Vorab-RezensentenGary A. Braunbeck

Climb halfway down the stairs with Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Gary A. Braunbeck, into worlds that occupy the spaces between "here" and "there," where office workers become little more than scrolls of code and an ordinary man discovers that he has to help reassemble the missing face of God; from battle-scarred veterans who have to protect their village from encroaching spirits to a college experiment that may bring about the end of days, all of these stories feature Braunbeck’s trademark element: an unblinking eye for emotional detail that elevates the subject matter of each piece into the realm of the genuinely literary. The stories span Braunbeck's thirty-year career from some of the very first tales of Cedar Hill to all-new stories, including the never-before-published author’s preferred version of the controversial, “The Sisterhood of Plain-Faced Women.” Several stories herein are introduced by such luminaries in the horror/dark fantasy field: Ramsey Campbell, Laird Barron, Elizabeth Massie, Graham Masterton, and Jonathan Maberry, to name only a few. Halfway Down the Stairs is a treasure chest of wonders for Braunbeck fans.

Climb halfway down the stairs with Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Gary A. Braunbeck, into worlds that occupy the spaces between "here" and "there," where office workers become little more than scrolls of code and an ordinary man discovers that he has to help reassemble the missing face of God; from battle-scarred veterans who have to protect their village from encroaching spirits to a college experiment that may bring about the end of days, all of these stories feature Braunbeck’s trademark element: an unblinking eye for emotional detail that elevates the subject matter of each piece into the realm of the genuinely literary. The stories span Braunbeck's thirty-year career from some of the very first tales of Cedar Hill to all-new stories, including the never-before-published author’s preferred version of the controversial, “The Sisterhood of Plain-Faced Women.” Several stories herein are introduced by such luminaries in the horror/dark fantasy field: Ramsey Campbell, Laird Barron, Elizabeth Massie, Graham Masterton, and Jonathan Maberry, to name only a few. Halfway Down the Stairs is a treasure chest of wonders for Braunbeck fans.

"The Keepers are coming..." The last words of a man who died in the middle of a highway through Cedar Hill, Ohio, still echo in Gil Stewart's ears when he discovers a dying dog in his front yard. At the same moment a package arrives on his doorstep. A package holding hope that a past young love might not be lost after all. The Keepers are coming, and they're bringing with them memories Gil has spent most of a lifetime forgetting, memories leaking through fractures in his psyche. The Keepers are coming, and the animals — the harbingers — are acting strange. The Keepers are coming. But from where? And why? Before the day is over, Gil will have the answers, and the world he thought he knew will be irrevocably altered.

One moment, Robert Londrigan is a rising-star newscaster, devoted husband, and expectant father; the next, he's a widower in a morgue, staring at gaping holes in his daughter’s body where surgeons have harvested every useful scrap of her organs and tissue. The rock-bottom falls out from under his life when a disfigured man knocks Robert out and steals what’s left of her tiny corpse out from under his nose, and leaves a gruesome surprise waiting for him back home. Robert’s search for the disfigured man leads him through a rapidly-fragmenting reality into a chiaroscuro world and the discovery that neither his wife nor his daughter are who he thought they were. Gary A. Braunbeck’s work has earned, 7 Bram Stoker Awards, an International Horror Guild Award, 3 Shocker Awards, a Black Quill Award, and a World Fantasy Award nomination.

“The world is a stage, life is a play, and we are the puppets. It’s better not to ask who pulls the strings.” How lucky do you feel? That question echoed through the world’s underground, scrawled on bathroom walls, spray-painted across subway tunnel exits, written on paper that fluttered through bleak side-streets in the winter wind, printed on cheap business cards tacked to corkboard displays in darkened hallways. But always beneath one name—Limbus. Matthew Sellers revealed the truth of Limbus, Inc. to the world, and in his tales of time travelers, intergalactic beings, and human sacrifice, he thought he had told it all. But the story of the shadowy employment agency that operates on the edge of the abyss, always finding the perfect person for the perfect job—no matter what the cost—had only begun. This shared-world anthology continues the story of Limbus, Inc., as told by five masters of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But beware, for once you learn the truth of Limbus, Inc., your world will never be the same. So it's time to ask yourself . . . How lucky do you feel?

“The world is a stage, life is a play, and we are the puppets. It’s better not to ask who pulls the strings.” How lucky do you feel? That question echoed through the world’s underground, scrawled on bathroom walls, spray-painted across subway tunnel exits, written on paper that fluttered through bleak side-streets in the winter wind, printed on cheap business cards tacked to corkboard displays in darkened hallways. But always beneath one name—Limbus. Matthew Sellers revealed the truth of Limbus, Inc. to the world, and in his tales of time travelers, intergalactic beings, and human sacrifice, he thought he had told it all. But the story of the shadowy employment agency that operates on the edge of the abyss, always finding the perfect person for the perfect job—no matter what the cost—had only begun. This shared-world anthology continues the story of Limbus, Inc., as told by five masters of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. But beware, for once you learn the truth of Limbus, Inc., your world will never be the same. So it's time to ask yourself . . . How lucky do you feel?

This is for both volumes I and II. Volume I FEEDERS AND EATERS Neil Gaiman UNDER THE PYLON Graham Joyce A GUY WALKS INTO A BAR Matthew Costello HELL HATH ENLARGED HERSELF Michael Marshall Smith FIGURES IN RAIN Chet Williamson AS YOU HAVE MADE US Elizabeth Massie THOUGHTFUL BREATHS Peter Crowther NEVER BACK AGAIN Matti Hautala A GIRL, SITTING Mark Morris BLOOD BROTHERS Richard Chizmar LITTLE BROTHERS—PORTFOLIO Stephen R. Bissette TIGHT LITTLE STITCHES IN A DEAD MAN’S BACK Joe R. Lansdale CRAVING Yvonne Navarro lXCHEL’S TEARS José R. Nieto LIFE DURING DEATH Duane Swierczynski AFTER THE ELEPHANT BALLET Gary A. Braunbeck OVERNIGHT GUEST Craig Shaw Gardner SPRINGFIELD REPEATER Jack M. Haringa CONJURER—BOOK I: THE GRIEVE Tom Piccirilli THE YEAR THE MUSIC DIED F. Paul Wilson PROPERTY CONDEMNED—A STORY OF PINE DEEP Jonathan Maberry PLAYING THE HUDDYS John M. McIlveen CRASHING DOWN Weston Ochse Volume II TOM REQUIEM Clive Barker LITTLE RED’S TANGO Peter Straub HOLOGRAM SKULL COVER Jeff Strand LUX ET VERITAS Thomas F. Monteleone DEVOTION J. F. Gonzalez INN CLEANING Stephen R. Bissette BREATHE MY NAME Christopher Golden MAGDALA AMYGDALA Lucy A. Snyder THE BOHEMIAN OF THE ARBAT Sarah Pinborough JOHNSTOWN Brian Keene ROAD KILL (A Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. story) Kevin J. Anderson JUST BREATHE Tim Lebbon CATFISH GAL BLUES Nancy A. Collins ILLIMITABLE DOMINION Kim Newman INDEPENDENCE DAY Sarah Langan THE GHOST OF LILLIAN BLISS Rio Youers HOTLINE Jack Ketchum THE LIGHT OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS John Skipp WAR STORIES James A. Moore IT’S… Amber Benson THE DREAMCATCHER Nate Kenyon KRISTALL TAG Holly Newstein GHOST TRAP Rick Hautala