Customer Reviews (2)

A rare, mind-altering book
This is the only book I've ever read three times.I go back to it everycouple of years for a dose of something truly alien. The more books I read,the more I realize "A Splendid Chaos" is unique. If you are sickof aliens that are only alien in form, read this book.If you think thegreatest accomplishment of an SF writer is to make you rub your temples inpain as you try tro wrap your brain around his concepts, read this book. If you like to read books that are spinoffs of TV shows, RUN AWAY.

A Splendid Chaos - splendidly enlightening
The book is about our hero being abducted from earth and being shipped to a strange planet where other abductees have been dumped. The location is a pretty freaky place where fields of morphogenic particles alter the natureof consciousness and personality itself to 'twist' people into monstrousversions of themselves. The 'twists' try to wage war on the normals and themystery of the planet and its purpose is finally solved when we learn thatthe whole scenario has been engineered by a super advanced race who watchthe events as a giant 4 dimensional soap opera.

(The leader of thetwists is a megalomaniacal psychology professor bent on domination:-))

The book is mu(l)ticoloured joy to the imagination and the centralideas are hilarious and deeply illuminating for the whacky light they caston the nature of human life, our minds and our role in the cosmic scheme ... Read more

Product Description
The book has no illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website (GeneralBooksClub.com). You can also preview excerpts of the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Original Publisher: Concord, N.H., Republican Press Association; Publication date: 1885; Subjects: Law; Law / General; Law / Jurisprudence; ... Read more

Product Description
A hands-on programming guide to OSF's Distributed Computing Environment (DCE) for first-time DCE application programmers. This book is designed to help new DCE users make the transition from conventional, nondistributed applications programming to distributed DCE programming. Covers the IDL and ACF files, essential RPC calls, binding methods and the name service, server initialization, memory management, and selected advanced topics. Includes practical programming examples. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
John Shirley takes us on a journey from the mildly bizarre to the downright weird and then some in this, his latest collection of short fiction. The book incorporates some of Shirley's classic stories along with some revised and hard to find material and is highlighted by nine never before published works. A must have for the Shirley reader or collector. Includes art work by Alan M. Clark. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

Multi genre collection from horror, sci-fi, fantasy, and splatter
The most astonishing detail of this book is that, out of all the stories available, two stand out so startlingly clever that the two alone gave me cause to raise my rating by one star.'Skeeter Junkie' is a fascinating tale of a heroin addict's transformation into the body of a mosquito.'Ten Things To Be Grateful For' is one of the most hard-impacting shorts I've read in a long time."Be thankful, because this could be you", Shirley warns, as he covers being beaten and having your spine pulled apart, being sold as a child to a $ex factory, being a multiple diabetes amputee ignored by health care, and other equally heinous scenarios.

Here's the lineup:

Really Weird Stories:
1) "I Want To Get Married" Says The Worlds Smallest Man
2) Will The Chill
3) Tapes 12, 14, 15, 22, And 23
4) Don't Be Afraid
5) Lot Five, Building Seven, Door Twenty Three
6) Kindred
7) The Word "Random," Deliberately Repeated
8) Voices
9) The Last Ride

Really Really Weird Stories:
1) ... And The Angel With Television Eyes
2) The Sweet Caress Of Mother Nature
3) In The Cornelius Arms
4) Quill Tripstickler, Out The Window
5) I Live In Elizabeth
6) Morons At The Speed Of Light
7) Silent Crickets
8) Screens
9) Brittany?Oh: She's In Translucent Blue
10) Ticket To Heaven

Really Really Really Weird Stories:
1) Ash
2) Triggering
3) When Enter Came
4) Skeeter Junkie
5) What Joy!What Fulfillment!
6) 199619971998
7) Preach
8) Preach: Part Two: The Apocalypse Of The Reverend John Shirley
9) Modern Transmutations Of The Alchemist

Really Really Really Really Weird Stories:
1) Just Like Suzie
2) Cold Feet
3) The Peculiar Happiness Of Professor Cort
4) Tahiti In Terms Of Squares
5) Equilibrium
6) What Cindy Saw
7) The Almost Empty Rooms
8) Ten Things To Be Grateful For
9) The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be


There are more than just two good stories in this collection, but many of them were simply too disjointed for me to relate to, and I'm a Shirley fan.This is Shirley's most comprehensive collection, comprised of shorts and some flash fiction.

