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For more than two decades, Clive Barker has twisted the worlds of horrific and surrealistic fiction into a terrifying, transcendent genre all his own. With skillful prose, he enthralls even as he horrifies; with uncanny insight, he disturbs as profoundly as he reveals. Evoking revulsion and admiration, anticipation and dread, Barker's works explore the darkest contradictions of the human condition: our fear of life and our dreams of death.

Table of Contents:

• Cabal - novel
• The Life of Death - (1985) - novelette
• How Spoilers Bleed - (1985) - novelette
• Twilight at the Towers - (1985) - novelette
• The Last Illusion - (1985) - novella

In her cultural history of science fiction feminisms, Dr. Merrick explores the stories told about feminist science fiction by the various communities responsible for creating feminist sf culture, including authors, editors, fans, and scholars from across the disciplines. The Secret Feminist Cabal will appeal to every member of the feminist sf community, to fans and critics interested in the history of the science fiction genre, and to anyone interested in the production of feminist culture, history, and theory.

The year is 2420. Earth, underpopulated and prosperous, has become the target for the planet Calm. 10 million aliens under their ruthless Grand Garshall Farrago, are approaching in space ships. Their invasion will coincide with the world government carnival on july 4th. Only one person on Earth knows of the holocaust to come, and he belongs to the only organisation with the resources to outwit the aliens - The Cabal.

Pinball, Roatax, Faction, Eeekold: Four men and a woman - the most dangerous group in the world - The Cabal! These aliases can be found in Interpol TCID crimino-records, but The Cabal are outside the law-they make their own laws. They are brilliant lethal, feared-and virtually indestuctable. Pinball is on the run from the doffers hiding out in a derelict area of soho with the rest of the cabal unable to contact him. Solitude and depression lead him to the final act of self destruction but through the curtains comes the vision of Woo. Answering her call, Pinball jumps time and space to discover sanctuary with one fatal drawback-a virulent cancer to which even a member of The Cabal is not immune.

It all began with an advert in a strange newspaper Pinball chanced upon. An advert for intergalactic pilots-it sounded incredible, but to Pinball it was a lifeline he thankfully grasped. Within no time at all he was on a plane to New York, to adventures that even he would not have envisaged, and beside him on the voyage sat Vandal.

You may have heard of Johannes Cabal; he is a necromancer and a little infamous. He is also very sensitive to attempts on his life. When a murder of crows tries to... well, murder him, and the contents of his bath are transmuted into hot nitric acid, he suspects someone may mean him harm. The trail leads to one of the less travelled parts of Hell itself, and there Cabal will need a guide.

As Dante had his Virgil, so Cabal employs the services of a devil who is a monster, a predator, and -- most alien of all to Cabal -- a woman. The devil Zarenyia and he delve deep into Hell, even into Satan's greatest mistake, to confront challenges quite outside the ken of any mortal. But one should always use a long spoon when supping with a devil, and Cabal soon realises the unthinkable, a horror beyond his experience. He is actually beginning to like her.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has this much in common with Emily Dickinson; because he could not stop for Death, she kindly stopped for him. Well, perhaps not that kindly.

Read the full story for free at Tor.com.

In this uproarious and clever debut, it's time to give the Devil his due.

Johannes Cabal, a brilliant scientist and notorious snob, is single-mindedly obsessed in heart and soul with raising the dead. Well, perhaps not soul... He hastily sold his years ago in order to learn the laws of necromancy. But now, tormented by a dark secret, he travels to the fiery pits of Hell to retrieve it. Satan, who is incredibly bored these days, proposes a little wager: Johannes has one year to persuade one hundred people to sign over their souls or he will be damned forever.

To make the bet even more interesting, Satan throws in that diabolical engine of deceit, seduction, and corruption known as a "traveling circus" to aid in the evil bidding. What better place exists to rob poor sad saps of their souls than the traveling carnivals historically run by hucksters and legendary con men?

With little time to lose, Johannes raises a motley crew from the dead and enlists his brother, Horst, a charismatic vampire (an unfortunate side effect of Johannes's early experiments with necromancy), to be the carnival's barker. On the road through the pastoral English countryside, this team of reprobates wields their black magic with masterful ease, resulting in mayhem at every turn.

