John Shirley (born February 10, 1953) is an American writer, primarily of Horror fiction, fantasy, science fiction, noir fiction, westerns, and songwriting. He has also written one historical novel, a western about Wyatt Earp, Wyatt in Wichita, and one non-fiction book, George Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas. Shirley has written novels, short stories, TV scripts and screenplays—including The Crow—and has published over 84 books including 10 short story collections. As a musician, Shirley has fronted his own bands and written lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult and others. Shirley won the Bram Stoker Award for his story collection Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side. His newest novels are Stormland, Suborbital 7, Axle Bust Creek, the Spur Award winning novel Gunmetal Mountain, Blood in Sweet River and The Silver Revolver. He has published non-fiction pieces in Wired Magazine, The Utne Reader, Boing Boing, and other publications.
Biography
John Shirley was born in
Houston, Texas and grew up largely in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon. His earliest novels were
Transmaniacon and
Dracula in Love for Zebra Books, and
City Come A-Walkin, a proto-cyberpunk novel, for Delacorte. He also wrote the
A Song Called Youth cyberpunk trilogy for Warner Books, re-released as an omnibus in 2012 by Prime Books. 2012 saw his noir-flavored novel of apocalypse,
Everything Is Broken released by Prime Books. In 2013 PM Press released Shirley's
New Taboos. In October 2013 HarperCollins/Witness released his novel about Conan Doyle in the afterlife,
Doyle After Death; Skyhorse Publications brought out his historical novel about
Wyatt Earp,
Wyatt in Wichita, in August 2014. Shirley's collaboration with rock musician
Mark Tremonti, an adaptation of Tremonti's rock opera A DYING MACHINE, was completed in June 2018. Shirley's novel
Stormland came out in 2021 from Blackstone. His novel
Gunmetal Mountain came out in 2023 and in 2024 won the Spur Award from the WWA. His novel
Suborbital 7 came out in 2023 from Titan.
Besides having written numerous books Shirley was lead singer of the punk band Sado-Nation, in 1978-79; 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, and was later in the band the Panther Moderns. He is currently performing with The Screaming Geezers. Shirley has also written 23 song lyrics recorded by Blue Öyster Cult.
Shirley's one nonfiction book is Gurdjieff: An Introduction to His Life and Ideas (Penguin/Tarcher). John Shirley has three adult sons, Perry, Byron, and Julian. He currently lives in the Vancouver Washington area with his wife, Micky Shirley.
Career
Shirley is known for his
cyberpunk science fiction novels, such as the
Eclipse Trilogy,
City Come A-Walkin and
Black Glass, as well as his suspense (as in his novels
Spider Moon and
The Brigade), horror novels and stories (e.g.,
Demons and
Crawlers and the story collection
Black Butterflies) and
horror fiction film work. The
A Song Called Youth cyberpunk trilogy,
Eclipse,
Eclipse Penumbra, and
Eclipse Corona, has been slated for a new edition by Dover Books in 2017. His tie-in novels include the best-seller
. His best known script work is the film The Crow, for which he was the initial writer, before David Schow reworked the script. He also wrote scripts for and
. He was nominated for an Emmy in the Prime Time Animation category for an episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He received the Spur Award from The Western Writers of America, for his novel
Gunmetal Mountain.
Authors David Agranoff and Nancy Collins and editor/critic Paula Guran cite his intense, expressionistic early horror novels, such as Dracula in Love and Cellars as an influence on the splatterpunk movement in horror, and the subsequent "Bizarro fiction" movement.[Tom Winstead, "Shirley, John" in David Pringle (ed), St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost and Gothic Writers. London : St. James Press, 1998, (p. 531-2).] Appreciation of John Shirley as an author of dark fiction was amplified by a January 2008 The New York Times review,
Shirley's cyberpunk novels are City Come A-Walkin, the A Song Called Youth trilogy and Stormland. Avant-slipstream critic Larry McCaffery called him "a postmodern Edgar Allan Poe."[ . Boulder: Black Ice Books (1993) p253. ()] Bruce Sterling has cited Shirley's early story collection Heatseeker as being a seminal cyberpunk work in itself. Several stories in Heatseeker were particularly seminal, including Sleepwalkers, which, in just one example, probably provided the inspiration for William Gibson's "meat puppets" in Neuromancer. Gibson acknowledged Shirley's influence in an introduction to Shirley's City Come A-Walkin. Shirley's story collection, made up of increasingly bizarre stories, the whimsically titled Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories has developed a cult status.
