"Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him." This line was written by Ambrose Bierce in his short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Death by execution has historically been ritualized, perhaps to absolve those accomplishing the execution from guilt or blame.

Prepare yourself for the shocking, the strange, and the terrifying in Ambrose Bierce’s 1893 story collection Can Such Things Be? One of the greatest masters of horror brings you 25 tales of the supernatural and the unexplained. Whether in stories of ghosts sending desperate warnings to their human counterparts, psychics attempting to bridge unknown dimensions, howling werewolves, or a robot who takes on a life of his own, Bierce plumbs the depths of fear and fascination.

A Signature Performance: Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.

Out of the Silent Planet is the first novel of the Cosmic Trilogy, considered to be C.S. Lewis' chief contribution to the science fiction genre.

For a thousand years, the Sabbat Worlds have been lost to the Imperium, claimed by the dread powers of Chaos. Now, a mighty crusade seeks to return the sector to Imperial rule. And at the forefront of that crusade are Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First and Only - better known as Gaunt’s Ghosts. Trapped in the grinding trench warfare of Fortis Binary, the Ghosts find themselves drawn into a conspiracy to assassinate the crusade’s leader, Warmaster Macaroth.

Under almost constant besiegement by the hosts pouring from the Eye of Terror, Cadia acts as a bulwark against tyranny and death. Its fortresses and armies have held back the hordes of Chaos for centuries, but that grim defiance is about to reach its end. As Abaddon's Thirteenth Black Crusade batters Cadia's defences, and armies of the Imperium flock to reinforce this crucial world, a terrible ritual long in the making comes to fruition and the delicate balance of this brutal war shifts.

A quiet, wealthy plantation owner, Jack Hinson watched the start of the Civil War with disinterest. Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge.

Centuries ago, the murder of a beloved king tore apart the Kingdom of Caledun. The land was plunged into chaos and thousands perished. A new order was established in an attempt to return Caledun to its former glory. It failed, but in its place rose the beginnings of the Code. During this same period, the mystical caretakers of the Great Wood retreated from the world of Kal Maran, their disappearance an ominous harbinger of the suffering that was to follow. The Great Wood now grows out of control. Cities, towns, and villages have fallen before the relentless march of the forest.

In 1866, with the country barely recovered from the Civil War, new war breaks out on the western frontier - a clash of cultures between a young, ambitious nation and the Native tribes who have lived on the land for centuries. Colonel Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming’s Powder River Valley to lead the US Army in defending the opening of a new road for gold miners and settlers. Carrington intends to build a fort in the middle of critical hunting grounds, the home of the Lakota.

Following its initial appearance in serial form, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage was published as a complete work in 1895 and quickly became the benchmark for modern antiwar literature. In the character of Henry Flemming, Stephen Crane provides a great and realistic study of the mind of an inexperienced soldier trapped in the fury and turmoil of war. Flemming dashes into battle, at first tormented by fear, then bolstered with courage in time for the final confrontation.

Ninety-Three is the story of the Marquis de Lantenac, an exiled French nobleman snuck back into France to raise a Royalist army which will make the English invasion possible, Gauvain, Lantenac's great-nephew leading the Republican army to thwart him, and Cimourdain, a former priest and Gauvain's teacher and mentor, tasked to keep Gauvain on the right path. And in the end, who will face the guillotine?

Few events have sparked more legends and stories of the supernatural than America's Civil War. The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father's stories of the War Between the States, and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood. After reading about General Joshua Chamberlain's supernatural experience at the Battle of Gettysburg, Roberts began to collect tales of the blue and gray and write them down.

With a horse between his thighs and a weapon in his grip, the dashing Brigadier Etienne Gerard, Colonel of the Hussars of Conflans, gallops through the Napoleonic campaigns on secret missions for his beloved Emperor and his country. He encounters danger and hair-breadth escapes but never loses his bravado, his eye for a pretty girl, his boastfulness or his enormous vanity.

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness tells a story based on Conrad's own experiences in the Congo Free State during the 1890s. Set in Africa, the main character, Marlow, is asked to find and bring back the ivory trader, Mr. Kurtz. However, the deeper Marlow travels, the more ominous and depressing his surroundings become.

Cursed from birth. Forced into slavery. It's time to fight back. The blood of the Ancients is the most coveted ingredient in all of Damaris. The fabled elixir made from it grants those who drink it life that extends far beyond natural means. There is no higher honor in the kingdom then being granted the privilege of bidding for it. And the people found with the cursed blood? By law, they are the rightful property of the kingdom. They are tributes.

"Death is a dignitary who when he comes announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect, even by those most familiar with him." This line was written by Ambrose Bierce in his short story An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge. Death by execution has historically been ritualized, perhaps to absolve those accomplishing the execution from guilt or blame.

