The Best of Joe R. Lansdale
Read The Best of Joe R. Lansdale Online
Authors: Joe R. Lansdale
“A folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace.”
—
New York Times Book Review
“A terrifically gifted storyteller.”
—
Washington Post Book Review
“A zest for storytelling and a gimlet eye for detail.”
—
Entertainment Weekly
“Like 10-alarm chili, Lansdale is pretty strong stuff… He has become a cult figure.”
—
People Magazine
“Lansdale is an immense talent.”
—
Booklist
“Lansdale is a storyteller in the Texas tradition of outrageousness…but amped up to about 100,000 watts.”
—
Houston Chronicle
“A great introduction to the raunchy, cheerfully unclassifiable East Texan bon vivant.”
—
Publishers Weekly
, starred review
Selected writings of Joe R. Lansdale
N
OVELS
Act of Love (1980)
Texas Night Riders (1983)
Dead in the West (1986)
Magic Wagon (1986)
The Nightrunners (1987)
Cold in July (1989)
Batman: Captured by the Engines (1991)
Batman: Terror on the High Skies (1992)
Tarzan: the Lost Adventure (1995, with Edgar Rice Burroughs)
The Boar (1998)
Freezer Burn (1999)
Waltz of Shadows (1999)
Something Lumber This Way Comes (1999)
The Big Blow (2000)
Blood Dance (2000)
The Bottoms (2000)
A Fine Dark Line (2002)
Sunset and Sawdust (2004)
Lost Echoes (2007)
Leather Maiden (2008)
S
HORT STORY COLLECTIONS
By Bizarre Hands (1989)
Stories by Mama Lansdale’s Youngest Boy (1991)
Bestsellers Guaranteed (1993)
Electric Gumbo: A Lansdale Reader (1994)
Writer of the Purple Rage (1994)
A Fistfull of Stories (and Articles) (1996)
The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent: Early Stories and Commentary (1997)
Private Eye Action, As You Like It (1998)
Triple Feature (1999)
The Long Ones: Nuthin’ But Novellas (2000)
High Cotton (2000)
For a Few Stories More (2002)
A Little Green Book of Monster Stories (2003)
Bumper Crop (2004)
Mad Dog Summer and Other Stories (2004)
The King: and Other Stories (2005)
The Shadows, Kith and Kin (2007)
Sanctified and Chicken-Fried (2009)
H
AP
C
OLLINS AND
L
EONARD
P
INE MYSTERIES
Savage Season (1990)
Mucho Mojo (1994)
Two-Bear Mambo (1995)
Bad Chili (1997)
Rumble Tumble (1998)
Veil’s Visit (1999)
Captains Outrageous (2001)
Vanilla Ride (2009)
T
HE
D
RIVE
-I
N SERIES
The Drive-In: A “B” Movie with Blood and Popcorn, Made in Texas (1988)
The Drive-In 2: Not Just One of Them Sequels (1989)
The Drive-In: A Double-Feature (1997)
The Drive-In: The Bus Tour (2005)
N
ED THE
S
EAL TRILOGY
Zeppelins West (2001)
Flaming London (2006)
G
RAPHIC NOVELS AND COMIC BOOKS
Lone Ranger & Tonto (1993)
Jonah Hex: Two Gun Mojo (1993)
Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such (1995)
Blood and Shadows (1996)
The Spirit: The New Adventures #8 (1998)
Red Range (1999)
Jonah Hex: Shadows West (1999)
Conan and the Songs of the Dead (2006)
Marvel Adventures: Fantastic Four #32 (2008)
Pigeons from Hell (2008)
A
NTHOLOGIES EDITED
The Best of the West (1989)
New Frontier (1989)
Razored Saddles (1989, with Pat Lobrutto)
Dark at Heart (1991, with Karen Lansdale)
Weird Business: a Horror Comics Anthology (1995, with Richard Klaw)
West That Was (1994) (co-ed: Thomas Knowles)
Wild West Show (1994) (co-ed: Thomas Knowles)
Lords of the Razor (2006)
Cross Plains Universe: Texans Celebrate Robert E. Howard (2006, with Scott A. Cupp)
Retro-Pulp Tales (2007)
Son of Retro-Pulp Tales (2009, with Keith Lansdale)
F
OR
A
DAM
C
OATS
T
HE
B
EST OF
J
OE
R. L
ANSDALE
C
OPYRIGHT
© 2010
BY
J
OE
R. L
ANSDALE
T
HIS IS A WORK OF FICTION
. A
LL EVENTS PORTRAYED
IN THIS BOOK ARE FICTITIOUS, AND ANY
RESEMBLANCE TO REAL PEOPLE OR EVENTS IS PURELY COINCIDENTAL. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE THIS BOOK OR PORTIONS THEREOF IN ANY FORM WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER
.
