These tortured tales represent the desperate prayers of shattered people. Among them you will find: a man who is haunted by the sound of sentient alarms, a psychologically damaged brother and sister whose union produces something much worse than simple dread, a group of men whose childhood sins have mutated into something monstrous aboard an old stone boat, a possibly cursed dying woman who goes in search of one last taste of passion before cancer claims her. External terror meets inner dread and the afterlife may just be a place where all our past mistakes solidify and turn on us like a pack of ravening dogs. These bleak offerings will reveal the darkness that dwells at the core of modern existence, where society is a forgotten notion, religion is a dirty word, love lies bleeding in the gutter, and everyone must face their demons alone. Kneeling at the altar of broken hearts, you will learn that sometimes it is better if our prayers remain unanswered.

Dirty Prayers

Gary McMahon

Gray Friar Press

There's something about a hard road that calls a body to wander. You want to know what's waiting down there just past the far edge of the horizon. What darkness hides beyond that fish hook of a blind curve scything out to the left. It calls you and all you can do is wander on down. HARD ROADS offers two brand new novellas from Nova Scotia's hardest working horror writer, Steve Vernon. In the first tale, Trolling Lures, you will take a drive down a lonesome Nova Scotia hardtop road and you'll find yourself running into a troll, a suicide, and a hint of divine intervention. Coyote is howling soft and low and the moon is watching the pines trees gossip with the cool Atlantic wind. Come closer to the campfire, the old man is talking. The second story, Hammurabi Road, is a dark tale of retribution, backwoods justice, and getting closer to a black bear than was ever dreamed possible. We start off with the eternal triangle - three men ride out in a pick-up truck; two in front and one duct-taped in the back. It's a clear cut case of Northern Ontario railroad vengeance, served up as cold as a frozen hunting knife. We eat what we kill out here and we apologize to no one who doesn't deserve it. Come on. What are you waiting for? It ain't getting any easier staring at it.

Hard Roads paperback

Literature & Fiction

Vernon, Steve & Norman Partridge (introduction)

Genre Fiction

Theatre director Beth Ortiz is the newest resident of The Castle, an exclusive Los Angeles artists' community. Anxious actors aren't all Beth has to worry about in her new space, however, for The Castle has a secret history of madness and murder, and a celebrity artist who develops a strange fixation on Beth . . . And The Castle also happens to be haunted . . . By some particularly uneasy spirits . . . . . . "As unique as a fingerprint" - Dennis Etchison

The Castle of Los Angeles

Morton, Lisa.

Can we ever say 'Never again' - and know that the atrocities of the past won't be repeated in the future? Here are 23 weird and speculative fiction stories against fascism and racism . . . In today's unstable political and economic climate, the far right has gained a stronger political foothold in Europe than at any time since the 1930s. Its combination of racist rhetoric and street violence is a serious threat to our democratic culture and civil rights . . . Never Again is an attempt to voice the collective revulsion of writers in the weird fiction genre against political attitudes that stifle compassion and deny our collective human inheritance. The imagination is crucial to an understanding both of human diversity and of common ground . . . The anthology brings together stories by leading writers of weird fiction alongside new and radical voices: Ramsey Campbell, Lisa Tuttle, Joe R. Lansdale, Kaaron Warren, Rob Shearman, Tony Richards, Andrew Hook, Nina Allan, Gary McMahon, Stephen Volk, Simon Bestwick, Rosanne Rabinowitz, Rhys Hughes, David A. Sutton, Carole Johnstone, R.B. Russell, John Howard, Steve Duffy, Alison Littlewood, Simon Kurt Unsworth, Thana Niveau, Mat Joiner and rj krijnen-kemp . . . These stories use imagination to look below the surface of intolerance, scapegoating and persecution - not to sicken the reader, but to reveal the power of human resistance and the need to build a society in which victimisation is a thing of the past . . . Never Again is a non-profit initiative aimed at promoting awareness of these issues and raising funds to support human rights organisations.

Never Again

One Monster Is Not Enough

Finch, Paul

What monsters used to achieve with claws, they now manage with pens . . . Three years ago, Josh lost a lot of money on the unforgiving stock market. Now he's divorced and living with his teenage daughter in a seaside caravan. Sally wants a tattoo; Josh just needs work. For solace, he explores Saltwick Bay, a secluded stretch of beach whose cliff-side rock runs back to the ruthless Jurassic periods. There's also a rotting boat there, leftover from the violent Second World War. But when eerie creatures appear at night, dancing in the silent bay, Josh's mind starts turning along unfathomable tracks, which may lead right back to the birth of tyranny . . . Gary Fry's new novella channels the spirit of Algernon Blackwood and other great masters of the weird tale, summoning forces from this world and others in a relentless symphony of unease.

The Respectable Face of Tyranny

Comics & Graphic Novels

Fry, Gary

Graphic Novels

Enemies at the Door

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Books by Gray Friar Press