John Shirley
City Come A-Walkin'
Introduction by William Gibson

"One of our best and most singular writers. A powerhouse of ideas and imagery." — William Gibson

Club owner Stu Cole and rocker Catz Wailen are struggling to keep Stu's club afloat in the face of Mob harassment. Then they are visited by a strange manifestation — a brutal avatar of the city of San Francisco, crystallized into a single enigmatic being, an amoral superhero. Thus begins a terrifying journey through a rock 'n' roll demimonde in the wake of the most compelling character in contemporary SF. This surreal masterpiece is one of the most influential precursors to the cyberpunk movement: a searing journey into the soul of the first punk explosion.

John Shirley is also the author of The Exploded Heart, Eclipse and Black Butterflies, which was a Publishers Weekly "Best Book of 1998." As Bruce Sterling has put it: "John Shirley was a total bottle-of-dirt screaming dogcollar yahoo," credentials which allowed him to write lyrics to eight of the eleven songs on the Blue Oyster Cult album "Heaven Forbid" and the screenplay to the film The Crow. Shirley lives in Pinole, California and has written numerous television episodes for shows like "Poltergeist" and "Deep Space Nine."

"Readers who enjoy living a little dangerously are likely to appreciate the sheer, headlong exuberance of John Shirley's imagination." — San Francisco Chronicle

"John Shirley achieves things that other writers wouldn't dare attempt. Brilliant. The true quill." — Bruce Sterling

"Shirley writes at the neon-lit frontier of sensory experience." — Publishers Weekly

"John Shirley's prophet-in-the-cyberwilderness voice deserves high billing among the best." — Roger Zelazny