Shards - Softcover

Cummings, Shane Jiraiya

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0980567726 ISBN 13: 9780980567724

Publisher: Brimstone Press, 2009

Synopsis

Take a guided tour of the darkest backroads of the imagination. Imagine worlds that are twisted fragments of our own ... In one, a woman with foresight puts her scarred body on the line to stop crimes before they happen. In another, a pervert channels the spirit of a dead school friend in the hopes of getting lucky. In yet another, the Antichrist is a misunderstood teenager who is tired of being manipulated.

In Shards, the seasons turn deadly, and a day at the beach becomes a nightmare. A vision in the mirror is anything but heavenly. The zombie apocalypse triggers one survivor's unhealthy obsession. And where do you run when the world begins to physically unravel?

Shards is fiction at its shortest and sharpest, a collection of disturbing stories from a master of dark flash fiction. A shard is a story read in just moments ... but it will linger with you for the rest of your life.

Every story in the print edition is lavishly illustrated by Andrew J. McKiernan.

About this title

About the Author:

Shane Jiraiya Cummings has been acknowledged as "one of Australia's leading voices in dark fantasy". Shane is the author of the forthcoming Yokai Wars series (Circle of Tears, Clockwork Legion, and Blight of the Underworld) and the dark fiction books The Abandonment of Grace and Everything After, Shards, the Apocrypha Sequence (Deviance, Divinity, Insanity, and Inferno), and the Ravenous Gods cycle (Requiem for the Burning God and Dreams of Destruction). He has won the Australian Shadows Award and two Ditmar Awards, and he has been nominated for more than twenty other major awards, including Spain's Premios Ignotus.
Shane is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and former Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. When he is not writing, Shane is an editor and journalist by day. By night (and on weekends), he can be found indulging in hobbies such as playing the guitar, photography, sword fighting, and testing the limits of his cruiser motorcycle.
In his youth, Shane was trained in the deadly arts of the ninja, and the name Jiraiya (lit. "Young Thunder", after the legendary ninja Jiraiya) was bestowed upon him by his sensei.
Shane was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. He lived for many years in Perth, Western Australia, and Wellington, New Zealand, but he has returned to his old home town to revisit the ghosts of his past.
More information on Shane (including his free fiction) can be found online at jiraiya.com.au.

Review:

"Cummings' work possesses a Stephen King-like quality, creating rich and colourful characters in a handful of words ... Well worth the read."--Mark Smith-Briggs, HorrorScope

"With Shards, Shane Jiraiya Cummings takes us on a guided tour of the darkest backroads of the imagination. It is wonderfully moody and creepy." --Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero.

"Shane Jiraiya Cummings with Shards shows he is not only a master of the flash fiction style of writing but has pretty much written the definitive statement on how it should work."--Jeff Ritchie, ScaryMinds

"This is how flash fiction should be written--sharp, brilliant images conjured by amazingly few words. Cummings' aptitude for flash fiction is evident in every carefully chosen phrase."--Stephanie Gunn, HorrorScope

About this edition

• Publisher: Brimstone Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0980567726
• ISBN 13: 9780980567724
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 162
• Illustrator: McKiernan Andrew