A supernatural comedy adventure about a family of ghost hunters - Stranger Things meets Little Miss Sunshine After the events in Coldbay where they sealed the hell hole, Lucy is trying to learn more about it and how to save Murzzzz from eternal damnation. Yes, he's a demon and all, but he's also a part of the family. Lucy's turned to her diocese for guidance but they've gone strangely quiet so she persuades the Rooks to drive there so they can sort this out. On the way, they realise something is incredibly wrong with a motorway service station - it's empty except for lingering, sad ghosts and... oh no, another hell hole has opened up and sucked in a load of people. They know they need to stay until they can rescue them and close it down, but not before they've done everything in their collective power to rescue Murzzzz. After all, one man's hellhole is a family of ghost-hunter's opportunity to save their demon friend. That's the expression, right? Praise for Gabby Hutchison Crouch 'Gabby is one of the funniest writers I know.' Sarah Millican 'Very funny. If you like Terry Pratchett, or think gothic fairytales should have more LOLs, 'tis the book for ye.' Greg Jenner 'Pratchetty fun for all the family.' Lucy Porter 'Magical, surprising and funny.' Jan Ravens

"An illuminating contribution to scholarship on the vampire figure."-Slavic Review Even before Bram Stoker immortalized Transylvania as the homeland of his fictional Count Dracula, the figure of the vampire was inextricably tied to Eastern Europe in the popular imagination. Drawing on a wealth of previously neglected sources, this book offers a fascinating account of how vampires-whose various incarnations originally emerged from folk traditions from all over the world-became so strongly identified with Eastern Europe. It demonstrates that the modern conception of the vampire was born in the crucible of the Enlightenment, embodying a mysterious, Eastern otherness that stood opposed to Western rationality. From the Prologue: From Original Sin to Eternal Life For a broad contemporary public, the vampire has become a star, a media sensation from Hollywood. Bestselling authors such as Bram Stoker, Anne Rice and Stephenie Meyer continue to fire the imaginations of young and old alike, and bloodsuckers have achieved immortality through films like Dracula, Interview with a Vampireand Twilight. It is no wonder that, in the teenage bedrooms of our globalized world, vampires even steal the show from Harry Potter. They have long since been assigned individual personalities and treated with sympathy. They may possess superhuman powers, but they are also burdened by their immortality and have to learn to come to terms with their craving for blood. Whereas the Southeast European vampire, discovered in the 1730s, underwent an Americanization and domestication in the media landscape of the twentieth century, the creole zombies that first became known through the cheap novels and horror films of the 1920s still continue to serve as brainless horror figures. Do bloodsuckers really exist and should we really be afraid of the dead? These are the questions that I seek to tackle, following the wishes of my daughter, who was ten when I started this project.

Discover what the locals of the Outer Banks have known for years... it's haunted. Rich in natural beauty and history, it makes sense that this area is also a haven for ghosts. From a sea captain who haunts several popular restaurants to a spirit that walks alone in Nags Head Woods, ghostly inhabitants have made the decision to stay along this expanse of coastal wonder. Find out that hoodoos are not the only creatures creating havoc on Mother Vineyard. Read a legend about a crazy woman wandering on the beaches of Nags Head and Cape Hatteras. Learn of a murdered girl and her connection to the Pioneer Theater. Visit haunted lighthouses to see an entertaining ghost or a spirited keeper's daughter, killed by a rogue wave. Whether you are a longtime lover of the Outer Banks or fascinated with stories of pirates, ghost ships, and mischievous ghosts, these haunts will keep your hair on end!

Since the 1950s, there have been men and women around the world claiming to have had contact with human-like visitors from space. This book explores how the ""Contactee"" subculture has critiqued political, social and cultural trends in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Not merely quaint relics of the 1950s Atomic Age, Contactees have continued their messages of political and cultural transformation into the 21st century. Regardless of whether these alleged contacts took the form of physical meetings or channeled paranormal psychic communications, or whether they actually happened at all, Contactees have provided a consistently relevant source of commentary on this world and beyond.