Some other talented pieces are "I Want To Get Married" Says World's Smallest Man, a tragically doomed marriage.'Lot Five, Building Seven, Door Twenty-Three' is an excellent vampire tale, with one of the most unique and grotesque vampires.'...And The Angels With Television Eyes' has a shudderingly well described Metal Man.'Sweet Caress' is a nice kitty tale, and 'In The Cornelius Arms' is a great tale of goth culture.
In 'Ash', a criminal runs the streets, insane from the Yoruba inflicted revenge for his crime.'Just Like Suzie' is probably the grossest of the tales, and worth a drippy mention.Ending the collection is the flash fiction piece 'The Sea Was Wet As Wet Could Be', a haunting tale of expansive demise.

If you're a first time reader of John Shirley's short fiction, I'd have to recommend 'Black Butterflies' over this collection.Some of these tales seemed to border on unintelligible rather than just weird.

Thanks to Alan M. Clark, there's some nice cover and a few pieces of very bizarre interior art that add to the flavor of the book.Pick this up if you're a Shirley fan, or just a fan of 'way out there on the edge' bizarre tales.Enjoy!

What a ride!
Shirley's best work lies in his short stories, and RRRWS includes thirty seven of Shirley's finest taut tales of the desperately demented. For fans of New Noir and Black Butterflies, this collection is sure to please. While RRRWS may seem like merely a cathartic romp through Shirley's miswired grey matter, digesting these stories merely for their shock value would be a mistake. The true beauty of this collection lays not so much in the horrific scenarios Shirley dreams up for his unfortunate protagonists. Its real heart lies in the compelling attempts of these unfortunate characters to make sense of unspeakable plights. Just be sure to give yourself a breather between stories. Reading them in one sitting could prove hazardous to your health.

Not so very weird
I don't know why he would call this book really, really, really, really, weird stories.The stories are ok and the writing not so bad.But not worth reading.

What a collection!
This was my first John Shirley experience.It has left me both eager and afraid to track down more of his work.I'm eager to read more Shirley because he is master of stories.He can write in any genre.His stories are fascinating.I like them.I'm afraid to read more Shirley because the stories are so engrossing that I lose track of time.That, and the fact, that many of his stories are quite disturbing.

As other reviewers have noted, this collection is not made up of all winners.In any collection of nearly 40 stories, there will be some poorer stories.While this collection does not have any bad stories, there are several short vignettes that perhaps should have been left out of this collection.

Several of the stories in this collection left me reeling.'Lot Five...' is a marvelous story that really defies description.There are several acolytes of a cult-like leader who are attempting to wend their way through a maze of doors, hallways, and security guards to reach the guru.I loved this story.It was weird and horrific at the same time.

Another of my favorites was '...And the Angel with Television Eyes', a story about a tele-screen actor who's been plagued with bizarre dreams.He wakes one morning to find an iron griffin on his balcony.The griffin tells him that he's being summoned by some sort of ethereal lords.Before the actor can act on the summons he's kidnapped by hideous harpies and taken to a rooftop balcony where a metal man, Lord Thanatos, tells him that the griffin is attempting to trick the actor.A large battle ensues in which the actor learns of his true identity and the large mystery behind the events of his morning.I am excited to hear that Mr. Shirley has recently completed a novel expansion of this story, due in 2002.

As the title of the collection indicates, many of the stories in this collection are very weird.In fact, the stories are organized by their weirdness.The first section is Really Weird Stories.The second is Really, Really Weird Stories...and so on.

Those of us who love weird fiction, and you know who you are, should pick up this collection.It's full of great weirdness.I should point out that many of the stories in this collection contain explicit sexual content, so if that's not your thing, stay away.On the whole, I found this collection to be a mind-blowing trip through the works of a brilliant author, John Shirley.Immediately after finishing this book, I jumped online and ordered several other Shirley titles.I fully expect to enjoy them as much as I did this one.Recommended.

Uneven
Not Shirley's best work but worth the price of the purchase. Some of his stories seemed little more than pointless vignettes, drug or booze addled memories or simple nonsense. But when Shirley is on his game (more misses than hits) its the genuine stuff. I think a little more editing before a rush to publish may have payed dividends or at least discarding half of the stories in favor of quality over quantity. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (29)

Adequate
Some interesting concepts, but mostly just gruesome.There were some grammatical errors.It was worth the read but I don't expect I'll keep this book.

bloody ideas
Oftentimes it's said that too much gore got in the way of some interesting concepts but many times I feel the reverse holds true as well. In this book a few new ideas are raised but it seems like more often then not intellectual ramblings are traded in for splatter. Though I can't say this has the perfect balance for everyone, I can definitely say that it worked well for me. With a fun and different, although not entirely new, sci-fi twist on the vampire theme it manages to stand its own. A large character list and a couple different subplots drive the story forward at a quick pace, despite a few gory entries so extensive they nearly take you out of the storyline.


If your looking for a fun page/stomach turner this is a great choice. It's the first of his books that I've read... and I plan to read some more.

