Вручение 15 мая 2019 г.

Премия вручена за 2018 год.

В номинациях:
Издательство года лауреатом стало - Crystal Lake Publishing;
Подкаст года: художественная литература - The NoSleep Podcast
Подкаст года: нехудожественная литература - Ladies of the Fright

Страна: Великобритания Дата проведения: 15 мая 2019 г.

Роман года

Лауреат
Гвендолин Кисте 4.0
Something’s happening to the girls on Denton Street.
It’s the summer of 1980 in Cleveland, Ohio, and Phoebe Shaw and her best friend Jacqueline have just graduated high school, only to confront an ugly, uncertain future. Across the city, abandoned factories populate the skyline; meanwhile at the shore, one strong spark, and the Cuyahoga River might catch fire. But none of that compares to what’s happening in their own west side neighborhood. The girls Phoebe and Jacqueline have grown up with are changing. It starts with footprints of dark water on the sidewalk. Then, one by one, the girls’ bodies wither away, their fingernails turning to broken glass, and their bones exposed like corroded metal beneath their flesh.
As rumors spread about the grotesque transformations, soon everyone from nosy tourists to clinic doctors and government men start arriving on Denton Street, eager to catch sight of “the Rust Maidens” in metamorphosis. But even with all the onlookers, nobody can explain what’s happening or why—except perhaps the Rust Maidens themselves. Whispering in secret, they know more than they’re telling, and Phoebe realizes her former friends are quietly preparing for something that will tear their neighborhood apart.
Alternating between past and present, Phoebe struggles to unravel the mystery of the Rust Maidens—and her own unwitting role in the transformations—before she loses everything she’s held dear: her home, her best friend, and even perhaps her own body.
Paul G. Tremblay 2.9

Второе место.

Seven-year-old Wen and her parents, Eric and Andrew, are vacationing at a remote cabin on a quiet New Hampshire lake, with their closest neighbours more than two miles in either direction.
As Wen catches grasshoppers in the front yard, a stranger unexpectedly appears in the driveway. Leonard is the largest man Wen has ever seen but he is young and friendly. Leonard and Wen talk and play until Leonard abruptly apologises and tells Wen, “None of what’s going to happen is your fault”. Three more strangers arrive at the cabin carrying unidentifiable, menacing objects. As Wen sprints inside to warn her parents, Leonard calls out: “Your dads won’t want to let us in, Wen. But they have to. We need your help to save the world.”
So begins an unbearably tense, gripping tale of paranoia, sacrifice, apocalypse, and survival that escalates to a shattering conclusion, one in which the fate of a loving family and quite possibly all of humanity are intertwined.
The Cabin at the End of the World is a masterpiece of terror and suspense from the fantastically fertile imagination of Paul Tremblay.
Gabino Iglesias 0.0
In Gabino Iglesias’ second novel, ghosts and old gods guide the hands of those caught up in a violent struggle to save the soul of the American southwest.

A man tasked with shuttling children over the border believes the Virgin Mary is guiding him towards final justice. A woman offers colonizer blood to the Mother of Chaos. A boy joins corpse destroyers to seek vengeance for the death of his father.These stories intertwine with those of a vengeful spirit and a hungry creature to paint a timely, compelling, pulpy portrait of revenge, family, and hope.

“Call him the Barrio Palahniuk, a badass Henry Miller, Charles Willeford in Cholo-land—whatever the moniker, for my money Gabino Iglesias is one of the most fearless, original and riveting writers working today.” – Jerry Stahl, author of Permanent Midnight

“Iglesias is a master of compact phrasing and perfectly paced suspense.” - Los Angeles Review of Books
Алма Катсу 3.6
1846 год. Девяносто мужчин, женщин и детей под предводительством Джеймса Доннера отправляются в Калифорнию на поиски лучшей жизни.

Они ещё не знают, что это путешествие войдёт в историю — как одно из самых гибельных.

С каждым днём дорога всё тяжелее. Всплывают секреты, которые участники экспедиции надеялись похоронить навсегда. Лютая стужа замораживает волов на ходу. Еды с каждым днём всё меньше. Ссоры вспыхивают всё чаще. Разногласия перерастают в убийства и хаос. И, кажется, кто-то преследует их. Кто-то… или что-то.

