Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories
Illustrated by Alan M. Clark.
THE WEIRDEST OF THE WEIRD
THE STRANGEST OF THE STRANGE
John Shirley's Really Really Really Really Weird Stories slip out of the constraints of whatever labels have been been put to them – science fiction, fantasy, horror, erotica, suspense – and into his own very special, indefinable, extraordinary literary universe.
The thirty-six stories in the book are arranged in four sections: 1. Really Weird, 2. Really Really Weird, 3. Really Really Really Weird, and 4. Really Really Really Really Weird – the book gets weirder as it progresses.
It's whimsical title acknowledges that it is an exercise in something that is not likely to be a critical priority among literary pundits and academic soothsayers. It acknowledges that there's a big element of pure fun in the concept. As the reader will discover, however, the broad spectrum and literary merit of the stories go far beyond sheer entertainment. This is coherent weirdness – weirdness that has internal logic and internal believability.
This book contains some of Shirley's earliest work and ten pieces never before published.
John Shirley
John Patrick Shirley (born 1953) is an American science fiction and horror writer of novels, short stories, and television and film scripts.
John Shirley's most significant cyberpunk novels are City Come A-Walkin and the Eclipse (A Song Called Youth) trilogy. Avant-slipstream critic Larry McCaffrey called him "the post-modern Poe". Bruce Sterling has cited Shirley's early story collection Heatseeker as being a seminal cyberpunk work in itself. Indeed, several stories in Heatseeker were particularly seminal, including Sleepwalkers, which, in just one example, probably provided the inspiration for William Gibson's "meat puppets" in Neuromancer. Gibson acknowledged Shirley's influence and borrowing ideas from Shirley in his introduction to Shirley's City Come A-Walkin.
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