Bücher veröffentlicht von Hobb's End Books

A screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood's classic chiller, The Willows (and, to a lesser extent, The Centaur and The Man Whom the Trees Loved), as well as ten additional stories.ABE: (looks around nervously) Swede...?He looks for SWEDEN again, and again sees only the tops of the bushes, roaring in the wind. A beat later there is another crack! Another splash! ABE whips around. He sees, a few feet out, what at first appears to be a human arm reaching up from a gurgling eddy-deaden spidery fingers groping. He focuses his eyes upon it: the pressure stops cold as we see it is merely a gnarled branch. ABE exhales. Then, as driftwood is proving scarce on the island, he breaks off some willow stems and tries to fish the branch closer. The current dislodges it as he looks on and it floats downstream, bobbing and turning on the waves. ABE watches it go; it looks rather like a hand again; gesturing to him, summoning. A real hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. He spins around. It is SWEDEN; he is shining a Coleman lantern directly into his eyes.SWEDEN: It's gone now. There was a sound. Like....ABE squints in the glare, which obscures SWEDEN'S face.ABE: (breathes hard, listens) It's this awful wind. It roars such that I didn't even hear you approach!SWEDEN hands ABE a flashlight.SWEDEN: Here.ABE: Where were they?SWEDEN: In the stern. Under the ballast.ABE: (exhales) I wish this wind would go down ...SWEDEN doesn't say anything. There's clearly something very wrong.ABE: What?SWEDEN: We're not alone here.ACT 2, SCENE 12 EXT. THE FAR BANK. TWILIGHT.SWEDEN is standing with his back to us, facing the river. ABE approaches-he has taken the long way around the willows. SWEDEN turns slowly; the men look at each other. It is nearly dark.ABE: Sweden ...?SWEDEN steps aside as the camera dollies past him and in on A CORPSE, a real one. It is caught up in the roots of the willows, several feet from the crumbling bank, chest-deep in the water, vertically positioned, bobbing up and down in a violent whirlpool. The corpse is wearing an Army-green or dark blue nylon parka, slick from the river, with a sopping fur-lined hood. The hood droops, obscuring the face from the top of the mouth up, the mouth which is stretched, contorted, whose chin is far too long. The whole body is stiff like a statue, its flesh an ashen gray-blue. Its hands are twisted and groping, like tree branches-willow branches. One is frozen with Rigor Mortis in such a way that it appears to be reaching out, its fingers gnarled, misshapen; they are too-long, really, to seem entirely human. The bony, branch-like index finger seems almost to be pointing, indicting the sky.ABE: My God, Sweden.... (turns to his friend) What happened here?

Then I was off, cruising the streets of Schenectady as though I hadn't a care in the world, relishing it every time I drew alongside some kid in his Honda, speeding up a little as I handled corners, tapping the horn as I rumbled past female joggers. The truth of it is I was under the car's spell, and didn't think to question why the girl had fallen silent (again) or who-what-the other voices had been or how a car that had been buried for 52 years had simply rolled over and leapt to life. I felt young again, vibrant, strong, as though nothing could touch me and nothing could hurt; as though the logical part of my brain had simply turned off, as it does when you smoke a good blunt; as though I were in the clouds and nothing could bring me back. Indeed, I felt free of all human constraint and concern-at least, until I saw the Lyndon B. Johnson campaign sticker on the clean, chrome bumper ahead of me, and, realizing that both it and the Beetle to which it was attached were in as perfect condition as the 'Vette-"Black Betty" it said on the 'Vette's door, I'd nearly forgotten about that-began to come out of it.That's when I really noticed it, the fact that the landscape immediately around the car had changed; that it had-reverted, somehow. I can only describe what I saw, which was that none of the vehicles at the light could have been newer than a '66, and that the light itself looked decidedly retro, decidedly quaint, at least compared to the one only a block away. More, the storefronts alongside had changed, so that a Kinney Shoe Store now stood where a Taco Bell had just been, and a Woolworth had replaced an Indy Food Mart. Likewise, the pedestrians had changed-yoga pants giving way to miniskirts, athletic shoes giving way to go-go boots and winklepickers, short hair giving way to long. And it was as I observed these things that I noticed something else-the Stingray's reflection in the Woolworth's front windows, or rather, the reflection of something which was not the Stingray but which stood-hovered-in its place: a long, translucent, green-black thing, like an enormous wine decanter, only laid on its side, which glowed slightly from within its bulbous body and seemed to warp the very air around it, to bend it, to curl it like burnt paper.What you see is the car's true form, came the voice, the girl's voice, Mia's, startling me with its clarity, seeming at once to be both inside my head and without, causing me to turn instinctively- revealing her to be sitting beside me, right there in the passenger seat. "... and the field in which it operates. That field is weak now but it will grow. And the longer it remains free-the car, the artifact-the stronger it will become, until the world itself becomes threatened. Now do you see why I tried to warn you?"

Welcome to the future, where women have been infected with a virus that turns them into witches and men have formed a militarized cult to exterminate them-the Witch Doctors. You can survive here, if you're lucky; but only if you swear to one of the dominant practices-Puritanism or witchcraft-and are willing to check your humanity at the door. Because in the future, being a man means donning black and white and carrying a fire-breathing musket-the better to incinerate witches by-while being a woman means to live as the undead or a white-eyed practitioner of the black arts. Either way, humanity is doomed. That is, unless a single man and woman can resist-and in so doing, find the courage to cooperate, even love, again.Will it be Satyena, the beautiful young witch prone to kindness and compassion? Patrobus, the salty platoon sergeant with a secret past? How about Aluka, the intersex witch-doctor caught between worlds? Dive into these tales of the Sex War to find out-tales told in the dystopian tradition of Fahrenheit 451 and Logan's Run-stories at once brutal and beatific, halting and surreal. Do it today, before the future they portend becomes shocking reality ...From The Witch-Doctor Diaries:Malachi suspects something-has suspected, it's clear to me now, since the raid on Medea Coven. I can see it in his eyes as we stare at each other across the War Wagon: something cool, dispassionate (even behind the smoked lenses of his gas mask), predatory, like a cat. He is on to something, he knows.My headset crackles as the driver updates our status: "Fifteen minutes to target. Check your belts and harnesses-it's going to get bumpy."I check my belt and harness, the wagon starting to rock, our tanks clinking and sloshing. Jeremiah offers me a stick of gum-but I shake my head. Nobody says anything."Remember, we're going in fast and we're going in hot," crackles Patrobus (as though he has taken up residence in our very minds), "Find the lab, extract what you can, air it out, and then get out. Is that clear?"Although he doesn't mention him by name, we all know who he's referring to: Malachi, who once let a witch escape just so he could prolong the pursuit. A witch. A woman. A carrier of the M24 virus. Something to be killed on sight."It is clear, Captain," says Jeremiah, glancing at his friend-at Malachi. "I'll make sure Doctor Aluka leaves him some targets. We'll keep him occupied.""Find the lab, Jeremiah. Find out what it is they've been doing there. Then get your men back on this side of the Transom."And then he is gone and there is just the twelve of us, our buckled hats canted low on our brows, our flame-retardant Puritan tunics black as night and white as snow, our muskets charged and ready to spew fire.At which moment Malachi looks at me, seeming to smirk behind his mask (which has been spit-shined to a gloss), and says, "How about it, Brother Aluka? A contest! Who can kill the most women? That is-if you still have the jewels for it.""Lay off him," says Jeremiah. "The Medea raid was tough on everyone. Besides, his record's better than any of us."But I don't say anything, only use the time remaining to dissemble and clean my weapon, wondering: What did he see and how much does he know? And what will happen when I can no longer hide my eyes-which have begun to turn white when I sleep, witch's white, and take longer to clear each morning? How long is it until I-who am not fully man nor fully woman-have at last become neither; neither male nor female, neither Witch Doctor nor witch?

