We’ve partnered with Bundle of Holding for Ellen Datlow’s Tales of Terror, featuring seven Datlow anthologies plus books by Lauren Beukes, Daryl Gregory, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Joe R. Lansdale, Tim Powers, and Mary Shelley.
Cover by Ann MonnCover by John PicacioCover by Ann MonnCover by John Coulthart
Get into a Halloween mood with this all-new ebook fiction bundle, Ellen Datlow Presents Tales of Terror, featuring horror anthologies curated by masterful editor Ellen Datlow, as well as other fiction from Tachyon Publications. For more than three decades Ellen Datlow, winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, has kept her finger on the racing pulse of the horror genre, introducing readers to writers whose tales can unnerve, frighten, and terrify. This Tales of Terror offer brings you seven fine Datlow anthologies with stories by Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, Peter Straub, Clive Barker, Poppy Z. Brite, Thomas Ligotti, Ramsey Campbell, and dozens more – plus a novel by Tim Powers, a best-of collection by Joe R. Lansdale, and lots more. It’s 4,700 pages of terrific reading for an unbeatable bargain price. And each title is presented in DRM-free .PDF, ePub, and Kindle versions.
Cover by Nihil Design by Elizabeth StoryCover by Hannes Hummel Design by Elizabeth StoryCover art by Clara Bacou
Design by Elizabeth StoryCover by John Coulthart
Ten percent of your payment (after gateway fees) will be donated to the charity designated by Tachyon Publishing, the Horror Writers Association. The HWA is a nonprofit organization of writers and publishing professionals around the world, dedicated to promoting dark literature and the interests of those who write it.
Cover by Reiko Murakami
Cover design by Elizabeth StoryCover by Elizabeth StoryCover by Valentina Brostean
One of genre fiction’s most acclaimed editors, Ellen Datlow first rose to prominence as the fiction editor of Omni, where she helped usher in the cyberpunk movement and published works by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, Gregory Benford, Michael Bishop, Howard Waldrop, and many others. Following the magazine’s demise in 1997, Datlow assumed the same role for the online Event Horizon. After that site’s closing, she moved in 2000 with a similar role to Sci Fiction, the freshly created online venue from the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy). She stayed there until the site’s shuttering in 2005. Since 2013, Datlow has been with Tor.com, where she edited work by Jeffrey Ford, Stephen Graham Jones, Victor LaValle, Kelly Robson, and others.
Beginning with The First Omni Book of Science Fiction (1984), Datlow has edited over 75 anthologies including 12 collections of Omni fiction, 21 annual volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy (1988-89; then as …& Horror 1999-2008; Vols. 1-16 with Terri Windling and 17-21 with Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link), and beginning in 2009, fourteen annual volumes of The Best Horror of The Year, which lead to The Best of the Best Horror of the Year: 10 Years of Essential Short Horror Fiction (2018). Her first non-Omni related anthology Blood Is Not Enough (1988) began Datlow’s long association with horror, which eventually led to Publisher’s Weekly referring to her as “horror anthologist extraordinaire.”
The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (1989) garnered Datlow her first of 10 World Fantasy Awards. The other nine came from The Year’s Best Fantasy Second (1990) and Fourth (1992) Annual Collections, Little Deaths (1995), editor (Special Award, Professional 1995), Silver Birch, Blood Moon (2000), The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest (2003), Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy (2007), Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (2008), and Life Achievement (2014). She has also won nine Hugo (Best Professional Editor [2002], Sci Fiction [2005], Best Editor Short Form [2009, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021]), seven Stoker (The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Thirteenth [2000] and Seventeenth [2004] Annual Collections, Haunted Legends [2010], Lifetime Achievement [2010], Fearful Symmetries [2014], The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea [2018], and When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson [2021]), four British Fantasy Awards (Karl Edward Wagner Award [2007], The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection [2007], The Doll Collection [2016], and Tor.Com [2017]), and three Shirley Jackson (Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural [2008], Poe [2010], and Fearful Symmetries [2015]) awards.
Reimagining John Carpenter’s 1982 masterpiece The Thing from the point of view of the bloodthirsty shapeshifting alien, Watts made it into a harrowing send-up of the colonialist mentality: the Thing is incapable of seeing what makes its victims unique or different or special, and perceives only “thinking cancers” that must be brutally subjugated. It preserves everything that’s scary and horrific about the movie, while adding a deeper layer that digs into questions the film had neither the space nor the chutzpah to tackle.
