Six crime genre stories from writer/rock'n'roller John Shirley (who, among other projects, wrote lyrics for the proto-heavy-metal band Blue Oyster Cült). Shirley's stories are hallucinatory explorations of borderline lives; their most extreme actions only just suffice to lay bare the post-apocalyptic horrors lurking under the thin skin of pseudo-normality. In other words, any Youth suffering Entrapment in the Deep Suburbs ought to get off on this stuff. Examples--in "Jodie and Annie On TV" the title characters, criminal lovers, calculate their apparently random drive-by shootings with the needs of TV news producers in mind. Film at 11! In "Sketter Junkie," El Passo junkieman turns into female mosquito, sucks blood off luscious female human in downstairs apartment, then turns into giant female mosquito and fucks said luscious human with his/her 30-inch proboscis... and dies in the end, of course. And in "Just Like Suzie," the hapless middle-class degenerate Perrick chokes his crack supplier and whore Suzie to death with his dick while she's fellating him. Then he discovers her jaws won't unclench... One friend of mine (a rock'n'roller himself and an experienced fellatee) claims this last scenario is impossible. I dunno. The writing's believable enough.--Charlotte Pressler
This review originally appeared in TapRoot Reviews #3,
Contact the editor, luigi-bob drake, at Burning Press
Copyright Burning Press 1993, 1995.