From Napoleon:'The steel mesh started to break: first one joint, then another. Napoleon stood sideways on the fence like a parrot, his splay toes gripping the bars. He braced himself with his legs and pulled at the grid with his teeth. The muscles of his neck rippled; his growl was a steady trill. Metal squealed as he peeled a section back.Lightning flashed, followed by a crack-kaboom! In the wash of light, the man saw the dinosaur looking at him. Glaring at him. Its color had gone blood red.He dropped the shock prod and swallowed, tasting bile. His head was swimming; he felt nauseated. The game had gone far enough. He had to end it-end it now. He stepped back over to the control box and flipped it open, sought out the RUN ELECTRIFICATION button. He punched it with the bottom of his fist.The air seemed to vibrate, and sparks exploded beneath Napoleon's hands and feet. The dinosaur was knocked off the fence instantly. It crashed into the mud with a tremendous splash, and writhed violently. Then it struggled to its feet and latched onto the fence again. Sparks popped and spit; there was the smell of burnt flesh. Napoleon backed off, cocking his head. His foreclaws opened and closed. He sniffed at the electrically charged air, and at the ground. His left foot was smoking. He didn't approach the fence again.The man stepped closer and peered through the mesh. "You're learning, aren't you?" He scooped the shock prod from the mud and wiped it on his lab coat. "You're learning not to mess with me, yeah?"Napoleon looked at him, then shifted his neck to the side oddly. He was looking at something behind the man, something low to the ground.The man turned. There was nothing there but the steel hatch to the feeding shaft, set into concrete like an oversized manhole cover. It was dotted with dried blood and padlocked heavily. He turned back to Napoleon, dismissing the behavior, and found the dinosaur craning to look behind itself. Its head was cocked as though listening to something.A pair of headlights suddenly appeared in the distance; from the direction the T was looking. They were moving through the blackness out beyond the perimeter, winking in and out between trees. The man glimpsed the car as it passed beneath a streetlight: it was a sleek white Saturn, the kind employed by Atrax Security. Its bluish spotlight scanned the area.S.O. Trevor was making his perimeter check.The man's pulse quickened. He glanced at his watch, but had to swipe a palm across it to read it clearly. 1:19. Damn--now what? His heart pounded: Get out of here. He triggered the run doors, and they rattled up out of the way.Napoleon swung his head around and peered down the shaft. His little hands opened and closed; his tail moved back and forth. He strode from the run abruptly, descending the "ladder" into his habitat. The man shut the doors. Then he took the flap of bent mesh in both hands and tried to straighten it.It was no use, he decided. The stuff was stronger than it looked. He gave up and headed for the stairs.Levi burst into the shop. Trevor was already coming up the hallway, his spit-polished shoes clicking over the tile, his keys jingling in perfect sync. Damn, Levi thought. The bastard's log would put him on Blue Level at 11:20-a full 10 minutes behind schedule.He took up his mop and started mopping.A moment later Trevor stepped into the room. "Hey, Levi."Levi looked up as if startled. "Trevor! How goes it?"The guard shrugged. "Same as always. How are ..." He paused, looking down. "Forget your hip-waders or something?"'