A gem in the genre
This brutal, disturbing book is worth every second spent reading it. This is horror with teeth, not the weak, watered down stuff that makes it to the screen. Unflinching, dark, gut-wrenching. Shirley's darkest work outside of Cellars, its a must read for fans of hardcore horror.

Kinda gross
I didn't like this book that much.It is the literary equivalant to a snuff film.To judge from other comments on this board, it's not even that good of a snuff film.That said, it did hold my interest until the rather predictable end.For this alone I give it two stars.

Dripping down to your elbows with gore
Wetbones is not a book that will make one feel good but it makes for a fast paced gross fest. There is a supernatural force under the mask of a glistening silvery worm, feeding on any evil that a human can do. The menacing forces called Astral worms that feed on human addictions take a well know Hollywood couple as hosts; the Denvers. They live in the Doublekey Ranch near Malibu, a place where money, sex, power and death intermixed freely as grotesque things started to happen and people harmed themselves under the influence of the alien parasites. The tale begins with Prentice, a young Hollywood writer who shows up at a hospital to identify the body of his ex-wife Amy. Malnourished and slashed, she is said to have been a masochist who cut herself up and ended up dead. Prentice being overwhelmed by depression cannot shake the image of his blood drainedwife on the cold steel table as he keeps running into similar incidents that involve missing or mutilated people who somehow all partied at the same place; the Doublekey Ranch.

He joins his friend Jeff whose missing brother Mitch was reportedly seen with Amy last. At the same time they try to indulge in the Hollywood racy way of life, where parties overflowed with cocktails, plastic surgery victims who were ready for incestuous romps and drugs freely available started to cloud their minds. The story crosses with that of Garner and his daughter Constance. Garner, a recovered drug addict, turned drug counselor and his teenage kid both ends up doing more that summer than they bargained for. While working at the hardware store, Constance rings up a purchase for Ephram, a bold older man who seems intrigued and fascinated. Little does she know that he has kidnapped and tortured many female victims, luring them with mind control giving them waves of pleasure or punishing them with pain. Ephram has ran away form the ranch using his powers on his own to lure victims and abuse their life sources.

The story is quite intriguing, where all the important producers, writers, agents and movie stars dabble in the forbidden pool, using humans who sacrifice themselves, under hallucinatory waves, who hurt themselves and others and give their life energy to the astral worms. The important ones who party at the ranch feed the worms with humans who in turn give them power. I liked the fact that all the separate story lines of Garner, Constance, Ephram, Prentice, Jeff, Mitch and others were on a collision course that lead to the ranch. I enjoyed reading how they tried to put clues together to help solve the gristly murders and help their friends find the missing loved ones.

I would have given the book a higher rating if the characters were developed more and if the story moved a little away from addictions form time to time. At times really hard to put down, the pace of the tale would get clouded with strange descriptions of drug overuse and self mutilation dragged over and over before finally reaching the climax, twenty pages short before end of the book.I felt that sometimes Mr. Shirley wrote words like a sick patient in heat, describing disgusting scenes of torture, rape and sickening enjoyment that bad buys got from it over and over and over as it did little to enrich the story. The violence felt slapped on and overused, not reaching its full shock value from the repetitiveness.Overall a gore fest but not a book that haunts me for a long time after reading but it kept me interested enough to finish the story, and the final ending was a good twist considering the entire story and how it was handled.

- Kasia S.

... Read more

Product Description
Relates general information on the hazards of toxic materials in the environment and lists facts about more than one hundred individual toxics. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

"Toxics A to Z" should be required reading!
"Toxics A to Z" gives a complete, and thoroughly readableintroduction to all of the variouspotential environmental hazards we facetoday.Although scientifically based, it gives a very good layman'sexplanation of the kinds of hazardsto watch out for, and what we can doto avoid orreduce our exposure. Without being alarmist, itpoints outnot just what we should be worried about, but the actions we can take toaviod thesehazards and to help eliminate them from our environment. Thebook also gives a literally "A to Z" coverage of many of theeveryday toxics we might be exposed to, either at home or at the workplace,without ever realizing it. An extremely informative and empowering book!

Excellent reference on everyday toxics
If you are concerned about the fumes you breathe at the gas pump, the No Pest Strip at home, or the pesticides on your fruit, then this is the book for you.Thousand of chemicals are listed and the level of toxicity isgiven.These are chemicals you encounter everyday. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

started with potential...
i agree with the other reviewer... the middle is slooowww. after seeing the movie i figured that id try this book but its as much about a few country bumpkins as it is about constantine. about all that i learned about constantine here (other than a couple pages of backstory at the beginning which was cool) is that he sometimes drunk a lot, most of book deals with one setting: a bunch of tunnels under ground. so its tunnels, some tenticle things, more tunnels, some villagers talking, more tunnels... wait a short scene with constantine getting drunk... maybe if the writer has a book set above ground i will get into it.

