Bubba Ho-Tep

by Joe R. Lansdale, Don Coscarelli

The companion book to the popular movie starring Bruce Campbell as Elvis and Ossie Davis as JFK. Stuck in an East Texas old folks home, they must face off against a redneck mummy.

Skyhorse Publishing, under our Night Shade and Talos imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of titles for readers interested in science fiction (space opera, time travel, hard SF, alien invasion, near-future dystopia), fantasy (grimdark, sword and sorcery, contemporary urban fantasy, steampunk, alternative history), and horror (zombies, vampires, and the occult and supernatural), and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller, a national bestseller, or a Hugo or Nebula award-winner, we are committed to publishing quality books from a diverse group of authors.

Genres: Horror, Humor, Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories, Novella, Supernatural

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

About the author

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.

He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Reviews

[Mort · Rating 5 out of 5]

5 Stars!

My very first Landsdale and I am so happy I’ve had such a good run with entertaining stories the last few weeks. Landsdale absolutely deserves his reputation as a brilliant story teller. If you can’t feel the negativity of this main character with his descriptions, I don’t know if any writer can make you feel anything.

Elvis, JFK and Dillinger are all still alive and hiding in the Shady Grove retirement home. Never mind that JFK is black and Dillinger is a woman, all will be explained.
Got it? Good.
Elvis has this big red bump with this pus-filled white center on his Johnson. No, not Lyndon B. – politics really doesn’t have anything to do with this story.
Okay, a better description might be his pecker. No, you’re thinking about the bird, aren’t you? Woody Woodpecker.
Wait, on his Woody…nah, since Woody Harrelson became famous that doesn’t really work, either.
Hah, I’ve got it! On his Princess Fiona…what, you haven’t seen HOW TO LOSE A GUY IN 10 DAYS?
Okay, let’s stop beating around the bush…sigh – come on you guys, I’m never going to get through this with your dirty minds. It’s childish. Funny, but childish. And, if you thought at any time about putting a George in front of that Bush, you seriously need to get laid.
Anyway, where was I? Right, the growth on his dick…you will be excused – if you are a man – when you find you’ve crossed your legs when you read that part. And ladies, while we might not know the pain you have to go through while giving birth, you will never know how sensitive we are down there. Just imagine taking a hammer to your eyeball…
Shit, now I’ve lost my place again.
Oh, yes, it comes down to Elvis as a geriatric fighting a Mummy…no, nothing sexist here…like an ancient Egyptian Mummy wrapped in bandages and…are you just fucking with me right now?

I laughed a lot through this story – very entertaining!

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has got to be one of the best opening lines for a story ever. "Elvis dreamed he had his dick out, checking to see if the bump on the head of it had filled with pus again."

An Egyptian mummy in an oversized hat and cowboy boots runs amok at Shady Rest Convalescent Home in East Texas, picking off the geriatric residents one by one. It’s up to Elvis and black JFK to put an end to the menace. That is if they can come up with a plan that doesn’t include them getting their souls sucked out their assholes.

A funny, twisted, classic short story from one of the masters. Excellent. This is how short stories are done.

[Gregor Xane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent novella. Lansdale describes the world in which this story is set with a sort of over-the-top, vivid cynicism that forces you to laugh out loud for fear of spiraling into the depths of despair. This is wholly appropriate considering this story is set in a retirement home populated with lonely and dying elderly persons who are largely treated like humanity's dirty little secret by the staff and society at large.

Sadder still are the heroes of this story, two old men who may have taken on the personalities of celebrities to overcompensate for their overwhelming feelings of uselessness and inconsequence. It's better for them, it seems, to go to their graves as JFK and Elvis than to die as the men they were, men even their families have long forgotten.

Oh, and there's a mummy sneaking into the retirement home in the middle of the night to kill elderly folks and steal their souls.

Don't forget about the mummy.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the "Bubba Ho-Tep" movie with cult actor Bruce "Chin" Campbell as "Elvis", but Joe Lansdale's short novella was a real blast of a read!



A sad, weird and funny tale about the fight for their souls against a mummy of the old guests of a retirement house thinking to be celebrities like Elvis, Kennedy and... Kemosabe: The Lone Ranger.



Lansdale is a real master storyteller, and he really makes you doubt that maybe old Sebastian Shaff is not just a geriatric impersonator, but the real Elvis Presley.



Sadly the following prequel novella, Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers, was just not much good.