Spooky Stories to tell even after the campfire burns out! Unfold a camp chair, huddle close to the fire, and get ready for thirty creepy tales of ghostly hauntings, eerie happenings, and other strange occurrences from times past. Set deep in the woods where no sane person would dare to go, along murky bottomless lakes, and on cobblestone streets that empty before sundown, the
stories in this entertaining and compelling collection will have you looking over your shoulder again and again.
Bone-chilling, frightful folklore traditions are kept alive in these expert retellings by master storyteller S. E. Schlosser and through artist Paul Hoffman's evocative illustrations. You'll meet ghosts and witches, hear things that go bump in the night, and feel an icy wind on the back of your neck even as you inch
closer to the crackling, glowing embers. Whether read in a group around the campfire on a dark and silent night or alone with a flashlight from the safety of your sleeping bag, this is a collection to treasure.

San Antonio holds a proud place in Texas history, but it is also a city soaked in blood and violence. Take a guided tour of its most haunted places. Spend a night at the Menger Hotel, where a spirit child giggles in the hallway and a ghostly lady in blue dances the night away. Have a drink with spirits of a different kind at the Cadillac Bar where ghosts make crashing and dragging sounds overhead. Listen as souls of thousands whisper through the adobe walls of the famed Alamo. Keep your wits about you, and pay close attention, for in San Antonio the dead can still be heard.

Massachusetts has many haunted towns! Blending legend and history, step back in time to when the first "shot heard round the world" began the American Revolution. Read about the battle of North Bridge, where Americans first tasted victory, and home of the first American flag. Follow ghostly footsteps at Munroe Tavern and Colonial Inn where people feel an unknown presence in the mist. Meet the witch of Shawsheen who saved a sickly town from death. These ghostly voices can still be heard in the hours before the sun rises, as their restless spirits roam famous houses and taverns. Their stories will chill you.

What begins as a test of bravery or a sleepover activity-chanting in front of a mirror, riding an elevator alone, taking pictures in the dark-can become something . . . dangerous. This compendium collects the most spine-chilling games based on urban legends from around the world. Centuriesold games such as Bloody Mary and Light as a Feather, Stiff as a Board are detailed alongside new games from the internet age, like The Answer Man, a sinister voice that whispers secrets to whomever manages to contact him with a cellphone. With step-by-step instructions, historical context, and the stakes for each game, this black handbook is the ideal gift for anyone looking for a late-night thrill-but beware who, or what, may come out to play.

Taking Mary Shelley’s novel as its point of departure, this collection of essays considers how her creation has not only survived but thrived over 200 years of media history, in music, film, literature, visual art and other cultural forms. In studying monstrous figures torn from the deepest and darkest imaginings of the human psyche, the essays in this book deploy the latest analytical approaches, drawn from such fields as musicology, critical race studies, feminist studies, queer theory and psychoanalysis. The book interweaves the manifold sounds, sights and stories of monstrosity into a conversation that sheds light on important social issues, aesthetic trends and cultural concerns that are as alive today as they were when Shelley’s landmark novel was published 200 years ago.

'A great storyteller' Madeline Miller, author of Circe In this powerful new collection, Charlotte Higgins foregrounds Greek mythology's most enduring heroines. Here are the myths of Heracles and Theseus, the Trojan war, Thebes and Argos and Athens. They are stories of love and desire, adventure and magic, destructive gods, helpless humans, fantastical creatures and resourceful witches. In this telling the female characters take centre stage as Athena, Helen, Circe, Penelope and others weave these stories into elaborate imagined tapestries. In Charlotte Higgins's thrilling new interpretation of these ancient stories, their tales combine to form a dazzling, sweeping epic of storytelling. With a series of original drawings by Chris Ofili.

