Fright(.com)fully Good!

1. Fright.com

At Fright.com, commentator Adam Groves writes of "2007: The Year in Literary Horror."

http://www.fright.com/papercuts/2007literaryhorror.html

In the category of Short Stories, here's what he has to say about the anthology WAITING FOR OCTOBER, of which my work comprises one quarter:

On the anthology circuit, the stand-out for me was WAITING FOR OCTOBER, edited by BILL BREEDLOVE (Dark Arts Books).  This consistently unpredictable, genre busting book is a follow-up to Dark Arts’ well received 2006 release CANDY ON THE DUMPSTER.  Like that publication, WAITING FOR OCTOBER features four authors each contributing three stories: Jeff Strand, Adam Pepper (of MEMORIA), Sarah Pinborough and DEADSTOCK’S brilliant Jeffrey Thomas (see below).  The opening story, “Gramma’s Corpse” by Jeff Strand, is what you might call a grabber.  It concerns a kid who as punishment for getting bad grades is forced to sleep with his grandmother’s rotting cadaver!  I also got a kick out of Adam Pepper’s “Old Maid Syndrome”, an intense, stomach-churning horror tale that somehow doesn’t announce itself as such until the final third--the very last page, in fact!  And how ‘bout Sarah Pinborough’s sci fi-tinged “Express Delivery”, in which the concept of cloning is given a disturbing workout?  It’s a definite mind-bender.

However, it’s Jeffrey Thomas’s stories that really elevate this collection to classic status.  All three tales are small masterworks, with spot-on characterizations, page-turning narratives and a real understanding of the inner workings of fear and apprehension.  “The Hosts”, about worm-like creatures loose in kids’ heads, is at once repellant, sad and unnervingly true to life.  “Adoration” twists the traditional zombie tale in an entirely new direction in its demented account of a lonely man who pays money to have sex with the reanimated corpse of Marilyn Monroe.  And the head-scratching “Star Est Control” takes the Philip K. Dick-inspired idea of living, breathing advertisements to wildly surreal heights.  For me the magic of WAITING FOR OCTOBER is in its incredibly wide-ranging, consistently unpredictable contents.  Those who claim there’s nothing new in the horror story universe (i.e. me) need to read this book--as, in my view, does everyone else!

And under Series Novels (I guess, he means in terms of my Punktown books), he says of DEADSTOCK:

DEADSTOCK (Solaris) marked the long-time-coming mass market debut of JEFFREY THOMAS.  It’s the latest entry in Thomas’ popular Punktown series, and while it isn’t the best of the saga (that in my view would be 2003’s MONSTROCITY), it is fascinating and gruesome in a manner unique to this author.  Punktown is a crime-ridden city located on a distant planet inhabited by an unruly mix of Earth-born humans and various mutant races.  Both factions are amply represented in this sprawling novel, which contains a dozen or so major characters, including several foot soldiers in an interstellar gang war, a couple down-and-outers, millionaires, porn impresarios and one Jeremy Stake, a private dick who happens to be a shape-shifting mutant. 

Stake is contracted by a wealthy CEO to track down a one-of-a-kind robot doll that’s been stolen from the CEO’s teenage daughter.  The doll turns out to be a malevolent entity that furthers itself by consuming everything in sight, growing into a literal monster and attracting a horde of mutant followers, eventually coming to threaten the entirety of Punktown--and by extension the rest of the world.  Nobody else combines sci fi and horror quite like Jeffrey Thomas; here he’s crafted a memorable melding of Philip K. Dick-ian speculation and Lovecraftian grotesquerie.  There may perhaps be a few too many extraneous characters and subplots (and the 400-plus page count may be a mite excessive), but it’s refreshing to find a novel this dense and multi-faceted, presenting a richly imagined world with uncommon skill and panache.

2. Groovy!

There's another gratifying review, this time of my Punktown novel MONSTROCITY, at the blog site the Groovy Age of Horror:

"I enjoyed this so much that I'll definitely be reading more about Punktown from Mr. Thomas."

For the full review, go to:

http://groovyageofhorror.blogspot.com/2008/02/monstrocity-by-jeffrey-thomas-prime.html

One little quibble about this awesome review; it suggests Punktown is inspired by the films Blade Runner, Blade, Underworld, Sin City, etc. Well, I began writing about Punktown in 1980, well before even Blade Runner came out. But the Mos Eisley space port as an inspiration? Ah, got me there. Yes, that was an influence on Punktown, to be fair. Anyway, this reviewer did his homework; a lot of links to interviews I've done.

3. Oh, Datlow!

While we're talking about best of the year lists, let me dicuss the latest edition of St. Martin's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror (volume 20), involving the year 2006. My brother Craig bought me a copy for my birthday last October, on a nice, moody gray day that he kindly toured my wife Hong and I around Boston (after helping me bring her to an immigration interview). I have nine stories on the Honorable Mentions list, in the back of the book. Or do I? Unfortunately, the very kind Horror editor Ellen Datlow got these mentions a little mixed up this year. They are (with my corrections):

CLOSE ENOUGH from Thirteen Specimens

THE MASK PLAY OF HAHOE BYEOLSIN EXORCISM from Punktown: Shades of Grey (but this should be from Thirteen Specimens)

MERCIFUL UNIVERSE from Punktown: Shades of Grey (but this was one of my brother SCOTT's stories from that book!)

MONSTER from Thirteen Specimens

PULSE from Punktown: Shades of Grey (again, one of SCOTT's stories)

SWEATY BETTY, TERMITE QUEEN OF THE DANGED from Punktown: Shades of Grey

SWEET OBLIVION from Dead Cat's Traveling Circus of Wonders

UNDER THE CHERUB from Punktown: Shades of Grey (SCOTT again!)

THE YOUNG OF THE OLD ONES from Unholy Dimensions

Well, at least Scott got a credit (in collaboration with me) for the story APPLES AND ORANGES from the anthology In Delirium.

Anyway, the Honorable Mentions are still appreciated! And Ellen Datlow has a lot of nice things to say about me throughout her The Year in Horror essay. In addition, on her blog for September 6, 2007, she listed books she read while traveling to and in Japan, including DEADSTOCK:

Deadstock by Jeffrey Thomas (Solaris) is a “Punktown” novel, and like all of Thomas’s fiction in his world, is absorbing and well told. I love his world building…I was a bit put off at first by some clunkiness in the writing, but ultimately the story carried me along.  A private eye is hired by a rich man to find the missing, very expensive and unique doll that he has bioengineered for his daughter. In the meantime, an abandoned apartment building defends itself by bloodily slaughtering all intruders and a young girl has disappeared.

http://ellen-datlow.livejournal.com/2007/09/06/

Not to mention that at her Amazon.com blog, she briefly noted:

Read Jeff Thomas's DEADSTOCK (great world building as always in his "Punktown" fiction) enroute to Minneapolis.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/blog/post/PLNK3JLW3564GTJ2J

Ah! My ego is sated -- for today, anyway.