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The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
- Stories
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 12 hrs and 15 mins
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Publisher's summary
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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- By: Thomas Pynchon, Frank Miller - cover design
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- Length: 37 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Winner of the 1973 National Book Award, Gravity's Rainbow is a postmodern epic, a work as exhaustively significant to the second half of the 20th century as Joyce's Ulysses was to the first. Its sprawling, encyclopedic narrative and penetrating analysis of the impact of technology on society make it an intellectual tour de force.
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"Time to touch the person next to you"
- By Jefferson on 07-04-16
By: Thomas Pynchon, and others
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The Necromancer's House
- By: Christopher Buehlman
- Narrated by: Todd Haberkorn
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Andrew Ranulf Blankenship is a handsome, stylish nonconformist with wry wit, a classic Mustang, and a massive library. He is also a recovering alcoholic and a practicing warlock, able to speak with the dead through film. His house is a maze of sorcerous booby traps and escape tunnels, as yours might be if you were sitting on a treasury of Russian magic stolen from the Soviet Union thirty years ago.
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Finally - Magic / Fantasy Novel for adults.
- By David on 04-23-14
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Meddling Kids
- A Novel
- By: Edgar Cantero
- Narrated by: Kyla Garcia
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Summer 1977. The Blyton Summer Detective Club (of Blyton Hills, a small mining town in Oregon's Zoinx River Valley) solved their final mystery and unmasked the elusive Sleepy Lake monster - another low-life fortune hunter trying to get his dirty hands on the legendary riches hidden in Deboën Mansion. And he would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for those meddling kids.
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should have been a YA novel
- By Bearded Barista on 08-20-17
By: Edgar Cantero
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Halcyon
- A Thriller
- By: Rio Youers
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 13 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Halcyon is the answer for all Americans who want to escape, but paradise isn't what it seems. A beautiful island in the middle of Lake Ontario - a self-sustaining community made up of people who want to live without fear, crime, or greed. Halcyon is run by Valerie Kemp, aka Mother Moon, benevolent and altruistic on the outside, but hiding an unimaginable darkness inside. She has dedicated her life to the pursuit of Glam Moon, a place of eternal beauty and healing. And she believes the pathway there can only be found at the end of pleasure.
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Intense and mesmerizing
- By Andrea on 09-25-18
By: Rio Youers
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The Jekyll Revelation
- By: Robert Masello
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 13 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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While on routine patrol in the tinder-dry Topanga Canyon, environmental scientist Rafael Salazar expects to find animal poachers, not a dilapidated antique steamer trunk. Inside the peculiar case, he discovers a journal, written by the renowned Robert Louis Stevenson, which divulges ominous particulars about his creation of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It also promises to reveal a terrible secret - the identity of Jack the Ripper.
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pleasantly surprised
- By Genevieve Paquette on 04-17-17
By: Robert Masello
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The Ploughmen
- A Novel
- By: Kim Zupan
- Narrated by: Jim Meskimen
- Length: 7 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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At the center of this searing fever-dream of a novel are two men - a killer awaiting trial and a troubled young deputy - sitting across fromeach other in the dark, talking through the bars of a county jail cell: JohnGload, so brutally adept at his craft that only now, at the age of 77, has he faced the prospect of long-term incarceration; and Valentine Millimaki, low man in the Copper County sheriff's department, who draws the overnight shift after Gload's arrest.
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Perceptive Narration
- By Abby Elvidge on 09-22-16
By: Kim Zupan
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The Trees
- By: Ali Shaw
- Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
- Length: 18 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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There came an elastic aftershock of creaks and groans and then, softly softly, a chinking shower of rubbled cement. Leaves calmed and trunks stood serene. Where, not a minute before, there had been a suburb, there was now only woodland standing amid ruins. There is no warning. No chance to prepare. They arrive in the night: thundering up through the ground, transforming streets and towns into shadowy forest. Buildings are destroyed.
