Thrillers 2 [Hardcover]

Gemma Files (Author), Tim Waggoner (Author), R. Patrick Gates (Author), Caitlín R. Kiernan (Author), Robert Morrish (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1, 2007

Featuring: Gemma Files, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Tim Waggoner, and R. Patrick Gates

This volume marks the long-overdue return of a dark fiction series that debuted in 1993. After a fourteen year hiatus, Thrillers is revived with a star-studded second volume.

Within these pages, you'll find terror, suspense, and mystery that range from quietly menacing to shockingly graphic, wildly fantastic to grimly realistic. It's all here, with one universal ingredient: a well-told story.

The formula for the Thrillers series is deceptively simple: we invite four of the genre's most popular authors to each contribute 20,000 words of original, never-before-been-published fiction. We add insightful Afterwords by each author, along with striking illustrations by a brilliant artist. The end result is a wonderful showcase for the finest of today's short fiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Horror aficionados will welcome Morrish's all-original dark fiction anthology, the long-awaited sequel to Thrillers (1993). Each of the four contributors—Gemma Files, Tim Waggoner, R. Patrick Gates and Caitlín R. Kiernan—succeeds in sending intelligent chills up the reader's spine. Files's creepy "Pen Umbra," with echoes of T.E.D. Klein and William Sloane in its plot and language, is a standout, and Kiernan manages to work a few wrinkles into "Houses Under the Sea" that demonstrate how a skilled writer can use some well-worn Lovecraftian motifs to good effect. Waggoner also scores with the subtle "The Faces That We Meet," a compelling portrait of horror lurking beneath a suburban surface. Authors' notes illuminate the composition of each of the nine stories and novellas. (Dec.)
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From Booklist

After a 13-year hiatus, Thrillers starts looking like a series with a second showcase of four dark-fantasy authors. From Gemma Files' novella "Pen Umbra" (art-history grad student tries to make money participating in a scientific study and opens doors best left closed) to Caitlin Kiernan's two tales ("The Daughter of the Four of Pentacles" lives in an attic full of strange objects created and found by her alchemist father, in which time passes only when she has a visitor), the stories range from subtly to blatantly horrifying. Tim Waggoner's "The Faces That We Meet," in particular, is a well-crafted mixture of those extremes: in a safe, sedate suburb, where everyone at least makes the motions of friendliness, Gordon Markely discovers how much he doesn't know when he realizes that his daughter and her friends are playing with something that leaves bloodstains on the lawn. Because the anthology has no strict theme, the contents cover a wide swathe of territory suitable for horror, and that makes it very satisfying, if not exactly bedtime reading. Regina Schroeder
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 230 pages
• Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications; Limited edition (December 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1587671220
• ISBN-13: 978-1587671227
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,153,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I write fantasy and horror for both adults and young readers. I also teach creative writing at Sinclair Community College and in Seton Hill University's MFA in Writing Popular Fiction program.