Pandamoon Publishing

From Kirkus ReviewsG-R-R-I-S-L-Y...by the author of A Splendid Chaos (1988). Horrible as this is, it has redeeming values, one being its warning against addictive pleasures and too much partying. When down-at-heels screenwriter Tom Prentice identifies his ex-wife Amy in the morgue, she's 50 pounds underweight and mutilated. Then when Prentice pitches a banal cop-show to studio head Arthwright, Arthwright is oddly not dismissive of the dumb idea. As we later find out, Arthwright is a kind of astral vampire. Meanwhile, Reverend Garner, a recovering doper/alcoholic who runs a ministry in Oakland, finds that his teenage daughter Constance is missing. She's been kidnapped by Ephram Pixie, a ghoul with astral ties who turns Constance into a pleasure addict by psychic pressure on her pleasure-center brain cells. Ephram likes to have Constance enjoy sex in his presence while she murders folks in nasty ways in motel rooms. Mitch Teitelbaum, the missing young brother of Tom's roommate Jeff, turns up in a hospital after deliberately laying bare his chest muscles and slitting open his leg, among other enjoyable self-injuries, after a strange party. With echoes of The Shining, this all-continuing party takes place at the fenced-in residence of some ageless Malibu film folk and famed party-givers (including Arthwright) who have been living for decades as vampires of pleasure. Their particular pleasure is to extend their snouts like a mosquito's feeding tube and suck out just enough flesh to leave a victim emaciated but still alive. Some of the party guests are themselves in advanced decay but still actively autoerotic. The story's ghastliest effects focus on the wetbones, or victims now a skinless rubble of fresh bones--bones sometimes strapped together with thongs to make wet furniture.... The queasies'll getcha if you don't watch out! -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.Product Description"WETBONES, the acclaimed and viscerally powerful work by John Shirley, is being released for the first time in a new, improved form. *Fully revised and updated edition. First fully-author-approved text ever released. INCLUDES a Brand-New companion story. Never before published. Down -on-his-luck screenwriter Tom Prentice is called to the morgue to identify the body of his ex-wife Amy. She's recognizable--but her body is also 50 pounds underweight, and mutilated. Disturbed, but trying to go on with his life, Prentice pitches a cop-show to studio head Arthwright and is surprised when the exec is interested in the run-of-the-mill idea. Arthwright’s real motives will emerge into hideous view, along with soul-consuming astral creatures camouflaging themselves behind greed, the seduction of Hollywood power—and pleasure. The secret of the Akishra writhes in the background...until it squirms into plain, horrific view. Meanwhile, Reverend Garner, a recovering addict who runs a ministry in Oakland, discovers that his teenage daughter Constance is missing. She has been kidnapped by Ephram Pixie, a ghoulish serial murderer with connections to the cult of the Akishra—Pixie uses psychic pressure to turn Constance into a pleasure addict of the sickest sort. And Mitch Teitelbaum, the missing brother of Tom Prentice's roommate Jeff, ends up in a hospital after deliberately and gruesomely mutilating himself...under the influence of the Akishra. Much of the action spins out from a mysterious, on-going, underground party, which goes on, apparently endlessly, at the fenced-in residence of The More Man and his Malibu film folk, legendary Hollywood Babylon-type partiers, connected with Arthwright, living for decades as psychic vampires feeding on pleasure and the gradual destruction of the human soul. Wetbones is a streetname for victims of their former ally, Ephram Pixie—the residue of his latest sensuous atrocity with Constance, they’re skinless package of freshly bloodied bones... All the storylines come devastatingly together, like wet bones lashed together, in the apocalyptic climax... A contemporary horror tale with Lovecraftian overtones, a subtle message about the horrors of addiction (which may all be inspired and directed by entities from a higher and very nasty plane of existence) and a look at the dark underside of Hollywood written by someone who knows...WETBONES is wrapped in a speed-charged action tale with enough gruesome violence and horrific action to remind readers that John Shirley was recognized from early on as one of the mainsprings of the Splatterpunk movement. The content is very graphic and not for the faint of heart, a glimpse into the abyss only to discover the abyss looking hungrily back."

