Pick among the rubble of modern civilization, and listen for the beating of its rusted heart. "Dark fiction so numbing cold and cutting edge you better hold onto your ass with your free hand ... There are no simple 'entertainments' or cheap grabs for the throat to be found here. Hodge is deadly serious about presenting a world where the worst punishment is the mere fact that you are aware you will probably live to see another day." So wrote esteemed critic Stanley Wiater about The Convulsion Factory before ranking it among the 113 best books of modern horror fiction. Its 12 stories are fused together by the recurring motif of decay ... the decay of cities and families, identity and gender, idolatry and love. Among "Godflesh" - In pursuit of the ultimate in pleasure, what's ancient is new again. "Androgyny" - What is love? Two souls and one flesh. "Cancer Causes Rats" - The symbiosis between a TV reporter and the serial killer who's making her career metamorphoses toward its inevitable extreme. "Extinctions In Paradise" - Their daily struggle for survival hurtles the street kids of a South American slum into a new phase of evolution. "Liturgical Music For Nihilists" - In the chill of a derelict slaughterhouse, an accidental god awakens and calls to its own. Out of decay comes new life. If only that were the good news...
Author
Brian Hodge, called “a writer of spectacularly unflinching gifts” by Peter Straub, is the award-winning author of ten novels of horror and crime/noir. He’s also written well over 100 short stories, novelettes, and novellas, and four full-length collections. His first collection, The Convulsion Factory, was ranked by critic Stanley Wiater as among the 113 best books of modern horror. He lives in Colorado, where he also dabbles in music and photography; loves everything about organic gardening except the thieving squirrels; and trains in Krav Maga, grappling, and kickboxing, which are of no use at all against the squirrels.