Super Reader
This one is a bit dull in the middle, helped to put me to sleep more than once. Start is ok, perks up in the end, too, as Constatine has to help defeat the Gloomlord, a human magus who has bound an elemental to his will to help power the magic that allows him to rejuvenate every day.

To this purpose, he sinks a small town in Cornwall down into his little Hollow Earth, to provide him with human grist for his magic mill. ... Read more

Product Description
Join us again for this fourth volume and meet the most villainous cast to ever grace the pages of popular literature, spreading evil from the foggy underworld of London to the seedy taverns of Mars, and from the flowery banks of the Seine to New York's grimy Hell Kitchen. Fantômas, Countess Cagliostro, Victor Frankenstein, Irma Vep, Count Orlock, Erik, Madame Atomos, the Black Coats, Charles Foster Kane, and even Great Cthulhu himself... Dare meet--the Lords of Terror! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Black Coat Press does it again!
Black Coat Press once again presents us with an amazing new series of short stories in Tales of the Shadowmen 4. For those not familiar with this series, Tales presents new short stories using French pulp heroes adventuring with American fictional characters. The stories themselves are exciting, fast paced and present the reader with heroes they may not have experienced until this time. The stories that particularly impressed me were Matthew Baugh's "Captian Future and the Lunar Patrol", Win Scott Eckart's "The Atomos Affair", Micah Harris's "The Anti-Pope of Avignon", Rick Lai's "Corridors of Deceit",Jean-Marc Lofficier's "Madame Atomos' XMas" and John Peel's "Twenty Thousand Years Under the Sea". Don't miss this book! ... Read more

Product Description
Someone on Earth knew about the aliens. Someone battled them, and survived. Before Ripley, there was a first encounter. Aliens and humans have fought before! When a human spaceship discovers a vast egg-shaped vessel in Saturn's orbit, the crew powers in to investigate. Thinking the ship might contain usable metal for Earth, they force their way aboard. Three teams split up to explore the ship. Already the aliens have awoken. The first of all the battles unfolds. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (18)

Does the series justice
My experience with Aliens franchise is limited to the first and second movies. Both of which are favorites of mine in their genres because of their uniqueness. Mr. Shirley brings this feeling to the book as he adds an interesting back story to the Aliens and The Corporation. My favorite thing about this book is the way it shifts genre gears. At first we are introduced to story in a sort of exploration/adventure kind of way. If your a fan of history, and enjoy watching as a "foreign" world is explored and contrasted with ours, or with space exploration and fascination with things that just are not ordinary. A subplot about a rival crew from China adds a nice geopolitical touch, with the benefit of an added human presence making for more meat, and a certain grounding sense in the other worldly atmosphere. It doesn't take long however for the real action to begin and we are treated to a developing Alien starting right from "face hugger stage". In Steel Egg, There is still a great deal of strong characterization, including one of my new favorite comic relief characters in the form of a slang talking robot who meets an unfortunate end(still displeased about that one, but there are casualties in the name of suspense). Mr Shirley bring more life to ancillary characters then you would normally find in a book like this, which is impressive considering the antagonists need to consume these characters(in gleefully gory fashion I might add). This fast moving novel always builds in suspense until the last page. The surrealistic yet in strikingly plausible imaginative descriptions in this far off setting make the transition to setting easy and even enjoyable playing a role in the early exploration theme of the book. I would recommend this to anyone who is a fan of the movies, or a fan of just plain horror.

Bug-Hunt should be an outlawed word.
In the beginning, there was more than we knew. Lv-426 - nope. There was a battle that hit closer to home, much closer, and the winner in this one would be the winner that mihgt end up with Earth either never knowing about them or running down the roads screaming because hives have popped up on more than some stranger's face. This is a little battle that predates all the things we knew thusfar and it took place just outside of a little orbit called Saturn. The clash: a derelict ship, floating about, housing some stow-aways. The combatants: Humans with advancements in technolgoy versus a primitive killing machine. The stakes: A lot, considering how people see the Alien. a whole lot and then some.

When I read this book, I saw the problems with it and its place in the storyline of the alien but I really didn't care. Honestly, I liked what the author did because the author tried to do some stuff that featured the Alien and things aobut it. The author talks about this in some notes, stating how the feeding cycle, breeding cycle, and other things have been hit on BUT could be featured better. So, this was sitting there.

Aside from that, there was also a horror element that the people had going for them once they stepped foot on that horrific little craft. You know they were in trouble - you could count their breaths and feel them drowning in a sea of recycled air - and you knew the Aliens were coming. The people were confident they would have no problems, however, because they were toting the best of the best. Yes, they were armed to the teeth, carrying the latest stuff to dispatch any xeno they ran across, and they figured this would be, to quote one alien fighter, "a bughunt."
But its never so easy as that, now is it?