This story rocked my world. And it gave me permission to go there myself, with my own (super gay) The Thing fanfic, “Things With Beards” (which, NBD, was a nominee for the Nebula and the Shirley Jackson Awards).
Paul Di Filippo for Locus reviews Sheila Finch’s new Aqueduct Press collection Forkpoints.
The stated theme of Finch’s book—”choices that change lives forever”—is almost a formula for any and all fiction, and need not be given too much heft. No point in trying to cram these varied, distinctive, and memorable tales into a thematic cubbyhole. Just revel in their brio and craft, and hope that Finch continues writing for many years ahead.
What is a “monster”? What is monstrosity? The definition depends upon who is doing the defining.
The etymology of the word “monster” is complicated.
“Monēre” is the root of “monstrum” and means to warn and instruct. Saint Augustine proposed the following interpretation, considering monsters part of the natural design of the world, deliberately created by God for His own reasons: spreading “abroad a multitude of those marvels which are called monsters, portents, prodigies, phenomena . . . They say that they are called ‘monsters,’ because they demonstrate or signify something; ‘portents’ because they portend something; and so forth . . . ought to demonstrate, portend, predict that God will bring to pass what He has foretold regarding the bodies of men, no difficulty preventing Him, no law of nature prescribing to Him His limit.”
One of genre fiction’s most acclaimed editors, Ellen Datlow first rose to prominence as the fiction editor of Omni, where she helped usher in the cyberpunk movement and published works by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, Gregory Benford, Michael Bishop, Howard Waldrop, and many others. Following the magazine’s demise in 1997, Datlow assumed the same role for the online Event Horizon. After that site’s closing, she moved in 2000 with a similar role to Sci Fiction, the freshly created online venue from the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy). She stayed there until the site’s shuttering in 2005.
Beginning with The First Omni Book of Science Fiction (1984), Datlow has edited over 75 anthologies including 12 collections of Omni fiction, 21 annual volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy (1988-89; then as …& Horror 1999-2008; Vols. 1-16 with Terri Windling and 17-21 with Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link), and beginning in 2009, thirteen annual volumes of The Best Horror of The Year, which lead to The Best of the Best Horror of the Year: 10 Years of Essential Short Horror Fiction (2018). Her first non-Omni related anthology Blood Is Not Enough (1988) began Datlow’s long association with horror, which eventually led to Publisher’s Weekly referring to her as “horror anthologist extraordinaire.”
The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (1989) garnered Datlow her first of 10 World Fantasy Awards. The other nine came from The Year’s Best Fantasy Second (1990) and Fourth (1992) Annual Collections, Little Deaths (1995), editor (Special Award, Professional 1995), Silver Birch, Blood Moon (2000), The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest (2003), Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy (2007), Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (2008), and Life Achievement (2014). She has also won nine Hugo (Best Professional Editor [2002], Sci Fiction [2005], Best Editor Short Form [2009, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2020, 2021]), six Stoker (The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Thirteenth [2000] and Seventeenth [2004] Annual Collections, Haunted Legends [2010], Lifetime Achievement [2010], Fearful Symmetries [2014], The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea [2018]), four British Fantasy Awards (Karl Edward Wagner Award [2007], The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection [2007], The Doll Collection [2016], and Tor.Com [2017]), and three Shirley Jackson (Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural [2008], Poe [2010], and Fearful Symmetries [2015]) awards.
One of genre fiction’s most acclaimed editors, Ellen Datlow first rose to prominence as the fiction editor of Omni, where she helped usher in the cyberpunk movement and published works by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, Gregory Benford, Michael Bishop, Howard Waldrop, and many others. Following the magazine’s demise in 1997, Datlow assumed the same role for the online Event Horizon. After that site’s closing, she moved in 2000 with a similar role to Sci Fiction, the freshly created online venue from the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy). She stayed there until the site’s shuttering in 2005.
Beginning with The First Omni Book of Science Fiction (1984), Datlow has edited over 75 anthologies including 12 collections of Omni fiction, 21 annual volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy (1988-89; then as …& Horror 1999-2008; Vols. 1-16 with Terri Windling and 17-21 with Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link), and beginning in 2009, twelve annual volumes of The Best Horror of The Year, which lead to The Best of the Best Horror of the Year: 10 Years of Essential Short Horror Fiction (2018). Her first non-Omni related anthology Blood Is Not Enough (1988) began Datlow’s long association with horror, which eventually led to Publisher’s Weekly referring to her as “horror anthologist extraordinaire.”
