April 2009 Archives

Hoping for a better life, five war veterans colonize an abandoned island. They take with them everything they could possibly need - food, clothes, tools, weapons, even wives.

But an unanticipated discovery shatters their dream and replaces it with a very different one. The colonists feel sure that their friendship will keep them together. Only then do they begin to realize that they've brought with them rather more than they bargained for.

For one of them, it seems, has been hiding a terrible secret from the rest of the company. And when the truth begins to emerge, it soon becomes clear that the war is far from over.

With masterful storytelling, irresistible wit, and extraordinary insight into human nature, K.J. Parker is widely acknowledged as one of the most original and exciting fantasy writers of modern times. THE COMPANY, K.J. Parker's first stand-alone novel, is a tour de force from an author who is changing the face of the fantasy genre.

“One of the most remarkable prose stylists to emerge from the noir tradition in this century.”
–Stephen King

“Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls– you’re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.”
–Fangoria, on Already Dead

There’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.

Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.

See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what’s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society’s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.

From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe’s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?

Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe’s on the case.


Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels

“In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [Grade:] A.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.”
–The Philadelphia Inquirer

Joe Pitt’s life sucks. He hasn’t had a case or a job in God knows how long and his stashes are running on empty. What stashes? The only ones that count to a guy like Joe: blood and money. The money he uses to buy blood; the blood he drinks. Hey, buddy, it’s that or your neck–you want to choose? The only way to lay his hands on both is to take a gig with the local Vampyre Clan. See, something new is on the streets, a new high, a high so strong it can send a Vampyre spazzing through Joe’s local watering hole. Till Joe sends him through a plate-glass window, that is.

So it’s time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won’t be long before he’s slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone’s pulling Joe’s strings, and now he’s riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He’s gonna cut them when he finds them–the strings and the hands that hold them.