Science Fiction & Fantasy

Demons

Name: Demons
Author: John Shirley
ISBN: 9780345446497

by John Shirley, Steve Saffel

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Overview

Writers from Clive Barker to Bruce Sterling and Roger Zelazny have praised John Shirley’s searing, apocalyptic visions of postmodern hell on earth. Now this perversely brilliant author, one of the seminal representatives on the cyberpunk movement, unleashes his newest masterpiece.

DEMONS

In a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations. Hideous demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sadistically as possible. Divided into seven clans, these grisly invaders–gnashing, writhing, bloodthirsty monsters–seem horrifically to belong in our world.

Ira, a young San Francisco artist, becomes involved with a strange group of scientists and philosophers desperately trying to end the bloody siege. Yet through it all, Ira continues to paint–for in his canvasses lie crucial clues to the demons’ origins.

Yet the demons draw their strength from an all-too-familiar evil–a deadly malevolence supported by some of the greatest powers on earth, concealed beneath the trappings of status, success, and abused power. Ira and his allies– including a compelling young seeress–come to believe these demons didn’t just appear. They were summoned. But the most shocking revelation is yet to come . . .

EXCLUSIVE TO THIS EDITION: The original novella Demons was published as an acclaimed, limited edition hardcover which Publishers Weekly called a “mini-masterpiece.” Now the terror continues, as the sequel story, “Undercurrents,” takes the reader on a macabre journey into the center of the conspiracy that may lay waste to the Earth.

From the Hardcover edition.

Synopsis

In a future uncomfortably close to the present day, the apocalypse has surpassed all expectations; hideous demons roam the streets in an orgy of terror, drawing pleasure from torturing humans as sadistically as possible. Divided into seven clans, these grisly invaders — gnashing, writhing, bloodthirsty monsters — seem horrifically to belong in our world.

Publishers Weekly

Horror fiction that traffics in the supernatural perforce sometimes deals with matters of psycho-spiritual import. Rarely does it tackle them as directly as in this exciting, vigorously original novella from Shirley (Black Butterflies, etc.). The book is brief, but Shirley packs into it an epic's worth of imagination and ideas. As the story opens, Earth is under siege by marauding demons--seven "Clans" or types of "supernatural creatures" that take pleasure in killing, often with maximum pain. In flashback, the narrator, Ira, a young artist/art director, details the coming of the demons and humanity's response to their mass slaughter--denial, terror, appeasement, habituation; in the present day, he helps uncover the decades of intentional human depredation that led to their arrival. At this level, the novella works well as a brisk, sophisticated action yarn with echos of classic horror tales, particularly those dealing with alien invasion; especially effective is a rooftop scene that has Ira facing off against a Bugsy, an extremely nasty sort of demon that mimics human form and talks like a drunk. But Shirley ups the ante considerably by doubling the story as a parable about awakening, as Buddha, Jesus and others might have used the term--about awakening from the mind's incessant chatter and dreams to see the world as it really is. Humanity's hope to defeat the demons rests in a mysterious Conscious Circle of Humanity made up of those who have achieved wakefulness; one man connected to the Circle has an exotic daughter whom Ira loves and who turns out to be harboring within her psyche the "Gold in the Urn," a blazing wheel of energy that contains the "being force" of history's awakened ones and that, ultimately, proves the demons' match. With its potent underlying philosophy, serious theme, fresh vision and taut storytelling, this little novel makes a big impact. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

About the Author, John Shirley

John Shirley is the author of more than a dozen books including City Come A-Walking, Really Really Really Really Weird Stories (a collection of short fiction), and the newly reissued classic cyberpunk “A Song Called Youth” trilogy–Eclipse, Eclipse Corona, and Eclipse Penumbra. He is the recipient of the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award for his collection Black Butterflies. Shirley has fronted punk bands and written lyrics for his own music, as well as for Blue Oyster Cult and other bands. A principal screenwriter for The Crow, Shirley now devotes most of his time to writing for television and film.

