CROWS & SILENCES by Lucius Shepard Shipping Now!

Crows and Silences by Lucius Shepard, now shipping, collects four select short novels, each totally unlike the others.

The late Lucius Shepard was one of his era’s best and most quintessentially American writers. His dark yet grudgingly hopeful worldview gave birth to a treasure trove of fiction that could have been written by nobody else.

In Kalimantan, jewel merchant Barnett follows the trail of the expat American fool Curtis MacKinnon deep into the jungles of Borneo, only to discover that the ancient gods of the Dayak have been awakened in soul-maddening form.

In Skull City, the junkie Larson, the Satanist Cooge, and a woman stuck in two worlds at once have a fateful confrontation in what may be Hell—or possibly someplace worse.

In Louisiana Breakdown, faithless musician Jack Mustaine meets Vida Dumar, a small-town woman with a dangerously sordid past, and each seeks in the other more than either is prepared to give.

And in Colonel Rutherford’s Colt, gun dealers Rita Whitelaw and Jimmie Ray Guy are thrust into conflict with white supremacists, armed only with a pistol and Jimmie’s preternatural ability to invent stories.

A combination of misfortunes prevented Lucius Shepard from breaking out into the literary world beyond SF and his elevation to the Pantheon of writers remains always a breath and a wish away. In the meantime, here are four tales of people hoping to survive the daily trauma of their lives. All caught in a world of crows and silences and trying to make the best of it.

Limited: 500 numbered hardcover copies: $60

Here’s the beginning to Michael Swanwick’s intro...

Let’s start with a story. Lucius Shepard was headed home, drunk, at three in the morning. This was when he was living in a bad neighborhood in Staten Island. A derelict came stumbling out of the darkness toward him and Lucius reached for his wallet to dredge out a couple of bucks. But then the man stuck a gun in his face and pulled the trigger.

Click.

No bullet.

Pulling the gun back, the man stared down at it in astonishment and giggled.

And the story goes on from there. SPOILER ALERT: Lucius Shepard lived. Though not, alas, to the present day.