The King and Other Stories

by Joe R. Lansdale

extremely rare,very good condition

Genres: Collections

98 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.

He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Reviews

[Geoff · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book of short stories created from a concept where on his web site he released a series of 1 to 3 page stories. His publisher decided to ask him to write a book full of these very short stories (some only a couple of paragraphs). The book doesn't succeed very well and was the worst Lansdale book I have read. The one redeeming feature was the short story 'The King', which closes out the book at a more normal size of 20 or so pages. Gary Braunbeck tried this style before with 'A Little Orange Book of Odd Stories' and was more successful.

[Noah Soudrette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This collection consists mainly of some incredibly short stories (think nursery rhyme length) and one longer story that caps off the whole affair. As Lansdale says in his foreword, these are meant to be fun little disposable stories that you can pick up and put down at will. On this score the book is a definite success, but I would only really recommend it to Lansdale completists.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mostly short-short (one is just a few lines long) stories mostly very dark humor (esp Snake) these were quick, fun and a hoot to read. I liked them all and it was nice to see a "new" story ("The King") by Joe that actually names Nacogdoches... now if people who weren't from ETex could just pronounce it :D

[Brett]

Anthology