Product Description
Set against a brilliant panorama of European expansion into the West in the late 1800s, Moon Dance is the horrifying tale of the illegitimate son of the Count von Bachl-Wolfling, leader of a pack of Viennese werewolves, and of the boy's all-too-human governess, Speranza. The pack has decided to emigrate to America, in search of wild lands and unsuspicious human prey. But unbeknownst to them, the Dakota territory is already home to the Shungmanitu--a clan of the Lakota Sioux who become wolves by the light of the full moon.
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Customer Reviews (17)

Shaky Start- strong finish
Sometimes rambling, but I found myself riveted by about the halfway point- As one reviewer said 'The Gone With the Wind" of werewolf novels- that turns out to be true, as a positive statement and as a negative critique.
Myself not being a fan of gratuitous sex and violence, I was impressed how the author used these elements to great effect- They kept the novel from being a stolid and boring "Twilight" type take on the nasty business of werewolves. Touche!

Moon Dance
A BOOK ABOUT WEREWOLFS COMING TO THE OLD WEST. INDIAN FOLK LORE,RAILROAD AND HORROR MAKES UP THE TALE. SPELL BINDING READ.

Not Free SF Reader
This is a werewolf story, set in the 'old west' of the United States.The werewolves involved, though, are a bunch of Europeans.

Looking for a boy that is the son of a count, the European werewolves do not bargain for the Lakota, who have wolf shapeshifting abilities of their own.A chase and some chomping happen.

full of promise--but, for me, it failed to deliver
I've loved werewolf stories since I was a child. With so many of them falling into the "werewolf cop" or "werewolf versus vampire" camps, I was very intriqued to read "The Great American Werewolf novel" (a quote from the dust jacket). I dived in expecting a unique perspective on what it means to be a werewolf.

The author accomplished this--to a certain extent. The most interesting thing was the distinction in personalities between the two werewolf packs. One pack is European, the other Native American. The Eurpoean werewolves are cut from the same corrupt nobility caste found in many vampires stories--they kill because it's what they do. The Native American werewolves are more interesting (they only kill to help people who want to cross-over), but they're treated as background characters and the reader gets only a passing glance or two at them.

As for the plot, the book takes place in two time frames, one in the wild-west and the other in the early to mid 1960s--both tied together. Unfortunately, I found neither appealing. My biggest problem was that I didn't identify with any of the characters in either time frame. Furthermore, some of their motivations were puzzling at best.

Another big issue for me was the pacing. It was painfully slow in some sections and in others several years were skipped from one chapter to another.

As for the ending, well, it was an ending. Some of the things that happened in the wild-west time line were out of the blue. I'm not talking about clever plot twists, which would have been endearing. I'm talking about odd things happening that were inconsistent with the rest of the book.

I wanted to love this book, but it took me two tries to get through it. The first attempt lasted four days, by which time I simply didn't want to read it anymore. Several months later, the book's promise called to me again. I picked it up and, over the next fourteen days, forced myself to finish it.

In the end, while the story's premise was interesting, the execution wasn't.

I picked this book up on White Wolf's recommendation...
...and I have to admit that I'm pretty disappointed.

For one thing, while there's multiple characters, they've all got the approximate depth of a skillet. Speranza is a simpering ninny, Jonas's multiple personalities basically boil down to "good" and "bad", and the remainder are simply inert.

On top of that, the book suffers heavily from the whole "Good Indian, Bad White Man", where the natives aren't presented as people, but as helpless victims or as avenging angels. There's even an old Native man who gets to play the Yoda role before being tortured to death by an Evil White Man.It's tremendously irritating to think what could have happened if Somtow had bothered to put some depth into them.

His villains are worse - not so much in what they do, but more in terms of how utterly one-dimensional they are. One of them, Claggett, engages in every vice known to man - torturing and killing women, raping kids, abusing a poor transvestite, and, just to make sure that we know he's evil, pulling the wings off of a cricket. He's not particulary interesting, just raw evil, and his eventual comeuppance has the dramatic weight of a drifting feather.

