Black Butterflies

I am a true lover of anthologies. Why? Because the short story fits so nicely into the crevices of my brain that need topping off in between waits at dentist offices and or that fifteen minute break. Shirley has compiled a mess of colorful and shivering muses here in Black Butterflies, a definite must-have addition to your anthology collection. Divided into two basic groupings, This World and That World, Shirley separates the more gritty, here-and-now stories (This World) from the more ethereal and imaginative stories (That World). If I looked at them as a whole, I would say I liked That World collection better, having a more modern, cyberpunk edge to it, but there are jewels in both worlds worth drawing your tongue across to savor their flavors. Too many stories in all to mention, a few of my favorites would be these: "Barbara", about a robbery victim who turns the tides her way to gain her own revenge. "You Hear What Buddy And Ray Did", a brutal but remarkably silly story of drugs, a crazy drag queen, and robbery gone wrong. "What Would You Do For Love", a crazy romp with a real redneck bimbo and the level headed rescuer. "Delia And The Dinner Party", the best imaginary rabbit ever penned onto paper. "Pearldoll", hmmmm, zombie-ism or just plain old absorption? "How Deep The Taste Of Love", a sickening, alien type, cannibal type, gore fest not for the squeamish. Shirley is talented with words, and is able to take a queasy tale of squishy, nasty things and inject just enough humor into it to make it go down sweet. His characters are never flat and horror in his tales range from mild shivers to a couple of downright convulsions. Not as gory as Edward Lee, nor as creepy as Conrad Williams or Brian Lumley, Shirley still holds a firm footing that slides down that edge of insanity that us horror aficionados tend to travel nightly, whistling happy tunes as we read of death and destruction, despair and grief. Ah. Great Collection. I highly recommend it. Enjoy!

The contents of BLACK BUTTERFLIES have been neatly dissected into 'This World' and 'That World'. The stories in 'This World' lack overtly fantastic elements, and most of them are very frightening indeed. Shirley's version of 'This World' seems to be populated largely by psychopaths who murder and rape as much from boredom and bafflement as anything else; one of the few characters in 'This World' to display anything resembling empathy is the computer science teacher in 'What Would You Do For Love?', and she uses computer models to help predict the actions of people around her. 'What Would You Do For Love?' is not only the last story in 'This World', as though it were a segue into 'That World', it's the first in which most of the characters will seem familiar to nearly all of us, and the first with something like a conventionally happy ending. Shirley's talent is that he enables us to empathise with characters who have so little empathy for others, whether we want to or not, despite gut-punch beginnings that many horror writers might use as a coup de grace. 'That World' throws overt fantasy elements into Shirley's universe, and while some of the stories (such as 'Pearldoll' and 'Aftertaste') are almost conventional horror tales, others are... different. 'The Exquisitely Bleeding Heads of Doktur Palmer Vreedeez', in which celebrities are encased alive in plastic sheathing for a horrific sculpture garden to the enjoyment of Idi Amin, is a enormously over-the-top sick joke. 'Delia and the Dinner Party', in which a little girl's 'imaginary friend' translates her parents' over-dinner conversations, is a gem, and if you'd prefer something upbeat and dislike televangelists as devoutly as I do, 'Flaming Telepaths' will make your day.

This book deftly transcends genre in every conceivable way. A marvelous and diverse collection of stories from the man who brought you cyberpunk. --Thomas S. Roche is editor of the NOIROTICA series and co-editor of IN THE SHADOW OF THE GARGOYLE.

Nobody writes like John Shirley -- intense, literate, provocative, edgy. Each one of these stories offers something different, but each one of them reads like a house afire. Shirley is the Real Thing -- READ THIS BOOK!

_Black Butterflies_ by John Shirley is a collection of a decade's worth of dark short stories by Shirley, the author of _Wetbones_ and writer of the screenplay for "The Crow." Half of the stories involve the horrors of "this world," the dark streets and alleyways of our existence; the other half of the stories involve "that world," the strange and supernatural. Shirley's stories are dark, intense, imaginative and will often sear images into your brain. Recommended for fans of dark fiction, perhaps along the lines of Clive Barker.