[Paul Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bubba Ho-Tep was recommended by a friend/blogger (you know who you are and my thanks for a cracking rec), so it went on the old list for consideration until I eventually got round to reading it on holiday. Wish I’d read it long before that though, what a thoroughly enjoyable tale of the elderly and mentally unstable’s battle against a supernatural entity that feeds on souls.
 
And with some famous adversaries in Elvis Goddamn Aaron Fucking Presley, John F Kennedy who believed his brain was in the White House running on batteries and Mums Delay who thought she was John Dillinger. It’s all kicking off at the Shady Rest Convalescent Home as Evil makes an appearance.
 
This is absolutely hilarious in places, here’s one quote for you, a comical, almost poetic prose that I loved.
‘The sun, like a boil on the bright blue ass of day, rolled gradually forward and spread its legs wide to reveal the pubic thatch of night, a hairy darkness in which stars crawled like lice, and the moon crabbed slowly upward like an albino dog tick thriving for the anal gulch.’
 
And another for good measure
‘Meanwhile…
The Earth swirled around the sun like a spinning turd in the toilet bowl (to keep up with Elvis’s metaphors) and the good old abused Earth clicked about on its axis and the hole in the ozone spread slightly wider, like a shy lady fingering open her vagina, and the South American trees that had stood for centuries were visited by the dozer, the chainsaw, and the match, and they rose up in burned black puffs that expanded and dissipated into minuscule wisps, and while the puffs of smoke dissolved, there were IRA bombings in London, and there was more war in the Middle East. Blacks died in Africa of famine, the HIV virus infected a million more, the Dallas Cowboys lost again, and that Ole Blue Moon that Elvis and Patsy Cline sang so well about swung around the Earth and came in close and rose over the Shady Rest Convalescent Home, shone its bittersweet, silver-blue rays down on the joint like a flashlight beam shining through a blue-haired lady’s do, and inside the rest home, evil waddled about like a duck looking for a spot to squat, and Elvis rolled over in his sleep and awoke with the intense desire to pee.’
 
Apologies for that overly long quote but it was worth it just to read it again and there are loads more I could put in, anyway I loved this, the humour is spot on and I’ve bought the film, all from my first Lansdale. Looking forward to my next.

Also posted at.
http://paulnelson.booklikes.com/post/...

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in the Mud Creek Shady Rest Convalescent Home, we are introduced to some residents, including a geriatric man who believes he is--radically disguised--as President John Kennedy, and another who believes he is the true Elvis Presley. Landsdale describes parts of their sad, meaningless days--with most having no family that bother with them anymore. In the hands of a lesser author, this would have been depressing as hell; however, Landsdale has the ability to turn this bleak situation of society into a laugh-out-loud story.

These are characters you quickly grow to care about (cantankerous though they may be). While the "outside" world and families may have already forgotten about them, they connect with their fellow patients an become their own type of family.

Enter the soul sucking mummy, Bubba Ho-Tep.

What does the aging "Elvis", and "President Kennedy" say to this???

I have to add that the way Landsdale pulled this novella together was fantastic! He took a brief look at how our society treats the elderly in cases, and quickly morphed it into an almost "uplifting" story--if you ignore the soul sucking mummy part... How could you not love hieroglyphics that read "Eat the dog dick of Anubis, you ass-wipe!"?

Highly recommended!

[Zoeytron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Shady Rest Convalescent Home - an elder care residence or a home for nutters? An inordinately large number of the residents think they are celebrities - Elvis, JFK, Dillinger, the Lone Ranger.

When you get old, 'Everything you do is either worthless or sadly amusing.' A mummified soul eater is on the prowl there at the Shady Rest. During the wee small hours of the morning, Elvis and JFK have a notion. They may be old, and mayhap crazy, but worthless?

[Danger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short, standalone story that is as imaginative as it is entertaining. That’s the focus here, on just telling a good tale, and Lansdale (as always) makes it seem effortless.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very weird. Very strange. Very funny!

[Lance Dale · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a fun, hilarious, book which had a little less conversation and a little more action.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the story in this book…Elvis and JFK (who are in old age with everyone believing them to be dead) vs a Mummy in a care home. Just how do you get an idea like that!

I saw the movie when it was released and only just picked up a copy of the book, so I am well behind with the times but this is the case with everything I watch or read. I am never up with the latest must see or read.

