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Description:
Originally published by Subterranean Press as a hardcover edition, this short story collection represents the third in the series of Lansdale collections of his best short work. Mad Dog Summer showcases Lansdale's more recent stories, such as the title story which won the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for Long Fiction, about a serial killer in '30 Texas, as seen from the point of view of a boy that finds one of the victims. Weirdness and horror abound in "The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark Rider Get Down," set in a world that resembles our Old West. A colorful group of lawmen tracks a vampire in a forty-foot-tall, steam-powered robot, with nods to Jules Verne, Tom Swift, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and H. G. Wells. "Veil's Visit" is a courtroom drama featuring Lansdale's popular series characters Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, written in collaboration with Andrew Vachss. The original novella form of "The Big Blow" is a riveting account of Jack Johnson, the first black heavyweight boxing champion set during the 1900 flood of Galveston, Texas. "The Mule Rustlers" and "Screwup" are classic Lansdale, where the incompetent perpetrators are their own worst enemies. In the original 20,000-word novella, "Way Down There," a trio of superheros must descend into Hell in their '57 Chevy to confront Beelzebub. In "O'Reta: Snapshot Memories," Lansdale reminisces about his mother in a touching story. Each story has its own introduction, in which Lansdale relates the background for the idea of the story.
The collection was nominated for the Best Single Author Collection Award by the World Fantasy Association.
Contents:
Introduction
The Mule Rustlers
The Steam Man of the Prairie and the Dark
Screw Up
The Big Blow
Veil's Visit
Way Down There (an original novella)
O'Reta, Snapshot Memories
Mad Dog Summer
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