Buying books for avid readers is never easy, they often head out and scoop up their favorite authors as soon as new books hit the shelves. So, what do you get them for the holidays? They probably already have the latest Stephen King hardcover or Briane Keene paperback. The trick is to turn them on to new authors and get them hooked on titles they might not see on the shelves at the local bookstore.

Let’s take a look at a few 2008 titles that I think every horror fan should have on their shelves.

Horror author and game designer Richard Dansky (Firefly Rain, Worlds of Their Own) has offered up a new monster for the Halloween Horror collection here at Flames Rising.

Jeff Preston adds a little horror of his own with a stunning visual of this rarely seen but always felt creature…

The House Spider

Created by Rich Dansky
With Art by Jeff Preston

The House Spider does not feed on blood, or flesh, or anything so messy and gory as that. It lives in the dwelling places of the timid, the fearful, the cluttered and the cautious. It finds them by their tell-tale signs, their overloaded bookshelves and their disorganized collections, their piles of papers and dimly lit rooms, and there it settles, invisibly. In olden days, many lived in reading rooms, on top of green-shaded desk lamps or in the rare empty spaces on bookshelves. These days, they settle more beneath the computer desk, or near the television, or in amongst the video game consoles and their surrounding debris.

Elaine Cunningham writes character-driven fantasy stories that are rich with humor, complexity, and action. She could very well be speaking of her own fiction when she describes “a satisfying story” as “both surprising and logical.”

Since 1991, Cunningham has written extensively in the Forgotten Realms, co-authored a novel with Ed Greenwood, ventured into the Star Wars Expanded Universe, and produced a steady flow of short fiction.

Interview by Jeremy Jones