John Shirley
John Shirley (born February 10, 1953) is an American writer, primarily of fantasy, science fiction, dark street fiction, and songwriting. He has also written one historical novel, a western about Wyatt Earp, "Wyatt in Wichita", and one non-fiction book, "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. 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. 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). He currently lives in the Vancouver Washington area with his wife, Micky Shirley. Shirley has three adult sons, twins Byron and Perry and their younger brother Julian, who also goes by "Juji". Byron is a yacht captain and yacht broker; Perry is a teacher and artist. Julian is a Bay Area-based underground rapper and producer of hip-hop, trap, chiptune and various other electronic music genres, as well as a computer security professional under  the alias "DonJuji". Career. Shirley is known for his cyberpunk science fiction novels, such as the "A Song Called Youth" 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 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 "Bioshock: Rapture". 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. 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" movement. Appreciation of John Shirley as an author of dark fiction was amplified by a January 2008 "The  New York Times" review, by critic Terrence Rafferty, of Shirley's story-collection "Living Shadows" which said in part: 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." 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, such as "Constantine", based on the Keanu Reaves movie, and 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". Shirley is a member of the satirical "religion" Church of the SubGenius. Awards. John Shirley received several nominations and won the following awards. 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 "Demon's Kiss" and "The Horsemen Arrive" 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.