Laird Barron

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About Laird Barron

Laird Barron is an expat Alaskan. Currently, Barron lives in the Rondout Valley and is at work on tales about the evil that men do.

(photo courtesy Ardi Alspach)

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Titles By Laird Barron

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The Imago Sequence Jul 1, 2007

by Laird Barron

( 318 )

$11.99

The title story of this collection — a devilishly ironic riff on H. P. Lovecraft’s “Pickman’s model” — was nominated for a World Fantasy Award, while “Probiscus” was nominated for an International Horror Guild award and reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 19. In addition to his previously published work, this collection contains an original story.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback , MP3 CD

The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All: Stories Aug 13, 2013

by Laird Barron

( 355 )

$11.99

Over the course of two award-winning collections and a critically acclaimed novel, The Croning, Laird Barron has arisen as one of the strongest and most original literary voices in modern horror and the dark fantastic. Melding supernatural horror with hardboiled noir, espionage, and a scientific backbone, Barron’s stories have garnered critical acclaim and have been reprinted in numerous year’s best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy awards.

Barron returns with his third collection, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All. Collecting interlinking tales of sublime cosmic horror, including “Blackwood’s Baby,” “The Carrion Gods in Their Heaven,” and “The Men from Porlock,” The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All delivers enough spine-chilling horror to satisfy even the most jaded reader.

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The Croning May 1, 2012

by Laird Barron

( 431 )

$9.30

Strange things exist on the periphery of our existence, haunting us from the darkness looming beyond our firelight. Black magic, weird cults and worse things loom in the shadows. The Children of Old Leech have been with us from time immemorial. And they love us...

Donald Miller, geologist and academic, has walked along the edge of a chasm for most of his nearly eighty years, leading a charmed life between endearing absent-mindedness and sanity-shattering realization. Now, all things must converge. Donald will discover the dark secrets along the edges, unearthing savage truths about his wife Michelle, their adult twins, and all he knows and trusts. For Donald is about to stumble on the secret...

...of The Croning.

From Laird Barron, Shirley Jackson Award-winning author of The Imago Sequence and Occultation, comes The Croning, a debut novel of cosmic horror.

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Occultation Jul 1, 2010

by Laird Barron, Michael Shea

( 243 )

$11.99

Laird Barron has emerged as one of the strongest voices in modern horror and dark fantasy fiction, building on the eldritch tradition pioneered by writers such as H. P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti. His stories have garnered critical acclaim and been reprinted in numerous year's best anthologies and nominated for multiple awards, including the Crawford, International Horror Guild, Shirley Jackson, Theodore Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. His debut collection, The Imago Sequence and Other Stories, was the inaugural winner of the Shirley Jackson Award.

He returns with his second collection, Occultation. Pitting ordinary men and women against a carnivorous, chaotic cosmos, Occultation's eight tales of terror (two never before published) include the Theodore Sturgeon and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated story "The Forest" and Shirley Jackson Award nominee "The Lagerstatte." Featuring an introduction by Michael Shea, Occultation brings more of the spine-chillingly sublime cosmic horror Laird Barron's fans have come to expect.

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Fearful Symmetries Jul 21, 2020

by Ellen Datlow, Caitlìn R. Kiernan, Garth Nix, Laird Barron, Nathan Ballingrud, Michael Marshall Smith, Gemma Files, Bruce McAllister, Gary McMahon, Pat Cadigan, Helen Marshall, Terry Dowling, Stephen Graham Jones, Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Ford, Robert Shearman, Kaaron Warren, Catherine MacLeod, Siobhan Carroll, John Langan, Carole Johnstone

( 190 )

$7.99

Winner of the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Awards: “Twenty insanely inventive, hauntingly atmospheric and flat out coo coo for Cocoa Puffs stories” (Hellnotes).

A World Fantasy Award nominee, “this anthology . . . is a collection of some of the most talented horror and speculative fiction authors writing today” (BuzzFeed). It includes all-new stories by Laird Barron, Pat Cadigan, Brian Evenson, Jeffrey Ford, Caítlin R. Kiernan, Garth Nix, Michael Marshall Smith, Kaaron Warren, and other masters of all things spooky and suspenseful.

