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Conscience
If Jim Thompson wrote A CHRISTMAS CAROL, it might go a little something like this...
CONSCIENCE is a short, fierce novel of corruption and redemption by New York Times bestselling author John Skipp. Using the terse, muscular prose of modern crime fiction, it is a Dickensian fable of hope and despair, 21st century style.
Charley Weber is a lousy guy. He kills for a living, and doesn't mind it a bit. He has come to L.A. to do something terrible: for money, for vengeance, and to make an ugly point about life and truth and love.
But a funny thing happens on the way to the massacre. He finds himself confronted by the only one who could possibly stop him.
He finds himself confronted by...himself.
Designed to be read in one sitting -- in roughly the time it takes to watch a feature film -- CONSCIENCE is lightning-fast yet thematically rich. It's a dangerous story, for our dangerous times: violent, funny, thoughtful, tragic, loving, and wise to the ways of the world.
This edition also features six additional short pieces, revealing author intros, and the feature length screenplay, JOHNNY DEATH.
CONSCIENCE is a short, fierce novel of corruption and redemption by New York Times bestselling author John Skipp. Using the terse, muscular prose of modern crime fiction, it is a Dickensian fable of hope and despair, 21st century style.
Charley Weber is a lousy guy. He kills for a living, and doesn't mind it a bit. He has come to L.A. to do something terrible: for money, for vengeance, and to make an ugly point about life and truth and love.
But a funny thing happens on the way to the massacre. He finds himself confronted by the only one who could possibly stop him.
He finds himself confronted by...himself.
Designed to be read in one sitting -- in roughly the time it takes to watch a feature film -- CONSCIENCE is lightning-fast yet thematically rich. It's a dangerous story, for our dangerous times: violent, funny, thoughtful, tragic, loving, and wise to the ways of the world.
This edition also features six additional short pieces, revealing author intros, and the feature length screenplay, JOHNNY DEATH.
- GenresHorror
340 pages, Paperback
First published March 26, 2013
4 people are currently reading
42 people want to read
About the author
John Skipp
105 books295 followersJohn Skipp is a splatterpunk horror and fantasy author and anthology editor, as well as a songwriter, screenwriter, film director, and film producer. He collaborated with Craig Spector on multiple novels, and has also collaborated with Marc Levinthal and Cody Goodfellow.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
June 30, 2015
CONSCIENCE by John Skipp is a collection of eight short stories, all of which are evenly executed with the same sort of style, skill and pathos that make the book as a whole an entertaining and illuminating read.
The bookend stories are the longest of the bunch, and in my opinion, also the strongest. So those are the two I’m going to talk about now:
The titular CONSCIENCE is a neo-noir “Lost Angeles” tale about excess baggage and new-age cults and a depressed hitman in the midst of a global-sized existential crisis. There are moments of pure BEAUTY and TRUTH in this dark tale that keep poking their noses through the protagonist’s calloused narration. Skipp’s prose is ornate and colorful without being distracting and it reads like melted butter on my tired eyes. It’s rare that you find a writer who can strike that perfect balance between plotting and craft, but this novella not only finds it, but it dances on it. One sitting is all this took me, and it comprised a third of the entire book!
The other highlight is the closing story, which itself isn’t a “story” but rather a film script for a splatter-action-horror movie called JOHNNY DEATH. Now, I don’t know how most scripts are written, but I doubt they are written like THIS. Once again, John Skipp employs his masterful command of language and writes what would essentially amount to stage direction with the same kind of flourish he brings to his standard prose. I mean I WAS IN IT. I saw the whole damn movie in my head. I don’t know when this script was originally penned (it was a while back from what I could surmise from the intro he wrote) so I’m not sure how much luck we’ll have of JOHNNY DEATH ever actually becoming a movie, but it freakin’ should be! If not, maybe as a serialized comic book? That would be AWESOME. I felt that some characters (like The Astounding Rodney) who didn’t get much “screen time” actually have rich backstories that there just isn’t enough time to explore in a script’s 100-odd pages. And Johnny Death’s adventures I’m sure were far-reaching, both before and after the events of this tale.
Now aside from Johnny Death, the rest book doesn’t employ much “horror” horror, instead focusing in on the darkness that lurks INSIDE. But for all the terror of the human soul, there’s always an equal part light. It's the kind of buoy that keeps readers like me turning pages. CONSCIENCE walks that tightrope. I thoroughly enjoyed.
