First Contact Horror

From master storyteller Stephen King comes his classic #1 New York Times bestseller about four friends who encounter evil in the Maine woods. Twenty-five years ago, in their haunted hometown of Derry, Maine, four boys bravely stood together and saved a mentally challenged child from vicious...

A writer in California. A doctor in Boston. A motel owner and his employee in Nevada. A priest in Chicago. A robber in New York. A little girl in Las Vegas. They’re a handful of people from across the country, living through eerie variations of the same nightmare.

A government special agent known only as the Signalman gets off a train on a stunningly hot morning in Winslow, Arizona. Later that day he meets a woman in a diner to exchange information about an event that happened a week earlier for which neither has an explanation but which haunts the Signalman. In a ranch house near the shore of the Salton Sea, a cult leader gathers up the weak and susceptible - the Children of the Next Level - and offers them something to believe in and a chance for transcendence. The future is coming, and they will help to usher it in.

First contact with a mysterious race of aliens reveals an unusual request; a family's pet dog comes to grips with the newly bestowed gift of human-like intelligence; a poet, in danger and alone on a distant world, makes unlikely allies; hundreds of years in the future, a famous hermit lives in the sea above the now-underwater Harvard University; former friends navigate unsteady peace between human refugees and the technologically superior race that saved them; in a future where human life can be infinitely extended through cybertronic rebirth, one woman declines immortality.

In the wake of the solar eclipse, a portal between our world and a paranormal realm opens—and a scientist’s life will never be the same, in this thrilling serialized adventure from the New York Times bestselling author of The Hollows. Dr. Renee Caisson knows there are worse things than an...

Alien visitors devastate a remote farm in Lovecraft’s first and best venture into science fiction.

Somewhere in Russia… Boris Petrov in his glory days had a career in the Russian secret service but now he is well past his prime and just a bored police officer. Annoyed by obnoxious colleagues and petty crimes he languishes in his filthy office. An emergency call changes everything. He is the only available officer and he reluctantly takes up the case. He locates the origin of the emergency call by EMMA in the middle of nowhere. He is greeted by an obscure professor in a secretive building full with high-tech equipment and the darkest secret he could never have imagined even in his ...

Something ancient has been unearthed on Mars… and it’s hungry. In 2052, a squad of Marines from the Earth Military Federation is dispatched to investigate a terraforming colony that has gone mysteriously silent. What they discover is a nightmare: the entire outpost has been brutally slaughtered after unearthing a massive alien structure buried beneath the Martian surface. As the unit delves deeper into the station, they uncover horrifying evidence of what caused the massacre—and realize too late that the true threat is still alive. Now, trapped in the dark corridors of the colony, the...

When CIA Special Operations officer Major Jim Carter is sent to the town of Serene, Texas, he's still grieving for Agent Cathy Abbey, who was not only a fellow agent—but the woman he loved. And the woman he chose to shoot rather than let Al-Shabaab insurgents abduct her. A decision that haunts him. When Carter arrives in Serene, it's to discover that all one hundred and twenty-one citizens of the town have been murdered by insectoid creatures assumed to be extraterrestrials. None of the authorities know how the aliens arrived on Earth or what their intentions are.

The year is 2164. Humanity has slipped the surly bonds of its golden sun, and prospers as it finds a way across the stars. A new era of exploration dawns, its citizens asking the question eagerly: “Is there anyone out there?” Now, the answer comes suddenly and violently, a surprise attack on a peaceful colony. Deadly conflict, long forgotten by the governments of Man, makes itself known once more. New enemies emerge from the void: children of war, heirs to its terror and splendor. But this foe too has questions to answer, faced as it is with a civilization previously unimagined.

A deadly cargo. A crew trapped in the void of space. A nightmare they can’t escape. The crew of the starship Antori thought they’d landed their biggest payday yet—an easy job transporting a sealed container to a nearby star system. But when curiosity gets the better of one crew member, the contents of the cargo are unleashed… and the nightmare begins. Hunted through the dark, claustrophobic corridors of their ship, the crew must fight to survive against a relentless extraterrestrial predator. As systems fail and hope dwindles, the real question isn’t just whether they can escape ...

"The Sleeper Awakens" is a thrilling science fiction epic that takes readers on a journey from the red sands of Mars to the very edge of reality itself. When Dr. John Cartwright and his team embark on a mission to explore Mars, they never imagined they would uncover secrets that would shake the foundations of human understanding. As they delve deeper into the mysteries of the Red Planet, they discover an ancient alien civilization with technology beyond their wildest dreams. But their groundbreaking find quickly turns into a fight for survival as they awaken cosmic entities known as the ...

After Task Force Ember’s successful intervention in Ukraine, John Dempsey disappears without a trace—with no notice or explanation given to his teammates. Spotty intelligence eventually places him in Russia where he is rumored to have been captured by the Russian FSB and is now presumed dead. Mourning his loss, Ember is forced to pick up the pieces, restructure, and continue their mission of keeping America safe. As the president’s “go-to” black ops asset, Ember is directed to find and finish off the Russian spymaster Arkady Zhukov and any last remnants of Zeta cell.

It's supposed to be a simple job, a look-see operation to make sure something terrible hasn't happened. The leader is prone to fits of violence, and there are rumors of previous human rights abuses. Only, when they arrive, the ship is...empty. The question is - where did everybody go? Armed only with riot gear, they explore the ship, intent on discovering the truth about what's happened on The Ark. What they find will be more nightmarish than anything they've seen before. Indeed, it's worse than anything they could imagine.

In Skin Folk, with works ranging from science fiction to Caribbean folklore, passionate love to chilling horror, Nalo Hopkinson is at her award-winning best spinning tales like "Precious", in which the narrator spews valuable coins and gems from her mouth whenever she attempts to talk or sing. In "A Habit of Waste", a self-conscious woman undergoes elective surgery to alter her appearance; days later she's shocked to see her former body climbing onto a public bus.

The Fourth of July in Red Hollow is a celebration of heat, noise, and tradition. But this year, the celebration is just camouflage. Photographer Owen sees it first—a glitch in his camera showing a man's smile stretching into an impossible, grotesque crescent . Hot dog vendor Al serves the same blank-faced man the same exact order twice in ten minutes, a film skipping on repeat . Then, in front of the entire town, Mayor Thompson collapses during his speech, only to rise again—unnaturally smooth, his eyes glassy, and wearing a perfect, hollow smile . When a silent, pristine ambulance ...

Shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award 2020! "A terrifying tour de force." --James Rollins "Readers will be riveted." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) Sally Jansen was NASA's leading astronaut, until a mission to Mars ended in disaster. Haunted by her failure, she lives in quiet...

It arrives without warning. A ghost in the machine, an impossible object moving inward from the edge of the solar system with terrifying purpose. At first, it is a scientific curiosity. Then, a global threat. When astronomers realize the object is not an asteroid but a guided ship, humanity has one chance to defend itself. Project Atlas: a planet-wide railgun network, the pinnacle of human ingenuity and our last and only hope. The world holds its breath as the cannons fire. And for six hours, they celebrate a victory. But the object is not so easily defeated. When the dust settles, the ...

A Washington Post and Publishers Weekly Best SF/Fantasy/Horror Novel of 2025 Alien meets Midsommar in this chilling debut adult novel from award-winning author Andrew Joseph White about identity, survival, and transformation amidst an alien invasion in rural West Virginia. Festering masses of...

A narrative of humanity’s age-old search for and fixation with extraterrestrials. First Contact explores the ancient idea—and epic quest to prove—that we are not alone in the universe. Presented in a heavily cabinet of curiosities format, the book explores our fascination with aliens from...