Haunted Worlds

Jeffrey Thomas is renowned for his novels and tales set in Punktown, a terrifying, crime-riddled city of the future, where humans and aliens mix in every sense of the word, with often horrific results.

Including two stories set in Punktown, this volume features works long and short that are among Thomas’s most intimate and intense weird tales. “Saigon Dep Lam” is a poignant Christmas story set in Vietnam, a city which Thomas has visited often. Art takes a central role in “Mr. Faun” and “Drawing No. 8,” both of which suggest that paintings may be quite a bit more than what you see on the canvas.

This book also includes several unpublished stories. “The Temple of Ugghiutu” is a Lovecraftian tale that bears relations to Thomas’s Punktown novel Monstrocity. The distinctively titled “riaH gnoL” hints at the disturbing psychosis of a young woman employed by an arcade. “Good Will toward Men” makes us wonder about the real differences between heaven and hell.