Robert Albert Bloch was an American fiction writer, primarily of crime, psychological horror and fantasy, much of which has been dramatized for radio, cinema and television. He also wrote a relatively small amount of science fiction. His writing career lasted 60 years, including more than 30 years in television and film. He began his professional writing career immediately after graduation from high school, aged 17. Best known as the writer of Psycho (1959), the basis for the film of the same name by Alfred Hitchcock, Bloch wrote hundreds of short stories and over 30 novels. He was a protégé of H. P. Lovecraft, who was the first to seriously encourage his talent. However, while he started emulating Lovecraft and his brand of cosmic horror, he later specialized in crime and horror stories working with a more psychological approach.
Ramsey Campbell is an English horror fiction writer, editor and critic who has been writing for well over fifty years. He is the author of over 30 novels and hundreds of short stories, many of them winners of literary awards. Three of his novels have been adapted into films.
Howard Waldrop was an American science fiction author who worked primarily in short fiction. He received the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2021.
A paperback book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic.
Karl Edward Wagner was an American writer, poet, editor, and publisher of horror, science fiction, and heroic fantasy, who was born in Knoxville, Tennessee and originally trained as a psychiatrist. He wrote numerous dark fantasy and horror stories. As an editor, he created a three-volume set of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian fiction restored to its original form as written, and edited the long-running and genre-defining The Year's Best Horror Stories series for DAW Books. His Carcosa publishing company issued four volumes of the best stories by some of the major authors of the so-called Golden Age pulp magazines. He is possibly best known for his creation of a series of stories featuring the character Kane, the Mystic Swordsman.
The Discworld Companion is an encyclopaedia of the Discworld fictional universe, created by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs. Four editions have been published, under varying titles.
In comics in the United States, a trade paperback is a collection of stories originally published in comic books, reprinted in book format, usually presenting either a complete miniseries, a story arc from a single title, or a series of stories with an arc or common theme.
Mark V. Ziesing is an American small press publisher and bookseller, founded by Mark Ziesing. Active as a bookseller, from 1972 to present; Ziesing was in publishing, from the mid-1980s into 1998. The Ziesing publishing imprint specialized in science fiction, horror, and other forms of speculative fiction. Originally based in Willimantic, Connecticut and in partnership with his brother Michael, he published two books by Gene Wolfe under the name Ziesing Brothers.
Richard Thomas Chizmar is an American writer, the publisher and editor of Cemetery Dance magazine, and the owner of Cemetery Dance Publications. He also edits anthologies, produces films, writes screenplays, and teaches writing.
Delirium Books, launched in the summer of 1999 by Shane Ryan Staley, was a horror publisher in the collector's market, producing low print-run limited editions intended for collectors and readers alike. Limited-edition books published by Delirium were reputed to sell out quickly, making their publications highly collectable. Delirium Books published The Rising, the first book in a series of zombie-themed horror novels written by Brian Keene, which won the Bram Stoker Award for Best First Novel in 2003.
Tales of Pain and Wonder is Caitlín R. Kiernan's first short story collection. The stories are interconnected to varying degrees, and a number of Kiernan's characters reappear throughout the book, particularly Jimmy DeSade and Salmagundi Desvernine. The stories run the gamut from dark fantasy to ghost stories and supernatural horror fiction to noir fiction. A number of the stories have a decidedly H. P. Lovecraftian flavor and the influence of Charles Fort, as does much of Kiernan's fiction published since Tales of Pain and Wonder. The stories are also united by a theme of cultural decay and loss of meaning in 20th-century society, as expressed by the collection's epilogue, Kiernan's only published poem, "Zelda Fitzgerald in Ballet Attire." Originally published in 2000 as an expensive limited-edition hardback by Gauntlet Publishing, it was reissued in trade paperback format in 2002 by Meisha Merlin Publishing. In 2008, Subterranean Press re-issued the book again, in a limited edition hardcover, with a new author's introduction and two new stories, "Mercury" and "Salammbô Redux", and omitting the story "Angels You Can See Through". All three editions include artwork by Canadian illustrator Richard A. Kirk, as well as an introduction by anthologist/novelist Douglas E. Winter and an afterword by novelist Peter Straub.
A Fine Dark Line is a 2002 novel by American writer Joe R. Lansdale. The story is set in Dumont, Texas, in 1958. This novel was issued as a limited edition by Subterranean Press and as a trade hardcover and a trade paperback by Mysterious Press. Both hardcover editions are now out of print. A trade paperback was published by Mysterious Press on October 1, 2003.
Greg F. Gifune is a horror author, the recipient of multiple Bram Stoker Award and International Horror Guild Award nominations in addition to one for the British Fantasy Award.
Edward Lee is an American horror novelist who has written 40 books, more than half of which have been published by mass-market New York City paperback companies such as Leisure/Dorchester, Berkley, and Zebra/Kensington. He is a Bram Stoker award nominee for his story “Mr. Torso,” and his short stories have appeared in over a dozen mass-market anthologies, including the award-winning “999”. Several of his novels have sold translation rights to Germany, Greece, Romania, and Poland. He also publishes quite actively in the small-press/limited-edition hardcover market; many of his books in this category have become collector's items.
Terence William (Terry) Dowling, is an Australian writer and journalist. He writes primarily speculative fiction though he considers himself an "imagier" – one who imagines, a term which liberates his writing from the constraints of specific genres. He has been called "among the best-loved local writers and most-awarded in and out of Australia, a writer who stubbornly hews his own path ."
Pulphouse Publishing was an American small press publisher based in Eugene, Oregon, and specializing in science fiction and fantasy. It was founded by Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch in 1988. The press was active until 1996. Over that period, Pulphouse published 244 different titles.
Bad Moon Books is a publishing company owned by Roy K. Robbins in Garden Grove, California. In the middle of 1986, they began as a bookseller only, but in 2007 they began publishing. Their works include many Black Quill Award and Bram Stoker Award winners and nominees. Bad Moon Books' publications include limited edition paperbacks and hardcovers.
Ronald Kelly is best known as a speculative fiction and "southern-fried" horror writer. His tales are usually set in the Southern United States and feature language and actions that are associated with those regions.
The Bottoms is an Edgar Award-winning suspense novel by American author Joe R. Lansdale.
Forge of Darkness is the first novel of The Kharkanas Trilogy by Canadian author Steven Erikson, set before the events of the Malazan Book of the Fallen.
