The Calling is a 100,000-word supernatural thriller in the vein of Peter Straub and Dean Koontz.
“The Calling is a powerful, gripping and terrifying novel, the sort that possesses your whole life while you’re reading it; it’ll stalk you through the day, and inform your dreams. Swartwood has delivered a novel that will become a classic.”
— Tim Lebbon
“Robert Swartwood’s The Calling is a diabolical rocket sled of a psychological thriller. Told through the vivid, almost druggy point of view of a young man on the edge, tangled in a web of tragedy and surreal horror, Swartwood’s novel gets under the skin and stays there. Highly recommended.”
— Jay Bonansinga
NOVELLAS & SHORT STORIES
Real Illusions: Stories
A mysterious man appears in town ... a man only children can see. A young boy’s heart does not beat ... just like everyone else’s in the world. A group of teenagers find an old woman in a cavern ... and a tunnel that leads to another dimension. Two boys on the run from an abusive father stumble across an empty farmhouse ... a farmhouse haunted by more than just memories.
As Robert Swartwood proves in his first full-length collection, illusions are all around us.
Some are real.
Some are terrifying.
Real Illusions is 80,000 words long and contains ten stories (including the novellas The Man on the Bench, Through the Guts of a Beggar, and The Silver Ring), as well as a special author introduction and story notes.
Phantom Energy: [Very Short] Stories
From Robert Swartwood, the editor of the critically acclaimed Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer, comes a collection of twenty-six very short stories, ranging from the real to the surreal.
Phantom Energy is 11,000 words long.
“The zip fictions of Robert Swartwood’s gorgeous Phantom Energy are as much about silent spaces as the inky depths of text, cluttered as they are with the disturbing exhaust of endless afterthought. These are overly animated pixels, antic antics, hyper-real really real reality on the sly sent reeling into the intimate spaces between the blanking stars.”
— Michael Martone
“The stories in Phantom Energy might look like little windows onto characters trapped in strange other worlds; but read on, and you’ll find something magical happens — they turn to mirrors, and there’s you behind the glass.”
— Ben Loory
The Man on the Bench
In the summer of 1922, nine-year-old Ethan’s only worries are chores, having fun, and keeping out of trouble.
But a shadow soon falls over the tiny backwater town of Benton, Pennsylvania that threatens to change everything.
First the cats disappear.
Then the little girls.
After that, the real horror begins.
The Man on the Bench is a 24,000-word coming-of-age story in the vein of Stephen King and Robert McCammon.
“I absolutely loved The Man on the Bench. It was wondrous, intriguing, sweet, scary, surprising ... everything a good story should be.”
— David B. Silva
Spooky Nook
A writer whose wife has been missing for eight months encounters a familiar old woman with an odd request—a request that will introduce him to a surprising evil.
Spooky Nook is a 10,000-word “prequel of sorts” to The Calling, a supernatural thriller by Robert Swartwood. The prologue and first three chapters of The Calling are included in this ebook.
In Solemn Shades of Endless Night
In Solemn Shades of Endless Night is a 14,000-word story about a man trapped in perpetual Halloween night who must make the ultimate choice: to save himself or the world.
“Halloween night. A battle between good and evil, darkness and light. The blurring of reality. A touch of trust and betrayal. The burden of the past on present and future generations. Robert Swartwood’s In Solemn Shades of Endless Night has it all. A classic Halloween tale that will keep you turning the pages.”
— David B. Silva
The Silver Ring
David Beveridge is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
When a gunman storms into a convenience store demanding money, he ends up shooting both the counterwoman and David. Only David doesn’t die. Neither does the counterwoman. David is able to bring her back to life with the help of a mysterious silver ring he found earlier that night—a ring that the darkest evil in the universe wants for its very own.
The Silver Ring is an 18,000-word novella that contains a special afterword and a bonus short story.
“Robert Swartwood’s The Silver Ring is a full-tilt no-holds-barred bobsled of a ride, absolutely engaging and a hundred percent fun. If this one doesn’t grab you, it’s time to up your Ritalin.”
— Joe Schreiber
Through the Guts of a Beggar
Josh wakes up one morning to find his ten-year-old brother filling in a grave in the backyard. From there, the day just gets worse.
Through the Guts of a Beggar contains the original 10,000-word novelette, a 3,000-word alternate ending, and two bonus short stories of pulpy horror goodness.
AS EDITOR
Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer
A story collection that proves less is more.
The stories in this collection run the gamut from playful to tragic, conservative to experimental, but they all have one thing in common: they are no more than 25 words long. Robert Swartwood was inspired by Ernest Hemingway's possibly apocryphal six-word story—“For Sale: baby shoes, never worn”—to foster the writing of these incredibly short-short stories. He termed them “hint fiction” because the few chosen words suggest a larger, more complex chain of events. Spare and evocative, these stories prove that a brilliantly honed narrative can be as startling and powerful as a story of traditional length. The 125 gemlike stories in this collection come from such best-selling and award-winning authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Ha Jin, Peter Straub, and James Frey, as well as emerging writers.
“The perfect story collection for all of us with too little time on our hands is a brilliant reminder of the magic that happens when you string the right words together. A must-read for anyone who is or wants to be a writer.”
— Jodi Picoult
Grateful acknowledgement is made for permission to reprint the following:
Excerpt from The Little Prince, copyright © 1943, 2000 by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Copyright © 2011 Robert Swartwood
Cover design copyright © 2011 Jeroen ten Berge
“Highway” photograph copyright © 2011 Sultan Alghamdi
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from Robert Swartwood.
www.robertswartwood.com
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