It's all come down to this.The saga is finished. There will be no more. These three signature editions contain every Flashback story ever written (1993-2023), plus the latest and final stories: This Savage and Beautiful Night, For a Devil Has Fallen from the Sky, and The War-Torn Hills of Earth. More than just an omnibus, Legends of the Flashback ends the saga with a bang--everything is resolved, nothing is left out. All the characters and situations of the Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse come together in a trilogy that will close out and define the saga. Join Ank and Williams, the crew of Gargantua, the kids from Thunder Road, and more as they heed the call to adventure one last time and face the very architects of the Flashback!From Legends of the Flashback:"Okay, but ..." A middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair stepped out: Peter, the airline pilot. "It's all come down to what, exactly?"Williams just looked at him-as though the answer should be obvious. "Why, raising an army, of course. Building an armada. Dusting off the weapons from the Big One and getting to it; getting busy."Gasps and shocked utterances, muttering, disbelief.He stood and addressed the crowd. "Listen: don't ask me to explain all this because I can't, okay? I mean, Ank might be able to do it but unfortunately only I can hear him-so you're just going to have to take my word for it. All I know is that we need to go, like, now, this eve-meaning that an advance team should set out even while the main column is being raised." He scanned the throng. "We'll need warriors. Who among you will travel with me? Red? Satanta?""I travel alone," said Satanta, standing amidst the crowd sans warpaint. "But I will prepare Blucifer immediately and meet you in the hills.""And I'll oversee the armada," said Red. "It'll be just like when we defended against Szambelan.""I'm in," said Travis. "Once a Marine, always a Marine. Semper fi.""I'm in, too," said an albino girl that I knew only as Luna. "Because you're going to need me on this one. I can just feel it."Williams thought about it and then nodded. And then he climbed up Ank's tail and addressed everyone from the beast's back:"Hear me, hear me, men and woman of the free state of Montana! Know that-even as we've argued and debated over the vision and how best to respond to it, know that there have been others-hundreds, even thousands-elsewhere, who have been doing the same thing; and that it is in that that we may take comfort, for we need not face the threat alone. But also know this: which is that when one side is summoned-so must be the other; and work as if there is no time at all-for indeed, there may not be. And may God be with us."

It's all come down to this.The saga is finished. There will be no more. These three signature editions contain every Flashback story ever written (1993-2023), plus the latest and final stories: This Savage and Beautiful Night, For a Devil Has Fallen from the Sky, and The War-Torn Hills of Earth. More than just an omnibus, Legends of the Flashback ends the saga with a bang--everything is resolved, nothing is left out. All the characters and situations of the Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse come together in a trilogy that will close out and define the saga. Join Ank and Williams, the crew of Gargantua, the kids from Thunder Road, and more as they heed the call to adventure one last time and face the very architects of the Flashback!From Legends of the Flashback:He caught up to her and turned her around even as the wind surged all around them in a gale. "Okay: okay, okay, so-I'm crazy, fine. Whatever you like," He held up his freshly-bandaged hand. "But this isn't crazy, Lisa. This is as real as you or me, or, or Puck. And I'm telling you right now ... we have a chance to fix this, this thing. This Flashback." He gestured expansively, "This whole thing; this apocalypse, this Big Empty. We go to California-andif we succeed-well, guess what? It all goes away; every last stinking bit of it: the dinosaurs, the lawlessness, the lack of medical care-the hopelessness-all gone, just wiped clean. Just erased from the sands of time, like the untold billions lost in the Flashback, who, by the way, will all be alive again, just as alive as you or me." He stepped closer and gripped her shoulders, firmly, gently. "We'll be alive again, and not just surviving, not just-what? What is it?"And she backed away from him: dizzily, it seemed, horrified."I take it you haven't exactly thought this all the way through," she said, still seeming to reel, then gathered herself. "Okay; so just say it was possible-I mean, it isn't, but just say it was-say the time-storm was reversible ... well, what would happen to us? I mean, us now, right here, talking on this beautiful beach ... where would we go?"He thought about it, the wind buffeting his hair. "We'd ... we'd cease to exist, I suppose. Just sort of fade away to nothing." He brightened as though he'd just thought of something. "But we'd rematerialize in the past; before the Flashback ever even happened, before ..." He trailed off as though lost in thought."It's still a kind of death, Nick. A kind of total annihilation." She plopped down and looked out at the sea. "Would you really wish that on anyone? On a child born after the Flashback, say? My God, Nick, it's been seven years. Doesn't that child deserve some kind of shot at life, too?"He looked down at her soberingly, then sat down next to her in the sand."Well, what about all the seven-year-olds lost in the Flashback? Or, for that matter, all those born just before? Or still in the womb?" He put his arm around her and gazed out over the ocean. "That's what happens when someone," He glanced at the lights in the sky, "something, decides to play God. Others have to play God, too."And then neither of them said anything more but just looked at the sea and the lightening clouds-at the sun which was starting to come out-at the pterodactyls swooping and diving for fish.

