From the dust of ancient battlefields to the fluorescent glow of modern cubicles, the eternal dramas of human nature play out across eleven unforgettable tales. In Byzantine halls where emperors fall to ambitious generals . . . on plague-ravaged battlefields where leper kings become legends . . . in shadowy London where playwrights wield words like weapons, the past refuses to stay buried and the old gods have merely learned to whisper more quietly. With Old Gods and Other Tales Scott Oden delivers a masterful collection that spans millennia yet speaks to timeless truths. Meet Tisias, the silver-tongued thief whose greatest weapon is his wit. Witness the extraordinary courage of Baldwin IV, the Leper King whose diseased body housed a lion’s heart. Follow Martin Kestrel through a London where understanding the story itself becomes a form of power. Experience the vengeance of Meriones, a skeleton warrior animated by Hecate’s will and driven by memories of love and betrayal. Old Gods and Other Tales is heroic historical fiction at its finest—proof that every page of history teems with drama waiting to be discovered, and that some stories refuse to be silenced until they find their voice. The old gods have not died. They have simply learned patience.

Introduction by Joe Hill In this career horror retrospective, World Horror Grandmaster Joe R. Lansdale (Bubba Ho-tep; Hap and Leonard) tackles racism and human cruelty as de­ftly as he conjures demon nuns and Elder Gods. Featuring an original introduction from Joe Hill, this much-anticipated volume showcases the best of Lansdale’s terrifying short stories—menacing, astute, and wildly inappropriate. Bestselling author Joe R. Lansdale is known for his gritty mysteries and his eccentric horror. As an eleven-time Bram Stoker Award winner, Joe Lansdale cooks up an inimitable recipe of Southern Gothic and Southern fried chicken that continues to delight his many fans and influence generations of horror legends. Lansdale mashes up crime, Gothic, mystery, fantasy, and science-fiction, filtered through a raw, violent world of dark humor and unique characters. Lansdale is one of the early American horror writers to portray racism not as abstract but as realistic, intimate, and impossible to ignore. In Lansdale’s nightmarish visions, you’ll discover psychotic demon nuns, a psychopathic preacher, cannibals, 80-year-old Elvis, undead strippers, ­ flying ghost fish, Elder Gods, possessed cars, and the worst evil of all: mankind. Contents Introduction by Joe Hill “The Folding Man” “Hoodoo Man and the Midnight Train” “God of the Razor” “My Dead Dog Bobby” “Tight Little Stitches in a Deadman’s Back” “By Bizarre Hands” On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folk “Love Doll: A Fable” “Mister Weed-Eater” “The Bleeding Shadow” “Not From Detroit” “The Hungry Snow” “Dog, Cat, and Baby” Bubba Ho-tep “Fish Night” “Night They Missed the Horror Show”

From the New York Times bestselling author of The Only Good Indians comes a tale of the American West, writ in blood. This chilling historical novel is set in the nascent days of the state of Montana, following a Blackfeet Indian named Good Stab as he haunts the fields of the Blackfeet Nation looking for justice. It begins when a diary written in 1912 by a Lutheran pastor is discovered within a wall in 2012. What is unveiled is a slow massacre, a nearly forgotten chain of events that goes back to 217 Blackfeet dead in the snow, told in the transcribed interviews with Good Stab, who shares the narrative of his peculiar and unnaturally long life over a series of confessional visits. This is an American Indian revenge story, captured in the vivid voices of the time, by one of the new masters of literary horror, Stephen Graham Jones.

Morlock, son of Merlin, rides a donkey’s corpse into the burning web of Usli, giant spider and foe of entropy. A sword, bereft of its beloved mistress, recounts for us its quest for their reunion. After the great wars, a goddess washes ashore an island. Its inhabitants, spurred by a mind more murderous than their own, seek to butcher her. Read these stories, and others, each penned by a modern master of dark fantasy and sword-and-sorcery short fiction in VOLUME 7 of OLD MOON QUARTERLY.

Red Sonja, the iconic, fiery, she-devil with a sword, is reinvented for a new generation of readers in this action-packed epic fantasy by legendary comic book writer Gail Simone. The gutsy, wild, tortured free spirit, forged in pain yet unafraid of life or death, Red Sonja, the famous, fiery She-Devil and barbarian of Hyrkania has never concerned herself with the consequences of her actions. She’s taken what she wanted, from treasure to drink to the companionship of bedfellows. She’s fought who deserved it (and sometimes those who didn’t). And she’s never looked back. But when rumors start bubbling up from her homeland—rumors of unknown horrors emerging from the ground and pulling their unsuspecting victims to their deaths—and a strange voice begins whispering to her in her sleep, she realizes she may have to return to the country that abandoned her. And finally do the only thing that has ever scared her: confront her past.