Cirrus@Austlit

'Cloaked in gothic shadows, soaked in blood, darkness descends on the world of Sherlock Holmes.

"I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart."

'Vengeance from beyond, forbidden passions and sadistic cruelty draw the great detective and his faithful companions into storms of madness and otherworldly violence which threaten to cloud the clarity of logic. Facing the eldritch reach of ancient talismans and arcane science, from the streets of London and Paris to the loneliest of manor houses, the great detective battles the weird and uncanny. Can steadfast reason hold against unspeakable terror when Sherlock Holmes can no longer eliminate the impossible? Follow the great detective through ten new tales of terror as he doggedly pursues investigations leading him to the edge of reason and beyond!

'With contributions by:

'David Stuart Davies, Lyndsay Faye, Nancy Holder, Mark A. Latham, James Lovegrove, Mark Morris, Charles Prepolec, Josh Reynolds, Angela Slatter, Kevin P. Thornton, and Stephen Volk.'

(Source: publisher's blurb)

'This new anthology focuses on the what-ifs of the "end-dates" that surround us, and how they impact our lives and our world, and ourselves.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

An anthology centred on the theme of 'hobo nickels', a form of folk art involving carving small denomination coins. In this collection, a number of the carved coins are cursed.

'Spider Webb fixes time machines for a living, and hates it. The time machine biz has changed: machines are portable, less expensive and even disposable. But one machine, an illegal, radically overclocked, hotrod built by Spider's boss, has been stolen and Spider is the only Time Machine repair man who might be able to find it before the end of time itself. A tale that spans different time zones of the 21st century and beyond.'

Source: Publisher's Blurb

'For now, Spider must be content with repairing broken time machines, rebuilding his life and avoiding the lunatic antics of his boss, Dickhead McMahon.

'Spider's life is status quo until he discovers inside a broken second-hand time machine, the corpse of a brutally murdered woman from the future. The Department of Time and Space steps in to manage the situation - leaving Spider asking a lot of questions that only lead to more questions; unsettling evidence, brewing trouble, and the knowledge that Spider himself might be involved in an epic battle for control of time itself.

'Will his knowing the future be a curse or a blessing? and will Spider Webb really find out how things turn out before they happen? With his new found knowledge, who can Spider trust?

'One thing is certain: it will all happen before the End of Time!' (Publisher's blurb)

A collection of speculative-fiction stories starring Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson.