Rich Thomas, founder and Creative Director of Onyx Path Publishing, announced the launch of a new World of Darkness Anniversary Edition Kickstarter for the deluxe printing of Ghost Hunters.

World of Darkness: Ghost Hunters presents paranormal investigation from a mortal’s perspective. Chapters cover skeptical ghost hunters, well-organized groups, natural mediums, and their families and the equipment they use to uncover the “truth” that ghosts are real. In the World of Darkness, however, paranormal investigators may unwittingly stumble across any one of its other denizens, putting themselves (and the creatures they encounter) at risk.

Undead & Unbound is a book of fiction celebrating those who have returned from the grave — in all their glory and in whatever form they take. You will find the famous blood-drinkers and flesh eaters here, but also ghosts, patched-together reanimates, fiends of myth and folklore, and some not-so-easily-identifiable creatures from beyond the grave.

Nineteen tales take the undead to their limits. From the distant past to the far-flung future, and to all corners of the Earth, the undead are eternal and everywhere: symbiotes, parasites, monster mash-ups and ghoulish grins, bleak tales of inescapable dread, an ancient evil from a far-away land with unspeakable dietary needs, a boy and his…well, it’s not a dog. History is brought to (un)life. Ghosts, specters, phantoms and haunts of every sort. Not-so-easily-classifiable stories that do new things with the basic premise of what’s alive, what’s dead, and what’s neither.

After successfully fulfilling the Kickstarter and shipping books to distributors, Onyx Path Publishing has released Geist: The Sin-Eaters Second Edition in digital and hardcover formats.

Geist: The Sin-Eaters Second Edition contains:

– The complete rules for playing a Sin-Eater in the Chronicles of Darkness, including systems for organizing and directing the efforts of large-scale organizations like Sin-Eater cults or organized-crime families.
– Burdens, krewe Archetypes, and a host of unique powers to create your Sin-Eaters and the strange death-cults they build.
– Example settings from across the globe and history, from the tumult of Washington, D.C. in the 1960s to medieval Carcassone to present-day Beijing.
– A detailed look at the Underworld and its denizens, from the terrifying Kerberoi to the never-born Chthonians.

Once upon a time, many years ago in the closing months of the 20th Century, one of my best friends said to me “We’re going to do something new. Something different. We’re going to play Wraith.” being in a group of players that was consistently made up of myself, the significant other of my best friend, and my best friend-as-Storyteller, I was immediately intimidated. I had no idea how to play Wraith, and – truth be told – had no idea how the rules worked or how the setting would be laid out, etc.

Let’s be clear here; Vampire is easy. You’re a vampire and you live in a city and you blah blah blah all night long until the sun comes up. And let’s also be clear that with Werewolf, you’re a werewolf and you live in the near-city or wilderness – or, as I’ve proven in MY OWN games of Werewolf that I’ve run – in the city proper and you blah blah blah all day and night long until your phase of the moon hits and you’re rocking at full-tilt Gnosis and Rage…

But Wraith was different.

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition is one of the best core books for the World of Darkness bar none.  To say that it brought Wraith into the 21st Century in style would be a gross understatement, and for Onyx Path Publishing, the book is a triumph of literary accomplishment as well as updating the game and streamlining it while keeping the parts of it that absolutely needed to be held close.

Handbook for the Recently Deceased, however, affords both the player and the storyteller a succinct, capsulized glimpse at Wraith: the Oblivion that keeps the would-be storyteller who is anxiously awaiting the opportunity to throw his or her players across the Shroud from cutting deep into their printer’s ink reserves and spitting out chapters to serve as the building blocks for what they can expect from the game.

All the stories they told you about what it would be like after you died? They were wrong.

Are you ready to join them?

Wraith: The Oblivion is the Storytelling game of passion and horror. Take the role of a ghost whose unfinished business won’t let them rest.

Can’t get enough spooks, spirits, and specters? Now you’ll never have to go a day without your ghoulish fix.

