And the Angel With Television Eyes

And the Angel with Television Eyes, John Shirley, Night Shade Books, 2001

Max Whitman is a moderately successful actor in present-day New York City. Cast member on a soap opera, he seems to have acquired a stalker who dresses exactly like his TV character. One day, the stalker is found dead in the middle of the street. Indications are that he was dropped from a great height.

In preparation for a big audition, Max agrees to spend some time in a sensory deprivation tank. His soul is taken to a place of tall buildings made of energy and hears voices talk to him like he is someone named Lord Redmark. Max also meets neon colored snakes in glass tubes, and harpies who look human, except for their wings of blue-black vinyl and mini-TV cameras for eyes. A door seems to have been opened between "here" and "there." Max starts talking like Lord Redmark, and, more than once, he is attacked, in midtown Manhattan, by these vinyl-winged harpies.

Quantum theory speculates about each physical body having an interrelated body made solely of subatomic particles, a "soul." Such bodiless beings do exist on their own, and they are called plasmagnomes. They are divided into two factions, one of which is ready to declare war on mankind. Man's computers, cell phones and other electromagnetic generators are causing real problems in the plasma world. Antoinette, a friend of Max's, does human-looking metal sculptures. More than once, he sees what looks like her sculptures coming to life. Max is taken deep beneath the streets of Manhattan, where he meets people who have turned into various beings. Their true, plasmagnome self has been awakened; Antoinette becomes one of them. To put it simply, reality is being turned upside down and pulled outside out.

John Shirley seems to make a habit of exploring parts of the human psyche that few other writers even wish to visit.  In a way, this book is vintage John Shirley; very weird and very, very good.

Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side

Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side, John Shirley, Mark Ziesing Books, 1998

Here is a group of very dark and very weird edgy horror stories that start in the present-day world, but don't always stay there.

One story is about a man who kidnaps famous people, brings them to his remote house, and turns them into living gargoyles. Also included is a story about people who have died from drug abuse rising from the dead. Another tale is about sex, and drugs, and a device called a head iron, which is supposed to give a person the ultimate high. A San Francisco subway train derails, and a couple of bike messengers have to crawl their way over and under dead bodies. A religious confrontation of a sort, including human spontaneous combustion, occurs in the middle of a speed metal nightclub. Other stories involve things like growing body parts in unique places, and very different types of sex.

"Strange" doesn't even begin to describe these stories. John Shirley travels to places that few, if any, other writers are willing to visit. This book is very much Not for the faint of heart, but it is also very much recommended.