Halfway Down The Stairs
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Climb halfway down the stairs with Bram Stoker Award-Winning author Gary A. Braunbeck, into worlds that occupy the spaces between "here" and "there," where office workers become little more than scrolls of code and an ordinary man discovers that he has to help reassemble the missing face of God; from battle-scarred veterans who have to protect their village from encroaching spirits to a college experiment that may bring about the end of days, all of these stories feature Braunbeck’s trademark element: an unblinking eye for emotional detail that elevates the subject matter of each piece into the realm of the genuinely literary.
The stories span Braunbeck's thirty-year career from some of the very first tales of Cedar Hill to all-new stories, including the never-before-published author’s preferred version of the controversial, “The Sisterhood of Plain-Faced Women.”
Several stories herein are introduced by such luminaries in the horror/dark fantasy field: Ramsey Campbell, Laird Barron, Elizabeth Massie, Graham Masterton, and Jonathan Maberry, to name only a few.
Halfway Down the Stairs is a treasure chest of wonders for Braunbeck fans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This comprehensive collection, spanning 30 years of horror maven Braunbeck's career, is an excellent showcase of his considerable talents, with stories running the gamut from all-out horror to more introspective chills. "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree" tells the story of a man who blames all of his problems on the apple tree on his property; eventually he decides to cut it down, with disastrous results. A plain woman who longs to be beautiful gets her wish in the nightmarish "The Sisterhood of Plain-Faced Women," in which the notion of ideal beauty is turned upside down. "El Poso Del Mundo" is a tale of vengeance on the Mexican border that's as brutal as it is tragic, and "Attack of the Giant Deformed Mutant Cannibalistic Gnashing Slobberers from Planet Cygnus X-2.73: A Love Story" is an achingly bittersweet story about a man who seeks solace in space opera. There's something for everyone in these 40 tales, and all readers will appreciate Braunbeck's beautiful, hypnotic prose even as he twists the knife deeper and deeper. He writes horror with heart, never skimping on the elements that make the genre great.