This ghastly collection features some of the scariest stories of murder, revenge, and suicide ever told, and the spirits that haunt their resting place for all time. As a truly unique convention, each story directly relates to the specific day on which it’s found.

All the stories they told you about what it would be like after you died? They were wrong.

Are you ready to join them?

James Herbert is a horror writer who hails from the U.K. He’s been compared to Steven King and, for the first time, his work is available stateside. The novel I read, ASH, is a reprint through Tor Books.

Herbert is a multi-novelist with almost two dozen books out in the wild. (Sadly, the author does not have an official website, or I’d link to it for you so you could see his bibliography of published works.) This is the first time I’ve read Herbert’s work; this type of story is more my fare than a continual stream of blood, guts, and gore. ASH begins with a mystery and a haunted castle. The main character, David Ash, is a ghost hunter and parapsychologist who works for the Psychical Research Institute. His abilities give him an edge and we, the reader, find out more about them as the story progresses.

Our gaze into the shadows of Halloween past continues today with the one-year celebration of our first anthology! Not only has Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror been well-received by the community, earning a special mention in Ellen Datlow’s Year of Best Horror, but our debut collection also won a Reader’s Choice award. Your can read a round-up of reviews and our award announcement here on the site, by the way.

In honor of our one-year anniversary, we would like to provide you with an excerpt from two of these tales. First, we’d like to share with you the nascent beginnings from Jess Hartley’s story titled “Immaterial Witness.” Then, we’ll share Alex Bledsoe’s unusual take on ghost hunters from his spooky tale titled “What’s the Frequency, Francis?“

It’s no secret we, at FR Press, love a good ghost story. Not only did we publish Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror last year, but we also enjoying playing games like Wraith: the Oblivion or watching films like The Others, Sixth Sense, and The Haunting in Connecticut.

If you like ghosts as much as we do, then you’ll want to float over to Tor Books today. From now through midnight on Halloween, you can enter to win not one, but ten books, ranging from anthologies to novels.

I’m a fan of Carnacki. The somewhat stuffy British paranormal investigator, whose adventures were first cataloged more than a hundred years ago in Carnacki The Ghost Finder by his creator, author William Hope Hodgson, have fascinated me since I was urged to read them by a good friend. I was curious, therefore, when I discovered that another author, Scotsman William Meikle, had taken up the mantle of telling some new Carnacki tales in Carnacki: Heaven and Hell by Dark Regions Press. I tried to be objective going in, but my fondness for the character had me pretty excited to read some new adventures.

I believe this book is cursed, so I will begin with a brief history of my relationship with this book. It has brought me as much woe as enjoyment, thus I keep picking it back up. I first heard of this collection of ghastly mysteries several months ago and my fingers twitched with anticipation. I waited patiently, and was quite happy to see it appear on the shelves of my local game store. Soon it was purchased and in my hot little hands. I read through it in a day and a half, luckily my job at that moment afforded me a plethora of spare time, and was soon tapping out a review. At that point things went a bit sour. My desktop computer began to have issues. At first it would simply delete files, and if you were thinking that the files it deleted centered on this review.. then you were correct. After it deleted my work for a few weeks it started to truly die and before long I had a very large paper weight. A friend then sent me an old laptop, I was delighted and began catching up on the wonders of that exist on the internet. A couple months later I attempted to write, for about the fifth time, my review of Haunted.

Who willingly walks into a haunted house?

Our readers do!

Since we launched Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror in October we’ve received some excellent reviews and recently we won an award for the anthology. We also just found out that Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror won the Best Anthology category in the Preditors & Editors Readers’ Poll. The P&E Readers’ Poll is an annual event hosted by the Critters Writers Workshop where readers and fans can vote on their favorite books, authors and publishers. Thanks to our readers we took the top spot in this year’s event and we’re honored that so many would vote for our little collection of horror.

Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror is available in eBook (PDF, ePub and Mobi/Kindle) and Print formats at DriveThruFiction.com. It is also available at the B&N Nook Store.

