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Synopsis

The shining realms of science fiction and fantasy can boast of few other superstar writers with as unique a voice and vision and set of themes as Howard Waldrop. And this richly overstuffed, smartly curated collection succeeds in presenting the full range of the man’s achievements, starting with one of his earliest tales — “Lunchbox,” wherein humanity’s first Mars probe meets an unexpected challenge — and passing through many stories written at the height of his powers, such as “The King of Where-I-Go,” which follows the time-tangled, heart-broken alternate lives of an unforgettable brother-and-sister team.
       Noted for the delightful quirkiness of his conceptions, the intricate depths of his researches and his assured and compelling voice — which varied from utterly cosmopolitan to that of a Southern Comfort-cured bard — Waldrop produced, over a career of nearly sixty years, such wild tales as “Der Untergang des Abendlandesmenschen” (a conflation of Nazis and Nosferatu); “Mary Margaret Road-Grader” (a post-collapse drama of big-hearted men and women and their big machines, transferred recently to the medium of cinema by George R. R. Martin, Howard’s childhood pal); “Ike at the Mike” (a jet-propelled alternate history involving Elvis Presley, Dwight Eisenhower, and a cast of hundreds); and “The Ugly Chickens” (a man’s obsessive search for an extinct beast that might yet live).
       Yet Waldrop’s stories were not merely filled with verbal pyrotechnics and gonzo brainstorms. He plumbed emotional depths that few other writers could handle. “You Could Go Home Again,” his account of the early modernist writer Thomas Wolfe (Wolfe is granted years of life beyond our historical record), captures Wolfe’s trademark deep melancholy and nostalgia perfectly. Likewise, “Flatfeet!” takes the famously one-note and two-dimensional Keystone Kops and invests them with the joys and fears and passions of fully rounded humans. And “Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?” vividly deploys all the trauma of a twentieth high school reunion in a way instantly recognizable, before tipping over into the outrageously fantastic. Similar effects are found in “Flying Saucer Rock & Roll.”
       The homey, way-out fictions created meticulously and passionately by Howard Waldrop would arrive, while he yet lived, at long intervals that left his legion of fans always eager and itching for the next mind-blowing delivery, however distant. But the lucky purchaser of this collection will experience no such frustrations, as they sit down to enjoy the concentrated wealth of fables that surged from the utterly unique Howard Waldrop.

Contents:

Introduction by Paul Di Filippo

• Lunchbox
• My Sweet Lady Jo
• Mono No Aware
• Der Untergang des Abendlandesmenschen
• Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me
• Mary Margaret Road-Grader
• The Adventure of the Grinder's Whistle
• Dr. Hudson's Secret Gorilla
• Horror, We Got
• All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past
• The Ugly Chickens
• Green Brother
• God's Hooks!
• Ike at the Mike
• Man-Mountain Gentian
• Fin de Cycle
• The Effects of Alienation
• You Could Go Home Again
• Household Words; Or, The Powers-That-Be
• Why Did?
• The Sawing Boys
• Occam's Ducks
• El Castillo de la Perseverancia
• Flatfeet!
• Scientifiction
• Heart of Whitenesse
• Mr. Goober's Show
• Us
• Major Spacer in the 21st Century!
• The Other Real World
• Calling Your Name
• A Better World's in Birth!
• Fair Game
• Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?
• Flying Saucer Rock & Roll
• French Scenes
• He-We-Await
• Heirs of the Perisphere
• Helpless, Helpless
• Hoover's Men
• Night of the Cooters
• The King of Where-I-Go
• The Dynasters
• The Lions Are Asleep This Night
• What Makes Heironymous Run?
• "...The World, as We Know't."
• Unsleeping Beauty and the Beast

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