It's all come down to this.The saga is finished. There will be no more. These three signature editions contain every Flashback story ever written (1993-2023), plus the latest and final stories: This Savage and Beautiful Night, For a Devil Has Fallen from the Sky, and The War-Torn Hills of Earth. More than just an omnibus, Legends of the Flashback ends the saga with a bang--everything is resolved, nothing is left out. All the characters and situations of the Flashback/Dinosaur Apocalypse come together in a trilogy that will close out and define the saga. Join Ank and Williams, the crew of Gargantua, the kids from Thunder Road, and more as they heed the call to adventure one last time and face the very architects of the Flashback!From Legends of the Flashback:The gold fog rolled and so did the water, foaming and frothing, revealing first the photonics mast and communications antennas, then The Sarpedon's black, sea-slicked sail and forward fins, then its great, dark, parabolic bow-which breached the surface at an angle, like the plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs and mosasaurs swimming alongside-until, still steaming forward, the ship was fully surfaced and its aft fins visible; at which three people-two men and a small woman with a bob haircut-appeared in the sail."Jesus," gasped Puckett, the engineering chief, as he looked at the beasts, which filled the water for as far as the eye could see (which nonetheless wasn't very far, due to the fog). "If I hadn't seen it myself, I wouldn't have believed it. The sonar doesn't lie."Captain O'Neil was more circumspect. "But why, dammit. That's what I want to know. I've certainly never seen them migrate en masse like this-like Hammerhead sharks. What's the reason?"Both of them had to shout over the crash and commotion of the waves.Pang signed excitedly at them as the wind chopped her hair."What's she saying?"Puckett, who'd been working with her, paraphrased: "She's saying, 'What if they were called too-only in a different way?'" He watched as she continued to sign. "'Or-considering the dream used sound and imagery-the exact same way?'"O'Neil looked at the marine animals as they leapt and dove and swam powerfully alongside. Aye, maybe, he thought."Ho!" cried Chief Puckett suddenly. "The Santa Monica Pier!"O'Neil peered into the fog and saw the tiny silhouette of a Ferris wheel emerging from the gloom, then unhooked his mic. "Half ahead, revolutions 500-and mind the beasties." He looked at Pang. "Yes, I'm going to send a team ashore. And no, you're not-"And that's when it happened: that's when the pterodactyl flapped down like an oyster-white threshing machine and snatched her up by the shoulders-began rising. That's when O'Neil drew his sidearm-even as Puckett grabbed her by the ankle-but couldn't get a shot in through the pounding wings and Pang's own flailing-until there was the briefest of openings, and he did fire.Until he got lucky and the bird fell and so did Pang-still being gripped by her ankle-so that she was flipped upside down and slammed against the sail-which her head hit like a rock. So that she was knocked unconscious even as Puckett and O'Neil held tightly and ultimately dragged her back into the conning tower.After which, drearily-for they were unable to wake her or get any sort of reaction at all-there was nothing to do but take her to the infirmary and monitor her.Nothing to do, frankly, but pray.

That's when I really noticed it, the fact that the landscape immediately around the car had changed; that it had-reverted, somehow. I can only describe what I saw, which was that none of the vehicles at the light could have been newer than a '66, and that the light itself looked decidedly retro, decidedly quaint, at least compared to the one only a block away. More, the storefronts alongside had changed, so that a Kinney Shoe Store now stood where a Taco Bell had just been, and a Woolworth had replaced an Indy Food Mart. Likewise, the pedestrians had changed-yoga pants giving way to miniskirts, athletic shoes giving way to go-go boots and winklepickers, short hair giving way to long. And it was as I observed these things that I noticed something else-the Stingray's reflection in the Woolworth's front windows, or rather, the reflection of something which was not the Stingray but which stood-hovered-in its place: a long, translucent, green-black thing, like an enormous wine decanter, only laid on its side, which glowed slightly from within its bulbous body and seemed to warp the very air around it, to bend it, to curl it like burnt paper.

