The dark, forbidding alleys of our ruined cityscapes; the hopeless lives of brutalized whores, amoral hit-men, and vengeful victims of violence-these are the landscapes and characters that fill the stories, poems, and prose-poems of Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. in his first collection. And yet, there is a strange and intoxicating beauty to Pulver's creations, for they transport the reader out of the mundane and into the unearthly by the effortless stroke of a dazzling metaphor. Many of Pulver's stories are innovative riffs on the enigmatic mythology of The King in Yellow, pregnant with the demonic witchery of the original. With this collection, Pulver has placed himself in the forefront of contemporary fantasy and horror literature. "The prose of Joe Pulver can take its place with that of the masters of our genre-Poe, Lovecraft, Campbell, Ligotti-while his imaginative reach is something uniquely his own." -From S. T. Joshi's Foreword "In this innovative, hypnotic collection, Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. has proven himself to be a perversely masterful sculptor of our dreams."-Jeffrey Thomas "Joe Pulver is a dark star is the merciless cosmos of weird fiction. His work is as brutal as it is beautiful." -Wilum Pugmire "In an earlier day I feel sure Joe Pulver would have been arrested for writing some of the stuff in this collection. Maybe he will be yet! How can he write, with such intricate delicacy, thunderous prose that fairly rips up the pages it is printed on? I wish I knew!" -Robert M. Price Joseph S. Pulver, Sr. is the acclaimed author of the Lovecraftian novel Nightmare's Disciple and author of20many short stories that have appeared in magazines and anthologies. He has received several Honorable Mentions in Datlow & Windling's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. "Whatever your expectations may be, check them at the door. Pulver has a truly unique style for the horror genre, and this collection of short stories is a perfect vehicle for this sort of style . . . Pulver is an original." - Rick Kleffel's The Agony Column "While some may find scholar S.T. Joshi's claim in his introduction that Pulver "can take his place with that of the masters of our genre" (including Poe and Lovecraft) a trifle hyperbolic, all will agree that Pulver is a writer to watch. (Dec.)" - Publisher's Weekly "Some writers one admires and others make one want to do as they do, or try. For me, Joe Pulver is of the latter type. His imagination is so vile so much of the time that it makes me gig