In tales that crisscross the boundaries of fear and imagination—from a haunted courtyard in New Orleans to a remote Arctic research station—swamp monsters, pool-cleaning robots, and cannibalistic spirits wreak chaos and terror across the pages. You’ll be invited to a prom where a psycho hides inside a sparkly dress or rented tux; on a trip aboard a train to a destination that teems with ghosts; and into the darkest recesses of a human mind, the most fertile ground for the blossoming of true evil.

“Datlow’s ‘experimental’ crowdfunded horror anthology is nicely unthemed. . . . This is an excellent anthology for horror fans, with a nice range of tones and styles and some intriguing new voices.” —Publishers Weekly

“[Fearful Symmetries] not only goes beyond expectations, it raises the bar high above into the horror heavens. . . . A melting pot of distinct voices and styles that leave you wanting more.” —Hellnotes

“One of the best horror anthologies I’ve ever read.” —Thirteen O’Clock

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The Best Horror of the Year Volume 3 Jun 1, 2011

by Ellen Datlow

( 83 )

$11.99

A doctor makes a late-night emergency call to an exclusive California riding school; a professor inherits a mysterious vase... and a strange little man; a struggling youth discovers canine horrors lurking beneath the streets of Albany; a sheriff ruthlessly deals with monstrosities plaguing his rural town; a pair of animal researchers makes a frightening discovery at a remote site; a sweet little girl entertains herself... by torturing faeries; a group of horror aficionados attempts to track down an unfinished film by a reclusive cult director; a man spends a chill night standing watch over his uncle's body; a girl looks to understand her place in a world in which zombies have overrun the earth; a murderous pack of nuns stalks a pair of Halloween revelers...

What frightens us, what unnerves us? What causes that delicious shiver of fear to travel the lengths of our spines? It seems the answer changes every year. Every year the bar is raised; the screw is tightened. Ellen Datlow knows what scares us; the seventeen stories included in this anthology were chosen from magazines, webzines, anthologies, literary journals, and single author collections to represent the best horror of the year.

Legendary editor Ellen Datlow (Lovecraft Unbound, Tails of Wonder and Imagination), winner of multiple Hugo, Bram Stoker, and World Fantasy awards, joins Night Shade Books in presenting The Best Horror of the Year, Volume Three.

Other Formats: Paperback

Blood Standard (An Isaiah Coleridge Novel Book 1) May 29, 2018

by Laird Barron

( 188 )

$9.99

A novel set in the underbelly of upstate New York that's as hardboiled and punchy as a swift right hook to the jaw, a classic noir for fans of James Ellroy and John D. Macdonald.

Isaiah Coleridge is a mob enforcer in Alaska--he's tough, seen a lot, and dished out more. But when he forcibly ends the money-making scheme of a made man, he gets in the kind of trouble that can lead to a bullet behind the ear.

Saved by the grace of his boss and exiled to upstate New York, Isaiah begins a new life, a quiet life without gunshots or explosions. Except a teenage girl disappears, and Isaiah isn't one to let that slip by. And delving into the underworld to track this missing girl will get him exactly the kind of notice he was warned to avoid.

At turns brutally shocking and darkly funny, heartbreaking and cautiously hopeful, Blood Standard is both a high-tension crime novel and the story of a man's second chance--the parts of his past he will never escape, and the parts that will shape his future.

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The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, 2014 Edition Jul 2, 2014

by Paula Guran

( 30 )

$6.99

No matter your expectations, the dark is full of the unknown: grim futures, distorted pasts, invasions of the uncanny, paranormal fancies, weird dreams, unnerving nightmares, baffling enigmas, revelatory excursions, desperate adventures, spectral journeys, mundane terrors, and supernatural visions. You may stumble into obsession - or find redemption. Often disturbing, occasionally delightful, let The Year's Best Dark Fantasy and Horror be your annual guide through the mysteries and wonders of dark fiction.

Other Formats: Paperback

New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird Mar 17, 2015

by Elizabeth Bear, John Langan, Sarah Monette, Charles Stross, Paula Guran

( 37 )

$6.99

Many of the best weird fiction writers (and creators in most other media) have been profoundly influenced by the genre and the mythos H.P. Lovecraft created eight decades ago. Lovecraft's themes of cosmic indifference, minds invaded by the alien, and the horrors of history—written with a pervasive atmosphere of unexplainable dread—are more relevant than ever as we explore the mysteries of a universe in which our planet is infinitesimal and climatic change is overwhelming it. A few years ago, New Cthulhu : The Recent Weird presented some of the best of this new Lovecraftian fiction from the first decade of the twenty-first century. Now, New Cthulhu 2: More Recent Weird brings you more eldritch tales and even fresher fiction inspired by Lovecraft.

Other Formats: Paperback

Worse Angels (An Isaiah Coleridge Novel Book 3) May 26, 2020

by Laird Barron

( 114 )

$9.99

Ex-mob enforcer-turned-private investigator Isaiah Coleridge pits himself against a rich and powerful foe when he digs into a possible murder and a sketchy real-estate deal worth billions.

Ex-majordomo and bodyguard to an industrial tycoon-cum-U.S. senator, Badja Adeyemi is in hiding and shortly on his way to either a jail cell or a grave, depending on who finds him first. In his final days as a free man, he hires Isaiah Coleridge to tie up a loose end: the suspicious death of his nephew four years earlier. At the time police declared it an accident, and Adeyemi isn't sure it wasn't, but one final look may bring his sister peace.

So it is that Coleridge and his investigative partner, Lionel Robard, find themselves in the upper reaches of New York State, in a tiny town that is home to outsized secrets and an unnerving cabal of locals who are protecting them. At the epicenter of it all is the site of a stalled supercollider project, an immense subterranean construction that may have an even deeper, more insidious purpose. . . .

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Swift to Chase: A Collection of Stories Oct 7, 2016

by Laird Barron

( 98 )

$7.95

Introduction by Paul Tremblay

Publishers Weekly top ten list for most anticipated horror/Scifi Fall 2016 releases.

Laird Barron’s fourth collection gathers a dozen stories set against the backdrops of the Alaskan wilderness, far-future dystopias, and giallo-fueled nightmare vistas.

All hell breaks loose in a massive apartment complex when a modern day Jack the Ripper strikes under cover of a blizzard; a woman, famous for surviving a massacre, hits the road to flee the limelight and finds her misadventures have only begun; while tracking a missing B-movie actor, a team of man hunters crashes in the Yukon Delta and soon realize the Arctic is another name for hell; an atomic-powered cyborg war dog loyally assists his master in the overthrow of a far-future dystopian empire; following an occult initiation ritual, a man is stalked by a psychopathic sorority girl and her team of horrifically disfigured henchmen; a rich lunatic invites several high school classmates to his mansion for a night of sex, drugs, and CIA-funded black ops experiments; and other glimpses into occulted realities a razor’s slice beyond our own.

Combining hardboiled noir, psychological horror, and the occult, Swift to Chase continues three-time Shirley Jackson Award winner Barron’s harrowing inquiry into the darkness of the human heart.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

Black Mountain (An Isaiah Coleridge Novel Book 2) May 7, 2019

by Laird Barron

( 139 )

$9.99

Ex-mob enforcer Isaiah Coledrige has hung out a shingle as a private eye in New York's Hudson Valley, and in his newest case, a seemingly simple murder investigation leads him to the most terrifying enemy he has ever faced

When a small-time criminal named Harold Lee turns up in the Ashokan reservoir--sans a heartbeat, head, or hands--the local mafia capo hires Isaiah Coleridge to look into the matter. The mob likes crime, but only the crime it controls . . . and as it turns out, Lee is the second independent contractor to meet a bad end on the business side of a serrated knife. One such death can be overlooked. Two makes a man wonder.

A guy in Harold Lee's business would make his fair share of enemies, and it seems a likely case of pure revenge. But as Coledrige turns over more stones, he finds himself dragged into something deeper and more insidious than he could have imagined, in a labyrinthine case spanning decades. At the center are an heiress moonlighting as a cabaret dancer, a powerful corporation with high-placed connections, and a serial killer who may have been honing his skills since the Vietnam War. . .

A twisty, action-packed follow-up to the acclaimed Blood Standard, Black Mountain cements Laird Barron as an inventive and remarkable voice in crime fiction.

Other Formats: Audible Audiobook , Hardcover , Paperback

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