William Gibson, the author of Neuromancer, collaborated with Shirley on short stories—as did fellow cyberpunks Bruce Sterling and Rudy Rucker. Shirley's lyricism, wealth of ideas and imagination, crossover pioneering, and street-level honesty have been praised by other writers including Clive Barker, Peter Straub, Roger Zelazny, Marc Laidlaw, and A. A. Attanasio. His more surreal work, as in A Splendid Chaos, showed how it was possible to describe the indescribable with a paradoxical believability and impeccable internal logic no matter how bizarre the subject matter. Shirley's personal experiences as a recovering drug addict and punk rocker brought verisimilitude to his darker, urban-tinctured writing.
In recent years Shirley has written a number of "tie-in novels" and novelizations, including Constantine, based on the Keanu Reaves movie, the best-seller BioShock: Rapture (Tor, 2011), a novel providing a prequel to the BioShock video game story, and Halo: Broken Circle. He also wrote the apocalyptic, politically charged novel, The Other End which, according to the author's website, takes the apocalypse away from the Christian Right and gives Judgment Day to Liberals to do with as they please. This reflects Shirley's tendency to create fantasy entertainment which is also political satire, or spiritual allegory. E.g., Demons, in which it is discovered that industry has deliberately caused deaths by cancer as part of a vast secret program of human sacrifice.
2007 saw the release of a new story collection, Living Shadows, from Prime Books. His novel of dark urban fantasy set in a slightly futuristic New York, Bleak History, was published by Simon & Schuster/Pocket Books in 2009. In August 2011 Underland Press published In Extremis: The Most Extreme Stories of John Shirley and in January 2012 Prime Books published his near future apocalyptic political allegory, the novel Everything Is Broken. His novel about Arthur Conan Doyle in the afterlife, Doyle After Death, was released by HarperCollins/Witness in October 2013. Shirley's apocalyptic and surreal novel High, based on his early novel Three-Ring Psychus, has been re-released by Start Books as an e-book; His newest story collection is Feverish Stars (March 2020). In June 2020 his fantasy novel Sorcerer of Atlantis will be released by Hippocampus.
Shirley's work ranges in tone from the surreal to the grittily naturalistic to the nightmarish. He is also a songwriter and singer, having fronted numerous punk bands, including the New York City 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.
In 2013 Black October Records released a two-CD compilation of John Shirley's own recordings, Broken Mirror Glass: The John Shirley Anthology – 1978–2012 ...In 2020 Reprehensible Records released the rock album The Screaming Geezers; vocals and lyrics by John Shirley. Shirley performs regularly in the Portland, Oregon rock scene.
2014 saw the release of Shirley's first historical novel, Wyatt in Wichita, a novel of the young Wyatt Earp.
Other recent novels are Halo: Broken Circle, Doyle After Death and a novelization of Mark Tremonti's science-fiction rock opera, A Dying Machine.
His newest novels are Stormland, Suborbital 7, Axle Bust Creek, the Spur Award winning novel Gunmetal Mountain, Blood in Sweet River and the modern western neo-noir crime novel, The Silver Revolver.
Awards
John Shirley received several nominations and won the following awards.
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Bram Stoker Awards – for horror works, voted by Horror Writers Association professional membership (2 nominations; 1 win)
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1999: "What Would You Do For Love?" ( Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side) – long fiction – nomination
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1999: Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side (Mark V. Ziesing) – collection – winner
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Locus Awards – for science fiction, fantasy and horror works, polled by readers of Locus Magazine (5 nominations)
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1990: Heatseeker (Scream/Press) – collection – 10th place
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2000: Really, Really, Really, Weird Stories (Night Shade Books) – collection – 17th place
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International Horror Guild Awards – for horror works, juried (6 nominations; 2 wins)
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1998: "Cram" ( Wetbones #2) – short story – winner
[ Horroraward.org ]
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1999: Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side (Mark V. Ziesing) – collection —winner
-
1999: "What Would You Do For Love?" ( Black Butterflies: A Flock on the Dark Side) – long fiction – nomination
[ Horroraward.org ]
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2001: Demons (Cemetery Dance) – long story – nomination
[ Horroraward.org ]
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2002: "Her Hunger" ( Night Visions 10) – long fiction – nomination
[ Horroraward.org ]
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2004: Crawlers (Del Rey) – novel – nomination
[ Horroraward.org ]
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Interzone Readers Poll – for stories published in Interzone magazine, polled by readers (1 nomination)
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2014: "The Kindest Man in Stormland" ( Interzone #249) – story – 8th place
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2024: Spur Award Gunmetal Mountain (Kensington/Pinnacle)
Bibliography
Novels
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Transmaniacon (1979)
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Dracula in Love (1979)
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City Come A-Walkin' (1980)
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Three-Ring Psychus (1980)
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The Brigade (1981)
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Cellars (1982)
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Several books in the Traveler series of post-apocalyptic men's adventure novels (as D. B. Drumm)
[Pat Hawk, Hawk's Authors' Pseudonyms III, Hawk Enterprise's, 1999, ]
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Several books in the Specialist series of mercenary/adventure men's adventure novels (as John Cutter)
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A Song Called Youth Series (also known as Eclipse Trilogy):
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Eclipse (1985)
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Eclipse Penumbra (1988)
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Eclipse Corona (1990)
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In Darkness Waiting (1988)
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Kamus of Kadizar: The Black Hole of Carcosa (1988)
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A Splendid Chaos (1988)
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Wetbones (1991). A supernatural serial killer novel featuring creatures called the Akishra who take over human minds and bodies.