Being a fledgling author, I had often pondered what it would be like to participate in a public reading of one’s own work. I recently had the chance to find out. I agreed to assist in the promotion of Haunted: 11 Tales Of Ghostly Horror (Flames Rising Press, 2011), particularly since, as a contributor to the anthology, I have a personal stake in how well the book sells. Knowing that readings could help us immensely by generating interest and word-of-mouth advertising, I cast about town looking for likely venues.

It turns out that bookstores are good choices for readings, as one might expect. Also good, and perhaps not as obvious a choice in our Internet-driven culture, are public library branches.

Carl Kolchak, hard-bitten reporter of the supernatural from the TV series of the 1970s returns to action courtesy of an ongoing series of comic books and graphic novels from Moonstone Books. This time, Carl’s been fired by the owner of the newspaper that used to employ him, and he must find another way to make ends meet. He’s approached by a young couple, Otto and Mo Brerhahrer, who are ghost hunters in their spare time, and Kolchak can hardly say no, particularly when they offer to buy him lunch.

Through three related vignettes, the reader learns more about Kolchak, and why he has such a close connection to the supernatural. The first, titled “Fifteen Minutes,” find Kolchak at his wits end regarding where his next meal is coming from.

Who willingly walks into a haunted house?

Ghost hunters explore dark places, investigate clues and uncover secrets of the dead. Evidence of an afterlife may prove elusive and few hunters recognize some things are best left buried and forgotten.

Suspense and intrigue lurks inside HAUNTED: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror. Unlock the clues in these eleven mysteries. HAUNTED features stories by Alana Joli Abbott, Georgia Beaverson, Jason L Blair, Alex Bledsoe, Bill Bodden, Richard Dansky, Preston P. Dubose, Nancy O. Greene, Jess Hartley, Jason Sizemore, Chuck Wendig and was edited by Monica Valentinelli.

HAUNTED is now available in Print! Normally the softcover edition sells for $14.99, but as part of the Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale extravaganza going on all over the web we have a special discounted price on this title from FR Press!

Get HAUNTED: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror for only $9.99 in print!

Josh, Renai and their 3 children are the typical middle class American family. In what feels like a cliched setup, the Lambert family has just moved into a house, only to learn soon enough that it happens to be haunted. Various staples of ghost story elements follow, which are seemingly set up to where you feel a “poltergeist” clone coming on. But then… the entire feel and angle of the film is turned on its head, creating one of the best ghost story films released in years!

I intended to review INSIDIOUS when I saw it at the theater months ago. I so dug the hell out of this flick, so much so that I went to see it twice, which was a big deal as I’m currently a full time student who really has to mind his funds.

“That house is not fit to live in. No one’s been able to live in it. It doesn’t want people.”

As Flames Rising is looking for ghost related posts for this year’s Halloween season, I found this to be an opportune time to dive into some ghost flicks. And while I’m the kind of mook who’s all about “saving the best for last”, I’m going completely opposite with this one. “The Changeling” was chosen as my first ghost story flick to review, and honestly, it’s the movie that I hold all ghost movies in terms of masterpiece quality.

The story centers around John, whose wife and daughter die in a tragic accident before his very eyes.

FR Press, the publishing arm of popular horror site FlamesRising.com, announced today that its debut anthology is entitled Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror. The anthology will feature stories from Alana Joi Abbott, Georgia Beaverson, Jason L Blair, Alex Bledsoe, Bill Bodden, Richard Dansky, Preston P DuBose, Nancy O Greene, Jess Hartley, Jason Sizemore and Chuck Wendig. The collection of spooky stories also includes an introduction penned by Jaeson K. Jrakman, a ghost hunter who hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Edited by Monica Valentinelli, Haunted: 11 Tales of Ghostly Horror will debut just in time for Halloween. The anthology will be available in both e-book format and print. Readers will be able to pick up a copy from DriveThruHorror.com and other online retailers.