Publisher's Synopsis
An Unsettled Score is a collection of short works by award-nominated author Christopher L. DelGuercio. This, his first collection, includes twenty twisted visions of speculative fiction spanning thrilling adventures on far flung, alien worlds and dystopian futurescapes, to mind-bending surrealities and nightmarish encounters with evil, to the bitingly satirical and overtly comical, these dark-hearted tales of monsters and mayhems are designed to entertain and delight, surprise and move. Ranging from poetic verse and flash fiction to novella-length narratives, in the rich tradition of such shining stars of the short form as Bradbury, Ellison, Gaiman, King, Martin, and Vonnegut, we can add an exciting new collection, An Unsettled Score.
If you're in the mood for a hearty stew of stories to feed your cravings for the bizarre, the wondrous, and the macabre, take a stroll through the twisted visions of An Unsettled Score.
Praise includes:
"... a wild ride. These are dark and creepy tales, with a touch of surrealism, and more than a touch of twisted humor ... a master craftsman ... terse and distilled-not a word or sentence is wasted ... dialogue that rings true, regardless of character or setting ... fresh and surprising. What a rich and mysterious imagination this author has." --David G Moore, author, Kings Canyon, Stick People, and Harpies
"... a rich feast for the science fiction and horror fan. His stories, poems and longer fiction offer enough variety to satisfy everyone with a taste for the bizarre, the offbeat and the truly terrifying ... very reminiscent of the works of the famed science fiction/horror writer Ray Bradbury (The Martian Chronicles) and display the same sense of carefully twisted reality that the master writer is known for ... an intricate journey into an incredible world to reveal what it means to be human, as well as inhuman ... an engrossing dynamic that combines slowly unraveling details with throat-gripping action ... makes DelGuercio's prose stand out from that of many other fantasy writers. For all those who favor horror and science fiction - and all areas in between or intermingled - the stories in this collection will open new pathways of frightening discovery.
--Megan Davidson, Author of Once a Rogue and The Thundering
"... a writer in the classical sense. His work is timeless. He doesn't rely on any flavor-of-the-month tropes or ripped-from-the-headlines topics. Nearly any Christopher DelGuercio story that you read today will age well and be just as good five, ten years down the road ... the kind of stories that endure." --Linda Lowen, book reviewer for a leading industry magazine
Collection Includes:
Original Sin
Dark Men, Dark Machines
A Time Bully's Report: August 13, 2046
Eden Succeeding, CNY Book-of-the-Year nominated novella
Man Farm
Shi'roc-Su
Béba Daio's Inches
The Starway Pass
Marvels Of The Burger King Parking Lot
The Book of Judy
Every Good Stud Comes To His Senses
Metal With Me
The Arcadian Nights Of Rigel Kent
Farewell Luther
Two Cups
Copycat Jack
Unbreakable Yu
A Portrait of The Artist As a Stung Man
Heavy Is The Head
Tempus Servivit
Bonus: Intro by the author to each piece regarding seed conception, influences, and history.
Phase 5 Elements: Anthology 20, Transmutation 195, Other Worlds 57
Horror, science fiction, speculative fiction. Cosmology, galactic civilization, aliens, mutation, occult, reality manipulation, colonization, dystopia, humor, new weird.
Adult readers: violence; brief, mildly-graphic sexual situations; cursing; death; mutation; irreverence.