When Alexander Laing first came upon the sinister tale of Gideon Wyck in 1934, his publisher felt obliged to address the following Note to the Reader: “This story was received from a reputable literary agent, who claims to be as ignorant as we are of the author’s identity…Customary royalties will be reserved for the author’s account, should he wish to reveal himself to the agent with satisfactory proofs of identity.” Now, many years later we repeat the same explanation, for in all the time since that first publication none has come forward to confess to the authorship of so harrowing and demonic a tale. Dick Saunders is the name the author gives himself for the purposes of telling the story. He is a medical student of Dr. Gideon Wyck. Saunders begins to see an explanation for Wyck’s eccentric behavior, but does not find it until after a more final discovery is made in the medical school vault. The cadaver of Gideon Wyck is there, as if awaiting the post-mortem scalpel. It is not in Wyck himself, however, but in his laboratory that his monstrous secret is found. A Maine campus offers a seminar in demonology in this classic horror tale.

A vampire with a conscience recounts how he departed from human existence and became a vampire but, reluctant to take human life, he sustains himself on the blood of animals.

Millennia ago, planet Helios held a grand technological civilization. But the Cataclysm tore the land apart, and the survivors were forced to flee to the Six Stations, the artificial planetoids that orbited Helios. It did not take long for their society to devolve into a virtual medieval world, with barely enough technology to survive the harshness of life in space.The stations were governed by royalty and the elite nobility. The ruling class lived on the Surface, the merchant class occupied the Middle Decks and the working class languished in the Lower Decks. Each subject had his or her place, destined to live out his life as determined by his birth.Out of this culture arose a line of monarchs called the Reign of Four. Alexis Teirmont was the First. He was a visionary, a warrior and a tyrant who was not immune to egotism, cruelty, and revenge. He would change the very fabric of the System. His reign would be remembered throughout history for both the good – and the bad.

Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty is the latest of the George R.R. Martin's original Wild Cards series, now in trade paperbackLet the secret history of the world be told-of the alien virus that struck Earth after World War II, and of the handful of the survivors who found they now possessed superhuman powers. Some were called Aces, endowed with powerful mental and physical prowess. The others were Jokers, tormented by bizarre mind or body disfigurements. Some served humanity. Others caused terror. And now, forty years later, as a gang war between the Shadow Fists and the mafia rages out of control in the streets of Jokertown, Aces and Jokers go underground-to wage their own war against the powers of the netherworld. Here, in the fifth volume of the exciting series, ten of science fiction's most gifted writers take readers on a journey of wonder and excitement in an astounding alternate history.Featuring the talents of John J. Miller, Roger Zelazny,...

SUMMARY: 'There were many staff at Kensington Palace, fulfilling many roles; a man who was employed to catch rats, another whose job it was to sweep the chimneys. That there was someone expected to hunt Demons did not shock the new Queen; that it was to be her was something of a surprise.' London, 1838. Queen Victoria is crowned; she receives the orb, the sceptre, and an arsenal of blood-stained weaponry. Because if Britain is about to become the greatest power of the age, there's the small matter of the demons to take care of first...But rather than dreaming of demon hunting, it is Prince Albert who occupies her thoughts. Can she dedicate her life to saving her country when her heart belongs elsewhere? With lashings of glistening entrails, decapitations, and foul demons, this masterly new portrait will give a fresh understanding of a remarkable woman, a legendary monarch, and quite possibly the best Demon Hunter the world has ever seen ...A E Moorat weaves a seamlessly lurid tapestry of royal biography, gothic horror and fist-gnawing comedy as he lifts the veil on what really took place on the dark and cobbled streets of 19th-century England.