Showing results by author "Kevin Candela" in All Categories

The Red Bozos were the friendliest faces in frenetic Midlands Amusement Park. Security personnel, yes, but they were more than that, for lost children seeing one of those garish outfits and the sympathetic smile on the painted face atop it knew they would soon be reunited with their parents.

In a quartet of tribute tales from theses authors that both idolize and have recently encountered Hank's works, the voice of the poet laureate of the gutter is restored, so that once more the good duker can take a swing.

Unityfest is more than just a huge pop event organized by superdivas Tarina, B-Word, and Kalli, globally renowned as the Sirens, for the chart-topping trio are in reality sorcerers many centuries old and the event is a ruse designed to drain the very life from their millions of adoring fans, thus making the three veritable gods on Earth.

In the year 1284, the legendary Pied Piper punished the villagers of Hamelin, Germany, by leading their children off into a hole that opened in a mountainside. The parents never saw their offspring again. This much is common knowledge thanks to the tale of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, which came to be in the year 1482.

On distant Gavelin, Roman and Nikala face the daunting prospect of taking on the consolidated powers of most of Gavelin’s Howling Wind-infected tyrants without the aid of their Dragon Child friend Chalice Rayne. Meanwhile here on Earth, renegade conservative mouthpiece Carl Morrow’s stolen super-stealth blimp is quickly running out of corners to hide in as “Charlie Tomorrow” and his high-tech rebels work to put together a plan to expose the true darkness that has all but overtaken their society. But Charlie and his crew have no idea how truly outmatched they are.

The world teeters on the edge of catastrophe in the sixth and final saga in the Krakenstein series. But this time it’s not because of some nightmarish new city-smashing horror arriving on the scene. No, it’s our species on the attack. Well, a handful of humans, anyway. Fanatic extremists, Generals Blakemoor and Dilack, have taken over the United States’ military forces who in turn had stepped in to run the country after the devastating strike on Washington by Vampulon, the extraterrestrial horror.

The ghosts were there the day it opened for business. The Leeward Hotel is a mirror. From the moment its first stone was laid, it has reflected the mysteries of the restless and the restless Atlantic Ocean over which it looms atop a stark cliff in Cornwall, with guests frequently seeing the highly eccentric owners walking around the halls while they were supposedly locked in their private haven upstairs.

You won’t find the place on any map. It’s somewhere else, hidden away in a wondrous parallel reality of mystery, awe, and terror. This both is and isn’t the “Old West”. They share the same stark and unforgiving terrain and exist in the same timeframe, primarily the 1800s. But there the similarities cease. In Spirit County, for example, death is often not the end, but the beginning. Sometimes even the middle. Mythological creatures prove real...and deadly. Towns can disappear by daylight and return with the setting sun.

It’s that time of year again. In the shadows, otherworldly creatures lurk, under the gravestones, the dead begin to rise, and in that old house down the lane, ghosts rattle their chains. For once more, Trick or Treat Thrillers brings you our pick of the best Indie-paranormal short stories for 2020! Before you begin listening to our selection of 13 stories, however, we recommend you first check under your bed, in your closet, and outside of your window. You never know what may be coming your way.

The big squidheaded guy who's not Cthulhu is back - and this time, it's really, really personal, because the monster who's out to destroy him is his own brother! Twenty years after Krakenstein and Magenti saved humanity from itself, the giant monster battles are still going on. Towering "bug lady" Magenti may have disappeared of late, but Krakey is still patrolling the world. Tailed by the Moray 2 stealth sub, which is captained by none other than longtime Krakenstein "human friend" Shea Sanders, the titan isn't able to stop the latest problem by himself.

Something ancient has awakened in the depths. So terrifying is this newly freed entity that sea slugs are driven onto resort beaches to climb hotel walls...and die. Yet the threat posed by the primal sentience is far less obvious to the world's dominant species, seemingly manifesting in the trance states of a couple rescued by Ben Miles and his celeb wife, Morna Belchek...and subsequently communicated to Morna as well.

Here collected for the first time are the thrilling and hopefully hilarious tales of the world's most embarrassed superhero. "Everyman" Race Harleson just wanted to do his guard shift and pick up his check - so the cosmos decided he'd get to be special, giving him Superman-like powers including strength, flight, and virtual invulnerability...so long as he's completely naked while he fights crime and saves the world.

When monsters rule the earth...Herein you’ll find a series of sojourns to places where humans are often quite literally overshadowed by the action at hand. This collection of exciting tales from writers who love the giant monster genre runs the gamut from mutation to invasion - from insurrection to vengeance - from the distant past to a far-off future, all with a single common factor: Great big game-changing things.

Here, for the first time, is the complete saga of Krakenstein, the titanic mutant who's out to save the world, whether humanity likes it or not. Noble environmental scientist Dr. Max Shepperton's bizarre transformation from nerdy human being to a 300-foot-tall squid-headed monster seems a great tragedy, until the world realizes that his Godzilla-sized new form might be the one thing that can prevent the Earth's vengeance against greedy corporate profiteers from bringing about the extinction of Shepperton's former species - the human race.

In the thrilling conclusion of the Krakenstein Trilogy, it’s all-out giant monster mayhem featuring a total of no less than 10 - count ’em, 10 - titanic terrors. Merged with the mysterious subterranean facility whose origins predate even the dinosaurs, Dr. Deanna Sharlayne is determined to help her...well, he used to be a man, anyway...take on the fury of our world itself.

In Children of the Coming World, plant workers arrive one morning to the utterly bizarre sight of some form of cocoon, big as a bus, bonded to one of the huge towers. They quickly realize there's more than one...and what's inside them is coming out all too soon. Then in Mars One we find out just how much humanity's eager reach may be exceeding its grasp when "space boredom" drives one astronaut to what should have been a mere harmless prank....

From the creator of the Krakenstein Trilogy comes a tale of mounting terror fueled by scientific curiosity, government secrecy, and U-238: When a geology student stumbles upon a bizarre little cube that absorbs incoming energy and defies dissection and analysis, it's passed up through the university to government scientists who can't get any further with figuring it out either. Incapable of solving its mysteries, they decide to expose it to a nuclear fission reaction...which is exactly what it's been waiting for.

Last seen sinking to the extreme depths of the Pacific in Krakenstein vs. Koalatron, the giant creature dubbed Krakenstein rises and vengefully attacks...Las Vegas? Meanwhile south of Australia, an incredible ancient "laboratory" is accidentally discovered by scientists looking for mystery-shrouded Emerald Island. Older than the dinosaurs and seemingly carved from the bedrock beneath the ocean floor, the staggering realm features technology beyond humanity's wildest dreams.

Dracula, Wolfman, The Mummy, Frankenstein. You've lived with the stories your whole life. You've read the tales. You've watched the films. But what if the stories were different? What if the things you read about these monsters were warped and twisted? Here lie stories you may not have heard. Stories both weird and shocking. Bizarre and grotesque. Alternate versions of your favorite classic monsters you've never read and never will again. Featuring 13 stories by Jonathan Moon, The Sisters of Slaughter, Tom Lucas and more!

In his storied days, Sinbad travelled the world, charting its lands, experiencing the wonders, terrors, and treasures to be found across the Seven Seas. But there is an ocean that he has not yet touched, let alone explored: one so incredibly vast and daunting that to look upon its shores - as indeed he has done all his life - is to gaze into an infinity of possibility...and danger. In the wake of the cataclysmic Siege of Aderadad, having learned his father is alive “somewhere out there,” Sinbad is devoted to finding him.