The Nightmare Chronicles

Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author Douglas Clegg comes the Bram Stoker Award-winning collection The Nightmare Chronicles -- 13 spine-tingling tales of dark mystery, supernatural thrills and twisted horror which "can chill the spine so effectively that the reader should keep paramedics on standby, " says bestselling author Dean Koontz. “Clegg brings his stories together with a chilling fictive conceit....The effect is dangerously seductive.” -- Locus “Clegg's (The Halloween Man, etc.) collection of 13 tales takes risks and is full of passions that sometimes burst forth violently…Clegg's use of innovative metaphors catapults each story beyond a landscape crowded with the horror genre's usual monsters and madmen into a territory he alone can claim.” – Publisher’s Weekly “…Like M. R. James, Douglas Clegg can ‘write about the vile and horrific without seeming to smear it over himself or you.’ Like Shirley Jackson he has an understated precision of language and the ability to portray his characters emotionally in a wickedly effective manner. And, like Stephen King, he loves to tell stories and tells them well. At the same time, Clegg is a thoroughly modern writer...Without doubt, one of the best collections of the year. -- DarkEcho “Every story is perfectly different and definitely unlike any other horror novel/film I’ve read or watched…all of them have their images that could come back to you in your dreams.” – Doubleshot Reviews. “Clegg writes some of the most harrowing, unforgettable tales you're ever likely to come upon.. Clegg's best stories…slip into your subconscious and stay with you well beyond the last turning of the page...” – The Chiaroscuro “I was truly impressed with this collection, and was not surprised to learn that it received the 1999 International Horror Guild Award for Best Collection, and the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Fiction Collection.” – Casual Debris Contains the short stories "Underworld" "O Rare and Most Exquisite" "The Rendering Man" "The Fruit of Her Womb" "The Hurting Season" "Chosen" "The Night Before Alec Got Married" "Only Connect" "The Little Mermaid," "Damned If You Do" "The Ripening Sweetness of Late Afternoon" Plus the acclaimed novelettes, "White Chapel" and "I Am Infinite, I Contain Multitudes."