On top of that, Somtow's werewolves really aren't that much different from vampires - they're aristocratic, have servants, gather in old castles, claim territory and so forth. They do a lot of things that are werewolfish, but you don't get the sense that they're werewolves so much as shapeshifting Eurotrash. The Native American werewolves are barely described - oh, but they don't kill wantonly or evilly; no, they basically engage in a little ritual with their victims in which their victims basically ask to be killed, according to the book.

Feh. I wasted $6 on this; don't follow my example.

-Darren MacLennan ... Read more

Product Description
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. Reprint. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

It was the best Book I ever read.
This is the only Book from the series that I have read, but it is the best book that I have read recently. If you want a good horror book pick this one up today. ... Read more

Product Description
One of the 40 all-time greatest horror novels (as chosen by the Horror Writers Association) returns in a special 21st anniversary edition whose text is a facsimile of the rare Donning first edition of 1984. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Dark and Violent ...
For anyone who loves blood and deep violence.
Also read John Skipp and Craig spector.

Sometow does it with style
Somtow has a passionate approach to writing and a style that challenges you to pay attention.The writing is so vivid, so intense that I was completely caught up in it, and loved seeing new takes on Vlad the Impaler, Bram Stoker, etc.Everyone needs to visit the world of Timmy Valentine!

One of the all-time top 40
This novel was voted one of the 40 all-time greatest horror books, along with "Dracula", "Frankenstein", and all the classics ... and it's easy to see why."Dracula" was a novel which, a century ago, skirted the very edge of sexual taboo ... now that the boundary line has moved, here is a novel which goes right up to the edge of today's sexual taboos in the sexless yet luridly erotic character of Timmy Valentine, a 2000-year old vampire who looks like a 12-year-old rock star.This is considered the first "splatterpunk" novel by many critics.It is the first novel to mix vampires and rock music (Anne Rice's version came out a year later).It holds up very well after 21 years.

pretentious, but with sparks of interest
The analysis was dull and pretentious but his reminiscences were interesting. The other supporting characters, except for those closest to him Rudy, Maria and Carla, were at best annoyingly written.

This book was extremely amazing, deep, and dark.
Timmy life got to me. Everything that he went through I was able to imagine to the fulless. The darkness of the book is what appealed to me the most. These elements of his dark past are nerve racking. If you can takethe grism that Somtow presents this book is not for you. ... Read more

Product Description
Imagine you're on a mission of life and death. Suddenly, on a desolate back road in Arizona, the world shifts beneath your feet. You find yourself on a river of blood, a conduit that connects alternate dimensions like a highway connects towns, and there is only one way back to the mortal world you know. It happened to the Etchisons - father Philip, mother Mary, and teens Joshua and Theo. An ordinary family save for two things: Mary is dying and, unknown to anyone, Theo may be the key to saving her - and everything else in the universe - from certain death. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Riverrun Trilogy by S. P. Somtow
This is one of the best books I have ever read.The Characters are very well developed; the story is enrapturing.He makes you care about what will happen and the book made me look into my own sociological workings as well as the characters.It has changed my view and often when I encounter something new I relate it to this book for reference.It can be applied and enjoyed on so many levels.I would suggest this book for anyone, (provided they are old enough to deal with some sexual content and strong language, like PG13 or so).I only wish it was better known so more could enjoy it. Please if you haven't already, consider reading this book, you will not regret it.

Everything rolled into one
When I first sat down to read this book many years ago during the first publishing run of the trilogy, I was instantly pulled in.

The story is told in the first person, by several of the main characters; in essence, each main character has their own perspective on the events around them. Odd quotes and poetry litter the beginnings of each long chapter, which in of themselves, set the mood of the events to come. The story itself is about a family (a father, two brothers and their cancer-ridden mother) on a road trip to a cancer clinic. From there each of their lives get swept away in the cosmic battle between the mad king of all universes who is drunk on power, his son, the vampire and prince of darkness and his daugther, the vixen half-dragon as they each plot to use the powers that lie dormant in the younger brother of the family to overthrow their father.

