The Crow: Shattered Lives & Broken Dreams

"He avenges the innocent dead. He stalks the crimson road of the slain. He mourns lost love so ardently that desire and death become one. He is the dream-carrier of holy retribution. And in the name of love he delivers justice to the wicked."--From the IntroductionWith this chilling collection of stories and poems, J. O'Barr--the creator of The Crow--and Ed  Kramer host an ominous array of interpretations of the gothic phenomenon by acclaimed writers well acquainted with the dark side, including Alan Dean Foster, Ramsey Campbell, Gene Wolfe, Storm Constantine, Nancy Collins, Andrew Vachss, Iggy Pop, and Henry Rollins. Featuring original artwork by such top artists as Ron Walotsky, Rob Prior, Tom Canty, Tim Bradstreet, Don Maitz, and Bob Eggleton, The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams evokes a modern night-world and its tormented denizens ensnared by unspeakable evil, enslaved by unquenchable longing, engulfed by the thirst for revenge, and enfolded by the enigmatic, eternal wings of The Crow.Here a resurrected gunslinger gets a final showdown with his archenemy. . . . A murder victim and a dying boy mete out poetic justice to a sadistic criminal. . . . A serial killer turned government assassin takes three abused children under his savage wing. . . . A tormented rogue cop literally fights fire with fire. . . . A wise talking crow guides the vengeful hand of a murdered girl's lover. . . . and much more.For both the confirmed fan and the curious newcomer, this spellbinding, shocking, darkly sensual collection offers passage to an extraordinary literary realm: a place of macabre morality tales and existential adventures, of terror and tenderness--from which no reader can hope to leave unchanged. For when you take flight with The Crow, there is no turning back.

Amazon.com Review

The Crow, a dark character created by James O'Barr, "warps together two of man's strongest emotions and desires--love and revenge," writes Ed Kramer in the preface to this anthology of theme stories and art. A black, nightmarish spirit with a harlequin mouth, the Crow was born to avenge the brutal slaying of his beloved. Incarnations of the Crow stalk time and space, bringing ruthless and horrible justice to rapists and murderers. O'Barr and Kramer asked an incredible array of fantastic fiction writers to interpret this Goth phenomenon--from A.A. Attanasio to Gene Wolfe, Alan Dean Foster, Charles de Lint, Jack Dann, and Jane Yolen. Shattered Lives & Broken Dreams delivers chilling, graphic tales of mystic revenge, from some of the best modern fantasy authors. Poetry (from Henry Rollins and Iggy Pop, among others) and original art complete this ode to the Crow. Readers of the popular comic book series and fans of the movie starring Brandon Lee will find lots to chill and thrill them in this collection. --Therese Littleton

From Publishers Weekly

An antihero created in the comics almost 20 years ago, undead vigilante Eric Draven has become a major success in the world of cult character media franchises. Now Kramer (editor of Sandman: Book of Dreams) and Crow creator O'Barr have assembled a substantial anthology of original Crow-spawned stories, poems and artwork, including pieces by some of the most respected names in fantasy and horror. "Born of personal tragedy, the Crow wraps together two of man's strongest emotions and desires?love and revenge," Kramer writes. The best of these stories step beyond formula to show human souls tormented by loss and hate. Ramsey Campbell's "Twice by Fire" follows a reborn cop seeking redemption for a crime he committed that destroyed him and his family. Andrew Vachss and Nancy A. Collins stalk their usual terrain, he with a hard-boiled crusader taking on the kiddie-porn business ("The Real Thing"), she with "Variations on a Theme," starring her series character, vampire Sonja Blue. Other standouts include Gene Wolfe's haunting "The Night Chough," in which the crow who guides a man bent on revenge is much more than he seems, and the blackly comic "Carrion Crows," by Jane Yolen and Robert Harris. Last up but definitely not least is John Shirley's spiritually potent "Wings Burnt Black," the collection's deepest, most resonant?and most unexpected?tale, in which the Crow assaults Heaven in search of understanding and vengeance for the death of his beloved. This book is a must for Crow fans but also rich reading for any admirer of literate horror and dark fantasy. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Those familiar with the comic book or the movie The Crow know what these short stories will be: revenge fantasies about a brutally murdered guy who returns from the dead to destroy his killers. The revenant's face is painted with a black-and-white harlequin mask, he has a crow as a familiar, and he is an icon for the fans of morbid fashions and rock music known as Goths. Given the inventive fantasists whose contributions editors O'Barr (creator of the Crow concept) and Kramer have solicited, there is considerable variety in how the base material is treated. Arthurian fantasists Jane Yolen and Robert Harris medievalize the usually urban-grungy avenger. Storm Constantine makes him a sexual shape-shifter of sorts. A. A. Attanasio sends him to Hell. Each of the others--the likes of Andrew Vachss, Rex Miller, Charles de Lint, and Nancy A. Collins--offers a distinctive take. A different artist illustrates each tale, and every third entry is a poem (two of the poets are rockers Iggy Pop and Henry Rollins). Ray Olson

