Weird Tales magazine is known for launching a number of sub-genres of fiction—cosmic horror, swords & sorcery, dark fantasy, and others. It has also greatly added to existing genres like science fiction, horror, and—a personal favorite of editor Jonathan Maberry—weird mystery stories. Or, as they became known—occult detective tales. Here are all-original tales about people who peer into the shadows in order to solve a mystery. Sometimes successfully ... and sometimes the darkness wins. The stories range from nail-biting horror to very dark comedy, and there’s a generous mix of short stories, flash fiction (shorter works of about 1500 words), and poems. The lineup is killer, as you’ll discover, and the interpretations of what constitutes “occult fiction” is unique to each writer.
“The Eyrie” by Jonathan Maberry“Dead Jack and the Mystery of Room 216” by James Aquilone“Beneath the Scarred Pulpit” by Kenneth W. Cain“Denizen of Deep Holler” by Jennifer Brody“The Ephemera of Dreams” by Carina Bissett“Forming Threads” by Jody Lynn Nye“The Painted Unseen” by Taylor Grant“Bull Runs” by Kevin J. Anderson“Shimmer” by Keith Strunk“Hold My Beer” by Jeff Strand“La Silla Del Diablo” by Sofía Lapuente & Jarrod Shusterman“The Three-Headed Problem” by Rachel Aukes“Inception” by Brian Lumley“Laurel Caverns” by Lisa Diane Kastner“The Taxidermist” by Lyndsey Croal“Within You, In Time” by Brian Keene and Steven L. Shrewsbury“Sins Will Find You Out” by Cavan Scott“Night’s Disease” by Colleen Anderson
Jonathan Maberry is a New York Times bestselling author, five-time Bram Stoker Award winner, four-time Scribe Award winner, Inkpot Award winner, comic book writer, executive producer, and writing teacher. He is the author of fifty novels, one hundred fifty short stories, twenty-two graphic novels, twenty nonfiction books, and has edited twenty-four anthologies. His vampire apocalypse book series, V-Wars, was a Netflix original series. He writes horror, science fiction, epic fantasy, mystery, adventure, thrillers, and more. He is the president of the International Association of Media Tie-in Writers and the editor of Weird Tales magazine. Find him at www.JonathanMaberry.com and everywhere on social media.
Bronson Pinchot, Audible's 2010 Narrator of the Year, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible's Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for recent audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People's Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post.
Eric G. Dove is a multiple Earphones Award–winning narrator, and his credits include more than one hundred audiobooks. He is also an accomplished musician and a budding author, who published Ghosts of Royston in 2013. He is a graduate of Ohio State University.
Kevin Kenerly, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, earned a BA at Olivet College. A longtime member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, he has acted in more than twenty seasons, playing dozens of roles.
Audible bestselling, award-winning narrator Andrea Emmes was born in Hollywood, Florida, and grew up in both Tennessee and Rhode Island. She began her career in musical theater and went on to work in TV, film, and video games. A total "book nerd," she now enjoys narrating audiobooks at her home studio in San Jose, California. Her wide range of character voices and dynamic, emotionally invested performances have reviewers and listeners alike commenting on how she effortlessly pulls listeners in, and has versatility and charisma.
ROBIN MILES began narrating audiobooks at American Foundation for the Blind’s Talking Books Studio in 1994 and now boasts over 130 titles covering many different genres and a multiplicity of accents. She has appeared on the stage, as well as on screen and TV.
Sarah Mollo-Christensen is a voice talent and an audiobook narrator. A stage and voice actor, she received her BA from Dartmouth College and graduated from the Atlantic Theater Company’s Acting Conservatory in New York City. As an actress, she has appeared on prestigious regional stages, including the Folger Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, DC.
Timothy Campbell is the Audie and AudioFile Earphones Award–winning voice of hundreds of audiobook titles in almost every literary genre.
Kevin J. Anderson has written dozens of national bestsellers and has been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Readers' Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include the ambitious space opera series The Saga of Seven Suns, including The Dark Between the Stars, as well as the Wake the Dragon epic fantasy trilogy, and the Terra Incognita fantasy epic with its two accompanying rock CDs. He also set the Guinness-certified world record for the largest single-author book signing, and was recently inducted into the Colorado Authors’ Hall of Fame.