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Silicon Embrace (1996)
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Demons (2000, novella)
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"...And the Angel with Television Eyes" (2001, novella)
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The View From Hell (2001, novella)
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Her Hunger (2001, novella)
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Spider Moon (2002)
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Demons, a new version with sequel novel Undercurrents (2002)
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Crawlers (2003)
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Doom (2005, novelization of the film version of the Id Software computer game)
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Constantine (2005, novelisation of the film featuring the DC/Vertigo comicbook character)
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John Constantine, Hellblazer: War Lord (2006, based on the comic book character, not the movie version)
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(2006, Predator series tie-in)
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Batman: Dead White (2006)
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John Constantine, Hellblazer: Subterranean (2006)
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The Other End (2007)
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(2007)
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Black Glass (2008)
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Bleak History (2009)
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(2011)
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Borderlands: The Fallen (2011)
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Everything Is Broken (2011)
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Borderlands: Unconquered (2012)
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Resident Evil: Retribution (2012, novelisation of the of the Capcom video game)
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Doyle After Death (2013)
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Borderlands: Gunsight (2013)
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Wyatt in Wichita (2014)
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Grimm: The Icy Touch (2013)
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Watch Dogs //n/Dark Clouds (2013)
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[ Halo Waypoint – Halo: Broken Circle Coming in November. Retrieved 6/23/14] (2014)
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A Dying Machine (2018, a collaboration with Mark Tremonti of the Tremonti, incorporating ideas found in album of the same name. The novel is co-written by Mark Tremonti)
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Stormland (2021), a science fiction climate-change thriller.
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A Sorcerer of Atlantis (2021), a heroic fantasy novel.
Short fiction
- Collections
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Heatseeker (1989)
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New Noir (1993)
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The Exploded Heart (1996)
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Black Butterflies (1998) (winner of the Bram Stoker Award)
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Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories (1999)
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Darkness Divided (2001)
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Living Shadows (2007)
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In Extremis: The Most Extreme Short Stories of John Shirley (2011)
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The Feverish Stars (2021)
Nonfiction
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Gurdjieff – An Introduction to his Life and Ideas (2004)
———————
- Bibliography notes
Screenwriting credits
Television
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Defenders of the Earth (1986)
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The Real Ghostbusters (1987)
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BraveStarr (1987-1988)
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RoboCop (1988)
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(1995)
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VR.5 (1995)
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(1996)
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The Adventures of Sinbad (1996)
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Todd McFarlane’s Spawn (1998)
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The Night of the Headless Horseman (1999)
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Batman Beyond (2000)
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Profit (2002)
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(2012)
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Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014-2016)
Films
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The Crow (1994)
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Twists of Terror (1997)
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The Crow (2024) (additional literary material)
Music
John Shirley wrote most of the lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult albums
Heaven Forbid and
Curse of the Hidden Mirror as well as the songs
Bad Channels and
Bad Channels from their soundtrack
Bad Channels, and five songs from their 2020 album
The Symbol Remains. Their 1972 song "Transmaniacon MC" was the inspiration for Shirley's first novel,
Transmaniacon.
John Shirley's current band, which performs in and around Portland, Oregon, is called The Screaming Geezers.
See also
Further reading
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BioShock: Rapture, by John Shirley (2011)
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R.F. Paul. "The Head Underneath: An Interview with John Shirley". Esoterra: The Journal of Extreme Culture No 4 (Winter/Spring 1994), 3–6.
External links