From the Inside Flap

nges the innocent dead. He stalks the crimson road of the slain. He mourns lost love so ardently that desire and death become one. He is the dream-carrier of holy retribution. And in the name of love he delivers justice to the wicked."--From the IntroductionWith this chilling collection of stories and poems, J. O'Barr--the creator of The Crow--and Ed Kramer host an ominous array of interpretations of the gothic phenomenon by acclaimed writers well acquainted with the dark side, including Alan Dean Foster, Ramsey Campbell, Gene Wolfe, Storm Constantine, Nancy Collins, Andrew Vachss, Iggy Pop, and Henry Rollins. Featuring original artwork by such top artists as Ron Walotsky, Rob Prior, Tom Canty, Tim Bradstreet, Don Maitz, and Bob Eggleton, The Crow: Shattered Lives and Broken Dreams evokes a modern night-world and its tormented denizens ensnared by unspeakable evil, enslaved by unquenchable longing, engulfed by the thirst for revenge, and enfolded by t

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"Do not envy the Manwith the X-Ray Eyes..."Blue Öyster Cult: Heaven Forbid"Is there really any hurry about killing me, Eric?" the murderer asked. "I mean, wouldn't you like to draw it out? Savor it?"And the murderer smiled a mouthful of green teeth."'Smiles form the channels of a future tear,'" the Crow replied."The ghost quotes Byron! And how altogether Byronic you are!""Mockery stalls for time," said Eric, who was called the Crow, cocking his pistol, "and that's another way of pleading.""Don't flatter yourself. I would not plead with God himself. And don't imagine that I disbelieve in God. I know better: the villain is well-known to me."The Murderer, the object of the Crow's vengeance this night, was half reclining on a chaise longue on the balcony of his condominium on the thirteenth story of this concrete high-rise. The Murderer was nestled in an almost believable semblance of slack calm; he had a daiquiri in one hand and a Marlboro Light in the other. The Detroit night was just beginning to burn, far below. Vaporous grime watercolored the full moon a sordid gray-pink. The Murderer was a slim, sunken-eyed man in leather chaps and snakeskin boots, his face angular, just a little cocaine tremor in his fingers making the ash from his cigarette shiver into the monoxide wind; the wind carried the ashes into the sky to the wheeling, raucous crow, the bird that followed Eric everywhere--and made the bird blink.Eric was sitting on the balcony wall, rocking on the wall in a way no sane mortal would do; teetering, one leg crossed over the other, elbow propped on his knee, the gun loose in his hand but never wavering from the Murderer's forehead.The bird settled on Eric's shoulder.The Murderer looked at the black bird on Eric's shoulder and pulled on his cigarette, let smoke loll from his mouth and drew it back in through his nostrils, then said, "Here's another quote for you--I can't remember who said it: 'Hell is truth seen too late.' Probably is, for most people. And of course you know: the truth protects itself.""I've heard that said." The Crow's finger tightened on the trigger ... then eased. He simply wasn't ready to fire the gun. There was something undone here, besides killing this man, but he didn't know what it was yet."But I have seen the truth," said the Murderer, "and I just don't care. You see, I've been ... well, not quite dead, but close. Enough to see through the veil." He pulled on the cigarette. "My parents were Santeria initiates, you know."He paused as they both turned to look at a thudding police chopper tilting like a clumsy dragonfly, eddying flame-lit smoke with its blades, highlighting the murk of burning buildings with its downseeking spotlight, its bullhorn voice trying to warn the looters: the feeble, echoing voice of authority, its own self-mockery. "By order of the governor, looters can be shot. This area is surrounded by police. Do not ... do not ... not ... not ...""Can you imagine being cut in half by a helicopter blade?" the Murderer asked idly."Yes. That'd be too quick, for you," mused the Crow, just as idly. "If I drop you from up here, you might live for a while, and your bone edges, Murderer, your splinters, would break through your skin and then I could tap them with the muzzle of my gun.""I doubt I'd be conscious at that point. You'd be better off breaking my bones up here. I understand you're strong enough. I know I can't kill you. And you can't kill me. But you cannot kill the ones who are really responsible for Shelly's death.""Liar!" The word banged from Eric and rebounded from the concrete face of the building to pierce even the cacophony of the burning city: LIAR!And then the Crow, in a single motion, had moved to straddle the Murderer's legs with one boot planted to either side; lividly painted face catching fire truck cherry-top glare, flickering in and out of shadow, his premonitory eyes black as the Pit, his gun the unyielding blue of gunmetal, its muzzle now pressed to the Murderer's mouth. "If I shoot at a down angle, and miss your heart, Murderer, your jaw flies apart, and you will live to suffer, for a while, but you'll keep your foul mouth shut." His voice was like a brush-stick dragged over a snare drum. Mouth shuhhhhhhhhhhh ...But the Murderer spoke, even with a gun muzzle denting his nicotine-yellowed lips; his sunken eyes meeting