These Words Are Haunted

Zombies spar with humans for dominance of a post-apocalyptic Manhattan in the Stoker-nominated “A Plague on Both Your Houses.” The King returns to prove that rock ’n’ roll will never die in “The Elvis Syndrome.” And a dying boy is the catalyst for a deal with a decidedly different devil in “Making Peace with the Leader.” These and 10 other nightmarish tales form a bizarre baker’s dozen in Scott Edelman’s long-awaited first short story collection.

From the Publisher

THESE WORDS ARE HAUNTED “If the captivating, alarming, astonishing stories in These Words Are Haunted are horror as that category of fiction is generally and generically defined, then Franz Kafka wrote for Weird Tales and I’m the ghost of Bram Stoker. “Oh, it’s not that plenty of horrific, even supernatural stuff doesn’t happen in this first, long-anticipated collection of stories from the bleeding, weeping pen of polymath (but never Pollyanna-ish) Scott Edelman. The swiftly seduced and mesmerized reader will soon encounter cannibalism, child abuse, dead rock stars, curséd books, deracinated businessmen, and zombie lovers in court dress. But the sheer craft, the naturalistic attention to sensory and circumstantial detail, the meticulous perversity with which these ‘horrors’ are swathed, as well as the philosophically questioning angle of attack and the omnipresent authorial tone of a despairing but relentless seeker after wisdom—all these attributes and more render these stories ‘horror’ only in the sense that the work of masters such as Thomas Disch and Thomas Ligotti can also be considered horror. “Scott’s delight in metafictional excursions, his blend of caustic humor with unstinting empathy, and his willingness to face all terrors unflinchingly—these traits constitute a unique voice in the field. If, as Scott avers in his ‘Afterword,’ he can’t get used to the notion that perhaps ‘somebody up there likes me,’ he’s surely in trouble now, for this volume will earn him the admiration of thousands of mere mortals as well as the blessings of those gods.” — Paul Di Filippo

About the Author

Scott Edelman has been the Editor-in-Chief of Science Fiction Weekly, the Internet magazine of news, reviews and interviews, since October 2000. Prior to this, Edelman was also the creator and only editor of the award-winning Science Fiction Age magazine from 1991 to 2000. He was also the editor of Sci-Fi Entertainment, the official magazine of the SCI FI Channel, for four years, and has edited other SF media magazines such as Sci-Fi Universe and Sci-Fi Flix. He has been published in The Twilight Zone, Asimov’s SF, Amazing Stories and numerous anthologies, including two appearances in Best New Horror. “A Plague on Both Your Houses,” which was a Stoker Award finalist, is collected in this volume. He has been a Hugo Award finalist for Best Editor on four occasions.

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