John Shirley Books In Order

  • Kingdom Come (1984)
  • The Stalkers (1984)
  • To Kill a Shadow (1984)
  • Road War (1985)
  • Border War (1985)
  • Terminal Road (1986)
  • Song Called Youth Books In Order

    1. Eclipse (1985)
    2. Eclipse Penumbra (1988)
    3. Eclipse Corona (1990)

    Borderlands Books In Order

    1. The Fallen (2011)
    2. Unconquered (2012)
    3. Gunsight (2013)

    BioShock Books In Order

    1. Rapture (2011)

    Watch Dogs Books In Order

    1. Dark Clouds (2014)

    Sundown Riders Books In Order

    1. Prairie Fire, Kansas (2020)

    Trail Drive Books In Order

    1. Red Trail (2020)

    Trail of the Gunfighter Books In Order

    1. Broken Rider (2020)

    Cleve Trewe Western Books In Order

    1. Axle Bust Creek (2022)

    Novels

    1. Transmaniacon (1979)
    2. Dracula in Love (1979)
    3. Three Ring Psychus (1980)
    4. City Come A-Walkin’ (1980)
    5. The Brigade (1981)
    6. Cellars (1982)
    7. A Splendid Chaos (1988)
    8. In Darkness Waiting (1988)
    9. The Black Hole of Carcosa (1988)
    10. Wetbones (1991)
    11. Silicon Embrace (1996)
    12. Demons (2000)
    13. The View from Hell (2001)
    14. And the Angel With Television Eyes (2001)
    15. Spider Moon (2002)
    16. Crawlers (2003)
    17. Doom (2005)
    18. The Other End (2007)
    19. Black Glass (2008)
    20. Bleak History (2009)
    21. Everything is Broken (2011)
    22. The Crow: Death and Rebirth (2013)
    23. Doyle After Death (2013)
    24. Wyatt in Wichita (2014)
    25. A Dying Machine (2019)
    26. Stormland (2021)
    27. A Sorcerer of Atlantis (2021)

    Collections

    1. The Exploded Heart (1986)
    2. New Noir (1986)
    3. Heatseeker (1989)
    4. Black Butterflies (1998)
    5. Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories (1999)
    6. Darkness Divided (2001)
    7. Living Shadows (2007)
    8. Infernally Yours (2009)
    9. In Extremis (2011)
    10. The Devil’s Coattails (2011)
    11. Lovecraft Alive! (2016)
    12. The Feverish Stars (2021)

    Novellas

    1. Her Hunger (2014)
    2. High (2014)

    Non fiction

    1. Gurdjieff (2004)
    2. New Taboos: Plus… (2013)
  • Kingdom Come
  • The Stalkers
  • To Kill a Shadow
  • Road War
  • Border War
  • Terminal Road
  • Song Called Youth Book Covers

    Borderlands Book Covers

    BioShock Book Covers

    Watch Dogs Book Covers

    Sundown Riders Book Covers

    Trail Drive Book Covers

    Trail of the Gunfighter Book Covers

    Cleve Trewe Western Book Covers

    Novels Book Covers

    Collections Book Covers

    Novellas Book Covers

    Non fiction Book Covers

    John Shirley Books Overview

    Eclipse

    Book one of John Shirley’s pre holocaust series, A Song Called Youth.

    The Russians didn’t use the big nukes.

    The ongoing Third World War leaves parts of Europe in ruins. Into the chaos steps the Second Alliance, a multinational eager to impose its own kind of New World Order.

    In the United States…
    in FirStep, the vast space colony…
    and on the artificial island Freezone the SA shoulders its way to power, spinning a dark web of media manipulation, propaganda, and infiltration.

    Only the New Resistance recognizes the SA for what it really is: a racist theocracy hiding a cult of eugenics.

    Enter Rick Rickenharp, a former rock’n’roll cult hero: a rock classicist out of place in Europe’s underground club scene, populated by ‘wiredancers’ and ‘minimonos’…
    but destined to play a Song Called Youth that will shake the world.

    Eclipse Penumbra

    A Song Called Youth, Book II

    Eclipse Corona

    A Song Called Youth, Book 3.