If I say anymore it will just confuse you and ruin the intricate plot. If your ready to read an urban fantasy story like none other, then this is the book for you.

Origionallity to the Extreme
A very lyrically written novel with more than one origional idea up its sleave.It tells a very mystical tale of a boy who's dreams of another universe in turmoil enters his own.He is ripped away from the life and family that he knows by a dark prince of a corrupted dead world.The universe that he has left is manipulated, such that slowly even his own family forgets that he exsisted.He is forced to help the dark prince in a feud with his father, a crazed King, and his siblings, who fight over control of multiverses.The boy fights against the plots that drew him to this Netherworld, and slowly his brother, and parents are drawn into a fight for the future of the universes.

Throw all conventions you have about story writing out the window.Firstly the tale is told in the first person.Nothing new?Well, it tells the story in first person from multiple perspectives, with portions told by different characters discerned by the name of the narrarator at each changing point.The story is the extreme of fantasy with plot twists so twisted that you will be still realing in awe pages after they happen.

Very, very origional. ... Read more

Product Description
Timmy Valentine, a former vampire turned mortal neo-gothic rock star, must confront his grisly past of death, sex, art, and horror in an attempt to resuscitate his fading career. Reprint. LJ. PW. " ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Books
I order books through Amazon for my son who is prison.I so far have been very happy w/ my purchaces.He always recieves them in a good timely manner, and the used books are in awesome condition.

vampire
read moon dance first and got interested in this writer. collecting these for my grandson.

This book drags
I bought this book at a dollar store, and I'm happy thats all I paid! I loved Vampire Junction, but this one was awful...I enjoyed the beginning the ending was bad though.

Vanitas: Escape from Vampire Junction
This book is wonderful, as are the previous two in the trilogy. It is gory, but that's obvious from the book summary above. I'm a vampire novel collector, and overall, this is one of the best vampire novels I've read.

ew ew ew
I think this book is too graphic. If you love bloody, gory, just plain sick books be my guest to read this. I would have given it a 1/2 star for tryng but that is no possible. ... Read more

Product Description
Life isn't easy for Johnny Shapiro, despite his mother's success as the author of a book about his Lakota grandfather. He finds it hard to "fit in" in his new school--until he meets Rebecca, a new student as well, and the half-human daughter of a vampire. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Great Book for young adults;its not about vampires
I enjoyed this book.I enjoyed the relationship between the grandfather and Johnny. This book is not about vampires but about the alienation that is experienced because of ones race.Johnny is Native American who finds it difficult to understand what that means; and Rebecca is half human and half vampire who finds it tempted to blend into the human world despite the pressures from her vampire world.This book explores the challenges they experience and the solutions they try to come up with.Great book.

Uniquely Gothic
The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter is about a teenage boy named Johnny who realizes that his identity crisis is miniscule compared to Rebecca, the exotically beautiful half-vampire who has only a few days to choose whether she should be a vampire or remain mortal. Together, the two diverse teenseach find their own painfully right paths. This book has humorous twists onthe serious realities of being different.

A Great love Story with a modern gothic twist
I thought The Vampire's Beautiful Daughter was an excellent book. I picked it up and read it all the way through without stopping.It's about a boy who moves to a new town and has to go to a different school. He meets.well, a half-vampire. He falls in love with her and screws up her choice tostay half human or become a full vampire. You'll have to read it to findout the details, but I truly reccommend it. ... Read more

Product Description
Growing up on the exotic estate of his aunts and wicked uncle, twelve-year-old Justin survives his family's superficial traditions as well as the civil rights movement of the 1960s by escaping into his imagination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

Okay, but stretches belief
There's some good stuff in here. A lot is very evocative of Thailand, which is nice, and some is quite funny. But so much of it really stretched belief, and there are a lot of historical anachronisms. Would an 11-year-old wealthy Thai boy have been aware of "the battles of Vietnam" in 1963? At that point it was only a secret war conducted by the CIA and a very small group of troops. His American friend (also 11) has a waterbed -- and while it's stretching already to imagine an 11-year-old boy with a waterbed, the modern waterbed wasn't invented until 1968! Plus it's hard to imagine that a black American colonel would be so high up in the military ranks in what was still a very early, secretive part of the war -- but maybe this could have happened. There's allusions to books that wouldn't have been popular then as well.

