Monster Fiction

Betrayed and bloodied, The Hand has failed. After a desperate battle, Nismera, the Goddess of War, now rules the realms as the last remnants of Samkiel's power spill across the sky. Desperate to keep Samkiel safe after almost losing him, Dianna is willing to give up everything to protect him, even if that means sacrificing their relationship itself. But that's not a risk Samkiel is willing to take, even as the stakes grow ever higher. The one true king is poised to return, but when the dust settles, who will truly rule?

In this striking and bleak, yet luminous debut collection, Nathan Ballingrud, winner of the inaugural Shirley Jackson Award, uses the trappings of the Gothic and the uncanny to investigate a distinctly American landscape: The loneliest and darkest corners of contemporary life. Ballingrud’s stories are love stories. They’re also monster stories. Sometimes the monsters collected here are vampires or werewolves.

Ken and Abby Gardner lost their mother when they were small and they have been haunted by her absence ever since. Their father, Adam, a brilliant oceanographer, raised them mostly on his own in his remote home on Cape Cod, where the attachment between Ken and Abby deepened into something complicated—and as adults their relationship is strained. Now, years later, the siblings’ lives are still deeply entwined.

Dollitrice Grandmeir never thought her village would turn into a dungeon or that she’d battle a Kaiju overlord with the help of her giant tortoise. Now she’s got an all-new weirdness on her radar. The Twelve Days of Crisismas are coming, and without a special brew of eggnog, Taffy and the Ex-Mas Posse will transform into horrific Grumpus monsters, annihilating Dolli’s dungeon from the inside out.

Chloe Mendoza and her team from Monster Hunter International must seek out and destroy an ancient evil threatening Los Angeles at the height of Disco Fever.

One October morning, Laina gets the news that her brother has been shot and killed by Boston cops. But what looks like a case of police brutality soon reveals something much stranger. Monsters are real. And they want everyone to know it. As creatures from myth and legend come out of the shadows, seeking safety through visibility, their emergence sets off a chain of seemingly unrelated events. Members of a local werewolf pack are threatened into silence.

A man becomes targeted by witches after he inherits some very special real estate.

Luna Thorn’s past is a mystery...even to herself. She arrived in Detroit amid a swirl of lights and magic. She had no memory of where she came from. No idea why she was there. Years later, she’s established herself as a force to be reckoned with on the Detroit magical scene. She ingratiated herself with the local reapers. She set up a community called the Cathedral to help those who had been displaced from their homes and families, declaring that nobody would fall through the cracks. Still, doubt remains.

When a horrific loss throws Monster High into a state of grave upheaval, Draculaura and the other ghouls find themselves coping in different ways. For her part, the chaos at school is making Draculaura sick. She finds escape only by slipping away to the cemetery to pore over her mom's old journals. It's there that she meets Poe. If her ghoulfriends find out she's fallen for a normie, they'll freak. And if Poe discovers she's a vampire, his monster-hunting dad may have a stake in the matter.

I only got into trucking because my granddad was a trucker, and he was the best damn person I ever met. I'd always thought I was your average dude with an 18-wheeler and an addiction to energy drinks, but it turns out there might be something more brewing in my blood. Now instead of some desert highway, I'm stuck in a whole new realm, and it's full of worm cults, actual lot lizards, one seriously smoking catgirl mechanic, and enough sand and bloodthirsty creatures to make me think I took a wrong turn somewhere. But I might be able to add a whole new career path to my resume.

A light-hearted, humorous LitRPG adventure of monstrous proportions! Firefighting was tough, but Kevin took pride in it—until a factory fire landed him in a swamp with a monstrous new body and a mountain-sized cube dominating the landscape. Now, survival means more than just putting out fires. With an eldritch horror lurking in the dark, a desperate village in need of a hero, and some rather suspicious orphans causing mischief, Kevin’s got his work cut out for him.

It takes a survivor to know a madman. When the police need to crawl inside the mind of a monster, they call Caroline. As a child, Caroline was abducted along with her twin sister. Caroline escaped. Her sister didn’t...But there’s something different about her latest case. Something familiar. Teenage girls are being murdered, their organs removed. As the scope of horror widens, Caroline begins to experience blackouts of lost time and disturbing hallucinations that are leading her to one terrible, impossible conclusion.

John Birmingham is the master of alternate history adventure - and now he's mastered a new genre with the volcanically fast-paced and wildly inventive Dave Hooper urban fantasy series. The series is anchored by a thrilling high concept: An oil rig opens a rift deep in the ocean that unleashes terrifying monsters into the world. But perhaps its coolest asset is its hero, Dave Hooper, a tough, bleakly funny, down-on-his luck oil rig worker with an unlikely destiny as a monster-slayer and world savior.

Betrayed by goblins, attacked by ogres, vampires and the undead, they survived everything the Hangsane mountains could throw at them. But can Josh and his Misfits go all the way? Can they defeat the dread Grillons that followed him through spacetime? Will they fall at the last hurdle? And what is Vella’s true purpose?

Despite all of the odds, Joan achieved the impossible. She reset the timeline, saved her family – and destroyed the hero, Nick. But her success has come at a terrible cost. She alone remembers what happened. Now, Aaron, her hard-won friend – and maybe more – is an enemy, trying to kill her. And Nick, the boy she loved, is a stranger who doesn’t even know her name. Only Joan remembers that a greater and more dangerous enemy is still out there. When a deadly attack forces Joan back into the monster world, she finds herself on the run with Nick – as Aaron closes in.

Monster Hunter International may have had its roots in the United States of America, but there are plenty of monsters in the big old world. And wherever there are monsters, humans will need monster hunters. Here then, stories of the things that go bump in the night and the men and women who bump back—focusing on the myths, legends, and folklore of Czechia, by Czech authors. Includes a new short story by Larry Correia.

Robert "Bubba" Brabham never wanted to hunt monsters. He mostly wanted to drink beer, hunt deer, and chase women, like every other giant redneck in the world. But life interfered, and Bubba found himself holster-deep in the family business: monster hunting. Now he's the Southeastern Regional Hunter for the Holy Roman Catholic Church...Bubba has to save the world from the things that go bump in the night! Just as soon as he's done with his beer. And maybe after one more lap dance.

Blaze uses wind power to beat Crusher and Pickle in a sailboat race!

A trip to the grocery store changed my life. That's where I bumped into my "straight" coworker and good friend, Jake Perez. I decided to invite him to my book club night, not realizing the chain of events that invite would kick off. Immediately our chemistry became too explosive, making our friendship and work relationship complicated. That same night, a bloody package addressed to me lands on my doorstep. Falling for Jake was never in the plans—then again neither was being targeted by a dangerous stalker. This was going to be interesting.

Demeter just wants to do her job: shuttling humans between Earth and Alpha Centauri. Unfortunately, her passengers keep dying—and not from equipment failures, as her AI medical system, Steward, would have her believe. These are paranormal murders, and they began when one nasty, ancient vampire decided to board Demeter and kill all her humans. To keep from getting decommissioned, Demeter must join forces with her own team of monsters. Together, this motley crew will face down the ultimate evil—Dracula.