Hell's Bounty - Hardcover

Lansdale, Joe R.; Lansdale, John L.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1909640611 ISBN 13: 9781909640610

Publisher: Short, Scary Tales Publications, 2016

Synopsis

If the Western town of Falling Rock isn’t dangerous enough due to drunks, fast guns and greedy miners, it gets a real dose of ugly when a soulless, dynamite-loving bounty hunter named Smith rides into town to bring back a bounty, dead or alive—preferably dead. In the process, Smith sets off an explosive chain of events that send him straight to the waiting room in Hell where he is offered a one-time chance to absolve himself.

Satan, a bartender also known as Snappy, wants Smith to hurry back to earth and put a very bad hombre out of commission. Someone Smith has already met in the town of Falling Rock. A fellow named Quill, who has, since Smith’s departure, sold his soul to the Old Ones, and has been possessed by a nasty, scaly, winged demon with a cigar habit and a bad attitude. Quill wants to bring about the destruction of the world, not to mention the known universe, and hand it all over: moon, stars, black spaces, cosmic dust, as well as all of humanity, to the nasty Lovecraftian deities that wait on the other side of the veil. It’s a bargain made in worse places than Hell.

Even Satan can’t stand for that kind of dark business. The demon that has possessed Quill, a former co-worker of Satan, has gone way too far, and there has to be a serious correction.

And though Smith isn’t so sure humanity is that big of a loss, the alternative of him cooking eternally while being skewered on a meat hook isn’t particularly appealing. Smith straps on a gift from Snappy, a holstered Colt pistol loaded with endless silver ammunition, and riding a near-magical horse named Shadow, carrying an amazing deck of cards that can summon up some of the greatest gunfighters and killers the west has ever known, he rides up from hell, and back into Falling Rock, a town that can be entered, but can’t be left.

It’s an opportunity not only for Smith to experience action and adventure and deal with the living dead and all manner of demonic curses and terrible prophecies, it’s a shot at love with a beautiful, one-eyed, redheaded-darling with a whip, a woman named Payday. But it’s an even bigger shot at redemption.

Saddle up, partner. It’s time to ride into an old fashioned pulp and horror adventure full of gnashing teeth, exploding dynamite, pistol fire, and a few late night kisses.

About this title

About the Author:

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and several hundred short pieces, fiction and non-fiction. He has received numerous awards, among them The Edgar, 10 Bram Stokers, one of them for Lifetime Achievement, and he has also received the Horror Writers Association Grandmaster Award. He has also been awarded The British Fantasy Award, The Herodotus, Inkpot, Lifetime Achievement Award, Grinzani Prize, The Golden Lion Award, The Spur Award for his novel Paradise Sky, and many others. His writing has been made into several films, including Bubba Ho-Tep, Cold in July, Christmas with the Dead, as well as TV episodes like Incident On and Off A Mountain Road for Showtime's Masters of Horror, and the Hap and Leonard series based on his series characters. Currently in progress are The Bottoms, to be directed by Bill Paxton, The Thicket, to star Peter Dinklage, as well as others. He is a member of The Texas Institute of Letters, and has been inducted into the Texas Literary Hall of Fame, and is in The United States Martial Arts Hall of Fame, and the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame. He is writer in residence at Stephen. F. Austin University. He and his wife, Karen, live in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Review:

"Fans of Joe Lansdale's charismatic, genre-jumping storytelling (Fender Lizards) will eat up this collaboration with his brother: it's a whimsical save-the-world gunslinger zombie mash-up with a bit of black-winged Lovecraftian horror tossed in... [T]he ragtag team members-Smith, his horse, the saloon's 'girl for hire,' the town doctor, and the undertaker-achieve a smooth and high-energy dynamic as they use smart tactics, high carnage, and unlimited silver bullets to take down cowboy ghouls."-Publishers Weekly

About this edition

• Publisher: Short, Scary Tales Publications
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1909640611
• ISBN 13: 9781909640610
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 244