to a State trooper training to be a minister. When he dies suddenly, she goes on to become a minister herself, working with search and rescue missions in the Maine woods while raising her children. Her intimate knowledge of grief, her vulnerability, and compassion, coupled with a life of service and family, moved me so deeply that I often call upon the memory of this book in my life to metaphorically “get down on the floor with those who weep, and give them tea if they want it.”
HERE IF YOU NEED ME is the story Kate Braestrup's remarkable journey from grief to faith to happiness - as she holds her family together in the wake of her husband's death, pursues his dream of becoming a minister, and ultimately finds her calling as a chaplain to search-and-rescue workers. It is dramatic, funny, deeply moving, and simply unforgettable--an uplifting account offinding God through helping others, and of the small miracles that happen every day when a heart is grateful and love isrestored.