As far as alien novels go, this is another good one and one I endorse. I like knowing more about the alien and what lives behind that sheen, understanding just how much that beastie brings to the table. It shows how the primitive isn't that primitive and how, with the touch of a few little tidbits of misfortune, we could be floating chow for something stepping over us on that little thing we call the foodchain.
Good stuff - you should check it out and see for yourself.

A decent enough 'Aliens' tale
`Aliens: Steel Egg' (270 pp., Dark Horse Books, 2007) features a cover illustration by Stephen Youll.

It's about 2060 AD and the UN spaceship Hornblower is exploring the space around Saturn when the vessel comes across a massive ship of alien origin in orbit around the moon Iapteus.Shaped like an enormous egg, the ship doesn't respond to any hailing frequencies. A detachment from the Hornblower travels to the alien ship and gains entry to discover that, while the ship's systems are all in perfect working order,all that remains of the crew are shriveled corpses,dessicated from centuries of lying aboard the spacecraft. It appears that the `Giff' race that built and crewed the massive `steel egg' of a vessel have left no survivors.

Led by Daryl Corgan, the Hornblower's commander, the crew of the UN vessel soon discover disquieting video footage in the alien ship's computer systems. It appears that a second race of aliens, the ones we know and love from the 20th Century Fox franchise, have decimated the crew of the enormous `steel egg'. A little more poking around leads to an ominous discovery: there are a score of strange organic `pods' lining a passageway in the bowels of the ship. And when Immy Cruz bends over a pod to take a closer look, something inside starts to move.....

Needless to say the mayhem picks up velocity rather early in the book, and author Shirley just piles it on for the remainder of the narrative.There are plenty of aliens to go around, but our earthlings aren't entirely helpless, as they have an arsenal of assault rifles and flamethrowers at their disposal. You know that not all the crew will survive, but Shirley doesn't tip his hand with a `red shirt' effect. He does lay on the grue with abandon; as he states in his introduction, "...this book is not for little kids."

Towards the end of the novel Shirley shows signs of getting tired with the whole deal and wanting to wrap things up by interjecting some bits of humor (a xeno named `Larry' ?). But for an `Aliens' book (with all the constraints inherent in handling a licensed property), Shirley does a reasonably good job, and fans of the franchise will want to give it a look.

Not Bad
John Shirley doesn't do a bad job of describing man's first brush with the xenomorphs. Many political themes and settings similar to the atmosphere of the book and film 2010 - spacer crew sent to study a mysterious object in the outer reaches of our solar system, geopolitical tension at home, the intrigue of making contact etc etc. Enjoyed this book, reminded me of the first film ALIEN. What is that thing on his face...

" . . . the alien dropped to the deck and charged . . . shrieking wordless primeval hatred as it came."
With "Steel Egg" the baton on writing novels in this second series of Alien novels is passed on to stalwart science fiction writer, and one of the godfathers of both the cyber and splatterpunk movement John Shirley.For some reason I found this novel the best of the Alien novels so far.Still, I suspect that somebody's 401 k plan was in need of a quick cash infusion as this was the last of Shirley's media projects for Dark Horse.The others being two Hellblazer novels (War Lord (John Constantine Hellblazer), Subterranean (John Constantine Hellblazer)), a Predator novel (Predator: Forever Midnight), plus he was responsible for two novelizations (Constantine, Doom) and a Batman novel (Batman: Dead White) for other publishers, all within a two-year period.In his spare time I'm sure he was brokering world peace, curing cancer, and inventing a new ice cream flavor ("Citrus Cyber Crunch") for Ben & Jerry's.

But that is all neither here-nor-there as far as "Steel Egg" goes."Steel Egg" is a novel that takes place BEFORE the events that happened on the "Nostromo", and here the crew of the good ship "Hornblower", of the United Nations Interplanetary Corps discovers a vast egg-shaped vessel out in Saturn's orbit.While this is a surprise to the crew, a close examination of their orders show that "The Company", an influential entity that was behind the push to get the "Hornblower" out there to take a look-see, may very well have had an inkling that the alien vessel was there.So, people being what people are, the captain decides to go have a look-see, and this being an Alien novel, we all know that this is not a wise move, and not one that will end well for anybody.