Visit the author’s Web site at www.darkecho.com/JohnShirley

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Editorials

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
John Shirley gives us a taste of what can happen when we live as if our actions are inconsequential. Through the eyes of one of the main characters, an artist named Ira, we see the future: a world where demons are everywhere. As is the case with humanity, good and evil aren't easily discerned, and so the folks one would normally count on have failed us, and, like the Bible says, the meek do inherit the earth…

So it is that we see the Gnashers, Spiders, Grindums, and Dishrags all doing what demons do best -- torturing humanity. Shirley does a great job giving dimensions and personalities to each of the demon clans, which makes the story that much more enjoyable to read. The Bugsys, for example, are galactic gamblers and love the thrill of laying down a bet -- I'd love to see some Vegas croupier catch them cheating and try to throw them out!

Although Demons is a lot of fun to read, it is also a very deep and profound story. (S.V.)

Publishers Weekly

To a novella of the same title, Shirley (...And the Angel with Television Eyes) adds a lengthy aftermath that, though it couples clunkily, offers a crafty elaboration of the dark metaphysics in the original parable about corporate greed. Nine years after the benevolent Conscious Circle group exorcised the ravenous demons who arose in response to toxic disaster, it's business as usual in America. Stephen Isquerat, a na f climbing the corporate ladder at the West Wind company, is convinced like most everyone else that the past demonic convergence was a hallucinogen-induced exercise in mass hysteria. Little does he know that his company's interest in "psychonomics," the manipulation of the spiritual power of business, is laying the foundation for a demon resurrection, or that his work marketing Dirvane 17, a potent neurotoxic pesticide, is making him the perfect vessel for their second coming. The first part of the novel is a fascinating if talky take on clinical demonology that greases the wheels for escalating events in the second part. Though the author conceived the two halves of his story as variations on the same theme, their differing approaches seem out of synch, a problem most notable in the perfunctory relationship of Conscious Circle members to Stephen's experiences. For all the narrative gear grinding, Shirley succeeds in fashioning an over-the-top occult thriller solidly anchored in a bedrock of social consciousness. (Mar.) FYI: Cemetery Dance published the original novella (Forecasts, July 24, 2000). Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Library Journal

The apocalypse has come and gone and demons prowl Earth, forging a path of violence and torture as they rampage across the planet. A few scientists, aided by a young San Franciscan artist, pool their resources in a bold maneuver to end the reign of these creatures. From the streets of America's cities to the heart of the Middle East, Shirley's latest novel, based on an earlier story, combines fast-paced action, outrageous science, and graphic horror in a novel suitable for large horror collections. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus panned Shirley's Boschian The View from Hell as "Without question the worst book of the year" (2001), and Shirley charged us with missing the human side of his hellscape in a novel that remains the year's grisliest lurid fiction. Well, he has done it again, though this time adding a saving humor to his stinger's grim message about the ghastliness mankind accustoms itself to-and the mind-bendingly horrific acts it accepts as part of daily life. Demons, less a pastiche than Hell, falls into two parts (the first published by Cemetery Dance in 2000). In the very near future, the world is overrun by seven clans of demons. These demons, who speak a hilariously schizoid Tartaran and eat cars, handicapped children, planes, and people by the tens of thousands, look like creatures out of R. Crumb: Tailpipes are massive leviathans, slugs with nothing like a head; multi-batwinged Sharkadians have heads that are all jaws, with a human female's body and savage claws; Gnashers are abusively sadistic telepaths with human eyes but four arms and jaws like the Sharkadians'; and just as independently horrible are Grindums, Spiders, Dishrags, and Bugsys. Ira, Part One's nerdy storyteller, tells of the day the demons arrive in San Francisco while he romances Melissa Paymenz, the daughter of SFSU's babbling professor of occult practices. Symbolic of mankind's meltdown: a Central American country makes fast money as a vast waste dump, no farms, no forests, barely a village left: "Barges come from North America, Mexico, Brazil." Only Melissa bears the Solar Soul, whose light will awaken sleepers from whom the demons emerge. In Part Two, nine years later, Stephen Isquerat investigates the DemonicHallucination and finds endless governmental cover-ups. Masterful, amusing, and sent from Mars.