And, there's moments of repulsion at how spoiled the boy is at a time when so many Thais still had very little. This is part of the point of the book, I realize, but it can still get a bit sickening at times.

wonderful storytelling!
Along with the beautiful storytelling there is an important coming-of-age message in this book.The imagery and descriptions of scents are so vivid, I still have flashes of this story visit me as though they were my own memories.I read it 8 years ago on a backpacking trip through South America; it was a wonderful book to read while traveling!

Jasmine Nights - A coming of age fable that bubbles with lif
I have read and read this book many times, and subsequently lent it to a friend who lost it (!!!) but this is one of the few books that has stuck in my heart.

Little Frog, alienated from his Thai surroundings and yet determined to find his own culture, observes the world and his mad aunts with detached honesty and affection. And yet, when he feels, how he feels!

This is a book that rejoices in youth, childhood and growing up, and its magical realism supports Little Frog's reality that is rather odd. He's living in a world of adults who can't seem to get it together.

This is a book to buy for yourself, friends and children who'll be facing the world as they step out to explore.

Jasmine Nights - A coming of age fable that bubbles with lif
I have read and read this book many times, and subsequently lent it to a friend who lost it (!!!) but this is one of the few books that has stuck in my heart.

Little Frog, alienated from his Thai surroundings and yet determined to find his own culture, observes the world and his mad aunts with detached honesty and affection. And yet, when he feels, how he feels!

This is a book that rejoices in youth, childhood and growing up, and its magical realism supports Little Frog's reality that is rather odd. He's living in a world of adults who can't seem to get it together.

This is a book to buy for yourself, friends and children who'll be facing the world as they step out to explore.

One of the best novels of the 20th century!
This novel addresses coming of age issues, race dynamics and class conflicts with an unparalelled wit and perception. I give it my highest recommendation. ... Read more

Product Description
In this exotic retelling of the fairy tale of Bluebeard,a New Age thirty-something from California is swept off herfeet by an enigmatic Thai millionaire and soon findsherself in Bangkok's brave new world of shamans, shoppingmalls, and high society serial killers.Originally written as a cliff-hanging series for Bangkok'sThe Nation newspaper, The Other City of Angels is a roller-coasterroman-à-clef that leapfrogs from genre to genre and culture toculture, turning the western preconception of Bangkok asa city "of temples and prostitutes" on its ear.A darkly comic odyssey populated with wild characters, with intimateglimpses into the eccentric antics of Asia's upper classes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent
I found this work was very well done in the tradtoin of Somtow's Inquestor's series and it created a very well wriiten world filled with the creative images that i have come to expect from Somtow.I highly recomend this book and look forward to reading the sequals ... Read more

Product Description
Meet Timmy Valentine. Rock star, teen idol, arcade master - vampire. He'll steal your heart - and have it for breakfast. "Vampire Junction is perhaps the closest thing to a nightmare ever put on paper..." ... Read more

Product Description
Darker Angels takes the reader from the bloodstained battlefields of Virginia to the slave auctions of Haiti. Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Byron, and Marie Laveau, the legendary voodoo queen of New Orleans, all have a part to play in the epic tale of a mysterious, one-eyed shaman who dares to raise the dead from the battlefields of the Civil War. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Complex Civil War Alternate History Rewarding When Savored
What a rich and diverse tapestry is S. P. Somtow's Darker Angels, a dark novel of the Civil War that's told as a phantasmagorical series of stories within stories like concentric rings. There's really no way to do justice to its structure in this brief description, but it must be said that such a potentially intrusive device here causes no confusion and indeed takes nothing away from the desperately grim beauty of the words that make up each and every narration.

