This collection of Joe R. Lansdale stories
represents the best of the "Lansdale" genre – a strange mixture of dark
crime, even darker humor, and adventure tales. The stories are varied
in setting and theme, but they are all pure Lansdale – eerie, amusing,
and occasionally horrific. In "The Pit," modern gladiators square off
against one another using Roman methods. An alternate-history tale
called "Trains Not Taken" shows Buffalo Bill as an ambassador and Wild
Bill Hickok as a clerk. Lansdale's love of large lizards and humor are
evident in the stories "Godzilla's Twelve Step Program" and "Bob the
Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland."
Contents:
- Foreword by
Joe R. Lansdale
- Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland
- Booty and the Beast
- By Bizarre Hands
- By the Hair of the Head
- Dog, Cat, and Baby
- Drive-In Date
- Godzilla's Twelve-Step Program
- Incident On and Off a Mountain Road
- Letter from the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches
- Mister Weed-Eater
- My Dead Dog, Bobby
- Night They Missed the Horror Show
- Not from Detroit
- Steppin' Out, Summer, '68
- The Fat Man and the Elephant
- The Job
- The Phone Woman
- The Pit
- The Steel Valentine
- Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back
- Trains Not Taken