Male prostitutes, vampire wannabes, and a cloned movie star . . . 2045 is shaping up to be a rough year for detective Drew Parker. What started off as a simple case involving a deaf woman and her cheating boyfriend is getting complicated. It doesn’t help that the boyfriend is one of five identical actors cloned from the frozen corpse of a dead movie star. Or that he’s up to his neck in a convoluted blackmail plot. Or that the guy is being stalked by a secret agent, some dame in a clown mask with the combat skills of a ninja. And besides, Drew has his own problem to deal with. A personal matter involving a rent boy, a privatized version of the KGB, and a vampire sex cult. Well at least his Wiccan partner, Jen, is back to help him out. He may not believe in all her psychic mumbo-jumbo, but she sure gets results. And there’s no one he’d rather have at his back in a fight. The exciting sequel to The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse. "Like its predecessor, it employs the same irresistible zaniness and wit, multiple viewpoints, high sexual content (both gay and straight) and cheerfully chaotic narrative technique. The author has produced another engagingly weird novel of the near future, satirizing everything he can get his word processor on and doing most of it extremely well." -- Publishers Weekly

Gay prostitutes, vampire wannabes, and a cloned movie star... 2044 was a rough year for Drew Parker. His car broke down, his rent went up, and his partner was kidnapped by a revenge-crazed performance artist. And to top it off, one of Drew's clients was tossed from a skyscraper- after being stripped naked, smeared in human fat, and painted with occult symbols. So far, 2045 isn't shaping up to be much better. What started off as a simple case involving a deaf girl and her cheating boyfriend is getting complicated. It doesn't help that the boyfriend is one of five identical actors cloned from the frozen corpse of a dead movie star. Or that he's up to his neck in a convoluted blackmail plot. Or that the guy is being stalked by some sort of secret agent, a dame in a clown mask with the combat skills of a Navy Seal. And besides, Drew has his own problem to deal with. A personal matter involving a male prostitute, a privatized version of the KGB, and a vampire sex cult. Well at least his Wiccan partner, Jen, is back to help him out. If he can just get her to cut back on the practical jokes. ... and the dating advice. The exciting sequel to The Gumshoe, the Witch, and the Virtual Corpse-Wise cracking gay PI witch detective buddy comedy magic realism near future high tech fantasy mystery with cloned movie stars, vampire sex clubs, male prostitutes and a dash of humor. You were warned.-

In a near-future America on the verge of civil war, a gay detective investigates ritual killings, conspiracies, and what might be black magic. In the summer of 2045, Atlanta is a city on the verge of panic. A killer is stalking her people, leaving behind eerily beautiful crime scenes painted with occult symbols. Is he an insane artist, carving his work out of flesh and blood? A satanic sorcerer, hoping to bring about the end of days? Or a political operative, trying to terrify the electorate into voting for his party? A handful of people have the pieces to the puzzle, but they are scattered through the city’s subcultures: A wisecracking gay detective hunting for his kidnapped partner. A black cop, trying to use high-tech forensics to solve crimes that seem to be right out of the Middle Ages. A Wiccan journalist who employs search engines and scrying spells with equal skill. A televangelist with an eye on the White House, and the Christian rock star who wants to take him down. A transgender Cherokee shaman trying to right a wrong from the 1800s. And Benji, the fourteen-year-old boy at the center of it all. Who thinks that his biggest problem is what will happen when his strict Baptist parents find out that his new girlfriend is a witch. Together, they might be able to stop what’s coming. If they can stay alive long enough to find each other. - Winner of two Spectrum Awards for LGBT-themed science fiction. - - A double finalist for the Lambda Literary Awards in the Mystery and Speculative Fiction categories - "There's a great SF premise here...the writing is tight, the drama tense." -- Locus "Hartman's character's are smart. His world-building is broad, convincing, and exciting: his choice of detail is exquisite. Compelling and engrossing, this book grabbed me and didn't let me go until long after the end." -- Nina Kiriki Hoffman, winner of the Nebula and Bram Stoker Awards. "Like his hero, loved his plot, and envied his style." --Mike Resnick, five-time winner of the Hugo Award.