From the strange beginning, in which the recently widowed Mrs. Paula Grainger meets Walt Whitman while clandestinely visiting the body of the just-slain Abraham Lincoln, to the whirling, wild, wonderful stories of the war later told by Whitman and his young friend, Zachary Brown, and then the stories told by those within the stories ... about the elderly voodoo prince, Old Joseph, who as a free slave raises black Union soldiers from the dead for one last skirmish, and the boy preacher who may have killed his own father, Jimmie Lee Cox, and Tyler Tyler, the young soldier with no arms, and bewitching Phoebe, the voodoo priestess who holds the power to transform herself into a black panther, and finally re(folding) back onto the Reverend Grainger--whose correspondents include Edgar Allan Poe, Lord Byron, and the President himself, and who is not at all quite the way his wife thinks him to be.

This is a novel of transformation, of being, of death, and of living the true life that only the grimness of death can bring. It's a novel less about the Civil War than about all wars, but it is quite specifically a Civil War novel, in which the richness of the themes runs like blood spilled between brothers and comrades, masters and slaves. This novel is grotesque, yet it makes such wise statements about the grotesqueness of war and slavery and religion that its own gruesomeness seems not only natural but necessary. Composer and film-maker S. P. Somtow weaves together so many disparate narrative voices yet produces a single cloth of intense beauty and rage, in which inhumanity vies with love as the fiercest of emotions. A novel such as Darker Angels cannot easily be described--it has to be experienced. It's a mystery to me that this great work of literature--yes, literature--will slip between the cracks because of its macabre subject matter. Perhaps too many critical voices need to stop paying attention to labels and focus instead on the heady work beneath this attractive cover. If you missed the first printing, by all means treat yourself to a special order--this trade paperback edition will fit easily on the shelf next to the Poe, Whitman, and Byron to which it so intriguingly refers. A true masterpiece of historical fiction, Darker Angels sings with a grim joy rarely achieved by novelists who dare touch subjects such as these.

Review originally in Chizine

One of Somtow's most accomplished works
"Stories within stories within stories!And always, it took another story to explain the one that preceded it."
--Paula Grainger, narrator of Darker Angels

Paula Grainger is the widow of Rev. Aloysius Grainger.Viewing President Lincoln's body as it lies in state, she encounters Walt Whitman, who is also there to pay his respects.A conversation ensues, and Paula invites Whitman to her home for tea the next day.Paula feels something important has just happened, but doesn't realize the tremendous change she is about to undergo--her chance meeting with Whitman will utterly transform her, as secrets are revealed and lives are irrevocably changed.

Whitman arrives the next day accompanied by his lover, former Union soldier Zachary Brown.Brown tells Paula a story about a past encounter with her husband, and unleashes a torrent of related tales, each illuminating mysteries raised by its predecessor. Zach's narrative is composed of several second hand tales, related to him by the Rev. Grainger, the armless Tyler Tyler, faith healer Jimmy Lee Cox, and a wealthy slaver named Bledsoe.These stories are further amplified by letters from the Reverend to Paula, which in turn reference epistles and diaries from Edgar Allan Poe and Lord Byron.

The stories weave a bizarre tapestry of voodoo, slavery, war, death and resurrection.It dawns on Paula that she is being told these stories for a reason; she eventually realizes that they represent a plea from her husband from beyond the grave.Paula needs the information to make an important decision, which, when made, provides an uplifting and quietly appropriate ending to this fine novel.Along the way, Paula sheds her old life, and, like the zombies that populate this dark fantasy, is resurrected, her mind opened, her sexuality awakened, her path made clear.