A great mix of horror and comedy with a sense of how it feels to get old which adds a sense of poignancy.

[Greg at 2 Book Lovers Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 Stars

Now this is what a short story is supposed to be!

Lansdale kept it simple and shocking with Bubba Ho-Tep. Two protagonists and some real toilet bowl humor. I laughed my whole way through this story.

The concept was brilliant. I won’t get into the details, that’s for the synopsis, or I would spoil the whole thing. Needless to say, Lansdale really knows how to create and present his ideas.

The number of details and backstory that Lansdale put into this tiny story amazed me. I felt like I knew everything I wanted and needed to know about Elvis, plus a whole lot more.

This is a quick fun book that packs a punch!

[Svaetulla · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un romanzo breve delirante e al limite dell'assurdo. La sola idea della sinossi sembra uscita dopo una lunga notte a base di margarita e acidi, eppure Lansdale riesce a creare un piccolo gioiellino del divertimento. Becero e colorito merita di essere letto proprio perchè del trash così volontariamente ben fatto non si trova tutti i giorni.
Elvis? Un personaggio stranamente credibile, disilluso dalla vita e in parte perso in quei ricordi che da amante del personaggio ho colto e mi sono divertita a trovare sparsi nel racconto. Lo consiglio a chi non si spaventa della volgarità più o meno gratuita, a chi ama soluzioni rocambolesche e quei deliri lucidi degni di film come "una pallottola spuntata", e "hot shot".

[Als M. eines Morgens aus unruhigen Träumen erwachte, fand er seinen Usernamen zu einem ungeheuren Ungeziefer verwandelt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Der Plot ist natürlich abgefahren und ulkig und trotz derber Sprache ist es irgendwie eine märchenhaft-rührende, kleine Geschichte. Empfehlen würde ich dieses Vulgärchen aber eher nur jenen, die schon Spaß an der kultigen Verfilmung hatten oder schon beim Lesen der Kurzbeschreibung der Story geflasht sind.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those circular stories (and I am not referring to the book)- when a story spawned a film spawned a book - which encourage a friend to suggest I see the film which resulted in me stumbling across a story which I recognised. I think thats how it goes. Anyway I recognised the film for several reasons - partly from a friend who just does not stop talking about it - (plus it has the indomitable Bruce Campbell in it) to the fact there are quite a few pop culture references to it - but less about that and more about the story. Even though I instantly recognised it I didnt realise who had written it, an author I know of but have read surprisingly little of. However finding the book was harder than I expected as the story now exists is a collectors companion to the film (see there is that tie in again) and it is surprisingly expensive - however and this is where the bane of many readers come in to its own - the Kindle edition was there and available - and so here we are.

But what the story - well that is the challenge, but make your own mind up as the introduction is really a soul stealing mummy walking the halls of a run down nursing home feeding off the souls of the aged and infirm - their only defence, Elvis and JFK or at least two residents who think they are! Well with an introduction like that where else can this story go that just full on weird!

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Years ago, I was listening to a radio interview with Bruce Campbell, and I remember him talking about his upcoming movie. He said he played an aging Elvis, living in a nursing home and fighting off a mummy with the help of someone who believed he was JFK, played by Ossie Davis. I remember thinking, I've read this story, and sure enough, when he mentioned the title later in the interview, it was Bubba Ho-Tep.

I re-read the story because I wanted to have it fresh in my mind before reading its prequel, Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-suckers. It turns out that, between the story and the movie, I remember every single thing about this story. I mean, with a premise like that above, it's hard to forget, but I remember more details about this story than most other stories I last read about twenty years ago.

Bubba Ho-Tep is a tight story, and it shines thanks to Lansdale's usual witty narrative. He's cruder in this story than I recall, but maybe he was just channeling an older, frustrated Elvis. His focus is really on the character of Elvis, so the peripheral characters get some short shrift (the nurse especially needed more attention, which she deservedly received in the movie adaptation), and the ending comes along much more quickly than one would expect. Still, it's Elvis, mummies, a black JFK, and Lansdale. This story is definitely going to be a winner.

[Godzilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm not sure how you really avoid spoilers with a book like this!

Set in an East Texas care home, two residents must battle an ancient Egyptian Mummy to save their souls being sucked out of their asses!

Joe R Lansdale never fails to carve great characters with his words, and this is no exception. If you like your noir and horror in a quirky style then be all over this like a rash.

