Review
""Shepard manipulates genre elements in order to transcend genre expectations."
Product Description
This collection of fact and fiction was inspired by the time science fiction writer Lucius Shepard spent with Missoula Mike, Madcat, and other members of a controversial brotherhood known as the Freight Train Riders of America. Shepard rode the rails throughout the western half of the United States with the disenfranchised, the homeless, the punks, the gangs, and the joy riders for the magazine article 'The FTRA Story'. That original article is presented here, along with two new hobo novellas, 'Over Yonder' and 'Jailbait'. In 'Over Yonder', alcoholic Billy Long Gone finds himself on an unusual train. As Billy travels his health improves and his thinking clears, and he arrives in Yonder - an unlikely paradise where a few hundred hobos live in apparent peace and tranquillity. But every paradise has its price, and in Yonder, peace and tranquillity breed complacency and startling deaths. 'Jailbait' is a hardcore tale of deception, lust, revenge, and murder in the seedy underbelly of rail yards and train hopping. Madcat, who functions best in a whiskey-induced haze, must decide between solitude and companionship when he meets up with Grace, an underaged runaway. Grace, in turn, seeks the security of an older man and the life about which only young girls can dream.
About the Author
Lucius Shepard is the author of the novels Green Eyes, Life During Wartime, and The Golden and the collections The Jaguar Hunter, The Ends of the Earth, and Beast of the Heartland. He has contributed to magazines such as Playboy, Spin, Omni, Asimov's and 'Fantasy and Science Fiction', and has been awarded the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy awards for his fiction. He lives in Vancouver, Washington.