The bookend stories are the longest of the bunch, and in my opinion, also the strongest. So those are the two I’m going to talk about now:
The titular CONSCIENCE is a neo-noir “Lost Angeles” tale about excess baggage and new-age cults and a depressed hitman in the midst of a global-sized existential crisis. There are moments of pure BEAUTY and TRUTH in this dark tale that keep poking their noses through the protagonist’s calloused narration. Skipp’s prose is ornate and colorful without being distracting and it reads like melted butter on my tired eyes. It’s rare that you find a writer who can strike that perfect balance between plotting and craft, but this novella not only finds it, but it dances on it. One sitting is all this took me, and it comprised a third of the entire book!
The other highlight is the closing story, which itself isn’t a “story” but rather a film script for a splatter-action-horror movie called JOHNNY DEATH. Now, I don’t know how most scripts are written, but I doubt they are written like THIS. Once again, John Skipp employs his masterful command of language and writes what would essentially amount to stage direction with the same kind of flourish he brings to his standard prose. I mean I WAS IN IT. I saw the whole damn movie in my head. I don’t know when this script was originally penned (it was a while back from what I could surmise from the intro he wrote) so I’m not sure how much luck we’ll have of JOHNNY DEATH ever actually becoming a movie, but it freakin’ should be! If not, maybe as a serialized comic book? That would be AWESOME. I felt that some characters (like The Astounding Rodney) who didn’t get much “screen time” actually have rich backstories that there just isn’t enough time to explore in a script’s 100-odd pages. And Johnny Death’s adventures I’m sure were far-reaching, both before and after the events of this tale.
Now aside from Johnny Death, the rest book doesn’t employ much “horror” horror, instead focusing in on the darkness that lurks INSIDE. But for all the terror of the human soul, there’s always an equal part light. It's the kind of buoy that keeps readers like me turning pages. CONSCIENCE walks that tightrope. I thoroughly enjoyed.
May 24, 2019
This is the collection that made Skipp's solo legend. Conscience I've discussed; it's one of the great novellas. Johnny Death the screenplay is something like 30 years old and still it's a colourfully poignant example of good vs evil. Even at his most bleak, such as in his story, Film at Eleven, Skipp has a sensitivity that is rare among his peers. Like he says, he just wants a better world. There is gore to be sure, but with Skipp at the helm we sail hostile waters with assurance, even if the odd bad guy lives to fight another day. This is the reality inside the crazy fiction.
January 29, 2023
This was not my favorite book by John Skipp but it's still heads above most of the competition. Skipp mentions in the intro that he loves short novels, which is what Conscience is (barely over 100 pages) so he includes a screenplay and several short stories. The screenplay is good and interesting, but honestly I would have preferred just one fleshed out story and not the rest of this collection. But that's me. Skipp is and always will be the best Splatterpunk writer to ever walk the Earth. His mind is twisted, and that's why we love him.
June 9, 2017
Included with The Long Last Call. Rating relates to title story only.
April 29, 2013
Let’s not do a conventional review here for this one is what crosses my mind as I recline in a fully relaxed contemplation of how I should approach penning a review of John Skipp’s Conscience. For one, there is enough info at www.johnskipp.com that I should throw your way, dear reader. Pointing you exit stage left to details about a writer’s credentials rather than listing them here is not normal practice for me, but there are just too goddamn many of them and I feel I should cut to the chase…..
I’m not at all in the mood to review a book right now, truthfully speaking. What I’m in the mood for is to indulge in senseless banter. And I shall. Well, maybe not senseless banter…..let’s devote this banter to the subject of the author here. With a little luck and effort, we might even get to Conscience.
From the perspective of my life, I’ll tell you about John, and it all goes back to this:
One day, less than a couple decades ago, I picked up a copy of The Light At the End. You know, I was very much into picking up books like that, Tor and Zebra and Bantam and Dell, New American Library and so forth all carried a healthy library of horror fiction back in the day, and at the time my own stuff was really dimestore fodder compared to the titles presenting themselves smack dab in your face at grocery check-out counters and prominently placed upon book store shelves….those days, horror literature maintained a very formidable presence on those shelves.
