About the Book
Winner of the 2008 Shirley Jackson Award for Best Collection.
Cover art by Eleni Tsami.
To the long tradition of eldritch horror pioneered and refined by
writers such as H.P. Lovecraft, Peter Straub, and Thomas Ligotti, comes
Laird Barron, an author whose literary voice invokes the grotesque, the
devilish, and the perverse with rare intensity and astonishing
craftsmanship.
Collected here for the first time are nine terrifying tales of cosmic
horror, including the World Fantasy Award-nominated novella "The Imago
Sequence," the International Horror Guild Award-nominated "Proboscis,"
and the never-before published "Procession of the Black Sloth."
Together, these stories, each a masterstroke of craft and imaginative
irony, form a shocking cycle of distorted evolution, encroaching chaos,
and ravenous insectoid hive-minds hidden just beneath the seemingly
benign surface of the Earth.
With colorful protagonists, including an over-the-hill CIA agent, a
grizzled Pinkerton detective, and a failed actor accompanying a group of bounty hunters, Barron's stories are resonant and authentic, featuring
vulnerable, hardboiled tough guys attempting to stand against the
stygian wasteland of night. Throughout the collection, themes of
desolation, fear, and masculine identity are played out against the
backdrop of an indifferent, devouring cosmos.
Contents:
- Old Virginia
- Shiva, Open Your Eye
- Procession of the Black Sloth
- Bulldozer
- Probiscis
- Hallucigenia
- Parallax
- The Royal Zoo is Closed
- The Imago Sequence
- Hour of the Cyclops (only in the limited edition)