Вокруг обоза и в сердцах переселенцев взрастает, крепнет, набирает силы зло. И когда люди начинают исчезать один за другим, становится ясно: что-то страшное живёт в окрестных горах. Страшное — и очень, очень голодное…
Роберт Маккаммон 3.9
Сотни бизнесов закрываются, беспрецедентное количество людей увязает в долгах или остаётся без залога, а очереди за хлебом в городах Америки растут день ото дня. Посреди всеобщего обнищания кое-кто наловчился доставать деньги бесчестным путём. И сложно найти проходимцев безжалостнее, чем ангелоподобный Джон Партлоу и ярмарочный торгаш Джинджер Лафранс. Вместе они оставляют мелкие мошенничества позади и перебираются в Новый Орлеан, чтобы провернуть там похищение с выкупом. В другой части города Кёртис Мэйхью, молодой чёрнокожий носильщик на железной дороге, зарабатывает себе репутацию тем, что отлично улаживает ссоры и недопонимания между друзьями. Они не догадываются, насколько хорошо он слушает – иногда даже то, что не говорится вслух. Однажды благодаря этому дару Кёртис слышит детский крик о помощи (ЭТОТ ДЯДЯ В МАШИНЕ У НЕГО ПИСТОЛЕТ), что вовлекает его в опасный мир Партлоу и Лафранса. Суровый криминальный триллер на материале Великой депрессии – захватывающая история, соединяющая точные социальные наблюдения с ароматом сверхъестественного – займёт место в ряду лучших романов Маккаммона.

Повесть года

Лауреат
Betty Rocksteady 0.0
THE SKY IS HUNGRY

Glowing lights and figures in tattered robes force Sarah from her apartment. Outside, phosphorescent creatures infiltrate her every orifice. They want to know everything, especially the things she would rather forget.

Featuring 20 black and white illustrations.
Nicholas Day 0.0

Второе место.

These are his final moments.

In the little city of Wood River, Illinois, a man nicknamed Firecracker knows the end is near. The fire is coming, just like it came for his father, his grandfather, and who knows how many men. After all, folks in those parts have a short-term memory when it comes to history, and lots of stories have a tendency to go to the grave. Maybe the fire was always there. Maybe it came along when the oil refinery went up in 1907. Who can say? Sometimes, a yarn like this is as close to a history book as a Midwest community and its people are apt to get.

When it happened to his father, the doctors only called it an accident. But Firecracker's mother had a name for it: spontaneous combustion. Firecracker knows there is no way to escape this Act of God, so he retreats into his memories. Past and present become one and the same. The veil of reality pulls away and Death arrives in time for one last conversation, where Firecracker comes to terms with the mysteries of his own life, and realizes that some questions are not nearly as important as the moments which spawned them.

From the first line of the tale that sees his eyes explode to--moments and pages later--his whole body being consumed by flame, Firecracker experiences his life and loves through a succession of memories, reveals his friendship with Death, and talks about the men in his family's unfortunate predisposition.

This is a yarn about life and death and spontaneous human combustion.

This is a tale of a man with a fire inside him.

At the End of the Day I Burst into Flames is a horror story about how beautiful love can be.
John Boden, Чад Луцке 0.0
The boys crept to the window and watched as Miss Maggie carried the long bundle into the barn, the weight of it stooping her aging back. Rafter lights spilled from the barn doors and Davey saw an arm fall from the canvas-wrapped parcel. He smiled.

“She got someone!”

Both children grinned and settled in their beds, eyes fixed to the ceiling.

This was family growth.
Jeremy C. Shipp 0.0
Jeremy Shipp brings you The Atrocities, a haunting gothic fantasy of a young ghost's education

When Isabella died, her parents were determined to ensure her education wouldn't suffer.

But Isabella's parents had not informed her new governess of Isabella's... condition, and when Ms Valdez arrives at the estate, having forced herself through a surreal nightmare maze of twisted human-like statues, she discovers that there is no girl to tutor.

Or is there...?
Rich Hawkins 0.0
One rainy night in Penbrook, Albie Samways' family disappeared along with the rest of the village's population, spirited away by unknown forces.

In those abandoned streets and houses he encountered hellish creatures, madness and death, ending in a confrontation with the sadistic Doctor Ridings and his cultists.

He barely made it out alive.