Loved Light At the End. And The Scream. The Cleanup. Dead Lines. Problem was, as motherfuckingly great as these jewels were, Skipp was one half of a partnership, a collaborator with writer Craig Spector, and in separating the two literary entities all I had to go with were the photographs featured in such horror fan magazines as Fangoria and a brief cameo in Barker’s Nightbreed, and he was the dude sporting the least amount of hair despite the length of the hair he had. The Skipp/Spector novels were terrific shit, great in the very definition of genre greatness, and were an inspiration to me.
Let’s skip (pardon the pun) about eighteen years into the future, after whatever my writing career had been was kickstarted again and I frequented horror conventions and the like, Circa May ’06…..I was socializing amongst a group of fellow writers at one of those conventions when I found myself listing my influences and idols in the field. Soon as I mentioned John, there he was, a small handful of yards away, and I immediately set myself to talking with him. I hold him in high esteem as a remarkable human being in his own right, regardless of his body of work which makes the most devout horror reader wow.
And yes, Conscience did the trick for me of separating the sheep from the goats, the Skipps from the Spectors, and for those of you pressed too much for the time it takes to find out for yourselves, I say John is a gifted writer, musician, and all-out hellraiser to modern sociality as we know it.
Conscience is damn good fiction by Skipp and only Skipp. The character of gun-for-hire Charley Weber comes face to face with his inner self, his conscience if you will, when he's summoned to take out the life of the woman he may still love. And there's more to the book than just that brilliant fable, but there's tasty treats to follow with added short stories, poetry, and his early full-length action/horror screenplay Johnny Death.
This is John Skipp in all his modern, ball-splicing, Bukowskiesque glory, and, after taking it all in, one wonders why he ever found himself with a partner to begin with.
I’m not at all in the mood to review a book right now, truthfully speaking. What I’m in the mood for is to indulge in senseless banter. And I shall. Well, maybe not senseless banter…..let’s devote this banter to the subject of the author here. With a little luck and effort, we might even get to Conscience.
From the perspective of my life, I’ll tell you about John, and it all goes back to this:
One day, less than a couple decades ago, I picked up a copy of The Light At the End. You know, I was very much into picking up books like that, Tor and Zebra and Bantam and Dell, New American Library and so forth all carried a healthy library of horror fiction back in the day, and at the time my own stuff was really dimestore fodder compared to the titles presenting themselves smack dab in your face at grocery check-out counters and prominently placed upon book store shelves….those days, horror literature maintained a very formidable presence on those shelves.
Loved Light At the End. And The Scream. The Cleanup. Dead Lines. Problem was, as motherfuckingly great as these jewels were, Skipp was one half of a partnership, a collaborator with writer Craig Spector, and in separating the two literary entities all I had to go with were the photographs featured in such horror fan magazines as Fangoria and a brief cameo in Barker’s Nightbreed, and he was the dude sporting the least amount of hair despite the length of the hair he had. The Skipp/Spector novels were terrific shit, great in the very definition of genre greatness, and were an inspiration to me.
Let’s skip (pardon the pun) about eighteen years into the future, after whatever my writing career had been was kickstarted again and I frequented horror conventions and the like, Circa May ’06…..I was socializing amongst a group of fellow writers at one of those conventions when I found myself listing my influences and idols in the field. Soon as I mentioned John, there he was, a small handful of yards away, and I immediately set myself to talking with him. I hold him in high esteem as a remarkable human being in his own right, regardless of his body of work which makes the most devout horror reader wow.
And yes, Conscience did the trick for me of separating the sheep from the goats, the Skipps from the Spectors, and for those of you pressed too much for the time it takes to find out for yourselves, I say John is a gifted writer, musician, and all-out hellraiser to modern sociality as we know it.
Conscience is damn good fiction by Skipp and only Skipp. The character of gun-for-hire Charley Weber comes face to face with his inner self, his conscience if you will, when he's summoned to take out the life of the woman he may still love. And there's more to the book than just that brilliant fable, but there's tasty treats to follow with added short stories, poetry, and his early full-length action/horror screenplay Johnny Death.
This is John Skipp in all his modern, ball-splicing, Bukowskiesque glory, and, after taking it all in, one wonders why he ever found himself with a partner to begin with.
May 2, 2012
Decent stories. The script for Johnny Death should get produced as a video game rather than a movie if it ever crosses into a medium beyond the page.
February 11, 2015
Chapter 1 grabbed me hard and the book never let me go. Fantastic read.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews