To the long tradition of eldritch horror pioneered and refined by writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti, comes Laird Barron, an author whose literary voice invokes the grotesque, the devilish, and the perverse with rare intensity and astonishing craftsmanship. Collected here for the first time are nine terrifying tales of cosmic horror, including the World Fantasy Award-nominated novella "The Imago Sequence," the International Horror Guild Award-nominated "Proboscis," and the never-before published "Procession of the Black Sloth." Together, these stories, each a masterstroke of craft and imaginative irony, form a shocking cycle of distorted evolution, encroaching chaos, and ravenous insectoid hive-minds hidden just beneath the seemingly benign surface of the Earth.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Horrors that defy description and challenge reader expectations charge the electrifying stories in this powerful debut collection. Barron synthesizes influences ranging from H.P. Lovecraft to hard-boiled crime fiction in nine ingeniously plotted tales whose many layers peel away to reveal highly original and viscerally unsettling premises. Old Virginia is narrated by a Cold War–era CIA agent, unaware that the chaos around him is due not to Communists but to occult forces escaping the control of the scientists he's guarding. In the period western Bulldozer, a Pinkerton agent discovers that serial killings are part of an elaborate occult ritual for placating a supernatural entity. The title story concerns a triptych of photographs used by a malign cult to snare acquisitive art collectors. Barron intensifies the emotional impact of his fiction by providing protagonists who ultimately realize that their doom is inevitable and drag the reader down with them. These vividly imagined and eerily credible stories herald a potent new voice in horror fiction. (Sept.)
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