Cover by Anna & Elana Balbusso
The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (1989) garnered Datlow her first of 10 World Fantasy Awards. The other nine came from The Year’s Best Fantasy Second (1990) and Fourth (1992) Annual Collections, Little Deaths (1995), editor (Special Award, Professional 1995), Silver Birch, Blood Moon(2000), The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest (2003), Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy (2007), Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (2008), and Life Achievement (2014). She has also won six Stoker (The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Thirteenth [2000] and Seventeenth [2004] Annual Collections, Haunted Legends [2010], Lifetime Achievement [2010], Fearful Symmetries [2014], The Devil and the Deep: Horror Stories of the Sea [2018]), eight Hugo (Best Professional Editor [2002], Sci Fiction [2005], Best Editor Short Form [2009, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2020]), four British Fantasy Awards (Karl Edward Wagner Award [2007], The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection [2007], The Doll Collection [2016], and Tor.Com [2017]), and three Shirley Jackson (Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural [2008], Poe [2010], and Fearful Symmetries [2015]) awards.
Other notable books include Alien Sex (1990), Snow White, Blood Red (1993 w Terri Windling), Vanishing Acts (2000), Lovecraft Unbound: Twenty Stories (2009), DARKNESS: TWO DECADES OF MODERN HORROR (2010), Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy (2011), Blood and other Cravings (2011), After: Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia (2012 w Terri Windling), HAUNTINGS (2013), LOVECRAFT’S MONSTERS (2014), THE CUTTING ROOM: DARK REFLECTIONS OF THE SILVER SCREEN (2014), THE MONSTROUS (2015), Children of Lovecraft (2016), NIGHTMARES: A NEW DECADE OF MODERN HORROR (2016), Mad Hatters and March Hares (2017), Echoes (2019),Final Cuts: New Tales of Hollywood Horror and Other Spectacles (2020), and Edited by (2020).
All of us at Tachyon, wish the extraordinary Ellen a happy birthday and as always, we look forward to whatever is next.
One of genre fiction’s most acclaimed editors, Ellen Datlow first rose to prominence as the fiction editor of Omni, where she helped usher in the cyberpunk movement and published works by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, Gregory Benford, Michael Bishop, Howard Waldrop, and many others. Following the magazine’s demise in 1989, Datlow assumed the same role for the online Event Horizon. After that site’s closing, she moved in 2000 with a similar role to Sci Fiction, the freshly created online venue from the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy). She stayed there until the site’s shuttering in 2005.
Beginning with The First Omni Book of Science Fiction (1984), Datlow has edited over 75 anthologies including 12 collections of Omni fiction, 21 annual volumes of The Year’s Best Fantasy (1988-89; then as …& Horror 1999-2008; Vols. 1-16 with Terri Windling and 17-21 with Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link), and beginning in 2009, ten annual volumes of The Best Horror of The Year, which lead to The Best of the Best Horror of the Year: 10 Years of Essential Short Horror Fiction (2018). Her first non-OMNI related anthology Blood Is Not Enough (1988) began Datlow’s long association with horror, which eventually led to Publisher’s Weekly referring to her as “horror anthologist extraordinaire.”
The Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (1989) garnered Datlow her first of 10 World Fantasy Awards. The other nine came from The Year’s Best Fantasy Second (1990) and Fourth (1992) Annual Collections, Little Deaths (1995), editor (Special Award, Professional 1995), Silver Birch, Blood Moon(2000), The Green Man: Tales from the Mythic Forest (2003), Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original Tales of Fantasy (2007), Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural (2008), and Life Achievement (2014). She has also won five Stoker (The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Thirteenth [2000] andSeventeenth [2004] Annual Collections, Haunted Legends [2010], Lifetime Achievement [2010], Fearful Symmetries [2014]), seven Hugo (Best Professional Editor [2002], Sci Fiction [2005], Best Editor Short Form [2009, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2017]), four British Fantasy Awards (Karl Edward Wagner Award [2007], The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Nineteenth Annual Collection [2007], The Doll Collection [2016], and Tor.Com [2017]), and three Shirley Jackson (Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural [2008], Poe [2010], and Fearful Symmetries [2015]) awards.