When it comes to historical mysteries, Texas offers numerous long-perplexing conundrums for readers. Several of the Lone Star state's enduring legends are associated with historical figures including Davy Crockett, Billy the Kid, John Wilkes Booth, the outlaws Sam Bass and Bill Longley, and the pirate Jean Lafitte. Lost mines and buried treasures are also a long-standing part of Texas history and lore, and the location of several of these riches has baffled searches for well over a century. Searches for these elusive treasures, represented by gold and silver ingots and coins, have ranged from Texas' mountain ranges to the prairies to the coast, and continue to this day. Texas may also have been the site of several "lost civilizations. Growing evidence suggests that Mayans, a culture long associated with southern Mexican and Central America may have established settlements in the state after having disappeared from their homeland. The Caddo Mounds spread out over a large section of southeast Texas represent what amounted of a city that was once inhabited by thousands of natives. The questions of where they came from and what became of them continue to intrigue researchers. This lively, easy-to-read book will cover these and many other mysterious happenings and will be popular with residents and tourists.

New York State is one of the most famous and influential places on the planet, so it should come as no surprise that it has a rich UFO history. The state's first UFO sighting came more than 150 years ago, but it doesn't end there! From important government military intelligence and commercial airline reports to downtown NYC sightings of flying saucers on Broadway and at the Empire State Building, UFOs have been witnessed in the New York State skyscape by some of the most credible people in history. Police officers, movie stars, business men and women, and others have all been privy to strange UFO encounters. Whether it's Jimi Hendrix saved by aliens in upstate New York or geologists investigating crop circles on the north shore of Oneida Lake, people are stepping up to tell their stories. It's been said that famous blackouts, abductions, and special visitations have all occurred while normal New Yorkers have lead their daily lives. So search the skies with us in this comprehensive history of UFOs Over New York. If you dare.

Twenty-five frightening tales about Gettysburg ghosts, the haunted Chesapeake, and much more, in an all-new addition to the bestselling Spooky series.

The Cincinnati tri-state area (Ohio, Indiana, & Kentucky) offers many creepy and ghostly locations to explore! Take your place upon a throne in a haunted castle in Loveland, Ohio and get a glimpse of a hidden underground church in Utopia, Ohio. Check out the eerie abandoned Hayswood Hospital, where no human has checked in since 1983. Stop by a charming B & B, complete with a resident ghostly feline, or take a family hike in a haunted state park. Meet uninvited paranormal houseguests and take a drive along Dead Mans Curve, where a faceless hitchhiker waits for travelers in the wee hours of the morning. Lets get ghost hunting!

Twin Cities Haunted Handbook is the newest book in the Haunted Handbook line within the popular America's Haunted Road Trip series. The Haunted Handbooks are city-specific travel guides to nearly one hundred places within a major city. Twin Cities Haunted Handbook is written with the ghost enthusiast in mind. All 100 chapters contain information on the history as well as the haunting surrounding each location, as well as detailed directions on how to locate each site. Many of the chapters also contain insider information that only a local would know, making it easier for ghost hunters to investigate. Ghost hunters Jeff Morris, Garett Merk, and Dain Charbonneau explore all the best haunted locales Minneapolis has to offer, including Dead Man's Pond, Memorial Pet Cemetery, Padelford Packet Boat Company, the Old Jail Bed and Breakfast, and St. Thomas College and the Legend of the 13 Graves. Each two page entry includes directions from downtown, an historical overview of the haunted place, the story of ghostly doings in that place, and advice on visiting the place yourself--if you dare.

This book presents the result of an innovative challenge, to create a systematic literature overview driven by machine-generated content. Questions and related keywords were prepared for the machine to query, discover, collate and structure by Artificial Intelligence (AI) clustering. The AI-based approach seemed especially suitable to provide an innovative perspective as the topics are indeed both complex, interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, for example, climate, planetary and evolution sciences. Springer Nature has published much on these topics in its journals over the years, so the challenge was for the machine to identify the most relevant content and present it in a structured way that the reader would find useful. The automatically generated literature summaries in this book are intended as a springboard to further discoverability. They are particularly useful to readers with limited time, looking to learn more about the subject quickly and especially if they are new to the topics. Springer Nature seeks to support anyone who needs a fast and effective start in their content discovery journey, from the undergraduate student exploring interdisciplinary content, to Master- or PhD-thesis developing research questions, to the practitioner seeking support materials, this book can serve as an inspiration, to name a few examples. It is important to us as a publisher to make the advances in technology easily accessible to our authors and find new ways of AI-based author services that allow human-machine interaction to generate readable, usable, collated, research content.