Eric's, both their gazes as unwavering as the gun."You think you have found in me the one who ordered you attacked; the one responsible for Shelly's death. You think you pull a trigger and the deed is done. But think--and heed and check it out and I'll tell you the motherfuckin' truth!"The Crow took a step back and said, "Raise your drinking glass."The Murderer obeyed and the Crow quoted Byron once more, "'Here's a sigh to those who love me, and a smile to those who hate; and whatever sky's above me, here's a heart for every fate.'" He fired the gun--fired it at the glass in the Murderer's hand, with marvelous precision, so that the shattered glass was driven into the crime lord's tendons along with the bullet.The bird, the black crow that was Eric's familiar, settled to the concrete and began to peck at bits of flesh and spots of cocktail spattered behind the Murderer.The Murderer managed not to scream, but a gurgling growl escaped him as he clutched the shattered, riven hand to him, sitting up, eyes hot. He didn't drop his cigarette, but drew on it deeply, shaking.But he smiled. Green teeth."'Pain is the father of truth,'" said Eric. "Now don't fucking lie to me again. I'm sure I'd already know if there were others ...""There is another," said the Murderer, in a triumphant, pain-shivered growl. "The one truly responsible for Shelly's death. Listen now ... I ordered you and your love 'done,' yes--but who am I? I am a consequence. I was raised by a man whose greatest joy was in raping very small boys, taking them from behind first and then the mouth; my earliest sharply remembered taste is of my own blood and shit. My mother was a Santeria priestess until junk made her a whore. My parents made me what I am, you see. I could have been nothing else! And if there was any margin for transcending my making, it was taken up by my genetics. My father was chromosomally a killer; my mother chromosomally an addict. But who made them? Their parents were at least as bad--and my father was raised in a nasty bitch of a slum. And on it goes back into the blur of time." Grimacing with pain, he paused to suck on his cigarette. "So ... so who is to blame? I have never had the faintest inkling of a choice in the things I do. Not the faintest. Not one, my friend! I am a psychopath and I know it. Was Jeffrey Dahmer really given a choice? Or did he have to be what he was? He was damned from birth. So who decided his damnation? Random chance? But you are here, and you know there is a spiritual world: you are part of it. Which means that there is a spiritual agenda, a cosmic purpose--a hated purpose, to my mind, but a purpose all the same. Does that purpose stint on brutality? Does it hesitate to create Inquisitions and the Holocaust? And doesn't it just fuckin' adore creating Aztecs and Celts who butcher children for their gods? Who was it who made life brutish--and short? Who jacked up the suffering? Who made de Sade and Lizzy of Bathory? Who made Eichmann? Who decided that two-year-olds should die of AIDS and four-year-olds of cancer?" Suddenly the Murderer sprang up and flicked his cigarette at Eric, and pointed a trembling finger at him with the cigarette hand, and quoted from the Book of Job: "'Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? ... Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? Or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who laid the cornerstone thereof ...'"The Crow's normal supernaturally rectified implacability was set akilter; for the first time he was unsure and his voice showed it. "It's not for me to punish blasphemy; that, others punish, later."But the Murderer was thundering on, still quoting the Bible: "'Hast thou entered into the springs of the sea? Or has thou walked in the search of the depth? HAVE THE GATES OF DEATH BEEN OPENED UNTO THEE?'""Ah," said Eric, "it was you who opened them for me." And once more he leveled the gun."No," said the Murderer, with a lethal quiet, dropping his hand. "He put me, like a bullet, in His gun. And He pulled the trigger, He killed you, and Shelly--I was just the instrument. I was made as I am, a murderer, and fate brought us together, you and I, and who loads the guns of fate?"Eric looked at the gun in his hand, and it drooped. He looked out at the night sky: black construction paper with cheap acrylics slurred by an uncertain hand."I am going to inquire," Eric said. "You can run if you like, but you know it doesn't matter where you go, or how. You can go to South Africa and lock yourself in a bunker a thousand feet down a diamond mine, and I would come to you. You know that--don't you?""Yes." There was no guile in the Murderer now."Or you can stay here, and take drugs for the pain, and wrap your hand, and wait for me to answer you.""Yes. But just remember: your mission is one of final vengeance. Don't lose sight of your goal."The Crow stepped up onto the ledge--he spread his arms like the wings of the bird that rose to flap beside him, and dove off the ledge. He fell. He turned end over end, never changing pose as he fell spread-eagled, and when he...

About the Author

J. O'Barr is the creator of The Crow. He is currently working on a screenplay for a new Crow movie. He lives in Detroit, Michigan.Ed Kramer is the coeditor of The Sandman anthology with Neil Gaimen. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia.

Reviews

News