Taste of Tenderloin by Gene O'Neill

Renowned Horror Collection - Winner of 2009 Stoker Award

Winner of the 2009 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in a Collection.

Nine stories of dark science fiction and fantasy take us through the underbelly of San Francisco's most notorious district known as the Tenderloin.  Including the all-new story "Red Alien."

Best known for his strong sense of place and uniquely vibrant characters.  O'Neill brings the gritty underside of the city to life with nine 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.

"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." - Publishers Weekly Starred Review

Editions

Leather-bound Deluxe Thirteen Hardcover w/slipcase: numbered 1-13, 6''x9'', bound in leather, signature page which is signed by both author and artist, front cover stamped and spine stamped with the title and the author's name, includes end papers, colored book ribbon with a full colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock, a slipcase and dust jacket. 

100 Signed and Numbered Limited Hardcover: numbered 1-100, 6''x9'', bound in leatherette, signed by the author, stamped on the spine with the title and author's name, includes 80lb. natural vellum end papers, colored book ribbon, multi-colored header, 60lb. natural vellum stock and a dust jacket. 

E-book: N/A

About the author

Gene O'Neill is best known as a multi-award nominated writer of science fiction, fantasy, and horror fiction.

O'Neill's professional writing career began after completing the Clarion West Writers Workshop in 1979. Since that time, over 100 of his works have been published. His short story work has appeared in Cemetery Dance Magazine, Twilight Zone Magazine, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and many more.

O'Neill has had many occupations besides writing including postal worker, contract specialist for AAFES, college basketball player, amateur boxer, United States Marine, right-of-way agent, and vice president of a small manufacturing plant. He also holds two degrees from California State University, Sacramento and University of Minnesota. He currently writes full time and lives in the Napa Valley with his wife, Kay.

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