Monster Fiction

COME BACK TO THE WORLD OF "B" MOVIES AND GENRE FILMS AS WILLIAM SCHOELL OF "GREAT OLD MOVIES" REVIEWS HUNDREDS OF CLASSIC AND NOT-SO-CLASSIC PICTURES IN THE CATEGORIES OF HORROR, SCIENCE FICTION, INTRIGUE, MONSTER MOVIES, ALFRED HITCHCOCK FILMS, SPIES, EXPLOITATION, CLIFFHANGER SERIALS, AND VINTAGE TV SHOWS IN A LIVELY, INFORMATIVE, AND ENTERTAINING FASHION. ILLUSTRATED. WILLIAM SCHOELL IS THE AUTHOR OF DOZENS OF BOOKS INCLUDING "CREATURE FEATURES: NATURE TURNED NASTY IN THE MOVIES;" AND "MARTINI MAN: THE LIFE OF DEAN MARTIN." A CULT HORROR AUTHOR, HE HAS ALSO WRITTEN SUCH NOVELS AS "...

Jasmine Taylor, a struggling young actress, responds to a job-ad offering the 'opportunity of a lifetime' for a female with 'hidden depths'. After a bizarre audition, she wakes to find herself a prisoner in a picturesque village. The village of Elldean seems timeless - peaceful and idyllic. However, the village hides a dark, terrifying secret - an ancient beast lives in the surrounding forest and, once a year, it emerges from its lair - to mate. The beast is huge and all in proportion - few women are capable of taking it on – and surviving - most are literally skewered to death. But if ...

Norton Juster - the acclaimed author of such children’s classics as The Phantom Toll Booth and The Hello, Goodbye Window - tells the story of a really rotten ogre. Huge and ugly, the angry ogre is always hungry - and utterly merciless. As he greedily gobbles up the people in his path, he seems unstoppable. And then one day, the ogre takes a wrong turn and encounters a kind and friendly young lady who does her best to help him.

Hi, my name is Lydia, and I’m a gypsy. Or, I was a gypsy. Now, I’m not really sure what I am. What I do know is that I’m in trouble. That’s the reason why I’m in the process of moving to Haven Hollow: because I need the safety and protection only a hollow can offer. After a witch named Indigo walked into my occult shop and literally blew up, her soul affixed itself to mine, and now I’m basically possessed. To make matters worse? Whoever was responsible for Indigo going ‘boom’ knows she’s not exactly dead and gone. Which means he’s now after me. As if I didn’t have ...

The dungeon has leveled up. The adventurers have too. Now the real game begins. Nightshard, a newly awakened Dungeon Core, survived his first raid with a golem made of desperation and stone. But survival was just the start. Now, with mana surging and territory expanding, he’s evolving. Smarter traps. Deadlier combos. Ruthless strategy. With help from Twinkle—the snarky ex-fairy guide—and Skraag, a trap-obsessed kobold engineer, Nightshard is transforming his lair into a lethal maze of pressure plates, chain reactions, and monster ambushes. But this time, the enemy is different. ...

Three sexy vampires haunt my dreams, and they love to make me scream. For all the right reasons. A dark TikTok-viral vampire romance with heart-pumping spice and suspense like you've never read before! The nightmares started on Monsters Night. I figured my overactive libido was just tripping out because of all the monsters on the news. Some portal opened up, and they were terrorizing humans in particular. But seriously, who hasn’t thought about that monster under the bed in a sensual light?

After retaking the city of Old Saltflow, Keith and Selena are tasked with finding a secret pass into Layman's Turf, one of the Terror's greatest strongholds. Even assisted by the best tracker on the continent, making it through said pass isn't an easy prospect. Especially knowing how the behavior of monsters has been changing recently. An unexpected encounter with the most powerful creature he's ever faced puts Keith on a path from which there is no exit. One he must see through to the end or be crushed under the weight of his enemies.

"If you like your heroes effortlessly cool and your monsters terrifyingly real, the action brutal and prose dripping with gore, you’ll love Award-Winning Film Director Kely McClung’s LOOP. " A Devastating Computer Virus Jumps to Humans... When the small college town of Mazevlle, home to a Defense department research lab and an reclusive A.I. pioneer, becomes ground zero for a zombie-like plague, the fate of the town, and maybe the world, lies in the hands of a one-legged badass, a nearly naked Interpol agent, a waif-like retro-gaming genius, and the military scientist that started it ...

