Showing results by author "S. P. Somtow" in All Categories

Now acknowledged as one of the most important classics of 20th-century gothic literature, S.P. Somtow's tale of a 12-year-old rock star vampire, his Jungian analyst, and the Wagnerian conductor who is his nemesis turned the entire genre upside down in the 1980s and is considered the ancestor of the "splatterpunk" movement. Vampire Junction has been voted one of the top 40 horror books of all time.

The decadence of Imperial Rome comes to life in S.P. Somtow's Literary Titan Award-winning novel about one of ancient history's wildest characters. The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from "puer delicatus" to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the arena. World Fantasy Award winner S.P. Somtow weaves a vivid adventure about one of the most colorful personalities ...

The sequel to S.P. Somtow's groundbreaking novel Vampire Junction - voted one of the top 40 horror books of all time - was called by Robert Bloch, author of Psycho, "the closest thing to a nightmare ever put on paper." Timmy Valentine vanished from the world in a bloody conflagration in a small Idaho town. Ten years later, they're making a movie about his mysterious life. Angel Todd is mountain boy from Hangman's Holler, Kentucky, who has won the Timmy Valentine lookalike contest. But the movie stirs up old evils — a fanatic televangelist, a dark-forces worshipping New Age witch, a ...

The conclusion of S.P. Somtow's award-winning epic set during the time of the Emperor Nero, based on the true story of a slave who ended up as Nero's empress. The Emperor has returned to Rome after a triumphant tour of Greece in which he won all the major laurels at the Olympic games, even though he did not compete in an Olympiad year. Now he and Sporus must face conspiracy and downfall, and the boy-empress must navigate the treacherous currents of imperial politics when four Emperors compete for power in a single year.

It is A.D. 69 and the Emperor Nero has been declared "Damnatio Memoriae" — his memory is to be erased from the world. But what will happen to Sporus, once a slave boy, then the emasculated Empress of the mad Caesar? The third instalment of the saga provides a brief respite to the drama as Nero takes Sporus on a Greek tour ... where the dream becomes a nightmare. The third volume of the award-nominated trilogy by S.P. Somtow, this work completes a tale of magnificence, corruption and decadence seen from a unique worm's eye view of a character who is usually relegated to a footnote in ...

The Millennial War left a sullen void where civilization once stood. But then the whales began their song - a mysterious song that resounded throughout the polluted seas and told an ancient heartbreaking tale that moved the survivors to revive and honored ritual....

35 years after the first Mallworld story was produced, S.P. Somtow has produced the Ultimate, Ultimate, Ultimate Mallworld collection. Included are all the original stories (and the one story left out of the Starblaze trade edition), all the ads for the Mallworld products (left out in the TOR mass market re-printing), and all the original artwork by Karl Kofoed (the artwork was not included in the TOR edition) and Kofoed's cover art (left out of the Meisha Merlin edition!) With a new introduction by the author. Mallworld was an iconic science fiction novel of the 1980s and a pungent satire ...

The conclusion of the three-book series that began with Delicatus and continued with Imperatrix. Captured by pirates as a boy and trafficked to the slave markets of Rome, Sporus rose from a poet's plaything to one of the most powerful figures in the Roman Empire. The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from "puer delicatus" to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the ...

Captured by pirates and sold to a Roman aristocrat as a sex slave, Sporus attracted the attention of no less a personage than the Emperor Nero, ruler of the known world. Would-be poet, patron of the arts, aesthete, and brutal autocrat, the Divine Nero saw in the boy a startling resemblance to the Empress Poppaea - and made him an empress as well. Suetonius, Tacitus, and other Roman historians have given tantalizing glimpses into the incredible life story of the boy who became twice an empress to two emperors, and was condemned to die in the arena by a third. In this meticulously researched ...

The Inquestor Series was a classic science fiction series of the 1980s — and has now been reincarnated for the 21st century, with more adventures, more spectacle, and more extras. Tachyon bubbles, people bins and galactic empires — and profound family conflicts — Greek tragedy writ large. Light on the Sound, the book that started it all, begins with one lonely planet and three lost souls, and ends with galactic revolution. For twenty thousand years, the godlike Inquestors have held sway over the one million worlds of the Dispersal of Man. S.P. Somtow’s limitless ...

