Beast of the Heartland and other stories

"Brings to mind the best work of Graham Greene, Robert Stone, and Ward Just."--Wall Street JournalThe fiction of Lucius Shepard has more to do with Joseph Conrad than Isaac Asimov. Fascinated by deception and decay, and generally labeled a cyberpunk writer, his work transcends the limits of genre fiction. Beast of the Heartland contains seven tales that explore the dark side where science fiction meets horror. Headed by the award-winning "Barnacle Bill the Spacer," a story of high-space mutiny, the book includes "A Little Night Music," a gothic tale of insanity; "All the Perfumes of Araby," where an adventurer in the Middle East links up with an ancient entity; "Human History," a postapocalyptic chiller; "Sports in America," a noir tale in the Chandler tradition; "The Sun Spider," a mini space opera; and the title story--an ingenious picture of a battered boxer on the decline.

Amazon.com Review

If you're already familiar with Lucius Shepard, you won't need any encouragement to pick up Beast of the Heartland, a collection of short works that leads with the Hugo-winning novella "Barnacle Bill the Spacer." In addition to the Hugo, Shepard has bagged the Nebula, Locus, and World Fantasy Award (twice), and when he came into sci-fi and fantasy back in the '80s, he won the John W. Campbell Award for best new writer. All this acclaim just confirms the obvious--Shepard is an artist of extraordinary skill. He draws from the forms of both sci-fi and horror, but he ultimately surpasses them with his dark, compact, literary style. The seven stories in this collection are solid Shepard. "Barnacle Bill the Spacer" is in fine company with a few other real gems: "A Little Night Music," the creepy tale of a music reviewer writing up some jazz zombies; "All the Perfumes of Araby," a mystic, Middle Eastern opium trip; and "The Sun Spider," a dark take on classic SF. The collection is rounded out by "Human History" and "Sports in America," but the best-of may have to go to the title piece, "Beast of the Heartland," a moving portrait of a boxer on the outs. --Paul Hughes

From Publishers Weekly

"Not the great movements of time but the ordinary things that make us what we are" are the concern of the seven stories in this scintillating collection. Though their settings range from the mean streets of contemporary Boston to the badlands of a postapocalyptic future earth, Shepard's genre-bending blends of fantasy, crime, western and SF find a common compass in small moments that invite characters to examine themselves and the relationships that define their identities. In the Nebula-winning "Barnacle Bill the Spacer," a security officer fights a fascist gang overrunning a space station and sees in their persecution of a half-witted maintenance worker self-destructive traits that have hindered humanity's efforts to colonize the stars. In "A Little Night Music," a critic finds the music of a zombie jazz band resonating with the death of love in his marriage. Except for the female narrator of "The Sun Spider," Shepard's protagonists are men employed in rugged, often outlaw occupations that have shaped their solitary, self-reliant personalities. Like the gangster in "Sports in America," who finds a metaphor for his work in the ruthless business side of professional athletics, and the aging boxer in the title story whose injuries give him special insight into the animal nature of his opponents, they find quiet epiphanies in their brutish daily experience. Redolent with the influence of Hemingway and Conrad, these engrossing stories extend the legacy Shepard has already established through The Jaguar Hunter and The Ends of the Earth, as one of the most provocative writers of short speculative fiction. (Apr.) FYI: This book was published in Great Britain in 1996 as Barnacle Bill the Spacer and Other Stories.Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Lucius Shepard twice won the World Fantasy Award. He also won the Hugo, Nebula, and Locus Awards for science-fiction writing several times in addition to the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

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