Let’s take a quick look to see what’s arrived in the mail here at the Geek Compound.
How to Make Friends with Demons by Graham Joyce
Promo copy:
William Heaney is a man well acquainted with demons. Not his broken family – his wife has left him for a celebrity chef, his snobbish teenaged son despises him, and his daughter’s new boyfriend resembles Nosferatu – nor his drinking problem, nor his unfulfilling government job, but real demons. For demons are real, and William has identified one thousand five hundred and sixty-seven smoky figures, dwelling on the shadowy fringes of human life, influencing our decisions with their sweet and poisoned voices. After a series of seemingly unconnected personal encounters – with a beautiful and captivating woman met in the company of an infuriating poet, a troubled and damaged veteran of Desert Storm with demons of his own, and an old school acquaintance with whom he shared a mystical occult ritual – William Heaney’s life is thrown into a direction he does not fully comprehend. Past and present collide. Long-dormant choices and forgotten deceptions surface. Secrets threaten to become exposed. To weather the changes, William Heaney must learn one thing: how to make friends with demons.
On the first page of the book, there is a quote from my San Antonio Current review:
| Quote: |
| "How To Make Friends With Demons…displays author Graham Joyce in all of his finery and ranks among the best novels of the year." – Rick Klaw, San Antonio Current |
Yarn by Jon Armstrong
Promo copy:
From the neo-feudalistic slubs and cornfields of his youth to his apprenticeship among the saleswarriors of Seattlehama – the sex-and-shopping capital of the world – to the rarefied heights of power that Tain now treads, Yarn takes its readers on a roller coaster ride through his life. Vada, the stylish revolutionary and love of Tane’s life, draws him back into a world he had thought was long behind him. The swirling threads of violence and passion threaten to destroy him and the world he has made for himself. Author Jon Armstrong returns to the high fashion dystopia first glimpsed in Grey, weaving a stylish and scintillating tale of a dark past colliding with Tane’s supposedly safe and secure present.
Sympathy for the Devil Edited by Tim Pratt
Promo copy:
The Devil is known by many names: Serpent, Tempter, Beast, Adversary, Wanderer, Dragon, Rebel. His traps and machinations are the stuff of legends. His faces are legion. No matter what face the devil wears, Sympathy for the Devil has them all. Edited by Tim Pratt, Sympathy for the Devil collects the best Satanic short stories by Neil Gaiman, Holly Black, Stephen King, Kage Baker, Charles Stross, Elizabeth Bear, Jay Lake, Kelly Link, China Mieville, Michael Chabon, and many others, revealing His Grand Infernal Majesty, in all his forms. Thirty-five stories, from classics to the cutting edge, exploring the many sides of Satan, Lucifer, the Lord of the Flies, the Father of Lies, the Prince of the Powers of the Air and Darkness, the First of the Fallen… and a Man of Wealth and Taste. Sit down and spend a little time with the Devil.
Great collection of stories that includes my all time favorite "deal with the devil" tale: Robert Bloch’s "That Hell-Bound Train."