Inside they find a huge area that is broken up into a labyrinth of workstations and sections, and finding that the air inside the ship is good enough to breath, they pop their suits.Continuing to explore, they find an alien personal transporter, a workstation with a computer that has a blinking warning light in the shape of a spider (hmm), and then they activate a hologram which shows one of the ship's crew getting attacked by a full grown xenomorph.As they continue their explorations, they discover a desiccated alien crewmember, a way to open transportation tunnels in the ship, and some living eggs, and in the time-honored tradition of the overconfident doing stupid things, one of our intrepid explorers decided to stick their face just where they shouldn't, and, well you know the rest.And in yet another time-honored tradition, the explorers decide to bring the infected crewmember back to the "Hornblower" for examination.Again, this is a move that never quite works out the way that it was intended.Soon a baby alien starts running around, then crewmembers start running around in a panic, then more aliens start running amok picking off crewmembers, and then the surviving crew members start running to the alien vessel to escape, and then things start to get really difficult as a competing corp. shows up."The Chinese/Asian-Nation Cooperative" has decided to protect "their" pirated investment by sending in a search-and-destroy team to capture the alien ship, the "Hornblower" and its crew, and chaos ensues. We are about halfway through the novel and I'm already exhausted.

Whether or not he has respect for the Alien mythos, Shirley is professional enough to give us the impression that he does, and he certainly seems to understand the Alien mythos, and he seems to be enjoying himself in this work-for-hire job.Whatever the case may be, just because these novels are essentially action pieces doesn't mean that they can't have some substance to them.Shirley is an old hand at infusing cynicism in his fiction, and he has decided to go back to the roots of the Alien mythos, which was infused with a cynicism of corporations that are too big for the law, and personal egos that are too big to allow for the fact that the universe doesn't revolve around them, both of which are things that we have come to be far too familiar with in recent times since this novel has been published.

Shirley also has a good touch with dialogue, which helps in his character building, which again he does a credible job at doing in a novel meant, like all of these novels, to be more of a fast-paced action and chase piece than an overly-intellectual textual exercise.Shirley admits in an Author's Note at the beginning of "Steel Egg" that some of his novel will be contradictory to established Alien mythology, but, he also notes, that established Alien mythology is often contradictory to itself, and that "Steel Egg" is his riff on the whole Alien concept.Something that those who constantly cry about literary purity in these novels should take notice of."Steel Egg" should be of interest to Alien fans as Shirley gives us a look at the early days of the Alien menace that has more credibility, and interest, than Michael Jan Friedman's revisionist, and overly conspiratorial re-working of the Alien universe in Friedman's Aliens: Original Sin Volume 1 (v. 1).A revisionist history that lead nowhere, and interested nobody, unlike Shirley's look at the early days of the Alien mythology, that does seem to fit more smoothly into what we already know.And once again Stephen Youll gives us one kick-ass, and intensive cover.The next novel in this series would be Aliens: Criminal Enterprise by S. D. Perry.
... Read more

Product Description
In this sexy literary anthology, top genre authors explore the deep eroticism of music subcultures. Demons, vampires, punk employees, spirits, gothic fetish party revelers, and guitarists feel the rhythm where it counts. Features fiction by Poppy Z. Brite, Nancy A. Collins, Yon Von Faust, Amelia G, Sèphera Girón, Andew Greenberg, Thomas S. Roche, William Spencer-Hale, John Shirley, Shariann Lewitt, Will Judy, Althea Morin, Ceclia Tan, and more. Critics' praise for Backstage Passes:"sure to stimulate the mind, heart and other places ... If you like your Rock and Roll the way it was meant to be, this is a reading must."-- Redemption Magazine "dynamic authors ... works of spell binding literature" -- Industrial Nation Magazine "top-notch erotica omnibus"-- Dirty Magazine ... Read more

Product Description
Erupting on the screen in a blaze of blood and guts in 1987, the film Predator quickly became a favorite, spawning a host of sequels, games, and novels. In Predator: Forever Midnight, John Shirley casts his malevolent eye upon the canon.

The year is 2117 A.D. Humanity has seized the stars, using reverse-engineered alien technology to explore the far reaches of space. On the eternally lit jungle planet Midnight, explorers are making a new world suitable for habitation. For years, humans have been safe from the sadistic extraterrestrial hunters known as the Predators, but the settlers on Midnight aren’t alone: the Predators have been on the planet all along. When the ravenous creatures attack an arriving spacecraft and capture the settlers as both slaves and prey for their hunt, the humans' terraforming project takes a back seat to a new fight for survival. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (22)

Eagle20
Although I have never read any of the other Predator books, I thought this one gave the Predators more personality. The reader learns about the life of the predator, although the praises for the elder predators were absurd, the story was fairly decent, or at least better than the AVP series. It also somewhat falls in line with Predators (the movie, due July 2010) where predators bring humans to an alien planet to hunt (might be a good one?). This book could be the sequel to the movie, sounds pretty close to me.

this book really sucks
I regret buying this book. It was a terrible waste of my time and my money. The thing that I believe was the worst thing in this book was that the auther portrayed the Predators as changing their sex. I could have spent my money on a book of higher quality. I did however like all the plants and creatures in this book. The auther did manage to do an aceptible job on that, but I would not buy the book for that reason. If you are intrested in that I would sujestthat you look at Allan Dean Fosters work for that. But this is just my opinion.

