Cimarron Street Books is pleased to bring you the definitive expended edition of David J. Schow 's collection of novellas — LOST ANGELS — back in print after 20 years!
DEFINE LOVE
Obsessive, all-consuming, fiery, arctic? A passion that grips others, but not you? An infatuation that refuses to release you from its grasp? A weapon that renders you idolized, or used,or lost forever?
LUST/ANGER
The lyrics that make love a battlefield, a drug, or a fount of redemption.
LOVE’S ANGLES
The mysterious, the tragic, the enigmatic. The geometry of you plus a stranger.
LOS ANGELES
Where love is found. Earned. Stolen. Sought. Regained . . . and ultimately lost again.
LOST ANGELS
Victims of the rigors of love in the City of Night.
LOST ANGELS 2020
This all-new edition of the classic collection by World Fantasy Award winner David J. Schow features an introduction by Richard Christian Matheson , an updated afterword by the author, and for the first time in paperback, the novella “Rock Breaks Scissors Cut.”
Here's what reviwers are saying about LOST ANGELS :
David J. Schow is an American author of horror novels, short stories, and screenplays, associated with the "splatterpunk" movement of the late '80s and early '90s. Most recently he has moved into the crime genre.
David J. Schow was known as the "Father of Splatterpunk," as the cover of this collection from 1990 proudly proclaims. It contains five stories, including the excellent Red Light which won the World Fantasy Award in 1987 for best short story. It's a nice variation of Leiber's classic, "The Girl With the Hungry Eyes." Brass is a good story of a haunting, and the poorly titled Pamela's Get is an excellent reality-questioner. I did not care for the longest story in the book at all, The Falling Man, which struck me as an incoherent mess. My favorite was the last story, Monster Movies, a very touching romance about recovery and perseverance with no supernatural element at all and violence of the emotional kind. All of the stories have a very 1980's flavor of me-first hustling philosophy and sex-as-commodity that's a little jarring today, but they're accurate representatives of their era; horror wasn't always a small-press niche, and Schow was one of the best of his generation.
So, I must admit to being a bit wary - as Schow is considered the "father of splatterpunk" - simply because splatterpunk isn't my cup of tea. I've read some very well-written splatterpunk in my time, and it's a completely valid genre, but it's just not my preference, and I think I've also read stuff which claims the splatterpunk title, but turned out mostly to be an excuse for bad writing and graphic violence.
But this. THIS COLLECTION. I'm assuming the majority of Schow's work falls in the splatterpunk vein, given his title. But this collection is filled with marvelous stories of depth and emotion. My favorites were "Monster Movies," "Red Light," and "Pamela's Get." It should be noted: this is a review of the used paperback, which doesn't include "Calendar Girl."
Knowing that most of his work falls in the realm of splatterpunk, I'm not sure if I'll seek it out. This collection, however, was amazing, and certainly makes me more likely to, eventually.