Blue World

A World Fantasy Award Finalist: Masterful and macabre short fiction from the New York Times–bestselling author of Swan Song. Father John has lived his whole life without knowing a woman’s touch. Hard at first, his self-denial grew easier over time, as he learned to master his urges with a regimen of prayer, cold showers, and jigsaw puzzles. That changed the day that Debra Rocks entered his confessional. A rough-talking adult film actress, she has come to ask him to pray for a murdered costar. Her cinnamon perfume infects Father John, and after she departs he becomes obsessed. Around the corner from his church is a neon-lit alley of sin. He goes there hoping to save her life before he damns himself.   That is “Blue World,” the novella that anchors this collection of chilling stories by Robert R. McCammon. Although monsters, demons, and murderers fill these pages, in McCammon’s world the most terrifying landscape of all is the barren wasteland of a lost man’s soul.

Amazon.com Review

"We will travel, you and I, across a tortured land where hope struggles to grow like seed in a drought. In this land, a place with no boundaries, we'll run the freeways and back roads and we'll listen to the song of the wheels and peer into windows at lives that might be our own, if we lived in that land." So Robert McCammon introduces this superb collection of 13 stories, nominated for a 1990 Bram Stoker Award for Best Story Collection. The standouts are "Blue World" (a richly imagined novella about a priest facing temptation); "Nightcrawlers" (a World Fantasy Award-winner about a Vietnam vet in a roadside diner); "Night Calls the Green Falcon" (has-been fictional hero dons his old costume to fight real evil); "Yellowjacket Summer" (fateful stop for gas in backwoods Georgia); and "Pin" (dare you to read that one). All of the stories are excellent.

From Publishers Weekly

Rapid-fire action alternating with intense introspection, plus imagery that conjures visions of movie special effects, make McCammon's ( The Wolf's Hour ) multifaceted collection of new and reprinted tales worthwhile despite some uninspired story lines. In the title novella, Father John Lancaster battles temptations of the flesh and becomes a better priest as he saves the life of a cocaine-snorting porn queen. At the end of the world, described in "Something Passed By," the laws of nature go awry: water becomes combustible, concrete turns to quicksand, people move swiftly toward old age or infancy. A Vietnam veteran's nightmares materialize in "Nightcrawlers," yielding terror and death for his associates. "He'll Come Knocking at Your Door" trivializes the Faustian pact by having the devil arrive for trick-or-treat on Halloween to collect his due. An old-fashioned cliff-hanger concludes each segment of "Night Calls the Green Falcon," in which a retired cinema superhero takes up his cape again to stalk a real-life prostitute's murderer. Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

McCammon skillfully weaves elements of horror and adventure with a variety of writing styles to create 13 exceedingly readable pieces. Travel through his universe and meet such inhabitants as Chico, a special child who exacts subtle revenge on his mother's abusive boyfriend, or a Vietnam vet whose deadly nightmares become real. The pi ece de r esistance , especially in terms of character development, is the novella "Blue World." Father John Lancaster discovers that he has put his faith and his life in peril when he falls in love with a porn star who is being stalked by a deranged serial killer. A powerful, well-written collection. --John Lawson, Fairfax County Public Library, VACopyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Publishers Weekly

“Rapid-fire action alternating with intense introspection, plus imagery that conjures visions of movie special effects, make McCammon's multifaceted collection of new and reprinted tales worthwhile.”

Booklist

“A true master of the Gothic novel.”

Library Journal

“McCammon keeps the story moving.”

From the Inside Flap

In this expanded edition of Robert McCammon's classic short story collection, you will encounter horrors and delights in equal measure, including: -A man who awakens one morning to find a skeleton in bed where his wife had been the night before.-A small-time thief who steals a makeup case, and learns a dead horror star's secret.-A roadside diner, where a Vietnam veteran comes seeking shelter from the storm.-A young man in prison, who finds beauty and hope on the wings of a yellow bird.-Halloween in a very special residential area, where trick-or-treating is deadly serious.-A red house on a street of gray houses, and a breath of sweet fire.-The adventures of a has-been serial hero, who dons his old costume and goes in search of a serial killer.-A priest obsessed by a porno star, and his realization that both of them are being stalked by a third shadow.-An old woman who channels early, simpler times in a melancholy Bradburyesque future.We will see worlds within worlds through the windows of these stories. We might even see the end of the world, and we might sit on a front porch for a while and sip a glass of gasoline on a hot December day.

About the Author

One of the founders of the Horror Writers Association, Robert R. McCammon (b. 1952) is one of the country’s most accomplished authors of modern horror and historical fiction. Raised by his grandparents in Birmingham, Alabama, McCammon published his first novel, the Revelations-inspired Baal, when he was only twenty-six. His writings continued in a supernatural vein throughout the 1980s, producing such bestselling titles as Swan Song, The Wolf’s Hour, and Stinger.  In 1991 Boy’s Life won the World Fantasy Award for best novel. After his next novel, Gone South, McCammon took a break from writing to spend more time with his family. He did not publish another novel until 2002’s Speaks the Nightbird. Since then he has followed “fixer” Matthew Corbett in two sequels, The Queen of Bedlam and Mister Slaughter. His newest novel is The Five. McCammon and his family continue to live in Birmingham.

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