Saturday, February 19, 2011

BEAT to a PULP #113: The Death Fantastique by John Hornor Jacobs

"What's that mean?"

"What?"

"Your titty. Is that French or something?"

She smiled, weakly, and pushed a lock of hair behind her ear. Efram liked the way she looked, wary, big-eyed and delicate, like she'd spent too much time indoors when she was a girl. She had some bruising here and there, but nothing that didn't come with the business.

"Means a 'fantastic death.'"
John Hornor is one creative son-of-a-gun. He first impressed the hell out of me with his marvelous covers for Needle: A Magazine of Noir, which is why I asked him if he'd be interested in making the cover for my upcoming eBook, Adventures of Cash Laramie and Gideon Miles. His first novel, SOUTHERN GODS, will be published by Night Shade Books (August, 2011), and his other novels are on submission at various publishers. In between designing covers and writing novels--he even found some time to come up with this week's excellent image--he submitted a first-rate, hardboiled noir, "The Death Fantastique," that begs the question, what can’t the talented Mr. Jacobs do?