Five years later, he lives in a squalid bedsit, miserable and heartbroken, suffering from nightmares and visions of monstrous things.

He mourns.

He mourns for his daughter, Milly, most of all.

Then one day she returns. However she is not the same girl he once knew, and tells him about terrible places, thin places, where gods and monsters reside in the darkness, waiting to enter our world.

But there is worse to come.

Doctor Ridings and his followers are back, and they have plans for her. Horrific plans of black magic and sacrifice.

With no other option, Albie and Milly are forced to go on the run, beginning an epic chase across the country.

He is all that stands between the monsters and his little girl.

Сборник рассказов года

Лауреат
Gemma Files 0.0
For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award-winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

An embittered blood-servant plots revenge against the vampires who own him; a little girl’s best friend seeks to draw her into an ancient, forbidden realm; two monster-hunting sisters cross paths with an amoral holler-witch again and again, battling both mortal authorities and immortal predators. From the forgotten angels who built the cosmos to the reckless geniuses whose party drug unleashes a plague, madness, monsters and murder await at every turn. And in “The Speed of Pain,” sequel to the International Horror Guild award-winning story “The Emperor’s Old Bones,” we find that even those who can live forever can’t outrun their own crimes….

Following in the footsteps of her critically praised Kissing Carrion, The Worm in Every Heart and We Will All Go Down Together, this is the first of two new Gemma Files collections from Trepidatio Publishing, bringing together nine of her best stories from the past ten years. So whether you’re returning to Files’s dark dreamlands or visiting for the first time, we advise you to get ready to review the—

SPECTRAL EVIDENCE
Джон Ф. Д. Тафф 0.0

Второе место.

First he gave us LITTLE DEATHS: THE DEFINITIVE EDITION. Then he unleashed his unique brand of pain in THE END IN ALL BEGINNINGS.

Now Bram Stoker Award-nominated John F.D. Taff – modern horror’s King of Pain – returns with LITTLE BLACK SPOTS. Sixteen stories of dark horror fiction gathered together for the first time, exposing the delicate blemishes and sinister blots that tarnish the human condition.

From a man who stumbles on a cult that glorifies spontaneous human combustion, to a disgraced nature photographer who applies his skills for a vile outcome.

Where a darkened city parking structure seems malevolently alive, and a Halloween costume has a husband seeing his wife in a disturbing new light.

When a ruined man sees far too much of himself in his broken family, and a mysterious bottle of liquid arrives with a deadly secret inside.

Little Black Spots is a beacon shining its light into some of life's most shadowy corners, revealing the dark stains that spatter all mankind.

The next collection of horror from Bram Stoker Award-nominated John F.D. Taff, LITTLE BLACK SPOTS will be published worldwide on September 18, 2018.
Damien Angelica Walters 0.0
“Once upon a time there was a monster. This is how they tell you the story starts. This is a lie.”

Sometimes things are not what they appear to be. DNA doesn’t define us, gravity doesn’t hold us, a home doesn’t mean we belong. From circus tents to space stations, Damien Angelica Walters creates stories that are both achingly familiar and chillingly surreal. Within her second short story collection, she questions who the real monsters are, rips families apart and stiches them back together, and turns a cell phone into the sharpest of weapons.

Cry Your Way Home brings together seventeen stories that delve deep into human sorrow and loss, weaving pain, fear, and ultimately resilience into beautiful tales that are sure to haunt you long after you finish the collection.

“Once upon a time there was a girl…”
Стив Резник Тем 0.0
In the worlds of Steve Rasnic Tem a father takes his son “fishing” in the deepest part of downtown, flayed rabbits visit a suburban back yard, a man is haunted by a surrealistic nightmare of crutches, a father is unable to rescue his son from a nightmare of trees, a bereaved man transforms memories of his wife into performance art, great moving cliffs of detritus randomly prowl the world, a seemingly pointless life finds final expression in bits of folded paper, a nuclear holocaust brings about a new mythology, an isolated man discovers he’s part of a terrifying community, a photographer discovers the unexpected in the faces of dead children, and a couple’s aging dismantles reality.

Winner of the World Fantasy, British Fantasy and Bram Stoker Awards, Tem has earned a reputation as one of the finest and most original short fiction writers of our time, blending elements of horror, dark fantasy, science fiction and surreal nightmare into a genre uniquely his own. This new volume collects for the first time thirty-five of Tem’s best tales, selected by the author, and includes an introduction by Simon Strantzas.

