Stephen Cole - Doctor Who: The Feast of the Drowned
When a naval cruiser sinks in mysterious circumstances in the North Sea, all aboard are lost. Rose is saddened to learn that the brother of her friend, Keisha, was among the dead. And yet he appears to them as a ghostly apparition, begging to be saved from the coming feast...
Each time Bartholomew Cubbins attempts to obey the King's order to take off his hat, he finds there is another one on his head. Set in feudal times, the story begins in the Kingdom of Didd, when King Derwin is riding through a street past Bartholomew Cubbins, a poor boy in the market. Bartholomew removes his hat, according to the laws, but another hat mysteriously appears; when he attempts to remove this one too, another one appears again, and this continues, even as he removes more and more hats, each growing in extravagance and beauty from the 451st hat onwards.
Dr. Joyce Reardon, an unorthodox university psychology professor, leads a team of psychics to the massive and antiquated Seattle mansion known as Rose Red in an attempt to record data which would constitute scientific proof of paranormal phenomena. The mansion is publicly thought to be haunted, as at least 23 people have either disappeared or died there and the interior of the house appears to change or increase in size. Reardon's team unleashes the spirit of the house, leading to several deaths and the revelation of the mansion's secrets.
Novelist Graham Broadbent coasts through life like many of the characters in his books - low-key and unassertive - quietly accepting the easy pace his success has allowed him. But one evening, minutes before leaving to speak at his school reunion, attractive, twenty-year-old, Christa appears at his hotel door and tells Graham he is her father...Graham finds himself in a confusion of deception and lies, far beyond his mastery of plot and character.
Most fears are learned. Some of these are useful, e.g., the fear of touching a hot saucepan. Other fears appear to not be useful; such fears are considered irrational. We know them as phobias. A phobia is an anxiety about a person, place or thing, which: - Is out of proportion to any actual danger - Can not be reasoned or explained away - Appears silly to the sufferer, but - Can not be voluntarily controlled, and - leads to avoidance of what is feared.