Somtow is in total control of his material, deftly combining the fantastic and the historic, expertly melding the numerous subplots he sets in motion.The cascade of stories holdsthe reader spellbound--each story springs from its precursor and leads into its successor, creating a complex labyrinth which the reader explores with Paula.The book is full of intriguing contrasts--the idea of raising the dead is repulsive, but pales next to the atrocities committed by both sides during the Civil War.In Somtow's world, resurrection can be horrible, but also redemptive, as when Jimmy Lee Cox brings his father back to life and reconciles with him, foreshadowing the book's touching climax.

Rich in character and atmosphere, Darker Angels is dark fantasy at its finest, a passionate work that reflects the fierce intelligence of its talented creator.

A Pleasurable Alternate Reality Tale
Unexpectedly, I found myself drawn into the tapestry of Somtow's multi-narratated story.One difficulty was trying to keep track of who exactly was telling the story in the "current" time.I believe the furthest remove the narration achieves is four.What's interesting is the entire book essentially takes place in one house.I highly recommend this book for those looking to find fantasy a bit askew from the traditional tales.

Daker Angels Shines Through!
I've read MOONDANCE some years ago and was totally capitivated by the story. Now several years later, I come across Darker Angels (though out of print, I got from the used section at Amazon and the service was EXCELLENT!). Here, Somtow weaves another fabulous tapestry of horror, fantasy and history all in one! (Just reading the other better reviews is proof positive.) We even get to see the origin of the most foul Cordwainer Claggett [sic] a villain we met in MOONDANCE. In Darker Angels, the multi-level narration by the different players is fantastic (though at times tricky but works out well in the end). Just a word of warning, this book is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended. I look forward to more from this author. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Historical horror
In his earlier novel, MOON DANCE, Somtow created a nightmarish American epic: a tale of the clash between European and Native American werewolves.In DARKER ANGELS he makes a triumphant return to his alternate history where magic and shape-shifters (were-leopards this time around) are real.

At about 200 pages less than MOON DANCE, DARKER ANGELS is in many ways the more successful novel.I must also note that it contains one of the most successful uses of a non-linear narrative I have yet to encounter.

This is not a book for anyone looking for a light and easy horror/dark fantasy read.It deals unflinchingly with war, slavery and homosexuality.But I highly recommend it for readers who aren't afraid to brave the darkness to find the riches therein.DARKER ANGELS may be a work of fiction, but there is more truth in its pages than in many non-fiction history books. ... Read more

Product Description
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 . . . and Equus’s father returns from the future with a dire warning: The evil Time Criminal is back andstronger than ever, and even Aquila of the time-trading Dimensional Patrol is powerless to act!

Now only Equus Insanus stands between the Time Criminal and the destruction of the universe! ... Read more

Product Description
This collection juxtaposes the hyper-stylized, post-modern trappings of LA with traditional fairy tales and and myths.Somtow’s grim retelling of Hansel and Gretel on the mean streets of LA will leave you reeling, while his post-modernistic impression of the Arthurian myths(The Hero’s Celluloid Journey) will change your perception of the Lady in the Lake forever.Somtow constantly subverts your expectations and brings to worlds you did not even know existed. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Enter the nightmare of Los Angeles
S.P. Somtow knows Los Angeles and S.P Somtow knows horror. Tag along in this great anthology of modern horror set in Los Angeles. Some of the stories in this book really had me looking over my shoulder and turning onmy reading light before I went to sleep!This is definitly one of Somtow'sbetter anthologies!DO NOT MISS! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Brothers death sends a boy looking for answers.
Struggling to deal with his brothers death, a boy takes a strange trip across the country.Forgetting Places is an excellent novel that deals with the pain of growing beyond the loss of a loved one.Somtow is a master storyteller who never talks down to the reader, which happens far to often with books for young people. ... Read more

Product Description
This collection juxtaposes the hyper-stylized, post-modern trappings of LA with traditional fairy tales and and myths.Somtow’s grim retelling of Hansel and Gretel on the mean streets of LA will leave you reeling, while his post-modernistic impression of the Arthurian myths(The Hero’s Celluloid Journey) will change your perception of the Lady in the Lake forever.Somtow constantly subverts your expectations and brings to worlds you did not even know existed. ... Read more