Search Worlds Without End

Poppy Z. Brite, an acclaimed horror fan favorite, is known for going to the edge and back--and this collection of stories, many set against the backdrop of the author's native New Orleans, explores the outermost regions of murder, sex, death, and religion.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - (1998) - essay by Peter Straub
• Preface - (1998) - essay by Stewart P. Butkis
• In Vermis Veritas - (1996) - short story
• Arise - (1998) - short story
• Saved - (1994) - short story with Christa Faust
• King of the Cats - (1996) - short story with David Ferguson
• Self-Made Man - (1997) - novelette
• Pin Money - (1997) - short story
• America - (1996) - short story
• Entertaining Mr. Orton - (1997) - short story
• Monday's Special - [Dr. Brite] - (1998) - short story
• Vine of the Soul - (1998) - short story
• Mussolini and the Axeman's Jazz - (1995) - novelette
• Are You Loathsome Tonight? - (1998) - short story
• ...And in Closing (for Now) - (1998) - essay by Caitlín R. Kiernan

WFA nominated short story. It originally appeared in the anthology Still Dead (1992), edited by john Skipp and Craig Spector. The story can also be found in the anthologies:

• The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror: Sixth Annual Collection (1993), edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling
• The Living Dead (2008), edited by John Joseph Adams
• Darkness: Two Decades of Modern Horror (2010), edited by Ellen Datlow
• The Century's Best Horror Fiction 1951-2000 (2012), edited by John Pelan

It is included in the collection Swamp Foetus: A Collection of Short Stories (1993).

Zach is a computer hacker who looks like Edward Scissorhands, and Trevor, a comics artist, is traumatized by his father's murder of his mother and brother 20 years previously. Both on the run from their pasts, they end up as lovers in the town of Missing Mile.

To serial slayer Andrew Compton, murder is an art, the most intimate art. After feigning his own death to escape from prison, Compton makes his way to the United States with the sole ambition of bringing his "art" to new heights. Tortured by his own perverse desires, and drawn to possess and destroy young boys, Compton inadvertently joins forces with Jay Byrne, a dissolute playboy who has pushed his "art" to limits even Compton hadn't previously imagined. Together, Compton and Byrne set their sights on an exquisite young Vietnamese-American runaway, Tran, whom they deem to be the perfect victim.

Swiftly moving from the grimy streets of London's Piccadilly Circus to the decadence of the New Orleans French Quarter, and punctuated by rants from radio talk show host Lush Rimbaud, a.k.a. Luke Ransom, Tran's ex-lover, who is dying of AIDS and who intends to wreak ultimate havoc before leaving this world, Exquisite Corpse unfolds into a labyrinth of murder and love. Ultimately all four characters converge on a singular bloody night after which their lives will be irrevocably changed -- or terminated.

Poppy Z. Brite dissects the landscape of torture and invites us into the mind of a killer. Exquisite Corpse confirms Brite as a writer who defies categorization. It is a novel for those who dare trespass where the sacred and profane become one.

In the French Quarter of New Orleans the Mardi Gras celebrations conceal a different group of pleasure-seekers. For Zillah, Molochai and Twig, the party has been going on for centuries, fuelled by sexual frenzy, green Chartreuse and innocent blood. Born in horror and brought up in suburban Maryland, Nothing has always suspected he's different from other teenagers - and when he has his first taste of human blood, he knows he is right. Ghost is the singer of the band Lost Souls. When Nothing is drawn into Zillah's fatal circle, Ghost has to decide whether to save the boy - or abandon him to his bloody birthright. "Lost Souls" is a dark, decadent and delicious work of fantasy from the mistress of modern horror.

A collection of erotic horror stories follows the adventures of solace-seeking lonelyhearts on a North Carolina highway, behind a dusty Georgia carny show, in a Baton Rouge mausoleum, and an alley in Calcutta.

Table of Contents:

• The Ash of Memory, the Dust of Desire - (1991) - novelette
• Optional Music for Voice and Piano - (1986) - short story
• Missing - (1986) - short story
• The Elder - (1987) - short story
• Love (Ash 1) - (1987) - short story
• Goldengrove Unleaving - (1987) - short fiction
• Xenophobia - (1990) - short story
• Footprints in the Water - (1990) - short story
• His Mouth Will Taste of Wormwood - (1990) - short story
• How to Get Ahead in New York - (1992) - short story
• Calcutta, Lord of Nerves - (1992) - short story
• The Sixth Sentinel - (1993) - short story

A sexy new repackaging of the extremely popular anthology of vampire erotica, edited by acclaimed author Poppy Z. Brite.