C
OVER ART
© 2005
BY
J
OHN
P
ICACIO
. A
PPEARED IN
T
EXAS
P
ARKS
& W
ILDLIFE
, J
ANUARY
2005,
FOR “THE
S
ECOND
H
UNT.”
C
OVER DESIGN BY
A
NN
M
ONN
I
NTERIOR DESIGN BY
J
OHN
C
OULTHART
T
ACHYON
P
UBLICATIONS
1459
18TH
S
TREET
#139
S
AN
F
RANCISCO
, CA 94107
(415) 285-5615
WWW.TACHYONPUBLICATIONS.COM
[email protected]
S
ERIES
E
DITOR:
J
ACOB
W
EISMAN
ISBN 13: 978-1-892391-94-0
ISBN 10:1-892391-94-5
A
LL STORIES COPYRIGHT
©
BY
J
OE
R. L
ANSDALE
I
NTRODUCTION
© 2010
BY
J
OE
R. L
ANSDALE
.
“Godzilla’s Twelve-Step Program” © 1994. First appeared in
Writer of the Purple Rage
(Cemetery Dance Publications: Forest Hill, Maryland).
“Bubba Ho-Tep” © 1994. First appeared in
The King Is Dead: Tales of Elvis Post-Mortem
, edited by Paul M. Sammon (Delta: New York).
“Mad Dog Summer” © 1999. First appeared in
999: New Stories of Horror and Suspense
, edited by Al Sarrantonio (Avon: New York).
“Fire Dog” © 2003. First appeared in
The Silver Gryphon
, edited by Gary Turner and Marty Halpern (Golden Gryphon: Urbana, Illinois).
“The Big Blow” © 1997. First appeared in
Revelations
, edited by Douglas E. Winter (Cemetery Dance Publications: Forest Hill, Maryland).
“Duck Hunt” © 1986. First appeared in
After Midnight
, edited by Charles L. Grant (Tor Books: New York).
“Incident On and Off a Mountain Road” © 1991. First appeared in
Night Visions 8
, edited by Robert E. McCammon and Paul Mikol (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).
“The Events Concerning a Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance” © 1992. First appeared in
Dark at Heart
, edited by Joe R. Lansdale and Karen Lansdale (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).
“White Mule, Spotted Pig” © 2007. First appeared in
The Shadows, Kith and Kin
(Subterranean Press: Burton, Michigan).
“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks” © 1989. First appeared in
Book of the Dead
, edited by John M. Skipp and Craig Spector (Bantam: New York).
“Not From Detroit” © 1988. First appeared in
Midnight Graffiti
No.2, edited by Jessie Horsting and James Van Hise (Grand Central Publishing: New York).
“Cowboy” © 1997. First appeared in
The Good, the Bad, and the Indifferent: Early Stories and Commentary
(Subterranean Press: Burton, Michigan).
“Steppin’ Out, Summer, ‘68” © 1991. First appeared in
Night Visions 8
, edited by Robert E. McCammon and Paul Mikol (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).
“Fish Night” © 1982. First appeared in
Specter!
, edited by Bill Pronzini (Arbor House: Westminster, Maryland).
“Hell Through a Windshield” © 1985 and 1989. First appeared in
Twilight Zone
, April 1985.
“Night They Missed the Horror Show” © 1988. First appeared in
Silver Scream
, edited by David J. Schow (Dark Harvest: Arlington Heights, Illinois).
C
RUCIFIED
D
REAMS:
Introduction by Joe R. Lansdale
I
NCIDENT
O
N AND
O
FF A
M
OUNTAIN
R
OAD
T
HE
E
VENTS
C
ONCERNING A
N
UDE
F
OLD-OUT
F
OUND IN A
H
ARLEQUIN
R
OMANCE
Introduction
by Joe R. Lansdale
Eventually, I will come to the point as I take you on a spin through the paint mixer of my brain and dip you in the mish-mash of my nostalgia, but not quite yet. For now I speak uncensored, unfiltered, and full of madness.
Thoughts, like electric grasshoppers, jump in space and time.
When I was a child, in the fifties and early sixties, the world was full of magic, but not everyone could see it. For some the world was gray, and it could be that way for me too, unless I turned my head just right and looked for some well-lit crack in my universe so that I might peer into another that was full of color and commotion and a sense of wonder.
My mother opened the secret door first and showed me other worlds were there, and then she backed off and left it up to me to go inside and look around. She showed it to me by reading to me, fairy tales and funny animal stories from comic books, all manner of children’s stories, and pretty soon I could read, and I could do this long before I went to school, and for no reason I can clearly explain, once I learned to read, and realized the alphabet helped accomplish what I was reading, I wanted to make letters and find their order and make words and sentences and paragraphs and pages and finally, stories, and books.