What happened
I was very excited when I recieved this book in the mail but that's as far as my excitement went. I too, did not finish the entire book and after reading some of the other reviews I do not feel bad for not having completed it from front to back. I was very dissappointed in the author for changing the basic nature of the predators. For instance, the dual sex idea. The predators were never both sexes. They were either male or female, not both. I think the author lost site of what the original predator series was about. It would have been more enjoyable if the book was not a predator book at all but perhaps a new series with a different type of alien all together.

WHY????
THIS BOOK IS TERRIBLE! I'd never heard of John Shirley before eading this "book".I've been a fan of Predator for as long as I can remember, and this book is worse than having to deal with army of cockroaches on Steroids. The Creatures in this waste of paper are definetly not Predators, Yajuta, or whatever you please to call them. Reasons why they aren't
1.Predators do not change sexes! They are either Male or Female not both.
2.Their cloacking devices are not shields
3.They do not enslave other cultures
4.Predators have an honor code, they don't kill everything they see.
5.Whatever the hell I forgot to list

Treat it like a UFO - and pretend you never saw it......
Despite 15+ comments already posted on this book, I felt compelled to add my voice about what I consider an insulting rip off of the Predator series and its fans.

Mr. Shirley admits to not having done any background research on the Predator series (besides viewing the first film)and it shows. Like other fans I expect new installments to the series to respect and maintain the continuity of the basic Predator mythos already established (see authors Steve & Stehanie Perry, Nathan Archer, etc). Fundamental premises such as personal "honor" in the kill, military-like self-discipline, high tech skills and intelligence of Predators (highlighting the fallacy of prejudices based on appearances)were left unexamined on the shelf along with all the preceding Predator books. I have no qualms about authors building on an established series, adding to the storyline with their own creativity, but not CHANGING an entire genre in the process!Can you imagine sequels for say, "Gone with the Wind" that make Scarlet an ex-prostitute before she met Rhett, completely destroying her southern belle naivete and spoiled childlike ways inherent to her original character? This is in essence what Mr. Shirley's has done with his "contribution" to the Predator series.

Instead, Mr. Shirley imposes his own mythos that Predators are unisex creatures(interchangeably male and female according to their "cycle"), a clear rip off of the film "Enemy Mine" with Louis Gossett Jr.'s portrayal of a gender/sex shifting alien. His Predators are bloodthirsty to the point of mindlessness, will even kill each other in a frenzy without medication to control their "kill gland", and have no regard for sportsmanship, character building from "hunting" or seemingly any particular rules of engagement - just indiscriminate slaughter of whatever they can get their hands on.To add insult to injury, Shirley inflicts us with juvenile attempts at humor, stilted dialogue, and writing that tells rather than shows - a death knell to reader interest.I had to force myself to finish this book amidst all of its violations.

I agree with other commentors that generally speaking, the Predator series needs to expand beyond the one-by-one-kill-off-victims scenario, as that storyline is becoming stagnant.Therein lies a vast array of possibilities and scenarios left unmined for future authors wishing to contribute to this series!!

John Shirley has apparently won a Bram Stoker award for his horror short story collection in "Black Butterflies," and has done work on screenplays - maybe this explains the "telling" rather than showing writing style; writing a treatment is a world away from sustaining a novel. In any event, I suggest Mr. Shirley stick to horror - and we treat this Predator installment like a UFO - and pretend we never saw it.
... Read more

Product Description
Hidden from mortal eyes are the angels and demons that coexist with mankind...supernatural beings who seek to influence our lives for better or for worse. Amoral and irreverent renegade occultist and paranormal detective John Constantine is blessed and cursed with the ability to interact with this secret world. When he teams up with sceptical policewoman Angela Dodson to solve the mysterious suicide of her twin sister, their investigation catapults them into a catastrophic series of otherwordly events -- even as the forces of Hell conspire against Constantine to claim his immortal soul. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (15)

How could a bad movie have a good novelization??? It does!
John Shirley obviously knows John Constantine better than anyone who made the movie this book is based on. Anyone who likes this book should read Shirley's original Hellblazer novels - Warlord and Subterranean. Why DC comics hasn't hired John Shirley to write comics is a mystery.

Shirley scores again with "Constantine"
I got this book not knowing who John Shirly was and expecting this to be a quick read or one of those bad film novelizations. I was pleasantly surprised on the depth Shirley brought into the storyline. He showed me how low Constantine was with his sickness, his sarcastic attitude towards his friends and foes. Like most of his writing, Shirley does an acceptable job.