Johannes may have the moral conscience of anthrax, but are his tricks sinful enough to beat the Devil at his own game? You'll never guess, and that's a promise!

Brilliantly written and wickedly funny, Johannes Cabal the Necromancer combines the chills and thrills of old-fashioned gothic tales like The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the mischievous humor of Wicked, and the sophisticated charms of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell and spins the Faustian legend into a fresh, irreverent, and irresistible new adventure.

Johannes Cabal, necromancer of some little infamy, returns in this riotously clever and terrifically twisted tale of murder and international intrigue.

In this genre-twisting novel, infamous necromancer Johannes Cabal, after beating the Devil and being reunited with his soul, leads us on another raucous journey in a little-known corner of the world. This time he’s on the run from the local government.

Stealing the identity of a minor bureaucrat, Cabal takes passage on the Princess Hortense, a passenger aeroship that is leaving the country. The deception seems perfect, and Cabal looks forward to a quiet trip and a clean escape, until he comes face-to-face with Leonie Barrow, an enemy from the old days who could blow his cover. But when a fellow passenger throws himself to his death, or at least that is how it appears, Cabal begins to investigate out of curiosity. His minor efforts result in a vicious attempt on his own life-and then the gloves come off.

Cabal and Leonie-the only woman to ever match wits with him-reluctantly team up to discover the murderer. Before they are done, there will be more narrow escapes, involving sword fighting and newfangled flying machines. There will be massive destruction, not to mention resurrected dead . . .

Steampunk meets the classic Sherlockian mystery in this rip-roaring adventure where anything could happen . . . and does.

Beyond the wall of sleep lies the Dreamlands. For countless millennia, they have been explored only by those philosophers, mystics, and poets with a certain detachment from mundane reality. Well, those halcyon days are over, beatniks.

Johannes Cabal is coming.

Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, is employed by the mysterious Fear Institute to lead an expedition into the Dreamlands to hunt and destroy the dread Phobic Animus, the very source of all the world's fear. Along the way, they will encounter witches, vile abominations, and far too many zebras.

And, when they finally come close to their goal, Cabal will have to face his own nightmares. But for a man who communes easily with devils and the dead, surely there is nothing left to fear....

Horst Cabal has risen from the dead. Again. Horst, the most affable vampire one is ever likely to meet, is resurrected by an occult conspiracy that wants him as a general in a monstrous army. Their plan: to create a country of horrors, a supernatural homeland. As Horst sees the lengths to which they are prepared to go and the evil they cultivate, he realizes that he cannot fight them alone. What he really needs on his side is a sarcastic, amoral, heavily armed necromancer.

As luck would have it, this exactly describes his brother.

Join the brothers Cabal as they fearlessly lie quietly in bed, fight dreadful monsters from beyond reality, make soup, feel slightly sorry for zombies, banter lightly with secret societies that wish to destroy them, and--in passing--set out to save the world.*

*The author wishes to point out that there are no zebras this time, so don't get your hopes up on that count. There is, however, a werebadger, if that's something that's been missing from your life.

Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy, has come into possession of a vital clue that may lead him to his ultimate goal: a cure for death. The path is vague, however, and certainly treacherous as it takes him into strange territories that, quite literally, no one has ever seen before. The task is too dangerous to venture upon alone, so he must seek assistance, comrades for the coming travails.

So assisted--ably and otherwise--by his vampiric brother, Horst, and by the kindly accompaniment of a criminologist and a devil, he will encounter ruins and diableries, mystery and murder, the depths of the lowest pit and a city of horrors. London, to be exact.

Yet even though Cabal has risked such peril believing he understands the dangers he faces, he is still underestimating them. He is walking into a trap of such arcane complexity that even the one who drew him there has no idea of its true terrors. As the snare closes slowly and subtly around them, it may be that there will be no survivors at all.

The Fall of the House of Cabal is the fifth book in Jonathan L. Howard's acclaimed Johannes Cabal series.