The classic horror tale is about fear. But in the last few years a new literature of the macabre has arisen, one that goes deeper than horror, beyond fear, to explore our darkest, most intimate hungers. The ones even lovers are forbidden to share.

Acclaimed dark fantasy author Poppy Z. Brite has brought together this genre's most powerful and seductive authors in an original collection of vampiric erotica, a shameless celebration of unspeakable intimacies. It is not for everyone.

But neither is the night.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction (1994) - essay by Poppy Z. Brite
• Do Not Hasten to Bid Me Adieu - (1994) - novelette by Norman Partridge
• Geraldine - (1994) - novelette by Ian McDowell
• In the Greenhouse - (1994) - short story by Kathe Koja and Barry N. Malzberg
• Cafe Endless: Spring Rain - (1994) - short story by Nancy Holder
• Empty Vessels - (1994) - novelette by David B. Silva
• The Final Fete of Abba Adi - (1994) - short story by Jessica Amanda Salmonson
• Cherry - (1994) - short story by Christa Faust
• White Chapel - (1994) - novelette by Douglas Clegg
• Delicious Antique Whore - (1994) - short fiction by W. H. Pugmire
• Triptych di Amore - (1994) - novelette by Thomas F. Monteleone
• Queen of the Night - (1994) - short story by Gene Wolfe
• The Marriage - (1994) - short story by Melanie Tem and Steve Rasnic Tem
• In This Soul of a Woman - (1994) - short story by Charles de Lint
• The Alchemy of the Throat - (1994) - novelette by Brian Hodge
• Love Me Forever - (1994) - short story by Mike Baker
• --And the Horses Hiss at Midnight - (1994) - short story by A. R. Morlan
• Elixir - (1994) - short story by Elizabeth Engstrom
• The Gift of Neptune - (1994) - short story by Danielle Willis
• From Hunger - (1994) - short story by Wayne Allen Sallee
• A Slow Red Whisper of Sand - (1994) - novelette by Robert Devereaux

A second helping of blood and passion...

Acclaimed dark fantasist Poppy Z. Brite's previous excursion into the nightmare realm of terrifying sensuality offered readers a sumptuous blood feast of unspeakable pleasures. Now she has done it again, serving up more provocative tales from some of the most inventive and accomplished writers in the field -- an unabashed exploration of shadow places and terrible hungers that's more dangerously seductive, more boldly erotic than the first.

If you found Love in Vein disturbingly dark, unsettlingly seductive, and deliciously carnal -- you're going to adore Twice Bitten: Love in Vein II. But be warned. It may be more than you can handle. It may open doors into the darkest corners of your unspoken fears. And it may be exactly what you've been secretly lusting for.

Table of Contents:

• Snow, Glass, Apples - (1995) - short story by Neil Gaiman
• Bela's Plot - (1997) - short story by Caitlín R. Kiernan
• Armies of the Heart - (1997) - short story by Christopher Fowler
• Whispers in Walled Tombs - (1997) - short story by O'Neil De Noux
• Ceilings and Sky - (1997) - short story by Lucy Taylor
• The Fly Room - (1997) - novelette by Thom Metzger
• The Subtle Ties That Bind - (1997) - short story by David Niall Wilson
• When Memory Fails - (1997) - novelette by Roberta Lannes
• The I of the Eye of the Worm - (1997) - short story by Janet Berliner and George Guthridge
• Stigmata - (1997) - short story by Jean-Daniel Brèque (trans. of Stigmates)
• The Dripping of Sundered Wineskins - (1997) - novella by Brian Hodge
• I'm Not Well, But I'm Better - (1997) - short story by Pat Califia
• Kingyo no fun - (1997) - novelette by Nicholas Royle
• First Date - (1997) - novelette by Richard Laymon
• To Have You with Me - (1997) - short story by Randy Fox
• Dusting the Flowers - (1997) - novelette by David J. Schow
• Bloodlight - (1997) - short story by Stephen Mark Rainey
• The Privilege of the Dead - (1997) - short story by Thomas S. Roche