After breaking their sworn oaths in a fit of forbidden passion, a sacrificial bride (Shekalane) and her fearsome escort (the ferryman Dravidian) find themselves alone and on the run in the subterranean river-world of Ursathrax.From Beyond the Black Curtain:"Shekalane …""I've had a great amount of time to think, Dravidian. It's-it's in our nature; we women, that when faced with a closed door yet another door opens … in our minds. And I've decided that Valdus has been right all along: the Lottery must end." She paused as the great ship rumbled all around them. "And I've decided something else; which is that his methods are justified, after all. Indeed, what is death-physical death, I mean-when compared to imprisonment and the suffocation of one's soul? The former at least provides an escape; but the latter …. No, Dravidian, I will not cooperate. Not even if I am tortured unto death.""You don't mean that, Shekalane.""What know you of what I mean and what I do not? You, who mistook a ploy, and a successful one, for an expression of love for Valdus? You, who in turn used that to retreat into your former self and turn your back on all that we have learned and experienced? No, I tell you plainly that I will not submit, and you-your order-will be forced to destroy me. Now please, go away. For, although I love you, I cannot abide by what you have done."At last Dravidian lowered his head. "Nor can I abide by what you have done, Shekalane. For by aiding and abetting Valdus, if only in bringing him comfort, you did also turn your back-on all his crimes and victims. And you would aid him still." He stood and swung his mask around on its strap, prepared to put it on. "It would seem we are at an impasse, at last. Whatever our fates, then …" He fingered the façade's velvety lining. "Know that you, too, are loved."Then he whirled to leave and, whirling, came face to face with a brownie in a dung-colored goblin mask and holding a tray-who quickly looked away and just as quickly looked back, as though recognizing him as someone personally significant to him. Dravidian stared at him for perhaps two breaths, taken aback by the directness of his gaze, and sensing, too, something-well, he could not define it, and quickly placed his mask to his face and depressed the pad at his temple, sealing it with a hiss.

Jonesing for a drive-in theater and a hotrod El Camino?It's the dawn of the 1970s and everything is changing. The war in Vietnam is winding down. So is the Apollo Space Program. The tiny northwestern city of Spokane is about to host a World's Fair. But the Watergate Hearings and the re-entry of Skylab and the eruption of Mount Saint Helens are coming…as are killer bees and Ronald Reagan.Enter 'The Kid,' a panic-prone, hyper-imaginative boy whose life changes drastically when his father brings home an astronaut-white El Camino. As the car's deep-seated rumbling becomes a catalyst for the Kid's curiosity, his ailing, over-protective mother finds herself fending off questions she doesn't want to answer. But her attempt to redirect him on his birthday only arms him with the tool he needs to penetrate deeper-a pair of novelty X-Ray Specs-and as the Camino muscles them through a decade of economic and cultural turmoil, the Kid comes to believe he can see through metal, clothing, skin-to the center of the universe itself, where he imagines something monstrous growing, spreading, reaching across time and space to threaten his very world. Using the iconography of 20th century trash Americana-drive-in monster movies, cancelled TV shows, vintage comic books-Spitzer has written an unconventional memoir which recalls J.M. Coetzee's Boyhood and Youth. More than a literal character, 'The Kid' is both the child and the adult. By eschewing the technique of traditional autobiography, Spitzer creates a spherical narrative in which the past lives on in an eternal present while retrospection penetrates the edges. X-Ray Rider is not so much a memoir as it is a retro prequel to a postmodern life-a cinematized "reboot" of what Stephen King calls the "fogged out landscape" of youth. Want to go for a ride?