Winner of the prestigious Audie Award (for History and Audio Drama), veteran actor Robert Fass is equally at home in a wide variety of styles, genres, characters, and dialects. A seven-time Audie nominee with over 100 unabridged audiobooks to his credit, Robert has also earned multiple Earphones Awards, including for his narration of Joe Golem and the Drowning City by Mike Mignola and Christopher Golden. Robert has given voice to modern and classic fiction writers alike, including Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, John Steinbeck, Carlos Fuentes, Isaac Asimov, Ellery Queen, Steve Berry, Jeffrey Deaver, and Nele Neuhaus, plus bestselling nonfiction works in history, politics, health, journalism, philosophy, and business.
A two-time AudioFile Earphones Award-winning narrator, raised in the U.K. with American parents, Joel Froomkin provides a flawless blend between authentic American and British sounds. He is a specialist in dialects-having taught accents at NYU and coached Broadway stars and celebrities at major regional theaters and national tours. Classically trained with an MFA in theater from USC, he has over 130 full-length audiobooks to his credit and over 5,000 five-star reviews on Audible. He has recorded for Tantor, Hachette, Punch Audio, Bee Audio, and Audible Studios. His recording of Ruthless People hit #1 on the Audible romance bestseller list, and American Savages was a finalist for the Sultry Listener's Award. Recording LGBT material as "Joel Leslie," he was awarded Narrator of the Year 2017 and Audiobook of the Year 2017 by Sinfullymmbookreviews. When not recording, Joel is often chasing two loquacious wiener dogs who delight in preventing him from recording.
Frankie Corzo is a film and voice-over actress and audiobook narrator. She obtained a BA degree in theater studies from Montclair State University.
Scott Aiello has narrated over a dozen audiobooks and is a 2013 Audie Award finalist for his nonfiction narration of Sex and God at Yale by author Nathan Harden. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School drama division and has since performed and directed various New York plays and has been seen on television shows such as Person of Interest and Elementary. Before Juilliard, he was a regular in the Chicago theater circuit.
Read by Simon Vance, Kate Reading, Marisa Calin, Ralph Lister, Antony Ferguson, Henrietta Meire, and Tim Bruce
Hillary Huber has recorded hundreds of titles spanning many genres. She is a multiple Audie Award Finalist, an Earphones Award winner, and an AudioFile Best Voice. Hillary has a BA in English Literature and is a voracious reader and listener of audiobooks. Hillary now splits her time between LA and NY.
Smart, smooth, and multifaceted, Zura Johnson is a narrator, artist, and Lego enthusiast. Zura began her journey toward the world of storytelling at the age of five, when she memorized the entirety of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. She proceeded to recite them in their entirety to her family on a road trip... at which time her exasperated parents enrolled her in theater classes. Zura received her BS in theater performance, with a minor in Russian language and culture from the University of Evansville. She continued on to receive her MFA from The Old Globe Advanced Training Program/University of San Diego. After graduation she signed with her first voice-over agency in NYC, Arcieri & Associates. Shortly after that, she moved to the Philadelphia area, where she continued to perform on stage, and she began to book local and regional voice-over work. Zura's voice-over career took off after her family was transferred to Singapore for her husband's work. She worked with numerous studios in Singapore, recording projects for local and international clients from China to Australia. Some of the highlights for Zura were her extensive work with SAP, recording her first NatGeo documentary for NatGeo Asia. Zura has always been a storyteller. And throughout her training, she has focused a great deal of energy on her vocal work. As she began her journey with books on tape, narrating audiobooks feels like coming home. When Zura is not recording audiobooks, her greatest loves are traveling, making her kids laugh, and pen and ink drawing.
Heath Miller is a voice talent and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator.
Marc Thompson, a voice actor and Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator, earned his BFA from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, in 1997. He narrates many titles in the New York Times bestselling Star Wars series, and his voice can be heard in commercials, on radio, and on many cartoons, including MTV’s Daria, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Yu-Gi-Oh!, and G.I. Joe: Sigma 6.
Kyla Garcia is a film, stage, and television actress based in Los Angeles, California. She has earned an Audie Award nomination and seven AudioFile Earphones Awards for her work as an audiobook narrator. Her favorite storytelling moments include being a company member of Native Voices at the Autry, starring in the World Premiere of Sovereignty at Arena Stage, and creating the critically acclaimed one-woman show The Mermaid Who Learned How to Fly. Kyla's most recent project is the original feminist spoken-word digital series Herstory 101 featured in BUST Magazine.