This is a great novel for film novelization readers or comic movie freaks.

PARTY ON, DUDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Abolutely boring
There were several good scenes, but they didn't make up for the rest of the book.Not worth reading.

Important add on to the movie
this book fills in the plot holes in the movie and helps the reader understand the complete story. the book is very well written. if you liked the movie read this book

A Hell Of A Read
I am about halfway through this book since I picked it up today.This is a great read, the pages turn themselves.The movie itself was a bit mediocre but the novelization really takes a so-so story and makes it really good.John Shirley is an engaging and thoughtful writer.Hell is not such a nice place and not since Dante has it been envisioned in a way that is unsettling, gruesome and harrowing.Constantine's trip through Hell is a nail biter.

I was a big fan of the Hellblazer Series when it debuted and the book is a worthy addition to that series. ... Read more

Product Description

Comet Press presents Sick Things: An Anthology of Extreme Creature Horror, a follow-up to the infamous Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror. Sick Things is the ultimate collection of extreme creature horror with 17 deviant and gore-soaked stories featuring demons, cannibals, mutants, golems, werewolves, and many more vile creatures, monsters, and beasts.

Over-endowed aliens invade earth with one purpose: to mate with human females. A filmmaker documents a devil worshipping blood cult--and becomes the main subject. A farmer with an unnatural affection for his livestock gets a special gift when his wife is bitten by a werewolf. P!ssed off, flesh-eating cows take over a dairy farm. A musician returns from the dead to avenge his wife's murder, with the help of a mysterious black possum. The Allies find a secret weapon: a monstrous blob with an insatiable appetite for dead human flesh. A chef creates his ultimate dish: an anatomically correct golem made out of leftovers. A mythical demon preys on unsuspecting college girls. A morbid, mouth-watering retelling of Hansel and Gretel. And many more!

Table of Contents

"Devils" by Randy Chandler, "Threshold" by Fred Venturini, "This is My Body" by Lawrence Conquest, "Hunger Pangs" by Matt Kurtz, "Fly on the Wall" by Stephanie Bedwell-Grime, "Legacy of the Last Invader" by M. Shaw, "Acceptable Losses" by Simon Wood, "An Unfortunate Incident at the Slaughterhouse" by Harper Hull, "Rotsworth" by Kurt Bachard, "Evil, Bent, and Candy-Sweet" by Tim Curran, "Heat" by Daniel I. Russell, "The Neglected" by Sean Logan, "Betty and the Cambion" by Ralph Greco, Jr., "Jimmy Sticks and the Outlaw Critter of Doom" by Michael Boatman, "Ranching the Sleore" by Aaron Polson, "Paper Angels on Fire" by John Shirley, "The Special Son" by Jeffrey Hale, and Editor Cheryl Mullenax.

Customer Reviews (1)

Comet Press Does it Again
Sick Things is a sequel of sorts of Vile Things. Instead of body horror though, this time we get creatures. Now body horror is my favorite but creature horror comes in at a very close second. God Bless Comet Press for giving us great collections of wonderful NEW ideas. What a revelation. Gone are (most) of the creatures herein are new and different ideas. Hell the only "zombie" story here is unconventional, funny, gory, and written by former Spin City star Michael Boatman! I'm so sick of zombies and vampires I could spew and I'm so glad the editor of Sick Things saw fit to keep the genre tropes down to a minimum. Many of the same authors that were included in Vile Things and/or The Death Panel return here, and again they're the best of the bunch. Fred Venturini turns in a story about creatures that steal secrets, Randy Chandler tells us about a woman raped by demons. Tim Curran gets my award for most descriptive tale in the bunch, a retelling of Hansel and Gretel, Sean Logan's tale, "The Neglected," was so disturbing and uncomfortable I almost couldn't get through it. One of the more creative and bizarre of the bunch, Legacy of the Last Invader by M. Shaw, is about a now exstinct group of aliens whose sole purpose was to repopulate their race with our women, the problem is they're hung like baseball bats and kill nearly every woman they meet. The always impressive John Shirley turns in astory about the after life and Jefferey Hale finishes the set with a story every adolescent male would cringe at. 17 stories in all and not a bad one in the bunch. Some are more successful than others but all were a good read.

Comet Press once again has produced a superior collection of extreme horror. Honestly I feel like this one's the best yet from them. All the authors here turn in tight, sharp work that surpass the previous collections. Most of the authors here are virtual unknowns some are even publishing their first work here but don't let that deter you, these are going to be the horror leaders of tomorrow, catch them now and be ahead of the curve. Recommended. ... Read more