The West is a wild place, where the poison wind blows and the dead walk. But there is gold, and whiskey, and enough room for a man to forget what he once was. Until he can no longer can. Jack Gabriel's been the sheriff in Damnation almost since the town grew out of the dust and the mud. He keeps the peace—sort of—and rides the circuit every dawn and dusk with the chartermage, making sure the wilderness doesn't seep into the fragile attempt at civilization. Out there, away from the cities clinging to the New World's eastern rim, he doesn't remember what he was. Or at least, not much. But Damnation is growing, and along comes a schoolmarm. Catherine Barrowe is a right proper Boston miss, and it's a mystery why she would choose this particular town, where everything scandalous and dangerous is probably too much for a quality lady like her. Sometimes the sheriff wonders why she came out West—because everyone who does is running from something. He doesn't realize Cat may be prickly, delicate, and proper, but she is also determined. She's in Damnation to find her wayward older brother, whose letters were full of dark hints about gold, and trouble, and something about a claim. In a West where charm and charter live along clockwork and cold steel, where hot lead only kills your enemy once but it takes a blessing to make his corpse stay down, Cat will keep digging until she finds out what happened to her brother. If Jack knew what she was after, he could solve the mystery—because he killed the young man, and for good reason. The thing is, Cat's brother just won't stay dead, and the undead are rising with him... Views: 7
When the Devil needs a rogue demon killed, who does he call? The Player: Necromance-for-hire Dante Valentine is choosy about her jobs. Hot tempered and with nerves of steel, she can raise the dead like nobody's business. But one rainy Monday morning, everything goes straight to hell. The Score: The Devil hires Dante to eliminate a rogue demon: Vardimal Santino. In return, he will let her live. It's an offer she can't refuse. The Catch: How do you kill something that can't die? Views: 7
From Kirkus ReviewsG-R-R-I-S-L-Y...by the author of A Splendid Chaos (1988). Horrible as this is, it has redeeming values, one being its warning against addictive pleasures and too much partying. When down-at-heels screenwriter Tom Prentice identifies his ex-wife Amy in the morgue, she's 50 pounds underweight and mutilated. Then when Prentice pitches a banal cop-show to studio head Arthwright, Arthwright is oddly not dismissive of the dumb idea. As we later find out, Arthwright is a kind of astral vampire. Meanwhile, Reverend Garner, a recovering doper/alcoholic who runs a ministry in Oakland, finds that his teenage daughter Constance is missing. She's been kidnapped by Ephram Pixie, a ghoul with astral ties who turns Constance into a pleasure addict by psychic pressure on her pleasure-center brain cells. Ephram likes to have Constance enjoy sex in his presence while she murders folks in nasty ways in motel rooms. Mitch Teitelbaum, the missing young brother of Tom's roommate Jeff, turns up in a hospital after deliberately laying bare his chest muscles and slitting open his leg, among other enjoyable self-injuries, after a strange party. With echoes of The Shining, this all-continuing party takes place at the fenced-in residence of some ageless Malibu film folk and famed party-givers (including Arthwright) who have been living for decades as vampires of pleasure. Their particular pleasure is to extend their snouts like a mosquito's feeding tube and suck out just enough flesh to leave a victim emaciated but still alive. Some of the party guests are themselves in advanced decay but still actively autoerotic. The story's ghastliest effects focus on the wetbones, or victims now a skinless rubble of fresh bones--bones sometimes strapped together with thongs to make wet furniture.... The queasies'll getcha if you don't watch out! -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.Product Description"WETBONES, the acclaimed and viscerally powerful work by John Shirley, is being released for the first time in a new, improved form. *Fully revised and updated edition. First fully-author-approved text ever released. INCLUDES a Brand-New companion story. Never before published. Down -on-his-luck screenwriter Tom Prentice is called to the morgue to identify the body of his ex-wife Amy. She's recognizable--but her body is also 50 pounds underweight, and mutilated. Disturbed, but trying to go on with his life, Prentice pitches a cop-show to studio head Arthwright and is surprised when the exec is interested in the run-of-the-mill idea. Arthwright’s real motives will emerge into hideous view, along with soul-consuming astral creatures camouflaging themselves behind greed, the seduction of Hollywood power—and pleasure. The secret of the Akishra writhes in the background...until it squirms into plain, horrific view. Meanwhile, Reverend Garner, a recovering addict who runs a ministry in Oakland, discovers that his teenage daughter Constance is missing. She has been kidnapped by Ephram Pixie, a ghoulish serial murderer with connections to the cult of the Akishra—Pixie uses psychic pressure to turn Constance into a pleasure addict of the sickest sort. And Mitch Teitelbaum, the missing brother of Tom Prentice's roommate Jeff, ends up in a hospital after deliberately and gruesomely mutilating himself...under the influence of the Akishra. Much of the action spins out from a mysterious, on-going, underground party, which goes on, apparently endlessly, at the fenced-in residence of The More Man and his Malibu film folk, legendary Hollywood Babylon-type partiers, connected with Arthwright, living for decades as psychic vampires feeding on pleasure and the gradual destruction of the human soul. Wetbones is a streetname for victims of their former ally, Ephram Pixie—the residue of his latest sensuous atrocity with Constance, they’re skinless package of freshly bloodied bones... All the storylines come devastatingly together, like wet bones lashed together, in the apocalyptic climax... A contemporary horror tale with Lovecraftian overtones, a subtle message about the horrors of addiction (which may all be inspired and directed by entities from a higher and very nasty plane of existence) and a look at the dark underside of Hollywood written by someone who knows...WETBONES is wrapped in a speed-charged action tale with enough gruesome violence and horrific action to remind readers that John Shirley was recognized from early on as one of the mainsprings of the Splatterpunk movement. The content is very graphic and not for the faint of heart, a glimpse into the abyss only to discover the abyss looking hungrily back." Views: 7
When Alexander Laing first came upon the sinister tale of Gideon Wyck in 1934, his publisher felt obliged to address the following Note to the Reader: “This story was received from a reputable literary agent, who claims to be as ignorant as we are of the author’s identity…Customary royalties will be reserved for the author’s account, should he wish to reveal himself to the agent with satisfactory proofs of identity.” Now, many years later we repeat the same explanation, for in all the time since that first publication none has come forward to confess to the authorship of so harrowing and demonic a tale. Dick Saunders is the name the author gives himself for the purposes of telling the story. He is a medical student of Dr. Gideon Wyck. Saunders begins to see an explanation for Wyck’s eccentric behavior, but does not find it until after a more final discovery is made in the medical school vault. The cadaver of Gideon Wyck is there, as if awaiting the post-mortem scalpel. It is not in Wyck himself, however, but in his laboratory that his monstrous secret is found. A Maine campus offers a seminar in demonology in this classic horror tale. Views: 7
A vampire with a conscience recounts how he departed from human existence and became a vampire but, reluctant to take human life, he sustains himself on the blood of animals. Views: 7
