Living Shadows: Stories: New & Preowned

One of the darkest, edgiest, boldest writers around, John Shirley lays down an adrenalized yet artful prose that fairly skids across the page, dragging the reader along into shadowed corners of terror and desire. Yet while it's thrilling, there's psychological depth, too, as Shirley bores into the brains of his characters, revealing the motivations of those who walk on the wild side. Many writers extrapolate from peripheral observation and research, but John Shirley's stories come from personal experience with extreme people and extreme mental states, and his struggle with the seductions of addiction. On the streets, in the midst of darkest suburbia, or just beyond consensus reality - Shirley brings the shadows to vivid life.

From Publishers Weekly

In this collection of new and reprinted stories, Blue Öyster Cult songwriter and cyberpunk pioneer Shirley (The Other End) demonstrates his talent for blurring genre boundaries. The first section contains nonfantastic accounts of the darker side of humanity, including the quietly creepy The Sewing Room, in which a woman discovers that her husband is a serial killer and is tormented by her conflicting responsibilities to her family and to justice, and Seven Knives, a brutal tale born from the author's experiences of moral bankruptcy and narcissism in Hollywood. In the second section are stories with fantastic elements, including Blind Eye, a continuation of a Poe fragment in which a lighthouse lamp reveals the hidden sins of the villagers living below, and the Lovecraftian novelette Buried in the Sky, about a skyscraper complex built upon a pre-Aztec foundation. In Shirley's world, solitary characters go to desperate means to connect with others, never quite succeeding but still recognizable and poignant in their humanity. (July) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

There's really just one new (i.e., previously unpublished) story in this collection, but not to quibble. Shirley is an effective, craftsmanly producer of first-rate chillers, who doesn't need monsters or ultraviolence to creep us out. Take the new story, "The Sewing Room," in which, finally, nothing blatantly horrifying happens, which is the most shocking possible development. It is one of a dozen stories in the book's first section of nonsupernatural stories. The eight in the second section do employ the supernatural, but conservatively. If Thomas A. Harris, of Hannibal Lecter fame, ever wrote short stories, they might resemble Shirley's. But would they be as good? Olson, Ray Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

From the Publisher

Barely street-legal, Shirley's Bosch-like visions mark him out as perhaps the closest thing contemporary American fantasy has to a genuine "outsider artist." -- William Gibson John Shirley achieves things that other writers wouldn't dare attempt. Brilliant. The true quill. -- Bruce Sterling Shirley writes at the neon-lit frontier of sensory experience.-- Publisher's Weekly Snapping, snarling, vigorously wrought drama -- Shirley writes splendid stuff. -- Kirkus Reviews Vivid, dense, powerful imagery... hard to put down! -- The Washington Post With his electric intensity, elegant prose, and eye for details both sleazy and tender, Shirley is one of the most original voices in fiction today. -- Poppy Z. Brite John Shirley never fails to produce work that is both relentlessly readable and truthful. His vivid, clear writing tells real stories. -- Pat Cadigan A postmodern Edgar Allan Poe. -- Larry McCaffrey

About the Author

John Shirley has written more than thirty novels, a work of nonfiction, and many, many short stories. A previous collection of his short work, the award-winning Black Butterflies, was named one of Publishers Weekly's Best Books of the Year. Shirley's also fronted punk bands and written lyrics for his own music, as well as for Blue Oyster Cult and other bands. A principal screenwriter for The Crow, Shirley has written extensively for television and film. He lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

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