Howard Waldrop

"Howard Waldrop is the Studebaker Golden Hawk of genre fiction, a classic of structure and design. His unique stories autopsy the entrails of our eccentric past and reveal, often in oracular fashion, insanities to come."

"The only problem with THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME is that it's not nearly long enough.  Sure, sure, it's chock full of great stories by the best short fiction writer of his generation, modern classics like "The Ugly Chickens" and "Flying Saucer Rock n Roll" and "Heart of Whitenesse" and many more... but there are two or three times as many terrific Waldrop stories, equally good and sometimes even better, that have been left out for want of space.  There's only one solution.  Read this book... and then go out and track down all of Waldrop's other collections and read them too."

"Howard Waldrop doesn't have e-mail. He doesn't have a word processor. He doesn't surf the Internet. I guess that means he spends most of his time writing. From my point of view as a devoted Waldrop reader, I'm eternally grateful to the Luddite in him."

"You want funny? Howard's got funny. You want weird? Howard's got weird. You want mind-bending? You're about to get it."

"There's no better writer alive than Howard Waldrop, and here are all his best stories, with funny and fascinating afterwords — you need this book."

"It always feels like Christmas when a new Howard Waldrop collection arrives, and this one is as crammed with wonderful presents as Santa's sack.  This is even better than getting a BB gun!"

"The 16 stories in this retrospective volume from World Fantasy Award-winner Waldrop tend to be more sober and less zany than those in his previous collection, Heart of Whitenesse (2005). Highlights include "The Lions Are Asleep This Night," a touching alternate history of a would-be playwright set in Africa; "French Scenes," in which Francophiles make movies using computers; and "Household Words or the Powers That Be," a tale Dickens fans are sure to love...."

"You don't have to know a lot to read Howard Waldrop's fiction, but it helps. His stories are packed with inside jokes, allusions, historic and pop-cultural references which sometimes leave you wondering if you got everything out of it he put into it. That's why this collection of his short fiction is such a treasure: each story has an afterword written by Howard himself explaining (some of) the punch lines you may have missed, the premise he based it on, the circumstances under which he wrote, and anything else he felt his readers should know. (The continuing saga of how he single-handedly shut down a number of publications just by having a story accepted is truly amazing.)"

Table of Contents

• "King of Where-I-Go"
• "Calling Your Name"
• "The Dynasters, Vol. I, On the Downs"
• "US"
• "Mr. Goober's Show"
• "Heart of Whitenesse"
• "Household Words, or, The Powers-That-Be"
• "The Sawing Boys"

• "Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?"
• "Wild, Wild Horses"
• "French Scenes"
• "Night of the Cooters"
• "The Lions Are Asleep This Night"
• "Heirs of the Perisphere"
• "Flying Saucer Rock and Roll"
• "The Ugly Chickens"