Entropy in Bloom: Stories

Book Riot Contemporary Horror Top 50 * Barnes & Noble Best of Horror 2017 * MCL Best of 2017 * Undead Airlock Best of 2017 * Dead End Follies Top 10 Includes The Sleep of Judges, currently in development as a feature film, and When Susurrus Stirs, the basis for the award-winning motion picture of the same name.Named one of the most anticipated books of 2017 by LitReactor and Big Other and one of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Books Everyone Will Be Talking About by Kirkus/Black Gate."Johnson is a master of mood, seamlessly combining the literary with the grotesque. Horror fans will find much to chew on, and these stories will certainly reach a wider audience. Johnson deserves to be a household name, as this superb collection makes clear."―Publishers Weekly (starred review)Available in hardcover for the first time, a collection of cult sensation Jeremy Robert Johnson's best and most bizarre short fiction, including a brand-new, never-before-published novella.For more than a decade, Jeremy Robert Johnson has been bubbling under the surface of both literary and genre fiction. His short stories present a brilliantly dark and audaciously weird realm where cosmic nightmares collide with all-too-human characters and apocalypses of all shapes and sizes loom ominously. In "Persistence Hunting," a lonely distance runner is seduced into a brutal life of crime with an ever-narrowing path for escape. In "When Susurrus Stirs," an unlucky pacifist must stop a horrifying parasite from turning his body into a sentient hive. Running through all of Johnson's work is a hallucinatory vision and deeply-felt empathy, earning the author a reputation as one of today's most daring and thrilling writers.Featuring the best of his independently-published short fiction, as well as an exclusive, never-before-published novella "The Sleep of Judges"―where a father's fight against the denizens of a drug den becomes a mind-bending suburban nightmare―Entropy in Bloom is a perfect compendium for avid fans and an ideal entry point for adventurous readers seeking the humor, heartbreak, and terror of JRJ's strange new worlds.

B&N Sci-Fi & Fantasy Blog

"A perfect place to get acquainted with one of the darkest stars in the genre...Johnson captures humanity's absurdity, our grotesqueries, sometimes our triumphs, all the while pushing past the limits of reality, transforming it into something dark, and surreal, and unforgettable."

Electric Literature

"ENTROPY IN BLOOM is an instant classic, a carefully curated manifesto whose main goal is to tell the world one of the brightest stars in indie lit is now too brilliant to remain hidden...This collection should turn him into the writer everyone is talking about. These fifteen stories and one novella show a powerful imagination, a great talent for storytelling, writing chops that allow him to tackle any genre, and a flowing, dynamic voice that, if Johnson were a singer, would extend to an impressive eight octaves."

Tor.com

"Surreal, visceral, and frequently unsettling...One more descriptor, while we're at it: highly entertaining. Johnson brings a pulpy urgency to the page, which blends neatly with the frequently heady concepts that he utilizes in his fiction. [ENTROPY IN BLOOM]'s a fine primer to his work, which encompasses everything from stories of pernicious terrors working their way into the world to taut crime fiction to insightful character studies."

Dead End Follies

"Exciting, unpredictable, and feels slightly dangerous...free of the boundaries of conventional literature in ways you can't quite imagine. ENTROPY IN BLOOM is emotionally challenging, unpredictable and thoroughly original. I cannot say it enough: I had a great time with this book."

LitReactor

"Showcases the best of the worst of Jeremy Robert Johnson. And by worst, I mean most gut-churning and nightmare inducing...Perfectly paced and extremely creepy...will leave you pondering the deeper meaning of random acts of violence for days to come. Enjoy?"

This is Horror

"With ENTROPY IN BLOOM, Jeremy Robert Johnson continues to deliver the very best in short fiction...original ideas, compellingly realistic characters, wonderfully vivid language."

The Coachella Review

“The beauty in all that horror is the point here, and not a side effect. As a result, this is a many-tentacled beast of its own family, genre, and species. You should be reading ENTROPY IN BLOOM. You have great things to look forward to.”

Booked

“5 Stars.”

The Horror Review

“Johnson can be compared to John Shirley, Chuck Palahniuk, or even Harlan Ellison. ENTROPY IN BLOOM shows Johnson is capable of blurring genre boundaries with regard only for mining and expressing their mythic power. A sense of futility and constant surveillance colors every scene, and Johnson’s ability to sustain this level of tension is astonishing.”

Dark Moon Digest

“Has a varied yet well-curated mixtape feel. Each story that follows the last one is a complete tonal shift with a different genre and sometimes different style but what remains is a singular voice. ‘The Sleep of Judges’ reads like David Lynch’s take on Straw Dogs.”

the arterial-spraying excitement of witnessing pure horror.”

“ENTROPY IN BLOOM is an excellent primer to Johnson’s work…a veritable carnival of horrors awaits you…the kind of entertaining thrill the Romans got from watching colosseum matches

Brian Evenson, author of A Collapse of Horses

"These stories can be uncomfortable, difficult, unflinching, but they're also always entertaining. Johnson writes with an energy that propels you through some very dark spaces indeed and into something profoundly unsettling but nonetheless human."

Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and Disappearance at Devil's Rock

"ENTROPY IN BLOOM crackles with weirdness, style, wit, a befittingly oddball sense of humanity, and a misshapen dark heart. I loved every damn story."

Nick Cutter, author of The Troop

"Reading Johnson, you feel you are in the grip of an immensely powerful, possibly malevolent, but fiercely intelligent mind. Beware! (But enjoy--and trust me, you will.)"

Stephen Graham Jones, author of Mongrels

"I've seen the future and it's bizarre, it's beautifully berserk, it's Jeremy Robert Johnson."

Chuck Palahniuk, author of Fight Club

"A dazzling writer."

About the Author

Jeremy Robert Johnson is the author of the critically-acclaimed cult novel Skullcrack City. His fiction has been praised by the Washington Post and authors such as David Wong and Jack Ketchum, and has appeared internationally in numerous anthologies and magazines.

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