    The Fallen

    WHAT KIND OF MAN MAKES A LIVING IN HELL? His name’s Roland. Soldier class, a former mercenary, he s on a full time mission to scrape a living out of the most dangerous planet in the galaxy. Is he qualified? He s well armed, he s ruthless, and he s tougher than skag hide. And, oh yeah he s strapped with some of the most exotic weaponry this side of the Vault, not to mention possessing fists like chunks of steel. Zac Finn and his wife and young son had better get on the right side of Roland, because a stopover in orbit has turned into a nightmarish fall to the unforgiving landscape of the Borderlands. Zac hopes to find a strange new alien treasure in the Borderlands to turn his down spiraling life around. But his wife, Marla, and his son, Cal, just want to survive, and reunite, because catastrophe has left them separated by hundreds of klicks. Their chances aren t good…
    and Roland is all that stands between them and the planet s kill crazed Psychos and murderous bandits not to mention the grotesque primals, giant wyrm squids, insane tunnel rats, voracious skags, brutal bruisers, and ruthless mercs…
    . An original novel set in the universe of the Rated M for Mature video game created by Gearbox Software and published by 2K Games.

    Rapture

    It’s the end of World War II. FDR’s New Deal has redefined American politics. Taxes are at an all time high. The bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has brought a fear of total annihilation. The rise of secret government agencies and sanctions on business has many watching their backs. America’s sense of freedom is diminishing…
    and many are desperate to take there freedom back. Among them is a great dreamer, an immigrant who pulled himself from the depths of poverty to become one of the wealthiest and admired men in the world. That man is Andrew Ryan, and he believed that great men and women deserve better. And so he set out to create the impossible, a utopia free from government, censorship, and moral restrictions on science where what you give is what you get. He created Rapture the shining city below the sea. But as we all know, this utopia suffered a great tragedy. This is the story of how it all came to be…
    and how it all ended.

    Transmaniacon

    BEN RACKEY Foremost Professional irritant, remarkable in acting both as burglar and inciter in the bizarre and pleasure seeking world of the 22nd century is a fearless, ruthless man of ingenuity, completely overwhelmed with his own strength. His latest and most Dangerous assignment is to steal THE EXCITER. A dangerous and fragile device for the augmentation of the telepathic transfer of mania. By seeking out and amplifying strong, hostile human emotions, the exciter can turn a street brawl into a full scale war. As soon as Ben has possession if it he will have the power to destroy THE BARRIER. Conceived as the perfect defense against nuclear, biological, and chemical warfare, it was activated in 1989 an invisible screen of densely flowing ions entirely enclosing the continental zone labeled ‘The United States.’ Once the barrier is demolished Ben can escape. from book’s back cover

    City Come A-Walkin’

    Stu Cole is struggling to keep his nightclub, Club Anesthesia, afloat in the face of mob harassment when he’s visited by a manifestation of the city of San Francisco, crystallized into a single enigmatic being. This amoral superhero leads him on a terrifying journey through the rock and roll demimonde as they struggle to save the city.

    Cellars

    An ancient evil deep beneath New York City turns subway stations into bloody altars for ritual sacrifice. Monsters made of blood arise from drains, an invisible hellhound devours human flesh, feral children stalk the shadowy streets and make murder a terrifying game. Occult investigator Carl Lanyard risks his life, his love, and his sanity as he battles the unspeakable forces of darkness. A modern classic by a master of the macabre in a new revised edition.

    A Splendid Chaos

    Zero is a young film maker who believes his whole life and career are mapped out before him. That is, until the night he and his friends walk into a rock club…
    and are caught in a dazzling trap that spans worlds.

    They are dropped onto a dreamlike planet whose surrealistic beauty cannot hide its grotesque reality. Fool’s Hope a world, so stunningly bizarre, nightmares are irrelevant. Here, abductees both human and alien are pitted against a neverending succession of hellish parasites, carnivores, shape changers, and symbiotes.

