Jeffrey Thomas (writer)
Jeffrey Thomas | |
---|---|
Born | October 3, 1957 |
Occupation | Writer |
Genre | Science fiction, Horror |
Website | |
www |
Jeffrey Thomas (born October 3, 1957[1]) is a prolific writer of science fiction and horror, best known for his stories set in the nightmarish future city called Punktown, such as the novel Deadstock (Solaris Books) and the collection Punktown (Ministry of Whimsy Press), from which a story was reprinted in St. Martin's The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror #14. His fiction has also been reprinted in Daw's The Year's Best Horror Stories XXII, The Year's Best Fantastic Fiction and Quick Chills II: The Best Horror Fiction from the Specialty Press. He has been a 2003 finalist for the Bram Stoker Award (Best First Novel) for Monstrocity, and a 2008 finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Deadstock.
Other books by Thomas include the novels Letters from Hades (Bedlam Press) and Monstrocity (Prime Books), and the novella Godhead Dying Downwards (Earthling Publications). The German edition of Punktown has cover art by H. R. Giger.
Personal life
Jeffrey Thomas lives in Massachusetts. His brother Scott is also an accomplished short story writer, collected in such books as Cobwebs and Whispers (Delirium Books) and Westermead (Raw Dog Screaming Press).
Bibliography
Punktown
Punktown is a far-future megalopolis, infamous for its level of crime. Originally given the name Paxton, it is described as, “a vast city established by Earth on the planet Oasis but since colonized by numerous other races as well. Even the Chooms, who had lived here before the first Earth people, had come to refer to the city by its nickname of Punktown.” Besides the indigenous Choom, human in appearance aside from wide mouths cut back to their ears, the stories often include or focus on a variety of alien races, clones, mutants, and sentient machines. The stories tend to feature common citizens as their protagonists, rather than the larger-than-life heroes of cliche science fiction, with few characters recurring – one exception being mutant private eye Jeremy Stake, protagonist of the novels Deadstock and Blue War. Beyond their grounding in science fiction, Punktown stories also notably combine elements of horror, fantasy and occasionally detective noir.[2]
In interviews Thomas has related how he first devised the city in 1980,[3] with a handful of short stories appearing in small press publications before the collection Punktown was released in 2000. The Punktown stories are sometimes cited as early examples of the New Weird subgenre; Paul Di Filippo in Asimov's describing the initial collection as "a harbinger of the New Weird... Not that the concept of Punktown really needs any shoring-up by cliques or claques."[4]
Besides numerous appearances of the short fiction in magazines and anthologies, there have also been foreign language editions of several of the Punktown books released in Germany, Russia, Poland, and Greece, and three collections of audio adaptations created by the German company Lausch.[5]
- Punktown (collection) (June 2000, Ministry of Whimsy Press)
- expanded edition published July 2003
- Monstrocity (novel) (May 2003, Prime Books, 236 pages)
- Everybody Scream! (novel) (August 2004, Raw Dog Screaming Press, 291 pages)
- Punktown: Third Eye (anthology) (2004, Prime Books, 162 pages)
- Punktown: Shades of Grey (with Scott Thomas) (anthology) (2005, Bedlam Press/Necro Publications, 238 pages)
- Deadstock (novel) (February 2007, Solaris Books, 416 pages)
- Blue War (novel) (February 2008, Solaris Books, 416 pages)
- Health Agent (novel) (2008, Raw Dog Screaming Press)
- Voices from Punktown (collection) (2008, Dark Regions Press, 208 pages)
- Monstrocity (novel) (2011, Anarchy Books, ebook edition)
- Red Cells (novella) (March 2014, DarkFuse)
- Ghosts of Punktown (collection) (April 2014, Dark Regions Press)
Hades
- Letters From Hades (novel) (March 2003, Bedlam Press, 240 pages)
- Beautiful Hell (novella) (2011, Dark Regions Press)
- originally published in the anthology Ugly Heaven, Beautiful Hell (Dec. 2007, Corrosion Press, 276 pages) alongside a novella by Carlton Mellick III
- Voices from Hades (collection) (2008, Dark Regions Press, 169 pages)
- The Fall of Hades (novel) (2010, Dark Regions Press)
Collections
- Terror Incognita (March 2000, Delirium Books, 158 pages) (2003 trade paperback reprint without story notes)
- AAAIIIEEE!!! (January 2002, iUniverse, 212 pages)
- Nether: Improper Bedtime Stores (with Scott) (June 2004, Delirium Books)
- Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood (June 2004, Delirium Books) (containing Thomas' contributions to Nether)
- Unholy Dimensions (2005, Mythos Books, 288 pages)
- Thirteen Specimens (Feb. 2006, Delirium Books, 291 pages)
- Doomsdays (Oct. 2007, Dark Regions Press, 264 pages)
- Nocturnal Emissions (Jul. 2010, Dark Regions Press, 198 pages)
- Encounters with Enoch Coffin (with W. H. Pugmire) (April 2013, Dark Regions Press, 202 pages)
- Worship the Night (October 2013, Dark Renaissance Books, 194 pages)
Novels
- The Arms of the Sun (March 2004, Delirium Books, 67 pages)
- Boneland (July 2004, Bloodletting Press, 167 pages)
- A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Dealers (July 2006, Black Flame, 416 pages)
- Thought Forms (2009, Dark Regions Press)
- Beyond the Door (April 2011, Delirium Books, 120 pages)
- The Sea of Flesh and Ash (with Scott Thomas) (May 2011, Terradan Works)
- Blood Society (2011, Necro Publications)
- Lost in Darkness (January 2012, Bad Moon Books)
- Subject 11 (February 2012, Delirium Books)
Chapbooks
- The Bones of the Old Ones and Other Lovecraftian Tales (1995, chapbook, Necropolitan Press, 70 pages)
- second printing in 1999 with four extra pages
- Black Walls, Red Glass (Sept. 1997, Marietta Publishing, 66 pages)
- Avatars of the Old Ones: Mythos Tales (1999, chapbook, Imelod Publications, 48 pages)
- These Are The Exhibits (2003, Camelot Books & Gifts, 8 pages)
- Godhead Dying Downwards (May 2003, Earthling Publications, 40 pages)
- Unknown Pleasures: Dark Erotica (with Mark Howard Jones) (July 2003, Raw Dog Screaming Press, 48 pages)
- A Puppet Show For No One (March 2004, Delirium Books)
- Ghosts in Amber (June 2015, Dim Shores)
Anthologies edited by
- A Vampire Bestiary (1996)
- Terata: Anomalies of Literature (1999)
Collections edited by
- A House of Hollow Wounds, by Joseph S. Pulver, Hippocampus Press 2015
References
- ^ Date information sourced from Library of Congress Authorities data, via corresponding WorldCat Identities linked authority file (LAF).
- ^ Locus The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field November 2003 retrieved 2010-11-17
- ^ Vandermeer, Jeff. 'An Interview with Jeffrey Thomas Author of Punktown' www.infinityplus.co.uk (undated) retrieved 2010-11-16
- ^ Di Fillipo, Paul. "On Books: A Town Called Punk". Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine July 2001 retrieved 2010-11-16
- ^ Lausch retrieved 2010-11-17