Tales From the Miskatonic University Library

Edited by John Ashmead & Darrell Schweitzer
Cover art:  J. K. Potter
Introduction: John Ashmead & Darrell Schweitzer

Miskatonic University, in fabled Arkham Massachusetts, has long been described in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and his successors. Here in the library, under lock and key, are some of the world’s most dangerous books, most famously the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab, Abdul Alhazred. There was a notably unpleasant incident in the late 1920s, when a certain Wilbur Whateley tried to steal that particular volume, and met a hideous fate. Fortunately, that time at least, the head librarian and his colleagues were able to save the Earth from the dreadful danger of the Dunwich Horror.

How safe are Miskatonic’s security precautions and what has perhaps disappeared from, or appeared in the collection since? What other creepy, maddening, extra-dimensional, or even sentient tomes reside on those forbidden shelves? What strange events have taken place among the stacks? Is there an inter-library loan system? Who, or what, comes after miscreants who fail to return books on time? In the modern, digital age, what would happen if some of the content escaped over the Internet? Are some of the books, or all of them, little more than slowly ticking time bombs? And what, dare we ask, can be found in the Cooking Section?

If you learn all the secrets of the Miskatonic University Library, will you go mad—or just wish you had?

A feast of bibliographical horrors by Don Webb, Adrian Cole, Dirk Flinthart, Harry Turtledove, P.D. Cacek, Will Murray, A.C. Wise, Marilyn Mattie Brahen, Douglas Wynne, Alex Shvartsman, James Van Pelt, Robert M. Price, and Darrell Schweitzer.

Contents:

• Introduction   John Ashmead
• Another Introduction   Darrell Schweitzer
• Slowly Ticking Time Bomb   Don Webb
• The Third Movement   Adrian Cole
• To Be in Ulthar on a Summer Afternoon   Dirk Flinthart
• Interlibrary Loan   Harry Turtledove
• A Trillion Young   Will Murray
• The Paradox Collection   A.C. Wise
• The Way to a Man’s Heart   Marilyn “Mattie” Brahen
• The White Door   Douglas Wynne
• One Small Change   P.D. Cacek
• Recall Notice   Alex Shvartsman
• The Children’s Collection   James Van Pelt
• Not in the Card Catalog   Darrell Schweitzer
• The Bonfire of the Blasphemies   Robert M. Price

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