    Yet the greatest enemy of all could be human. When former professor Harmon Fiskle is transformed by the Current a roving mutagenic force he is freed to pursue his megalomaniacal nature. He advocates a depraved policy of social Darwinism, and forges a grotesque alliance of Twists: men and women who have sacrificed their own humanity to become monstrous mutations of their former selves.

    With an entire world at stake, only Zero can solve the mystery of Fool s Hope…
    if it isn t already too late.

    In Darkness Waiting

    No writer combines the ‘delight in dread’ with social consciousness and metaphysical meaning the way John Shirley does. Although In Darkness Waiting begins in much the same vein as many horror novels mysterious deaths; a small town invaded by evil; plucky, attractive young lovers; the logical level-headed doctor; some salt-of-the-earth townsfolk…
    by its end you will have discovered it is not ‘just another horror novel.’ With its exploration of the ‘insect’ inside us all, In Darkness Waiting proves more relevant today than ever. Considering a read of In Darkness Waiting is like considering a trip through the Amazon with no weapons and no vaccinations and no shoes. It’s like contemplating a journey in the Arctic clad only in your underwear. Or maybe it’s more like dropping into one of those spelunker’s challenges, those chilling pitch-black shafts into the Earth’s crust-and when you get down there your light burns out and you remember the chitinous fauna of the cavern…

    Unlike undertaking those endeavors, you can get through the harrowing pages of In Darkness Waiting alive although we are not promising you’ll remain unscathed. Towards the end you’ll discover one of the most extreme yet literate passages ever written. It may well be the most outre scene ever created.

    But John Shirley wasn’t after shock alone. Shock is never enough for him.

    Wetbones

    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.’

    Demons

    Writers from Clive Barker to Bruce Sterling and Roger Zelazny have praised John Shirley’s searing, apocalyptic visions of postmodern hell on earth. Now this perversely brilliant author, one of the seminal representatives on the cyberpunk movement, unleashes his newest masterpiece. DemonsIn a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations. Hideous Demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sad*istically as possible. Divided into seven clans, these grisly invaders gnashing, writhing, bloodthirsty monsters seem horrifically to belong in our world. Ira, a young San Francisco artist, becomes involved with a strange group of scientists and philosophers desperately trying to end the bloody siege. Yet through it all, Ira continues to paint for in his canvas*ses lie crucial clues to the Demons origins. Yet the Demons draw their strength from an all too familiar evil a deadly malevolence supported by some of the greatest powers on earth, concealed beneath the trappings of status, success, and abused power. Ira and his allies including a compelling young seeress come to believe these Demons didn t just appear. They were summoned. But the most shocking revelation is yet to come…
    EXCLUSIVE TO THIS EDITION: The original novella Demons was published as an acclaimed, limited edition hardcover which Publishers Weekly called a mini masterpiece. Now the terror continues, as the sequel story, Undercurrents, takes the reader on a macabre journey into the center of the conspiracy that may lay waste to the Earth. From the Hardcover edition.

    And the Angel With Television Eyes

    ‘…
    And the Angel With Television Eyes‘ explores the region where fantasy meets reality. This surreal journey of self discovery and transformation at once questions the nature of our world, and redefines it in the context of 21st century pop culture and technology. It takes a writer of John Shirley’s talent and audacity to bring together elements as disparate as Shakespeare, Nietzsche, on line role playing games, soap operas, and classic mythology binding them together, creating a heady m lange on, above, and below the streets of Manhattan.

    ‘…
    And the Angel With Television Eyes‘ follows the life of Max Whitman, a successful, yet unfulfilled soap opera actor, as his life begins to fall apart. Strange, murderous events suck Max into a maelstrom that leaves him questioning first his own sanity, then the nature of reality. As he is dragged further into a battle between mythic forces that threaten to destroy him and his world, Max must first try and understand the nature of these forces and then find the strength to overcome them. At once a rousing adventure, and a bitingly insightful metaphor for our times, . And the Angel With Television Eyes is sure to keep you at the edge of your seat.

