I've read it just a few months ago, and although the book itself turned out to be somewhat ... dissappointing, I still loved the way he describes the demonic invasion of Earth, and especially the demons themselves.
Shirley's demons are very obviously both Chaos and Evil, more so than any PS tanar'ri I've read about.
Who else has read "Demons"? How do you think they compare with the RPG demons of Planescape?
Here's an excerpt. Rated ... "R" or "PG" something, I don't really know...
Though the demons will talk to us sometimes, they are, of course, notoriously unhelpful. When the President went with a delegation, including the Vice President, to see an apparent demon clan chieftain -- we don't know for certain he was a chieftain; their hierarchy is arcane, if they have any at all -- who was stalking the West Wing of the White House, they had a rather extensive conversation, nearly fifteen minutes, that was recorded and analyzed and that offers exchanges like this, transcribed from near its end:
THE PRESIDENT: And why is it, please, that you have come to -- to us, now?
GNASHER CHIEFTAIN: Home is where the heart is. Boy Scouts have a salty sort of taste, with marshmallow overtones. I like your tie. Are those Gucci loafers?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes, yes, they are. So you're familiar with all our customs?
GNASHER: I've never killed a customs agent. Are they good to kill? Never mind. Where is your wife?
PRESIDENT: My -- she's... in Florida.
GNASHER: Does the Vice President have sex with her? Which vices does he preside over? I'm just fucking with you about that. But seriously: Do you like sweet or salt best?
PRESIDENT: Could you tell me please why you have come here and if there's something we can give you... some arrangement we can make....
GNASHER: I wonder what you'd look like inside out. Like a Christmas tree?
PRESIDENT: We are willing to negotiate.
GNASHER: I can almost taste you now. You once had a dream you cracked open the Moon like an egg, and a red yolk came out and you fried it on the burning Earth, didn't you, once, eh? Did you? Do speak plainly and tell me: Did you?
PRESIDENT: I don't believe so.
GNASHER: You did. You dreamt exactly that. People think someone like me would delight in the carnage of a battlefield, but I prefer a nice mall, don't you?
PRESIDENT: Yes, certainly. Perhaps in that spirit--
GNASHER: You wish to sell me cuff links? Can you breathe in a cloud of iron filings? Let's find out. Let's discover a new jigsaw, a new 3-D puzzle, shall we? The human body, disassembled, might be put back together in a way that makes sense. You could make a fine buckyball out of the bones and a yurt from the skin and a talk show host of the wet parts. What an imaginative people you are. We stand in awe at the outskirts of Buenos Aires in the summertime, each fly a musical note. Can we send out for ice cream? For girls who work in ice cream parlors and their boyfriends in their electric Trans Ams? Taste this part of my leg. It tastes differently from this part. You won't taste? I have a penis. Would you prefer it? Do you like salty or sweet? Seriously. Choose one. Would you like to see my penis? I asked for it special. There's a catalog.
With that, a steaming green member pressed from a fold on the Gnasher's lower parts, and as the President tried to back away the Gnasher caught him in a long ropy sweep of its arm and pulled him close and forced him to his knees. In front of the TV cameras.
An eruption of gunshots from the Secret Service had no effect, of course, on the Gnasher. It was the Vice President -- a decisive man, who'd been broodingly biding his time for two years -- who took a pistol from the President's bodyguard and shot the President in the back of the head. It was obvious to everyone there, and to a sympathetic Congress the next day, that the Gnasher, after all, was choking the President to death with his engorged, steaming green penis. It was a question of restoring dignity to the President and the office. The Vice President fled the scene, sacrificing a number of Secret Service men ordered to delay the pursuing demon while he escaped.
"It's profoundly tragic," the Vice President said afterward, "but it's God's will. We must move on. I have certain announcements to make...." He is reported more or less safe in a certain underground bunker.
But I should tell you how it began...
:twisted:
But maybe I should've posted this to the Urban Planescape board?
That's pretty amazing. I'm currently listening to "A Spirit Steals a Child" by the Residents, which is also amazing in a very similar way. Or not. I like this better as inspiration for general Planescape than segregating it in Urban Land.
Anyway, good stuff. I have a book of John Shirley's short stories, some of which I've even read. Apparently he also wrote a book called The View from Hell, which I guess is similar.
Edward Lee might also be worth a look.