Fourteen Mind-Boggling Tales from the Badger State Was Joe Davis, Civil War veteran and Menominee Indian, really the son of Confederate president Jefferson Davis? What really happened the night that banker H. C. Mead was murdered inside the Exchange Bank of Waupaca? Did a flying saucer really land in Joe Simonton's yard, and did the aliens aboard ask for a jug of water and serve him pancakes? From pirate ships to pancakes from outer space, Myths and Mysteries of Wisconsin makes history fun and pulls back the curtain on some of the state's most fascinating and compelling stories.

Whether legend, folklore, or contemporary haunts, the Florida panhandle is full of spirit! Encounter the NAS Pensacola, where Union Civil War soldiers still walk among the living. Meet a precocious Victorian-era child playing in the Pensacola Little Theatre. Sleep in the bed of an eighteenth-century ship's captain who roams the halls of an Inn at Apalachicola. Read true tales of small-town spirits who may chase you down wooden stairs, blow frigid air into your ears, and scream at you to "Get Out!" But don't leave just yet; there are many more ghostly "residents" to meet in Florida's Panhandle!

Bigfoot sightings have been reported in every state except Hawaii. Interest in this creature, which many believe to be as mythical as a leprechaun, is as strong today as ever, with the wildly popular show Finding Bigfoot persisting on the Animal Planet network and references to bigfoot appearing throughout popular culture. What is it about bigfoot that causes some people to devote a chunk of their lives to finding one? In Monster Trek, Joe Gisondi brings to life the celebrities in bigfoot culture: people such as Matt Moneymaker, Jeff Meldrum, and Cliff Barackman, who explore remote wooded areas of the country for weeks at a time and spend thousands of dollars on infrared imagers, cameras, and high-end camping equipment. Pursuing the answer to why these seekers of bigfoot do what they do, Gisondi brings to the reader their most interesting-and in many cases, harrowing-expeditions. Gisondi travels to eight locations across the country, trekking into swamps, mountains, state parks, and remote woods with people in search of bigfoot as well as fame, fortune, adventure, and shared camaraderie. Many of the people who look for bigfoot, however, go counter to stereotypes and include teachers, engineers, and bankers. Some are private and guarded about their explorations, seeking solitude during a deeply personal quest. While there are those who might arguably be labeled "crazy," Gisondi discovers that the bigfoot research network is far bigger and more diverse than he ever imagined.

Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, is the third-largest National Preservation District in the United States and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade riveting stories about their historic homes. Many of these tales defy rational explanation. When David Domine moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. However, before long, unnerving, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors caused him to flee his home in the middle of the night. Since that night, David Domine not only embraced the possibility of supernatural phenomenon but also turned it into a popular tour series and best-selling collection of books, which have brought new attention to this iconic neighborhood. The book that launched the guided tours, Ghosts of Old Louisville, introduced readers to the hauntingly beautiful Lady of the Stairs and the Widow Hoag, who waits eternally near Fountain Court for a lost child who will never return. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.

This book offers a vision of how evolutionary life processes can be modelled. It presents a mathematical description that can be used not only for the full evolution of life on Earth from RNA to modern human societies, but also the possible evolution of life on exoplanets, thus leading to SETI, the current Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence. The main premise underlying this mathematical theory is that the Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM) can be applied as a key stochastic process to model the evolution of life. In the resulting Evo-SETI Theory, the life of any living thing (a cell, an animal, a human, a civilization of humans, or even an ET civilization) is represented by a b-lognormal, i.e., a lognormal probability density function starting at a precise instant (b, birth) then increasing up to a peak time, then decreasing to senility time and then continuing as a straight line down to the time of death. Using this theory, Claudio Maccone arrives at remarkable hypotheses on the development of life and civilizations, the possibility of extraterrestrial life, and when computers will take over the reins from us humans (Singularity). The book develops the mathematical Evo-SETI Theory by integrating a set of articles that the author has published in various journals on Astrobiology and Astronautical Research.