A screen adaptation of Algernon Blackwood's classic chiller, The Willows (and, to a lesser extent, The Centaur and The Man Whom the Trees Loved), as well as ten additional stories.ABE: (looks around nervously) Swede…?He looks for SWEDEN again, and again sees only the tops of the bushes, roaring in the wind. A beat later there is another crack! Another splash! ABE whips around. He sees, a few feet out, what at first appears to be a human arm reaching up from a gurgling eddy-deaden spidery fingers groping. He focuses his eyes upon it: the pressure stops cold as we see it is merely a gnarled branch. ABE exhales. Then, as driftwood is proving scarce on the island, he breaks off some willow stems and tries to fish the branch closer. The current dislodges it as he looks on and it floats downstream, bobbing and turning on the waves. ABE watches it go; it looks rather like a hand again; gesturing to him, summoning. A real hand suddenly lands on his shoulder. He spins around. It is SWEDEN; he is shining a Coleman lantern directly into his eyes.SWEDEN: It's gone now. There was a sound. Like….ABE squints in the glare, which obscures SWEDEN'S face.ABE: (breathes hard, listens) It's this awful wind. It roars such that I didn't even hear you approach!SWEDEN hands ABE a flashlight.SWEDEN: Here.ABE: Where were they?SWEDEN: In the stern. Under the ballast.ABE: (exhales) I wish this wind would go down ...SWEDEN doesn't say anything. There's clearly something very wrong.ABE: What?SWEDEN: We're not alone here.ACT 2, SCENE 12 EXT. THE FAR BANK. TWILIGHT.SWEDEN is standing with his back to us, facing the river. ABE approaches-he has taken the long way around the willows. SWEDEN turns slowly; the men look at each other. It is nearly dark.ABE: Sweden …?SWEDEN steps aside as the camera dollies past him and in on A CORPSE, a real one. It is caught up in the roots of the willows, several feet from the crumbling bank, chest-deep in the water, vertically positioned, bobbing up and down in a violent whirlpool. The corpse is wearing an Army-green or dark blue nylon parka, slick from the river, with a sopping fur-lined hood. The hood droops, obscuring the face from the top of the mouth up, the mouth which is stretched, contorted, whose chin is far too long. The whole body is stiff like a statue, its flesh an ashen gray-blue. Its hands are twisted and groping, like tree branches-willow branches. One is frozen with Rigor Mortis in such a way that it appears to be reaching out, its fingers gnarled, misshapen; they are too-long, really, to seem entirely human. The bony, branch-like index finger seems almost to be pointing, indicting the sky.ABE: My God, Sweden…. (turns to his friend) What happened here?

Welcome to the future, where women have been infected with a virus that turns them into witches and men have formed a militarized cult to exterminate them-the Witch Doctors. You can survive here, if you're lucky; but only if you swear to one of the dominant practices-Puritanism or witchcraft-and are willing to check your humanity at the door. Because in the future, being a man means donning black and white and carrying a fire-breathing musket-the better to incinerate witches by-while being a woman means to live as the undead or a white-eyed practitioner of the black arts. Either way, humanity is doomed. That is, unless a single man and woman can resist-and in so doing, find the courage to cooperate, even love, again.Will it be Satyena, the beautiful young witch prone to kindness and compassion? Patrobus, the salty platoon sergeant with a secret past? How about Aluka, the intersex witch-doctor caught between worlds? Dive into these tales of the Sex War to find out-tales told in the dystopian tradition of Fahrenheit 451 and Logan's Run-stories at once brutal and beatific, halting and surreal. Do it today, before the future they portend becomes shocking reality …From The Witch-Doctor Diaries:Malachi suspects something-has suspected, it's clear to me now, since the raid on Medea Coven. I can see it in his eyes as we stare at each other across the War Wagon: something cool, dispassionate (even behind the smoked lenses of his gas mask), predatory, like a cat. He is on to something, he knows.My headset crackles as the driver updates our status: "Fifteen minutes to target. Check your belts and harnesses-it's going to get bumpy."I check my belt and harness, the wagon starting to rock, our tanks clinking and sloshing. Jeremiah offers me a