Book description
This mesmerising collection from World Fantasy Award-winner James P.
Blaylock offers seven brilliant excursions into one of the most
idiosyncratic imaginations of our time. Highlighted by the acclaimed
novella, "The Trismegistus Club" - a brilliant riff on the
antiquarian ghost story - In for a Penny goes from strength to strength,
taking us deep into the heart of a quirky, deeply engaging fictional
world that no one but Blaylock could have created. Other high points
include "Home Before Dark," which chronicles one man's first
few hours in the afterlife. Its thematic companion, "Small
Houses," recounts an aging widower's last few hours on earth. Both
stories constitute deeply felt, lovingly detailed farewells to the
things and places of this world. In "The other Side," a minor
precognitive episode leads the hero to an obsessive fascination with the
hidden mysteries of the universe. In "His Own Back Yard," a
story worthy of the great Jack Finney, a middle-aged man finds himself
stranded in the haunted territory of his childhood. The blackly funny
"War of the Worlds" uses a bowling ball and the imminent end
of Life As We Know It to illuminate the fault lines in a modern
marriage. Finally, in the wonderfully imagined title story, the
single-minded pursuit of treasure - of something for nothing - leads
Blaylock's protagonist to a harrowing confrontation with his own worst
self. Startling, funny, eccentric, and often unexpectedly moving, the
Blaylockian worldview shines forth with undiminished vigor in this
marvellous collection, which shows us ourselves - and the world around
us - from a wholly unique perspective. James P. Blaylock was born in
Long Beach, California, in 1950, and attended California State
University, where he received an MA. He was befriended and mentored by
Philip K. Dick, along with his contemporaries K. W. Jeter and Tim
Powers, and is regarded - along with Powers and Jeter - as one of the
founding fathers of the steampunk movement. Winner of two World Fantasy
Awards and a Philip K. Dick Award, he is currently director of the
Creative Writing Conservatory at the Orange County High School of the
Arts, where Tim Powers is Writer in Residence.