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Post apocalypse with a little bit of magic
- By Tam on 09-20-16
By: Ali Shaw
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Southern Gods
- By: John Hornor Jacobs
- Narrated by: Eric G Dove
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Recent World War II veteran Bull Ingram is working as muscle when a Memphis DJ hires him to find Ramblin' John Hastur. The mysterious blues man's dark, driving music - broadcast at ever-shifting frequencies by a phantom radio statio - is said to make living men insane and dead men rise. Disturbed and enraged by the bootleg recording the DJ plays for him, Ingram follows Hastur's trail into the strange, uncivilized backwoods of Arkansas, where he hears rumors the musician has sold his soul to the Devil.
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Big, Bold and Bright
- By John on 08-23-11
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The Iron Dragon's Daughter
- By: Michael Swanwick
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Named a New York Times notable book of 1994, The Iron Dragon's Daughter tells the heartrending story of a changeling child who is kidnapped to a realm of malls and machines and enslaved in a vast, infernal factory. Ultimately, she escapes and attempts to educate herself about this alien world, while being tormented by visions of the life she was denied.
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Inconsistent story and makes for a poor experience
- By Martin Smith on 07-10-15
By: Michael Swanwick
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Great Writer - Good story - VERY Wrong Reader,
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Decent First Foray into Crime Fiction for Barron
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Finally more John Langan in audiobook form
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Poor Narration
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Incredible!
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The Nameless Dark debuts a major new voice in contemporary weird fiction. Within these minutes, you'll find whispers of the familiar ghosts of the classic pulps - Lovecraft, Bradbury, Smith - blended with Grau's uniquely macabre, witty storytelling, securing his place at the table amid this current Renaissance of literary horror.
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absolute gem
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The Fisherman
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In upstate New York, in the woods around Woodstock, Dutchman's Creek flows out of the Ashokan Reservoir. Steep-banked, fast-moving, it offers the promise of fine fishing, and of something more, a possibility too fantastic to be true. When Abe and Dan, two widowers who have found solace in each other's company and a shared passion for fishing, hear rumors of the Creek, and what might be found there, the remedy to both their losses, they dismiss it as just another fish story.
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The Horror of Loss
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You wouldn’t think events happening years apart, at points in the solar system hundreds of millions of miles distant, would have anything to do with each other. When she was six, Daphne was taken into a neighbor’s tool shed and came within seconds of never coming out alive. Most of the scars healed. Except for the one that went all the way through. You wouldn’t think that the serial murders of children and the one who got away would have any connection with the strange fate of one of Jupiter’s moons.
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What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On???
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The Gods of H. P. Lovecraft
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The Gods of H.P. Lovecraft: a brand new anthology that collects the 12 principal deities of the Lovecraftian Mythos and sets them loose. Featuring the biggest names in horror and dark fantasy, including many New York Times best sellers; full of original fiction; and individual commentary on each of the deities by Donald Tyson.
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Great story... hard to listen to
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Haggopian and Other Stories: A Cthulhu Mythos Collection
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A collection of thrilling tales from H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos by one of horror's biggest legends, this volume contains the very best of Brian Lumley's Mythos short stories.
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Another brilliant Cthulhu mythos collection!
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The Colony
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For over a century, the New Hope Island vanishing has tantalized the world. How did 150 people disappear from a lonely Hebridean island, leaving no trace and no clues? Media magnate Alexander McIntyre decides to solve the mystery, and gathers a team of experts to mount an expedition to the island. He hopes running the story as a rolling exclusive will revive the fortunes of his flagship news-stand title. He hopes to find conclusive answers to questions that have teased a curious world for decades. And he wants his own secret theory triumphantly vindicated.
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Solid atmospheric horror
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The Color Out of Space
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- Unabridged
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This is one of Lovecraft's most beautifully written and frightening stories. It is written from the perspective of a surveyor, who, while surveying a rural area that is to be flooded near the town of Arkham, comes across a mysterious, abandoned farmstead, which is completely devoid of all life. At the center of the farmstead is an old well. The site fills him with an unnatural sense of dread, and, as it turns out, there is good reason for that feeling.
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WARNING! Bad narrator.....
- By Doug on 06-11-13
By: H. P. Lovecraft
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X's for Eyes
- By: Laird Barron
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 3 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Brothers Macbeth and Drederick Tooms should have it made as fair-haired scions of an impossibly rich and powerful family of industrialists. Alas, life is complicated in mid-1950s USA when you're child heirs to the throne of Sword Enterprises, a corporation that has enshrined Machiavelli's The Prince as its operating manual. Consider also those long, cruel winters at the Mountain Leopard Boarding School for Assassins in the Himalayas, or that Dad may be a supervillain, while an uncle occasionally slaughters his nephews and nieces for sport.