stick of gum-but I shake my head. Nobody says anything."Remember, we're going in fast and we're going in hot," crackles Patrobus (as though he has taken up residence in our very minds), "Look sharp. And don't get so preoccupied with your kill count that you forget; this is an intelligence op. Find the lab, extract what you can, air it out, and then get out. Is that clear?"Although he doesn't mention him by name, we all know who he's referring to: Malachi, who once let a witch escape just so he could prolong the pursuit. A witch. A woman. A carrier of the M24 virus. Something to be killed on sight."It is clear, Captain," says Jeremiah, glancing at his friend-at Malachi. "I'll make sure Doctor Aluka leaves him some targets. We'll keep him occupied.""Find the lab, Jeremiah. Find out what it is they've been doing there. Then get your men back on this side of the Transom."And then he is gone and there is just the twelve of us, our buckled hats canted low on our brows, our flame-retardant Puritan tunics black as night and white as snow, our muskets charged and ready to spew fire.At which moment Malachi just looks at me, seeming to smirk behind his mask (which has been spit shined to a gloss), and says, "How about it, Brother Aluka? A contest! Who can kill the most women? That is-if you still have the jewels for it.""Lay off him," says Jeremiah. "The Medea raid was tough on everyone. Besides, his record's better than any of us."But I don't say anything, only use the time remaining to dissemble and clean my weapon, wondering: What did he see and how much does he know? And what will happen when I can no longer hide my eyes-which have begun to turn white when I sleep, witch's white, and take longer to clear each morning? How long is it until I-who am not fully man nor fully woman-have at last become neither; neither male nor female, neither Witch Doctor nor witch?

The steel mesh started to break: first one joint, then another. Napoleon stood sideways on the fence like a parrot, his splay toes gripping the bars. He braced himself with his legs and pulled at the grid with his teeth. The muscles of his neck rippled; his growl was a steady trill. Metal squealed as he peeled a section back.Lightning flashed nearby, followed by a crack-kaboom! In the wash of light, the man saw the dinosaur looking at him. Glaring at him. Its color had gone blood red.He dropped the shock prod and swallowed, tasting bile. His head was swimming; he felt nauseated. The game had gone far enough, he realized. He had to end it-he had to end it now. He stepped back over to the control box and flipped it open, sought out the RUN ELECTRIFICATION button. He punched it with the bottom of his fist.The air seemed to vibrate, and sparks exploded beneath Napoleon's hands and feet. The dinosaur was knocked off the fence instantly. It crashed into the mud with a tremendous splash, and writhed violently. Then it struggled to its feet and latched onto the fence again. Sparks popped and spit; there was the smell of burnt flesh. Napoleon backed off, cocking his head. His foreclaws opened and closed. He sniffed at the electrically charged air, and at the ground. His left foot was smoking. He didn't approach the fence again.The man stepped closer and peered through the mesh. "You're learning, aren't you?" he said, and scooped up the shock prod from the mud. He wiped it on his lab coat. "You're learning not to mess with me, aren't you?"Napoleon looked at him, then shifted his neck to the side oddly. He was looking at something behind the man, something low to the ground.The man turned around. There was nothing there but the steel hatch to the feeding shaft, set into concrete like an oversized manhole cover. It was dotted with dried blood and padlocked heavily. He turned back to Napoleon, dismissing the behavior, and found the dinosaur craning to look behind itself. Its head was cocked as though listening to something.The man exhaled; he was tired of playing dino-games. "Well," he began, preparing to prod it a final time, "here 's one for the road ..."A pair of headlights suddenly appeared in the distance, from the direction the T was looking. They were moving through the blackness out beyond the perimeter, winking in and out between trees. The man glimpsed the car as it passed beneath a street light: it was a sleek white Saturn, the kind employed by Atrax Security. Its bluish spotlight scanned the area.S.O. Trevor was making his nightly perimeter check.