The Best of Joe R. Lansdale

Godzilla’s in a twelve-step program. A soul-sucking Mummy stalks Elvis and John F. Kennedy. Joe Bob Briggs has a moral dilemma: If your girlfriend turns zombie on you, what do you do?And that’s the tame stuff.In this red-hot collection from world-champion Mojo storyteller Joe R. Lansdale, you’ll find his best, most outrageous stories. The high priest of Texan weirdness does it all: horror, mystery, satire, suspense, and even Westerns. Prepare to be offended, shocked, and cackling like a crazed redneck.Featuring five Bram Stoker Award?winning stories, this career retrospective contains some of Lansdale’s rarer work, his nonfiction forays into drive-in theaters and B-movies, and the novella Bubba Ho-Tep, later made into a cult-classic major motion picture.Come on in?the weirdness is fine.

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Always entertaining, champion storyteller Lansdale (Vanilla Ride) shares his best weird yarns in this terrific collection. Crucified Dreams, an emotional introduction (I speak uncensored, unfiltered, and full of madness), prefaces 16 stories pushing the limits of westerns, mystery, horror, southern gothic, and satire. Five Stoker-winning tales and several stories later translated onto the screen (including campy Elvis tale Bubba Ho-Tep) share space with such jewels as the intense Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, about a tough woman with a wild secret; succinct Cowboy, in which a man meets an African-American boy yearning for more stories about black cowboys; and the hilarious White Mule, Spotted Pig, about a frustrated man's bid for freedom via a wacky mule race. This is a great introduction to the raunchy, cheerfully unclassifiable East Texan bon vivant. (Mar.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Indisputably one of horror’s most revered craftsmen, with more than 30 novels and hundreds of stories to his credit, Lansdale sports an idiosyncratic, endearingly profane style. Where else but in a Lansdale story would one find Godzilla in a 12-step program tailored to oversized monsters, or an octogenarian Elvis, confined to a bed in the Shady Grove Convalescent Home, facing down a soul-eating Egyptian mummy? Both tales are in this handpicked best-of collection, about which his fans could only object that its total of 16 stories is far too small. Lansdale’s favored themes run from zombies to vampire hunters to drive-in theaters, and his storytelling encompasses everything from gross-out horror to satire. For the record, “Mad Dog Summer,” about a brother and sister’s tense encounter with a backwoods creature during the Depression, is worth the price of the volume all by itself; and as a bonus attraction, Lansdale includes a rambling, autobiographical essay describing his East Texas boyhood and the many influences on his fiction, from comics to fantasy. --Carl Hays

The Guardian

“Let this volume introduce you to his uncensored, unfiltered world. He is a writer deserving of a wide and appreciative audience.”

Fatally Yours

“The Best of Joe R. Lansdale is a must-have book for the lover of the weird, the champion of the bizarre, and the fan of the outrageous. If you are looking for a unique experience that will leave you equal parts stunned and nostalgic, frightened and amused, look no further.”

Kent Allard, Dead in the South [STARRED REVIEW]

“Whether you are a die-hard Lansdale fan and want to get most of his best work in one volume or you are a neophyte to the Cult of Lansdale looking for a good starting point, this is the book for you.”

Publishers Weekly

“Always entertaining, champion storyteller Lansdale (Vanilla Ride) shares his best weird yarns in this terrific collection. Crucified Dreams, an emotional introduction (I speak uncensored, unfiltered, and full of madness), prefaces 16 stories pushing the limits of westerns, mystery, horror, southern gothic, and satire. Five Stoker-winning tales and several stories later translated onto the screen (including campy Elvis tale Bubba Ho-Tep) share space with such jewels as the intense Incident On and Off a Mountain Road, about a tough woman with a wild secret; succinct Cowboy, in which a man meets an African-American boy yearning for more stories about black cowboys; and the hilarious White Mule, Spotted Pig, about a frustrated man’s bid for freedom via a wacky mule race. This is a great introduction to the raunchy, cheerfully unclassifiable East Texan bon vivant.”

Booklist Praise for Joe R. Lansdale

“Mad Dog Summer,” about a brother and sister’s tense encounter with a backwoods creature during the Depression, is worth the price of the volume all by itself; and as a bonus attraction, Lansdale includes a rambling, autobiographical essay describing his East Texas boyhood and the many influences on his fiction, from comics to fantasy.”

Hansi Oppenheimer, director of All Hail the Popcorn King

“He can write anything, in any genre, and he has such a unique style that whatever Joe Lansdale you're reading, it's always Joe's singular, unmistakable voice.”

New York Times Book Review

“A folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace.”

Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box

“An American original.”

Washington Post Book Review

“A terrifically gifted storyteller.”

Los Angeles Times

“Like gold standard writers Elmore Leonard and the late Donald Westlake, Joe R. Lansdale is one of the more versatile writers in America.”

Entertainment Weekly

“A zest for storytelling and gimlet eye for detail.”

About the Author

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than thirty novels, including the Edgar Award?winning Hap and Leonard mystery series (Mucho Mojo, Two Bear Mambo) and the New York Times Notable Book The Bottoms. More than two hundred of his stories have appeared in such outlets as Tales From the Crypt and Pulphouse, and his work has been adapted for The Twilight Zone and Masters of Horror. Lansdale has written several graphic novels, including Batman and Fantastic Four. He is a tenth-degree black belt and the founder of the Shen Chuan martial art.

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