John Shirley

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Template:UnreferencedJohn Shirley (born February 10, 1953) is an American author of novels, short stories, and television & film scripts.

1 Career
2 Awards
3 Biography
4 Novels
5 Short Story Collections
6 Music
7 References
8 External links

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Career

Shirley is known for his cyberpunk writing, as well as his science fiction and horror film work. His best known work in the film The Crow, for which he was the initial writer, before David Schow reworked the script. He also wrote Twists of Terror, and his novels Demons, Crawlers and "In Darkness Waiting" are currently under option by various film production companies.

His most significant cyberpunk novels are the Eclipse (A Song Called Youth) Trilogy. Avant-slipstream critic Larry McCaffrey called him "the post-modern Poe."Template:Fact

William F. Gibson, the author of Neuromancer collaborated with Shirley on short stories -- as did fellow "cyberpunks" Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker -- and acknowledges his influence in an introduction to Shirley's seminal cyberpunk novel City Come A-Walkin'.

Shirley's work ranges in tone from the surreal to the gritty to the nightmarish. He is also a songwriter and singer, having fronted numerous punk bands, including the New York band Obsession, who were recorded by Celluloid Records. He has written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult, such as several songs on the album Heaven Forbid.

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Awards

Shirley's short story collection "Black Butterflies" won:
- The Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers of America
- International Horror Guild Award
- Selected as one of the best books of 1998 by Publisher's Weekly

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Biography

John Shirley was born in Houston, Texas and grew up largely in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon. He was lead singer of the post-punk funk-rock band Obsession, on Celluloid Records, while living in New York City and Paris, France, in the 1980s. He currently lives in the San Francisco Bay area.

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Novels

Transmaniacon (1979)
Dracula in Love (1979)
City Come A-Walkin' (1980) (in print)
Three-Ring Psychus (1980)
The Brigade (1981)
Cellars (1982) (to be re-issued 2006)
A Song Called Youth Series (aka. Eclipse Trilogy) (in print):
- Eclipse (1985), Babbage Books
- Eclipse Penumbra (1988), Babbage Books
- Eclipse Corona (1990), Babbage Books
In Darkness Waiting (1988) (re-issued 2005)
Kamus of Kadizar: The Black Hole of Carcosa (1988)
A Splendid Chaos (1988)
Wetbones (1991) (in print)
Silicon Embrace (1996)
Demons (2000), short novel, Del Rey Books
...And the Angel with Television Eyes (2001), short novel
The View From Hell (2001), short novel
Her Hunger (2001), short novel
Spider Moon (2002)
Demons, a new version with sequel novel Undercurrents (2002) (in print)
Crawlers (2003), Del Rey Books
Constantine (2004), novelisation of the film featuring the DC/Vertigo comicbook character.
Doom (2005), novelization of the film version of the Id Software computer game.
John Constantine, Hellblazer: War Lord (Feb. 2006) based on the comic book character, not the movie version.
Batman: Dead White, a novel, not a graphic novel, for late 2006, based on the DC Comics character.