Paranormal Women’s Fiction from bestsellers JR Rain and HP Mallory! All I wanted to do was go camping. Just to prove to myself that I could erect a tent and spend one night in the middle of BFE with only a few mosquito bites as souvenirs. What I really wasn’t planning on was getting attacked by the biggest… wolf I’ve ever seen—not to mention the fact that wolves have no business being in Louisiana. Fast forward to the wolf attack, and I’m now waking up to the second chapter of my middle-aged life as a vampire. Yep, you heard me right. Last I remembered, I was a forty-two-year-...

It's a bad idea to fake marry your grumpy minotaur boss on reality TV, right? But when ratings are down and he catches me snooping on his computer, I open my big mouth and... well... I might have come up with an idea to rescue the network, but I didn't take into account what it would feel like to be his. Even if it's not real. Now, we're stuck together on a romantic island on my dream honeymoon, with only one bed!

Terrence Mack was born poor, grew up tough, and died hard. Waking up in a sea cave with nothing but the clothes on his back and a new bullet scar was enough to convince him that wherever his death had brought him, it wasn't paradise. His new world quickly proves to be a place of danger, magic, monsters, and - for Terry at least - women. Known on Celestine as a template, Terry's genes are key to the survival of the eldritch races. But the fiercely competitive eldritch don't typically leave their lovers alive long, and aren't accustomed to taking 'no' for an answer.

I'm the premier matchmaker for all monsters. Royal, rich, and single-handedly saving the realms from ruin, I could have my pick of women. But only my fated mate will win me the throne of hell. So why won't she be a good little human and fall for me already? No matter. I'll win her heart. I always win in the end.

Rossamund has always dreamed of a career in the Navy, fighting tentacled monsters and rescuing damsels from hook-handed pirates. But fate has chosen him for a different path. He is being sent to train as a Lamplighter – to bring light to the inland roads of the Half-Continent, to shine the way for travellers through lands peopled by outcasts, monsters and worse. But for Rossamund to begin his education, he must first undertake a journey of his own – to the great city of High Vesting.

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.

A gas station clerk at twenty-seven with no future prospects on the horizon, Mike Reynolds is a dropout with an addiction to video games and a less-than-ideal living situation. Life definitely isn't great, but could it really get much worse? When monsters appear on Earth and begin destroying the fabric holding together humanity, that thought is thrown out the window: everything is getting worse, and fast. 'Is my world becoming an MMRPG Apocalypse?' Can Mike make good on his prior experience and carve a foothold for himself as a Necromancer in this RPG world?

In the wake of his confrontation with Lihng, Keith finds himself stranded deep in Necro-Beast territory, surrounded by waves of the undead. While this is happening, Lihng–who is furious that Keith has managed to slip her grasp–proposes an alliance with the Empress. Keith’s enemies only grow more powerful, as he prepares to confront the most terrifying and cunning World Monster to date. The Terror Queen is unlike any creature Keith has faced, and he’ll need more than a little luck to bring her down.

Alchemist Zoe Faust is no stranger to magical mayhem, but when her boyfriend's new tea shop is vandalized and his special tea blends stolen, she plunges into a baffling mystery to save him. The clues lead Zoe and her gargoyle sidekick Dorian to an eerie mansion high in the Portland hills, filled with creeping carnivorous plants and enigmatic topiary monsters. When they stumble across a corpse in the conservatory that appears to have been killed by sinister shrubbery, an estranged member of the family is implicated in the murder.

He left me. Again. And this time I’m stuck. Why is there something about Ryder that I can’t resist, no matter how hard I try? He’s a monster, and yes, I know everyone says that about their ex-husband, but in this case it's true. So, I shouldn’t be surprised that he’s trapped me in a tower with a bunch of satyrs “for my own protection”. I want my old life back, and I’m going to get there, even if I am a banshee. Now I’m the harbinger of death with demons out to kill me and an errant ex-husband who professes he only has my interests at heart. Never mind that he needs to save...

In a gauntlet-throwing essay at the start of this brilliant assemblage, Cynthia Ozick stakes the claim that, just as surely as critics require a steady supply of new fiction, novelists need great critics to build a vibrant community on the foundation of literary history. For decades Ozick herself has been one of our great critics, as these essays so clearly display. She offers models of critical analysis of writers from the mid-20th century to today, from Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, and Kafka to William Gass and Martin Amis, all assembled in provocatively named groups.

The sweeping romance of Passenger meets the dark fantasy edge of This Savage Song in this stunning contemporary fantasy debut from Vanessa Len, where the line between monster and hero is razor thin.