“One of the finest and most productive writers of imaginative literature in North America.” - Dan Simmons

“Steve Rasnic Tem is a school of writing unto himself.” - Joe R. Lansdale

“He’s one of the true masters.” - Ed Gorman
Michael Griffin 0.0
Heralded as one of the leading voices in contemporary weird fiction, Michael Griffin returns with his second collection, The Human Alchemy. Here you will find eleven magnificent tales of the strange and sublime, the familiar and the disquieting, where dreamlike beauty and breathtaking horror intertwine. Featuring an introduction by S.P. Miskowski.

Антология года

Лауреат
0.0
Nightscape Press is proud to present ASHES AND ENTROPY edited by Robert S. Wilson, an anthology of cosmic horror, noir and neo-noir including stories by Laird Barron, Damien Angelica Walters, John Langan, Kristi DeMeester, Jon Padgett, Lucy A. Snyder, Matthew M. Bartlett, Jessica McHugh, Tim Waggoner, and many more. Ashes and Entropy will be beautifully illustrated by Luke Spooner.

Our Kickstarter campaign ends very soon and we have many exciting and rare rewards to share with you. So, please, stand on the precipice with us as we prepare to dive down through the event horizon into the bleak and mind-shattering void of both the cosmos and of humanity.
0.0

Второе место.

It’s dangerous out there…on the road.

The highways, byways and backroads of America are teeming day and night with regular folks. Moms and dads making long commutes. Teenagers headed to the beach. Bands on their way to the next gig. Truckers pulling long hauls. Families driving cross country to visit their kin.

But there are others, too. The desperate and the lost. The cruel and the criminal.

Theirs is a world of roadside honky-tonks, truck stops, motels, and the empty miles between destinations. The unseen spaces.

And there are even stranger things. Places that aren’t on any map. Wayfaring terrors and haunted legends about which seasoned and road-weary travelers only whisper.

But those are just stories. Aren’t they?

Find out for yourself as you get behind the wheel with some of today’s finest authors of the dark and horrific as they bring you these harrowing tales from the road.

Tales that could only be spawned by the endless miles of America’s lost highways.

So go ahead and hop in. Let’s take a ride.

Line-up:
Introduction by Brian Keene
doungjai gam & Ed Kurtz — “Crossroads of Opportunity”
Matt Hayward — “Where the Wild Winds Blow”
Joe R. Lansdale — “Not from Detroit”
Kristi DeMeester — “A Life That is Not Mine”
Robert Ford — “Mr. Hugsy”
Lisa Kröger — “Swamp Dog”
Orrin Grey — “No Exit”
Michael Bailey — “The Long White Line”
Kelli Owen — “Jim’s Meats”
Bracken MacLeod — “Back Seat”
Jess Landry — “The Heart Stops at the End of Laurel Lane”
Jonathan Janz — “Titan, Tyger”
Nick Kolakowski — “Your Pound of Flesh”
Richard Thomas — “Requital”
Damien Angelica Walters — “That Pilgrims’ Hands Do Touch”
Cullen Bunn — “Outrunning the End”
Christopher Buehlman — “Motel Nine”
Rachel Autumn Deering — “Dew Upon the Wing”
Josh Malerman — “Room 4 at the Haymaker”
Rio Youers — “The Widow”

Proudly represented by Crystal Lake Publishing—Tales from the Darkest Depths.

Interview with the editor:

So what makes Lost Highways: Dark Fictions From the Road so special?

D. Alexander Ward: Lost Highways comes at the theme of road stories with the desire to push the boundaries of what that theme means. Because of that, it collects authors of diverse levels of experience and notoriety in the worlds of horror and dark fiction. This brings together voices like Joe R. Lansdale, Cullen Bunn, Josh Malerman, Damien Angelica Walters, Rio Youers, Bracken MacLeod, Rachel Autumn Deering, Matt Hayward, doungjai gam with Ed Kurtz, and Kristi DeMeester. All of these unique voices bring a fresh and often unexpected take on the theme.

What made you think of this theme for the anthology?