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The Essential Cult TV Reader is a collection of insightful essays that examine television shows that amass engaged, active fan bases by employing an imaginative approach to programming. Once defined by limited viewership, cult TV has developed its own identity, with some shows gaining large, mainstream audiences. By exploring the defining characteristics of cult TV, The Essential Cult TV Reader traces the development of this once obscure form and explains how cult TV achieved its current status as legitimate television. The essays explore a wide range of cult programs, from early shows such as Star Trek, The Avengers, Dark Shadows, and The Twilight Zone to popular contemporary shows such as Lost, Dexter, and 24, addressing the cultural context that allowed the development of the phenomenon. The contributors investigate the obligations of cult series to their fans, the relationship of camp and cult, the effects of DVD releases and the Internet, and the globalization of cult TV. The Essential Cult TV Reader answers many of the questions surrounding the form while revealing emerging debates on its future.

Coming of age after the end of the world. The Bunker was humanity’s last hope. An underground town, sealed away from the radiation that killed everything on the surface. A lifeboat, with its own water and power and hydroponic farms to see us through the long nuclear winter. But radiation isn’t the only thing that can kill you, and life in the Bunker has its own dangers. There are a half dozen factions that rule this town, and it’s a bad idea to get on the wrong side of any of them. I’m one of the Brats, the kids who were born in this place and have never seen the open sky. But I’ve never fit in with the rest of them. I’m not one of the Cools, or the Geeks, or the Chosen. I’m just the weird boy who sits in the library, reading stories about the world that’s gone. But still, this is my home, too. And now it’s dying. The Bunker is failing. One by one, the lights are going out, and the farms are going dark. Soon there won’t be enough food to go around. And the factions are already starting to turn on each other. Sometimes it takes an outsider to see what’s really going on. Somebody with nothing to lose. So if anyone is gonna save this place, I guess it will have to be me. • Post-apocalyptic new adult dystopian science fiction noir mystery with occasional sex loosely based on Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Read at your own risk. •

Annotation Congregations in Conflict examines nine churches that were split by disagreements over gay and lesbian issues, and how the congregations resolved them. Keith Hartman shows some churches coming through their struggles stronger and more unified, while others irrevocably split. Most importantly, he illuminates how people with a passionate clash of beliefs can still function together as a community of faith.

Since the beginning of television, Westerns have been playing on the small screen. From the mid-1950s until the early 1960s, they were one of TV's most popular genres, with millions of viewers tuning in to such popular shows as Rawhide, Gunsmoke, and Disney's Davy Crockett. Though the cultural revolution of the later 1960s contributed to the demise of traditional Western programs, the Western never actually disappeared from TV. Instead, it took on new forms, such as the highly popular Lonesome Dove and Deadwood, while exploring the lives of characters who never before had a starring role, including anti-heroes, mountain men, farmers, Native and African Americans, Latinos, and women. Shooting Stars of the Small Screen is a comprehensive encyclopedia of more than 450 actors who received star billing or played a recurring character role in a TV Western series or a made-for-TV Western movie or miniseries from the late 1940s up to 2008. Douglas Brode covers the highlights of each actor's career, including Western movie work, if significant, to give a full sense of the actor's screen persona(s). Within the entries are discussions of scores of popular Western TV shows that explore how these programs both reflected and impacted the social world in which they aired. Brode opens the encyclopedia with a fascinating history of the TV Western that traces its roots in B Western movies, while also showing how TV Westerns developed their own unique storytelling conventions.

One player. One Gamemaster. This corebook combines the award-winning Night's Black Agents setting with the innovative GUMSHOE One-2-One rules, designed for the thrilling intensity of head-to-head play. Create your own Agent, or take on the role of Leyla Khan - an ex-MI6 officer who must confront her own half-remembered past as a thrall of the vampires. Play through three complete adventures for Leyla Khan, or use them as templates to create your own mysteries. We'll give you the tools you need to battle the undead princes and crime lords, all alone. But will it be enough? Find out, with Night's Black Agents: Solo Ops! Made in the USA.

A long-awaited, much-deserved tribute to the only celebrity to rise from the grave and become an American icon. This complete history includes color reproductions of all original "Tales'" covers, four stories from the comic and a never-before-published horror story by one of the "Tales'" trademark artists. Over 1,000 illus. 300 in color.