One
of genre fiction’s most acclaimed editors, Ellen
Datlow first
rose to prominence as the fiction editor of Omni, where she helped
usher in the cyberpunk movement and published works by William
Gibson, Bruce Sterling, Connie Willis, Nancy Kress, Gregory Benford,
Michael Bishop, Howard Waldrop, and many others. Following the
magazine’s demise in 1989, Datlow assumed the same role for the
online Event
Horizon.
After that site’s closing, she moved in 2000 with a similar role to Sci
Fiction,
the freshly created online venue from the Sci Fi Channel (now Syfy).
She stayed there until the site’s shuttering in 2005.
Beginning
with The First Omni Book of Science Fiction
(1984), Datlow has edited over 75 anthologies including 12
collections of Omni fiction, 21 annual volumes of The Year’s
Best Fantasy (1988-89; then as …& Horror 1999-2008; Vols. 1-16 with
Terri Windling and 17-21 with Gavin J. Grant and Kelly Link), and
beginning in 2009, nine annual volumes of The Best Horror of The Year. Her first non-OMNI related anthology Blood Is Not
Enough (1988) began Datlow’s long association with horror,
which eventually led to Publisher’s Weekly referring to her
as “horror anthologist extraordinaire.”
The
Year’s Best Fantasy: First Annual Collection (1989) garnered
Datlow her first of 10 World Fantasy Awards. The other nine came from The Year’s Best Fantasy Second (1990) and Fourth
(1992) Annual Collections, Little Deaths (1995), editor
(Special Award, Professional 1995), Silver Birch, Blood Moon
(2000), The Green Man: Tales from the
Mythic Forest (2003), Salon Fantastique: Fifteen Original
Tales of Fantasy (2007), Inferno: New Tales of
Terror and the Supernatural (2008),
and Life Achievement (2014). She has also won five Stoker (The
Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Thirteenth [2000] and Seventeenth [2004] Annual Collections, Haunted
Legends [2010], Lifetime Achievement [2010], Fearful
Symmetries [2014]), seven Hugo (Best Professional Editor [2002], Sci Fiction [2005], Best Editor Short Form [2009, 2010, 2014,
2016, 2017]), four British Fantasy Awards (Karl Edward Wagner Award
[2007], The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror: Nineteenth Annual
Collection [2007], The Doll Collection [2016], and Tor.Com
[2017]), and three Shirley Jackson (Inferno: New Tales of
Terror And the Supernatural [2008] , Poe
[2010], and Fearful Symmetries [2015]) awards.
Carmen Maria Machado, contributor to Peter S. Beagle and Jacob Weisman‘s acclaimed THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY, was named to the longlist for National Book Award in fiction for her collection HER BODY AND OTHER
PARTIES: STORIES.
Congratulations to all the honorees.
Fiction:
Elliot Ackerman,
DARK AT THE CROSSING (Knopf / Penguin Random House)
Daniel Alarcón, THE
KING IS ALWAYS ABOVE THE PEOPLE: STORIES (Riverhead Books / Penguin
Random House)
Charmaine Craig,
MISS BURMA (Grove Press / Grove Atlantic)
Jennifer Egan,
MANHATTAN BEACH (Scribner / Simon & Schuster)
Min Jin Lee, PACHINKO (Grand Central Publishing / Hachette book Group)
Carmen Maria Machado, HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES: STORIES (Graywolf Press)
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, A KIND OF FREEDOM (Counterpoint Press)
Jesmyn Ward, SING, UNBURIED, SING (Scribner / Simon & Schuster)
Carol Zoref, BARREN ISLAND (New Issues Poetry & Prose)
Lisa Ko, THE LEAVERS
(Algonquin Books / Workman Publishing)
Min Jin Lee,
PACHINKO (Grand Central Publishing / Hachette book Group)
Carmen Maria
Machado, HER BODY AND OTHER PARTIES: STORIES (Graywolf Press)
Margaret Wilkerson
Sexton, A KIND OF FREEDOM (Counterpoint Press)
Jesmyn Ward, SING,
UNBURIED, SING (Scribner / Simon & Schuster)
Carol Zoref, BARREN
ISLAND (New Issues Poetry & Prose)
These 100 books lists always sound easy in theory, but then when I sit down to write one I discover compiling a list of, say, 100 science fiction debuts that are worth reading is a bit more work than I imagined.
That’s not the case with this post! Indie publishers are amazing and there are sooooo many books out there worth your time. I wrote down the first 100 books that popped into my head that I have actually read and loved, and I bet I could easily do another list of 100 more. (I smell a sequel!)
