Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O'Neill
Winner of the 2009 Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Collection
Monster Librarian Top 10 of ’09 Pick
Eight stories of dark science fiction and fantasy weave a path through the underbelly of San Francisco’s most notorious district in Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O’Neill. Best known for his strong sense of place and uniquely vibrant characters, O’Neill brings the gritty underside of the city to life with eight interwoven stories of broken lives, missed dreams, and all that can go wrong with both reality and fantasy among the down and out. The city itself opens wide to swallow all comers with the temptation of its secrets and sins, while O’Neill brings dignity and humanity to a set of characters often overlooked in both society and fiction.
Table of Contents
“Lost Patrol”
“Magic Words”
“Tombstones in His Eyes”
“Bushido”
“Balance”
“The Apotheosis of Nathan McKee”
“Bruised Soul”
“5150”
Special introduction by Gavin O’Neill
Cover art by Steven Gilberts
Reviews
“Haunting, lyrical and often uncomfortably realistic, this slim collection of eight short stories plunges the reader into the darker side of San Francisco. Altered states of consciousness-minds changed by grief, chemistry or too much hard living-are everywhere. In “Magic Words,” an advertising executive pays a homeless woman a high price for transient success. Poignant and plausible almost to a fault, “Tombstones in His Eyes” twists the horrors of drug addiction into something harder, sharper and scarier. In “The Apotheosis of Nathan McKee,” a brokenhearted father’s descent into insanity-or is it merely invisibility?-makes normalcy seem all too tenuous. The best story of the bunch, “5150,” documents the final moments of a worn-out cop about to retire. O’Neill’s deft, authentic prose resonates with the weight of sad reality, erasing the line between knowledge and fear."
(August, 2009) Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Blurbs
“…A journey Gene O’Neill will masterfully guide you through, perhaps not into the heart of darkness, but most assuredly into the heart of great horror fiction, Enjoy the ride…”
—Gord Rollo, author of The Jigsaw Man and Crimson
“His words bristle with a muscular intensity that strengthens any book or magazine lucky to contain him.”
—Scott Edelman, editor of SF Weekly and Sci-Fi Channel Magazine
“There are two kinds of writer that I love, those who inspire me with what they do and those who I can’t help but envy because there is no way I could do what they do. Gene O’Neill falls squarely into the second category. I would say he was the ‘best kept secret’ of the genre but Gene’s so much more than that. My admiration (and green-eyed envy, never forget that bug-eyed beastie) has only grown since. Gene O’Neill is the real McCoy.”
—Steven Savile, international bestseller author of: Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar, Stargate: Shadows and Silver.
162 pages
ISBN-13: 978-0981639000