Finally available in one volume! The decadence of Imperial Rome comes to life in S.P. Somtow's Literary Titan Award-winning novel about one of ancient history's wildest characters. The historian Suetonius tells us that the Emperor Nero emasculated and married his slave Sporus, the spitting image of murdered Empress Poppaea. But history has more tidbits about Sporus, who went from "puer delicatus" to Empress to one Emperor and concubine to another, and ended up being sentenced to play the Earth-Goddess in the arena. from Literary Titan "If you like your historical fiction brutal and ...

Season One of World Fantasy Award-winning author S.P. Somtow's vella series is adapted and compiled into book form. St. Cecilia's boys' school is an elite boys' school in a remote part of Thailand, a hotbed of hormones, mystery, fantasy, and dark secrets! Five kids (binary and non-binary) uncover the dark secrets of their school amid mysteries of identity and sexual attraction. Why does Dr. Leopold Strange only teach after sundown? Why is Sister Euphemia dancing in the forest without her habit? And why can't Kim and Fluke talk about the awful thing that happened to them in Oldenburg? And ...

This novella was the precursor to S.P. Somtow's groundbreaking historical epic Moon Dance, one of the most successful and controversial werewolf novels novels of the late 20th century. It details the journey of Speranza Martinique, a turn-of-the-century governess, by train through Europe with a young boy who may be a werewolf.

On this alternate Earth, Rome rules all...including the New World, known in other dimensions as America but here as Terra Novo. General Titus Papinianus is governor of that untamed land, and Aquila, chief of the savage Lacoti nation, is a Roman senator. But official titles aside, their duty is to Caesar. So when Caesar sends them on a quest for the fabled land of China, thought to be somewhere in Terra Novo, off they go.

Equus Insanus, son of Aquila, has been missing for three years on his quest to bring the vile Time Criminal to justice. His Roman half brother, Lucius, nephew to Caesar, fears him dead - until he begins receiving strange messages from the lost Lacoti warrior. Then Lucius learns that Equus has been captured by the Time Criminal, who plans to use him as the instrument which will destroy their world. Discovering that the secret to Equus’s salvation may lie in the pyramids of Giza and in the riddle of the Sphynx, Aquila and Lucius set out for Egypt.

Equus Insanus, son of the intrepid Aquila, finds the civilized life of Rome tedious. So he is eager to return to his native land of Terra Novo to assist in the construction of Caesar’s latest fancy - a transprovincial railroad. But on this alternate Earth where the Roman Empire rules America, things seldom go as planned. Soon the project is beset with savage Indian raids and inexplicable disasters…

After two thousand years of immortality, Timmy Valentine has finally become a real boy, having swapped his vampire nature with look-alike Angel Todd. But something is missing ... in a desperate bid to salvage his career, he goes on a world tour ... a harrowing, sweeping journey that stretches through Europe, the red-light districts of Bangkok, to the jungles of New Guinea. Scouring his past, he encounters Jack the Ripper, Bram Stoker, Oscar Wilde, Christopher Marlowe, and ultimately the Dark Lord himself - Dracula. "The closest thing to a nightmare ever put on paper" - Robert Bloch, author ...

The sequel to Vampire Junction finds Brian, PJ, and Terry ten years after the disappearance of vampire rock star Timmy Valentine, remembering the terrible night in Junction and fighting the Gods of Chaos who believe Timmy is still alive.

two misfits lost in paradise … a serial killer and a lonely boy S.P. Somtow’s World Fantasy Award winning novella is set in a picturesque Thai village just after the Second World War. This classic reimagining of Thailand’s most famous serial killer and his relationship with a fictional American boy was originally conceived as a film. Now, twenty years later, that conception is finally moving towards reality. As a bonus, the novella comes paired with the short story "Chui Chai," about a modern-day Frankenstein operating among the sex workers of Bangkok. It's one of S.P. Somtow's most ...

Dragon’s Fin SoupEight Modern Siamese Fablesin the tradition of the Marx Brothers...Eight Rowdy Taleswhere East and West don’t meet—they collide...Eight Frightening Ruminations...where nothing is as it seems, and even the unreal is an illusion...Eight Delectable Servings...That could only have sprung from the fevered mind of . . .S. P. Somtow...The most unique writer of this, or any other, millennium....“One of the most gifted masters of colour and spectacle.”Theodore Sturgeon....S. P. Somtow is the J. D. Salinger of Siam.”George Axelrod.