Famous for its irregular time sequence and twist ending, this is Bierce's most anthologized story.

Following its initial appearance in serial form, Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage was published as a complete work in 1895 and quickly became the benchmark for modern antiwar literature. In the character of Henry Flemming, Stephen Crane provides a great and realistic study of the mind of an inexperienced soldier trapped in the fury and turmoil of war. Flemming dashes into battle, at first tormented by fear, then bolstered with courage in time for the final confrontation.

Few events have sparked more legends and stories of the supernatural than America's Civil War. The accounts of gallantry and heroism have spread far and wide. Nancy Roberts grew up listening to her father's stories of the War Between the States, and she trekked over many battle sites with him during her childhood. After reading about General Joshua Chamberlain's supernatural experience at the Battle of Gettysburg, Roberts began to collect tales of the blue and gray and write them down.

With a horse between his thighs and a weapon in his grip, the dashing Brigadier Etienne Gerard, Colonel of the Hussars of Conflans, gallops through the Napoleonic campaigns on secret missions for his beloved Emperor and his country. He encounters danger and hair-breadth escapes but never loses his bravado, his eye for a pretty girl, his boastfulness or his enormous vanity.

The world is in the throes of economic decay and at the mercy of terrorists. Across this post-apocalyptic landscape marches one extraordinary soldier and his band of brothers. In a novel as disturbingly plausible as it is powerfully gripping, they are headed into a battle in which they will have to come to grips with the power of technology and the true price of freedom.

It is 58 BC, and the mighty Tenth Legion, camped in Northern Italy, prepare for the arrival of the most notorious general in Roman history: Julius Caesar. Marcus Falerius Fronto, commander of the Tenth, is a career soldier and long-time companion of Caesar's. Despite his desire for the simplicity of the military life, he cannot help but be drawn into intrigue and politics as Caesar engineers a motive to invade the lands of Gaul.

Packed with slaughter and swordplay, these audio dramas, written by Black Library authors including Gav Thorpe, James Swallow, Ben Counter and more, offer fresh insight into two of the Imperium's most beloved fighting forces.

Rifleman Harris was a soldier in the elite 95th Rifles, one of Britains most prestigous infantry units during the Napoleonic wars. In this memoir, Harris relates his experiences in Denmark, the Peninsular, and at Walcheren. This is no history of grand plans and movements controlled by the lofty generals. Rather this relates the tale of a front line soldier who's concerns run much more with keeping shoes on his feet, a shirt on his back and, most importantly, food in his belly. Among other details, this book relates the horrors of the retreat to Corruna and the even more disasterous Walcheren expedition where an entire army was struck down by pestilence.

A Signature Performance: Kenneth Branagh plays this like a campfire ghost story, told by a haunted, slightly insane Marlow.

The first novel in Simon Scarrow's bestselling Roman series. It is 42 AD, and Quintus Licinius Cato has just arrived in Germany as a new recruit to the Second Legion, the toughest in the Roman army. If adjusting to the rigours of military life isn't difficult enough for the bookish young man, he also has to contend with the disgust of his colleagues when, because of his imperial connections, he is appointed a rank above them.

Witness to Gettysburg brings the bloodiest, most crucial battle of the Civil War to life through on-the-spot eyewitness accounts. From the courageous fighting men and officers to the civilians watching as the conflict raged through their towns, from the reporters riding with the regiments to the children excited or terrified by the titanic drama unfolding before them, each account stems from personal experience and blends with the whole to create a startlingly vivid tapestry of war. In their own words, and through the eyes of their closest aides, such commanders as Robert E. Lee, Jeb Stuart, and George Meade.

Written by H.G. Wells, the great visionary author, this legendary novel is both timeless and thought provoking. Listeners will thrill to this chilling masterpiece as man boldly takes evolution into his own hands for the first time. Dr. Moreau, a scientist expelled from his homeland for his cruel experiments, continues his transplantations on a small South Pacific island, creating hideous creatures with manlike intelligence.

A quiet, wealthy plantation owner, Jack Hinson watched the start of the Civil War with disinterest. Opposed to secession and a friend to Union and Confederate commanders alike, he did not want a war. After Union soldiers seized and murdered his sons, placing their decapitated heads on the gateposts of his estate, Hinson could remain indifferent no longer. He commissioned a special rifle for long-range accuracy, he took to the woods, and he set out for revenge.

One of the great adventure novels of our language creates a most engaging central character, Nostromo. A picturesque man of action and popular hero, Nostromo lives to be "well-spoken of" by the citizens of Costaguana, the mythical South American banana republic where the story takes place. Around this figure, Conrad spins a story of revolution, politics, and racial conflict as complex as Nostromo, the man whose greatest enemy is himself.