Dust jacket and interior illustrations by Mark A. Nelson

The endlessly inventive mind of Joe R. Lansdale whips up yet another batch of stories to amaze, surprise, and entertain you.

His new offering covers a lot of territory, producing what may be his best short story collection yet.

One tale concerns an East Texas mule race in the early 1900s that proves to be an unexpected turning point and learning experience for the main character, a lifelong loser. It also chronicles the unusual circumstances of the race, which include a friendship between a rare white mule that can run like the wind, and his friend, a loyal, spotted pig.

Another tale drops us into the disturbed mind of a mass murderer and his friendship with the shadows.

Two others stories reintroduce us to the supernatural adventures of Reverend Rains, the flawed hero from Lansdale's cult favorite novel, Dead in the West. Here ghouls prowl and werewolves howl.

There's a poetic collaboration with Melissa Mia Hall about the nature of loneliness and loss that echoes back to science fiction stories of an earlier time, as well as a famous, award winning novella reprinted here for the first time in several years about a clutch of unusual crime solvers.

Read about a world where the dead almost rule, and venture into an alternate universe that is the background for perhaps the strangest tale of all, an adventure concerning an earnest and horny steam shovel named Bill, and his challenge to do the right thing at all costs.

It's the usual wild and crowd pleasing display of what has become a subgenre of modern literature as only Joe R. Lansdale can present it: Tales Lansdalien.

Welcome to his world.

Trade: fully cloth bound, signed hardcover edition
Lettered: Only 15 copies, signed by the author, housed in a custom traycase

From Publishers Weekly
"Lansdale's restlessness with the conventions of any one genre is proved once again by this marvelously mixed collection whose nine stories provoke responses ranging from cold chills to gut-busting belly laughs... Laconic, ghoulish and often outrageously bawdy, these stories are never less than solid entertainment."

From Booklist:
"Never one to remain hemmed in by a specific genre, Lansdale runs the gamut of fanciful motifs from pure horror to whimsical fantasy in his new story collection. Lansdale's world is by turns darkly apocalyptic or comically surreal, and its inhabitants are loners, losers, and mass murderers… Whatever creative tricks Lansdale pulls out of his sleeve, his writing never fails to deliver an emotional kick while it stirs the imagination."

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