    Crawlers

    In a secret government lab somewhere in Nevada, a young scientist cowers in darkness waiting, listening, and calculating his chances of surviving the unspeakable carnage that has left him trapped and alone. Or almost alone. Soon after, a covert military operation cleanses all traces of a top secret project gone horrifically wrong. Three years later, it begins again when the quiet of a warm autumn night in a sleepy California town is shattered by a streak of light across the sky, the thunder of impact, and the unleashing of something insidious. Spreading, multiplying, and transforming everything in its path, this diabolical intelligence will not be denied until the townsfolk and eventually, all living things are conquered. Until they are all crawling…
    .

    Doom

    Far in the future…
    an urgent distress signal is received from a classified Union Aerospace Corporation research facility based on Olduvai, Mars and is suddenly silenced. Assigned to either contain or quarantine the mysterious threat, a crack strike team comprised of the most hard bitten marines around believes that this will be another routine seek and destroy mission. But they will soon come face to face with the hellish nightmares that the researchers’ unorthodox experiments have unleashed on Olduvai a place where doom is waiting…
    .

    The Other End

    Do you ever think that the human world is hopelessly out of balance, blighted, off track, and the only hope is some kind of apocalypse, some sort of end of the world that would allow the human race a new beginning, a fresh start without…
    ah…
    certain people?You know you don’t want and can’t believe in the usual ‘End Times’ scenarios that are predicted and ballyhooed by hysterical, superstitious people. But when you look around at the world as it stands you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer’s and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media hypnotized desperation…
    You see a planet beset by a loss of biodiversity, a depleted ozone layer, slash and burn destruction of rainforests, and the onset of global warming…
    And you know that because the population of the Earth is increasing, it’s only going to get worse. This can’t go on; something has to change. What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day?What if there were another end rather than one based on childish interpretations of religion, bias, bigotry, exclusion, and cultural narrowness?What if Judgment Day came for the whole world and offered true justice?It would be The Other End.

    Black Glass

    Taking the fall for his younger brother, Richard Candle went from being cyber cop to condemned criminal. After four years of UnMinding , his mind suppressed, his body enslaved he’s released to discover his brother has slipped back into the underworld of the V Rat, the virtual reality addict. Meanwhile, Candle’s harried by the murderous Grist, the head of the world’s biggest multinational. But his real enemy is something else: a conscious program, the Multisemblant, a meld of copied personalities, the dark side of five powerful people, with its own brutal agenda. Human society is sinking ever deeper a mire of escapism but Richard Candle, looking for his missing brother, fights his way through the real world of underground stock markets, flying guns, the trash walled labyrinth of Rooftown and the fringe of the fringe.

    Bleak History

    Already optioned for feature film, an original dark and gritty urban fantasy novel from acclaimed and award winning author John Shirley! In near future New York City, bounty hunter Gabriel Bleak, a man blessed and cursed with the ability to communicate with the dead, is relentlessly hunted by a clandestine government organization with mysterious links to his past. Now Bleak and the Shadow Community a slowly growing underground group with supernatural abilities must uncover the looming danger brought about by those at the upper echelons of power, or else risk a return to the dark ages…
    where an unimaginable evil awaits. Vivid, surreal, and suspenseful, Bleak History is an intensely thrilling read from an author whose stories ‘give off the chill of top grade horror’ The New York Times Book Review.

    Everything is Broken

    Twenty year old Russ arrives in the northern California town of Freedom to visit his dad. Freedom has peculiarities other than its odd name: the local mayor”s ideas of ‘decentralization’ have left it without normal connections to state or federal government and minimal public services. Russ meets an interesting young woman, Pendra, but before he can get to know much about Freedom or its people, a savage tsunami strikes the West Coast. The wave of human brutality that soon hits the isolated town proves more dangerous to the survivors than the natural disaster. Russ, his father, Pendra, and the other townsfolk must tap all their courage and ingenuity and find strength they never knew they had if they have any hope of living to find real freedom!

    New Noir

    Stories depicting minds deformed into fantastic configurations by the pressures of society.

    Black Butterflies

    Including 16 stories never before assembled, ‘Black Butterflies‘ follows on the heels of the author’s notorious collection, ‘New Noir’. ‘John Shirley is an adventurer, returning from dark and troubled regions with visionary tales to tell. I heartily recommend a journey with John Shirley at your side’. Clive Barker.

    Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories

    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.

    Darkness Divided

    Darkness can be divided it can be split like an atom, and in it can be found a destructive fire or light. Light, too, can be folded into darkness. The stories brought to light in John Shirley’s stunning Darkness Divided most of them never before collected, some written especially for this book are presented in two sections: one featuring stories set in the present, or the past, the other set in myriad futures. These dark tales of new noir, science fiction, fantasy, and crime, demonstrate humankind s evolution from where we were and where we are, to where we have yet to be. Shadows are a current a continuity streaming from ‘Til Now’ into ‘And Soon.’ John Shirley incisively explores human nature and the pitch black streak within the soul that each of us fears. The twenty two excursions collected here divide the darkness with scalpel like precision, daring you to peek inside. In these divided shadows, in the shift of diffuse light and occlusion, things move things that aren t there. There you will find your own id, the dark side of your own imagination. Read these words, and be forever changed by what you find.

    Living Shadows

    One of the darkest, edgiest, boldest writers around, John Shirley lays down an adrenalized yet artful prose that fairly skids across the page, dragging the reader along into shadowed corners of terror and desire. Yet while it’s thrilling, there’s psychological depth, too, as Shirley bores into the brains of his characters, revealing the motivations of those who walk on the wild side. Many writers extrapolate from peripheral observation and research, but John Shirley’s stories come from personal experience with extreme people and extreme mental states, and his struggle with the seductions of addiction. On the streets, in the midst of darkest suburbia, or just beyond consensus reality Shirley brings the shadows to vivid life.

    Infernally Yours

    An All New Anthology Based on Edward Lee’s Vision of Hell. Edited and Illustrated by Gak With an all new short novel, The Senary, by Edward Lee And featuring all original short fiction from: John Shirley John Everson Brian Keene Charlee Jacob Maynard and Sims Gerard Houarner Bryan Smith

    In Extremis

    In this collection of darkly funny, disquieting stories, John Shirley brings his substantial talent to bear on human morality through the absurd, violent blunderings of his characters. In Extremis features more than twenty of Shirley’s most intense stories, including two never before published pieces that are sure to roil even the most hardened readers.

    The Devil’s Coattails

    Edited by Jason V Brock and William F. Nolan. Only 500 Trade edition copies printed. Illustrated Hardcover with dust jacket; cover/interior art by Vincent Chong. Foreword by S. T. Joshi. A unique anthology: contains original, never before published works by Ramsey Campbell, John Shirley, Jason V Brock, Marc Scott Zicree, Norman Corwin, Gary Braunbeck, Steve Rasnic Tem, Melanie Tem, Earl Hamner, Jenny Brundage, Nancy Kilpatrick, Jerry E. Airth, Sunni K Brock, Richard Christian Matheson, Paul J. Salamoff, Paul G. Bens, Jr., William F. Nolan, Dan O’Bannon, Max Brand, Richard Selzer, James Robert Smith, and Wilum Pugmire/Maryanne K. Snyder. Opaque pages, printed with 100 vegetable inks using windpower; printed and bound in the USA.

    Gurdjieff

    A dramatic and literate introduction to one of the twentieth century’s most influential and intriguing spiritual teachers. Born in the shifting border between Turkey and Russia in 1866, G. I. Gurdjieff is a man who would continually straddle borders between East and West, between man and something higher than man, between the ancient teachings of esoteric schools and the modern application of those ideas in contemporary life. In many respects from the concept of group meetings to the mysterious workings of the enneagram to his critique of humanity as existing in a state of sleep Gurdjieff pioneered the culture of spiritual search that has taken root in the West today. While many of Gurdjieff‘s students including Frank Lloyd Wright, Katharine Mansfield, and P. D. Ouspensky are well known, few understand this figure possessed of complex writings and sometimes confounding methods. In Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas, the acclaimed novelist John Shirley one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre presents a lively, reliable explanation of how to approach the sage and his ideas. In accessible, dramatic prose Shirley retells that which we know of Gurdjieff‘s life; he surveys the teacher’s methods and the lives of his key students; and he helps readers to enter the unparalleled originality of this remarkable teacher.

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