S.P. Somtow’s newest collection exploresfive alternate visions of paradise. In A Different Eden, an old woman in Ephesus is visited by a zealous, conflicted St. Paul, seeking her endorsement for anew religion he’s creating — and forcing her to re-make the painful choices of her young womanhood. A Lap Dance with the Lobster Lady thrusts us into an E.C. Comics-like word of love, death, and freakshows; Vanilla Blood takes the genre of court transcript to savage and erotic heights as it strips away the respectability of a Southern small town to reveal an orgiastic vampire world seething beneath the surface. Vampires figure in Beloved Disciple as well, a story penned for an anthologist who asked Somtow to “offend as many people as possible” — yet in the end provides profoundly religious insights. In the world fantasy award-winning story The Bird Catcher, S. P. Somtow adapts the true story of the Chinese serial killer Si Ui, who lived in a Thai village during the post-war era of military dictatorship in Thailand, into a dark idyll where nothing is as it seems. “He can drive the chill bone-deep!” — Dean R. Koontz

Other Edens: Novellas of the Fall

Literature & Fiction

Somtow,S.P.

Contemporary

Diplodocus Press

Now acknowledged as one of the most important classics of twentieth-century gothic literarture, S.P. Somtow's tale of a twelve-year-old rock star vampire, his Jungian analyst, and the Wagnerian conductor who is his nemesis turned the entire genre upside down in the 1980s and is considered the ancestor of the "splatterpunk" movement. Vampire Junction has been voted one of the top forty horror books of all time. Timmy Valentine: "He'll steal your heart - and have it for breakfast!" 21st anniversary edition of this unforgettable classic of high-intensity horror.

Vampire Junction (Timmy Valentine Series)

Literary

The Shattered Horse

S.P. Somtow's classic sequel to "The Iliad" returns to the print. Firmly rooted in modern archaeological discoveries about Bronze Age cultures, "The Shattered Horse" paints a vivid picture of a decaying golden age seen through the eyes of the survivors of Trojan War . at the center of the story, Prince Astyanax, heir to the Trojan kingdom, marked for death as a child by the Greek conquerors, escaping perhaps by divine intervention . doomed, perhaps, to repeat history. An astonishing panoply of mythic characters come to life in this book, called by Gene Wolfe "in the true sense, a work of genius."

Genre Fiction

Featuring the World Fantasy Award Winning story "The Bird Catcher," OTHER EDENS is a collection of five genre-defying novellas by Thai author-composer S.P. Somtow, author of the acclaimed "Jasmine Nights" and "Dragon's Fin Soup." From 1st Century Palestine to the baroque perplexities of the American South and postwar Siam, with characters from the Virgin Mary to a Chinese serial killer, the stories explore the idea of alternate paradises and provide astonishing, sometimes shocking, perspectives about humanity's yearning for a better place.

Other Edens

In this exotic retelling of the fairy tale of Bluebeard, a New Age thirty-something from California is swept off her feet by an enigmatic Thai millionaire and soon finds herself in Bangkok’s brave new world of shamans, shopping malls, and high society serial killers. Originally written as a cliff-hanging series for Bangkok’s The Nation newspaper, The Other City of Angels is a roller-coaster roman-à-clef that leapfrogs from genre to genre and culture to culture, turning the western preconception of Bangkok as a city “of temples and prostitutes” on its ear. A darkly comic odyssey populated with wild characters, with intimate glimpses into the eccentric antics of Asia’s upper classes. S.P. Somtow Called “the most well-known expatriate Thai in the world” by the International Herald Tribune, S.P. Somtow is the author of some 47 books including Vampire Junction and Jasmine Nights and the recipient of numerous literary awards. He is also the composer of the operas Mae Naak and Madana. He commutes between Los Angeles and Bangkok.

The Other City of Angels: A Dark Comedy of Bangkok in the 90s

Humor & Satire

Somtow’s far-flung galactic civilization is a creation to rivalSilverberg’s Majipoor or Herbert’s Dune. It is a universe with its own language and exotic customs,vividly etched characters and rich history that spansthousands of worlds and tens of thousands of years.The godlike Inquestors of the High Inquest had forsakenall htat made them human. But one young Inquestorrediscovered the power of compassion and hastenedthe end of their ancient, starflung empire....“In a prose that evokes the spirited imagination of the symbolist painters and poets, Somtow postulates acomplex universe of immense scope ... upholds theauthor’s place as one of SF’s formidable talents.”– Publishers Weekly

Chronicles of the High Inquest: The Throne of Madness

United States

At twelve years old, Little Frog has a richly fantastic and sustaining innerlife. It is 1963, his parents have disappeared, and he lives with his maiden aunts, known affectionately as the Three Fates, on the family estate in Bangkok. But, fed by a stream ofbooks and accompanied by his pet chameleon, Little Frogrefuses to accept thathe is Thai, eats English food, speaks only English, and answers to the name of Justin. Into Justin’s eclectically fashioned, whirlingfantasy world steps Virgil, a black American boy, and together they embark on a glorious spree of magic and growing up – in which sex, adult confusions, comedy, farce, politics and the voices of East and West are fused into a voyage of astonishing discovery. “Fragrant and very funny … like childhood, one finds that Jasmine Nights is hard to leave behind” – The Guardian “Charming, elegant and funny … a novel like no other and a joy to read” – Cosmopolitan “A vibrant coming of age novel” – Sunday Times “A funny and memorable book, light-heartedly taking on big themes” – Daily Telegraph

Jasmine Nights: The Classic Coming of Age Novel of Thailand in the 1960s

The sequel to S.P. Somtow's groundbreaking novel "Vampire Juniction" - voted one of the top 40 horror books of all time - called by Robert Bloch, author of "Psycho", "the closest thing to a nightmare ever put on paper."

Valentine: Return to Vampire Junction (Timmy Valentine Series)

Vanitas: Escape from Vampire Junction (Timmy Valentine Series)

Chronicles of the High Inquest: Utopia Hunters

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