There's No
Time Left for You...
Children around Chicago are being abducted, for purposes that Claire Challis cannot begin to imagine. Two years ago, her own son was abducted, his fate never determined by the police. Now, her search for the truth brings her into contact with a strange cult, whose sinister members single her out as the object of their perverted desires. To her horror, Claire learns that the cult's secrets are far darker and more bizarre than she could ever have imagined, for its roots stem from Biblical times...and its history is one of depravity and violence that spans the ages.
Balak is a novel of grim reality and nightmarish fantasy, intricately woven into the esoteric universe that author Stephen Mark Rainey has perpetuated through his short fiction for over
two decades. With gripping prose and superlative imagery,
Balak shines as an example of subtle psychological terror combined with striking, graphic horror.
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Balak
By Stephen Mark Rainey
Formats:
Trade paperback (Wildside Press,
978-1-58715-263-4), 236 pages,
$16.95
Kindle edition (Amazon.com,
B004GNFVWE), $6.99
Audio book (Audible), $12.99
Paperback release
date: Spring 2000
E-book release date: December 2010
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You may
purchase an autographed copy of Balak, directly from the
author, for $16.95, shipping included! Click on the Paypal button
to order. |
About BALAK...
"Stephen Mark Rainey brings us a Cthulhu Mythos novel that neither
gushes with avant-garde blood nor creaks under the rusty chains of homage.
Balak strikes me as the best story of its kind since Russell Kirk’s
Lord
of the Hollow Dark (1979)...Rainey moves his story along with just the
right balance of suspense and revelation, and provides a resonant climax."
—Paul
Di Filippo, Asimov's Science Fiction
"With some nicely
creepy descriptions of non-human entities and torments endured by the
protagonists...Balak
is an excellent novel — highly recommended to all fans of mythos fiction. This
is what all us fans expect of Stephen Mark Rainey, well-known for his many
stories in various anthologies."
—Matthew T. Carpenter,
Nightscapes
On one level, Balak is a great police
procedural/mystery novel, and on another it makes all of the right moves as a
great work of supernatural fiction. One of the best and most satisfying reads
you could expect. Pick it up and add it to your horror library.
—James Robert Smith, author of
The Flock
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Stephen
Mark Rainey is author of the
novels
Dark
Shadows: Dreams of the Dark (with
Elizabeth Massie),
Balak,
The
Lebo Coven,
Blue Devil Island, and
The Nightmare
Frontier; the short story collections
Fugue
Devil & Other Weird Horrors,
The
Last Trumpet,
Legends
of the Night, and
Other Gods; and over 100 works of short
fiction. He achieved questionable infamy and absolutely no fortune as editor of
Deathrealm magazine, and has edited the anthologies
Deathrealms,
Song of Cthulhu, and
Evermore (with James Robert Smith). |
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