I know several other reviewers have quoted this passage, but it sums up the writing and the book better than any crappy review I can write:

"The sun, like a boil on the bright blue ass of day, rolled gradually forward and spread its legs wide to reveal the pubic thatch of night, a hairy darkness in which stars crawled like lice, and the moon crabbed slowly upward like an albino dog tick striving for the anal gulch."

If that doesn't inspire you to read it, nothing will!

[Duane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Elvis is alive and not so well and living in a nursing home in Texas. Bored to death and craving adventure, Elvis along with his chummy cohort JFK (now an elderly black man, don't ask) discover that an ancient Egyptian mummy dressed in cowboy garb has been stealing the souls of their fellow patients. Together they hatch a facile plan to stop the monster before it's too late. If it sounds ridiculous, it is, but it's also fun as hell. A must read for anyone with a hankering for something really weird. Laugh-out-loud Lansdale.

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The sun, like a boil on the bright blue ass of day, rolled gradually forward and spread its legs wide to reveal the pubic thatch of night, a hairy darkness in which stars crawled like lice, and the moon crabbed slowly upward like an albino dog tick striving for the anal gulch."

I think the best writing is writing that provokes a physical reaction. Lansdale makes my booty lock up.

[Nathaniel Brehmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a hoot. Pure entertainment value. So grungy it feels like it's been it's been scraped off the floor of an alley, and in this case it's a good thing. Read it if you liked the movie, it's a great, quick read. Lansdale's voice is truly unique.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great gem of a story that served as basis for the cult film of the same name. May be a little too vulgar for my strait-laced friends, and even I recoiled at some of the TMI descriptions of Elvis' aging body. Nevertheless a good story, one I'm glad to have finally read.

[Matt McRoberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good short story. A little vulgar, but that doesn't bother me. I like how he explains Elvis's presence in the retirement home and why he is still alive. Good stuff.

[Neil · Rating 5 out of 5]

weird but amazing. loved it.

[Badseedgirl · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting and quick read.

[Christian D. D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Thang ya, thang ya vera much!"

Back in the day, several of my friends, knowing my love for Elvis, recommended the Bubba Ho-Tep movie to me. It wasn't until just a few days ago that I learned, quite by accident, that the screenplay had been adapted from a novella. A quick, entertaining, and creative read, but definitely not for the faint of heart!

RANDOM STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS (and noteworthy passages):

--"The explaining had become a habit, like wanting to smoke a cigar long after the enjoyment of it was gone." Like when the head rush kicks in, you mean?

--"'Stuff I wrote.'" Ironic, considering how many Beatles fans criticise Elvis for not doing more songwriting.

--"Elvis felt as if he were on the far side of Pluto without a jacket."

--"He went by Jack McLaughlin’s room, the fellow who was convinced he was John F. Kennedy.....Sometimes he accepted Elvis as the real Elvis, and when he did, he got scared, saying it was Elvis who had been behind the assassination." Holy crap, did the author read my mind and steal my joke all those years ago?!?!

--Yes, LBJ was indeed "real g*ddamn ugly," both on the inside and the outside.

[Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world needs more mummy stories. Bubba Ho-Tep is the next quantum leap on the subject. Yeah, yeah. I know its been out forever and I'm late to the party. That doesn't make it any less break through.

Not only am I late to the Bubba Ho-Tep party but I'm late to the Joe Lansdale party as well. What strikes me .ost about Lansdale is how Bizarro he was before bizarro was bizarro. He is one of those horror writers on the 90s and beyond that took big chances and twisted the genre on its head. Modern horror is not golden age 80s horror and writers like Joe Lansdale were the cogs upon which everything turned 180 degrees upon.

So for me, Joe Lansdale is poised to become my most read author of 2015. I know I'm way behind on this and I can't wait to catch up. If you haven't got on the train yet then quick, hop aboard with me!

[Corky · Rating 5 out of 5]

This may be my favorite book ever. Lansdale is the best. Its actually just a short story. A must see movie. Bruce Campbell IS Elvis!!(at 70)

[Attela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storiellina agrodolce su quanto è brutto diventare vecchi, anche se sei Elvis Presley.

[Luke Kondor · Rating 5 out of 5]

After watching the movie and seeing the novella going for 99p I couldn't say no.

The movie was good. The story is better.

[Vittorio Alberici · Rating 5 out of 5]

4,5 ⭐