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Signature dark crazy nastiness plus fun
- By Bill on 09-21-16
By: Laird Barron
What listeners say about The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- lf
- 04-14-20
Not happy. Beautiful.
The old gods reach from their dreams through the cracks in the world. With every breath they come closer to waking.
You will not survive this. Embrace it.
In other words, this is dark fantasy. It is beautifully written and narrated, but it will not make you happy. Push it off until after the quarantine is over.
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183 people found this helpful
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- Michael
- 08-22-19
Amazing Collection
There wasn't a single uninteresting story here. I'm new to this author, and this seems like a good introduction. His horror is cosmic, yes, and certainly has its Lovecraft influence, but there's something earthy and.... natural? Like having the unnatural in the natural. Forests, dirt, deep caves, rotting trees, fleshy patches of mushrooms, wolves, worms, meat. It brings an oddly visceral element to the lofty horror.
I rather enjoyed his characters, as well. I think it's almost clever, whether deliberately or not, that he tends to write hard-boiled tough guys who drink, smoke and fight. You don't just see a frail little bookish geek like myself helpless in the face of the indescribable, you see characters who would otherwise be intimidating in other circumstances. But he also isn't a one trick pony, you do get a variety of character types. I think those just struck me in particular thanks to how different it felt, especially on the heels of having read The Ceremonies by T.E.D. Klein, which features a plump, helpless little professor. which, while relatable, felt more standard.
Check this author out.
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67 people found this helpful
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- Elle
- 01-26-20
Sad day
I guess we all have our first time. I had this book in my sights for a while. Even listened to a sample. Had such high hopes, especially after reading all the reviews. This is the worst book I've listened to so far. Sorry. I found it confusing and off. Like...the author was trying to hard and then at some point just made ish up as they went along. The performance from the reader was fine and dandy. I had to make myself finish this book. Smh. Too bad.
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59 people found this helpful
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- Kindle Customer
- 09-12-18
horrible horror!
Not every sentence need to be a metaphor. This was just bad! 30 minutes of back story for people who do NOTHING! A couple of women at a cabin, that do nothing, someone goes to a GenCon and does NOTHING. Save your money .
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47 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 05-18-20
Good bones, poorly written characters.
Laird Barron writes female characters as though he has never spoken to a woman. They don't talk or behave like women do, and they're very rigid and unrelatable. his male characters are more vivid and realistic, but all of these stories feel a little bit "Macho man masturbating" to me. Some stories were well written and scary, but the poorly written and rigid characters ruined that for me. he wrote a story of two lesbians that read more as a straight man's erotica than anything relatable to a gay woman. Also, I was horrified at the choice to have the white male narrator attempt a Chinese accent. unnecessary and racist.
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39 people found this helpful
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- Christin lewicki
- 10-31-18
not great
some of the stories were pretty interesting, but most of it just felt like the same story with some slightly different details.
there was an insane amount of detail put into the pasts of most of the characters, but they still felt two dimensional.
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36 people found this helpful
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- Yves Tourigny
- 02-04-18
A match made in... well...
There’s could be no better reader for this excellent collection than Ray Porter. Barron is at the top of his game here, and hits every story out of the park. Porter renders them all distinctly and memorably. Turns out that the beautiful thing that awaited us all was this audiobook.
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34 people found this helpful
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- Kyle
- 04-17-20
Well Worth It
The format of the book makes it perfect for listening to. Self contained (mostly) chapters allow you to pick it up and continue listening whenever. Excellent narration and vivid imagery. Go for a run, pop in your earbuds, and ponder the black depths of the endless abyss.
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29 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 07-26-20
Sticks on you like eldritch fungus
What a collection! Barron has quickly become one of my favorite writers. His prose is bullets and brass knuckles. And the narrator is g*ddamned terrifying.
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27 people found this helpful
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- ArcaneBard
- 04-23-18
Pretty Good
All the stories are beautifully told and well written, very good but not quite mind-blowing. However, I absolutely adored "Vastation".
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15 people found this helpful