I’ve included a brief description from the publisher with each title. There are so many stunners here, this list should keep you busy for a while. Tell us in the comments about which of these you’ve read or other indie books you loved. Yay, books!
WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE by Daryl Gregory (Tachyon Publications): No one believes the extent of their horrific tales, not until they are sought out by psychotherapist Dr. Jan Sayer. What happens when these seemingly-insane outcasts form a support group? Together they must discover which monsters they face are within—and which are lurking in plain sight.
FALLING IN LOVE WITH HOMINIDS by Nalo Hopkinson (Tachyon Publications): In this long-awaited collection, Hopkinson continues to expand the boundaries of culture and imagination. Whether she is retelling The Tempest as a new Caribbean myth, filling a shopping mall with unfulfilled ghosts, or herding chickens that occasionally breathe fire, Hopkinson continues to create bold fiction that transcends boundaries and borders.
Legendary (as in mega-award-winning) horror, science fiction and fantasy editor Ellen Datlow joins the show to talk about her career. We get into defining horror (and its subset, the conte cruel), how the business has changed and hasn’t, the proper care and feeding of writers, dealing with diversity and representation in the anthologies she edits, finding good stories in translation, the pros and cons of blurring genre boundaries, keeping up with new voices, her preference for editing short fiction over novels, the writers she wishes she solicited stories from, running the monthly Fantastic Fiction reading series at the KGB Bar, the editing lesson she got from Ben Bova, and why it’s never good when an author says, “This is the best thing I’ve ever written”!
For info on WE ARE ALL COMPLETELY FINE, visit the Tachyon page.
The 2017 Hugo base was designed by Finnish artist Eeva Jokinen. Photo by Michael Lee
At the The 75th World Science Fiction Convention ceremony, Ellen Datlow garnered her incredible 8th Hugo Award. Other Tachyon contributors so honored included Julie Dillon (cover artist, THE VERY BEST OF KATE ELLIOTT), Ursula Vernon, and Amal El-Mohtar (both in THE NEW VOICES OF FANTASY).
EVERY HEART A
DOORWAY, by Seanan McGuire (Tor.com publishing)
BEST NOVELETTE
“The Tomato
Thief”, by Ursula Vernon (APEX MAGAZINE, January 2016)
BEST SHORT STORY
“Seasons of
Glass and Iron”, by Amal El-Mohtar (THE STARLIT WOOD: NEW FAIRY
TALES, Saga Press)
BEST RELATED WORK
WORDS ARE MY MATTER:
WRITINGS ABOUT LIFE AND BOOKS, 2000-2016, by Ursula K. Le Guin (Small
Beer)
BEST GRAPHIC
STORY
MONSTRESS, VOLUME 1:
AWAKENING, written by Marjorie Liu, illustrated by Sana Takeda
(Image)
BEST DRAMATIC
PRESENTATION, LONG FORM
ARRIVAL, screenplay
by Eric Heisserer based on a short story by Ted Chiang, directed by
Denis Villeneuve (21 Laps Entertainment/FilmNation Entertainment/Lava
Bear Films)
BEST DRAMATIC
PRESENTATION, SHORT FORM
THE EXPANSE:
“Leviathan Wakes”, written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby,
directed by Terry McDonough (SyFy)
BEST EDITOR,
SHORT FORM
Ellen Datlow
BEST EDITOR, LONG
FORM
Liz Gorinsky
BEST PROFESSIONAL
ARTIST
Julie Dillon
BEST SEMIPROZINE
UNCANNY MAGAZINE,
edited by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas, Michi Trota,
Julia Rios, and podcast produced by Erika Ensign & Steven
Schapansky
BEST FANZINE
LADY BUSINESS,
edited by Clare, Ira, Jodie, KJ, Renay, and Susan
BEST FANCAST
TEA AND JEOPARDY,
presented by Emma Newman with Peter Newman
BEST FAN WRITER
Abigail Nussbaum
BEST FAN ARTIST
Elizabeth Leggett
BEST SERIES
(Special Category
added by option of Worldcon 75)
THE VORKOSIGAN SAGA,
by Lois McMaster Bujold (Baen)
THE JOHN W.
CAMPBELL AWARD FOR BEST NEW WRITER (Not a Hugo Award, but
administered along with the Hugo Awards)
Ada
Palmer
For more info about NIGHTMARES: A NEW DECADE OF MODERN HORROR, visit the Tachyon page.
