Jonathan Oliver

In the cavern-like darkness of the arcade, the neon phosphor-glow of the screen beckons you close. Drawn to the dancing pixels like a moth to a flame, digging deep in your pocket you pull out a shiny coin and thumb it into the slot as the electronic siren sings the fanfare that marks your arrival. One hand on the joystick, the other splayed across the control buttons, your pulse begins to quicken. Ready Player One Press StartYou've barely begun but suddenly the discordant bleeps are trumpeting your failure as your 8-bit adventure comes to an abrupt end. At least in the world of the video arcade you get a second chance. But what is the true price you pay when you make a pact with the digital demon? There's always another coin, an extra life to be earned, a second chance...Isn't there?GAME OVERA dozen stories of creeping dread and savage horror inspired by the humble amusement arcade and the classic coin-ops of yesteryear. Twelve tales to chill your blood by twelve masters of the malevolent and the macabre.Just keep reminding yourself, it's only a game...Isn't it?

Sharks - the ultimate predators, masters of their watery domain, a world that is entirely alien and inhospitable to man. So many aspects of the shark are associated with humankind's most primal fears. The tell-tale dorsal fin slicing through the water, the dead eyed-stare, the gaping jaws full to unforgiving teeth, the remorseless drive to kill and feed...Inspired by such classic pulp movies as Jaws and Deep Blue Sea - as well as such ludicrous delights as Sharknado and Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus - the stories contained within are rip-roaring page-turners and slow-build chillers that celebrate all things savage, pulp and selachian. Covering the whole range of speculative fiction genres, from horror and Steampunk, through to SF and WTF, these are stories with bite! Come on in. The water's fine...

In a slaughterhouse a group of men find they can tell fortunes from entrails; an invisible shark haunts a children's book author; redemptive magic is discovered in the ancient chalk horse of the Oxfordshire hills; a woman vicar is possessed by the soul of a reactionary priest - in these seventeen stories of the weird, uncanny and fantastical, British Fantasy Award winner Jonathan Oliver takes the reader into imagined lives and worlds. Horrifying, weird and darkly humorous, The Language of Beasts is the first collection of stories from this critically acclaimed editor.

In a slaughterhouse a group of men find they can tell fortunes from entrails; an invisible shark haunts a children's book author; redemptive magic is discovered in the ancient chalk horse of the Oxfordshire hills; a woman vicar is possessed by the soul of a reactionary priest - in these seventeen stories of the weird, uncanny and fantastical, British Fantasy Award winner Jonathan Oliver takes the reader into imagined lives and worlds. Horrifying, weird and darkly humorous, The Language of Beasts is the first collection of stories from this critically acclaimed editor.