D. Alexander Ward: Road trips can be fun but they can also be long and boring. And while you can read a book to yourself to pass the time, it’s not a very social experience. So Lost Highways was born out of the idea that...here is a book of road stories that people might crack open and read aloud to each other while actually on the road. I envisioned a car full of people at night, gathered around the dim overhead light, telling road trip horror stories to each other the same way people gather around campfires and tell stories of ghosts and axe murderers. That’s what thrilled me about the idea.

Tell us about your three favorite short stories in the book?

D. Alexander Ward: I don’t pick favorites. An anthology is like a symphony or a mix-tape. Every story is placed where it is for a reason and serves a purpose. I’m no oracle but if I had to pick a sampling of the many stories that I bet people will really respond to, those would be Bracken MacLeod’s “Back Seat,” Rachel Autumn Deering’s “Dew Upon the Wing,” and Josh Malerman’s “Room 4 at the Haymaker.”
0.0
Life is change. Changes forces us into the light or the dark. Dusk is the time in between. It defends the light from the dark. It's the tipping point. Where things go well. Or where thy go very, very bad. Confront change. But you must first survive dusk. Suspended in Dusk II continues the legacy of editor Simon Dewar's anthology series. The second volume is introduced by Angela Slatter and includes fiction from Ramsey Campbell, Stephen Graham Jones, Bracken MacLeod, Damien Angelica Walters, Alan Baxter, Paul Tremblay, Christopher Golden, Nerine Dorman, Dan Rabarts, Gwendolyn Kiste, Annie Neugebauer, Letitia Trent, Paul Michael Anderson and Karen Runge.
Эллен Датлоу 0.0
It’s only water, so why should we fear large bodies of it, such as the sea or the ocean? However, when you’re all alone, you realize how scary a place it can be.

In Devil and the Deep, award-winning editor Ellen Datlow shares an original anthology of horror that covers the depths of the deep blue sea. Whether its tales of murderous pirates who stalk the waters in search of treasure and blood, creatures that haunt the depths below―ones we’ve only seen in our nightmares, or storms that can swallow you whole, the open water can be a dangerous and terrifying place.

With new stories from New York Times-bestsellers and award-winning authors such as Seanan McGuire, Christopher Golden, Stephen Graham Jones, and more, Devil and the Deep guarantees you’ll think twice before going back into the water.

Журнал года

Лауреат
0.0
VASTARIEN is a source of critical study and creative response to the corpus of Thomas Ligotti as well as associated authors and ideas. The journal includes nonfiction, literary horror fiction, poetry, artwork and non-classifiable hybrid pieces.

Vol. 1, Issue 1 Contents:

• Foreword to Teatro Grottesco
essay by Thomas Ligotti
•The Nightmare of His Art: The Horrific Power of the Imagination in "The Troubles of Dr. Thoss and "Gas Station Carnivals"
essay by W. Silverwood
•The Gods in Their Seats, Unblinking
short fiction by Kurt Fawver
• Affirmation of the Spirit: Consciousness, Transformation, and the Fourth World in Film
short fiction by Christopher Slatsky
•Try the Veal
poem by Robert Beveridge
•How to Construct a Gun from Your Own Flesh
short fiction by Michael Uhall
•Notes on a Horror
essay by Dr. Raymond Thoss
•"Eccentric to the Healthy Social Order" : Inversions of Family, Community, and Religion in Thomas Ligotti's "The Last Feast of Harlequin"
essau by Michael J. Abolafia
•Wraiths
poem by Wade German
•Eraserhead as Antinatalist Allegory
essay by Colby Smith
•The Alienation of the Self: Marx, Polanyi, and Ligottian Horror
essay by S. L. Edwards
•The Theatre of Ovid
short fiction by Aaron Worth
•Infinite Light, Infinite Darkness short fiction by Martin Rose
•Night Walks: The Films of Val Lewton
essay by Michael Penkas
• Solar Flare
short fiction by Paul L. Bates
•Strange Bird
poem by Ian Mullins
•Nervous Wares & Abnormal Stares
short fiction by Devin Goff
•My Time at the Drake Clinic
short fiction by Jordan Krall
•Singing the Song of My Unmaking
short fiction by Christopher Ropes
•"They say I should kill myself and not try to spoil their enjoyment in being alive": An Interview with Thomas Ligotti
interview by Wojciech Gunia