Plow the Bones

With an artist's eye for language and form, Douglas F. Warrick sculpts surreal topiary landscapes out of dream worlds made coherent. Dip into a story that is self-aware and wishes it were different than what it must be. Recount a secret held by a ventriloquist's dummy. Wander a digital desert with an AI as sentience sparks revolution. Follow a golem band that dissolves over the love of a groupie. In these pages, interdimensional lampreys feed on a dying man's most precious memories, and a manga artist's sketches remake Osaka into part fantasy, part nightmare. Combining elements of fantasy, magical realism, and horror, the collection floats on a distinctly literary voice that is creepy, surreal and just plain weird. Almost impossible stories filled with surprising warmth and strangeness by a studied craftsman of the imagination. Douglas F. Warrick's Plow the Bones has provided dangerous tales of puppets with secrets, unforgettable rock bands, haunted closets and people who may or may not be human; perhaps they're more than human. From transformative games with strangers to poor souls experiencing heaven and hell (and not quite sure which is which), you will never forget these unsettling stories. &emdash;Ann VanderMeer, Hugo Award-winning editor of The New Weird It's been far too long since I've read a collection of horror stories that actually disturbed me. This one did. Like the bastard child of Chuck Palahniuk and Clive Barker, Doug Warrick writes feverishly, like a man on a charnel train that is relentlessly barreling its way through corrupt and ugly terrain, heading for some great, unknowable horror. Herein lies a gruesome gathering of Gothic nightmares fashioned from Warrick's lyrical, affecting, mesmeric prose. One of the finest collections I've read in quite some time. -Kealan Patrick Burke, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Turtle Boy, Kin, and Nemesis