Blown

In Philip Jose Farmer's incredible sequel to The Image of the Beast, Herald Childe continues what started out as a murder case - a very gruesome one admittedly - but which has now become a struggle against the strange and deadly beings who have taken his wife, who threaten his manhood and who threaten mankind itself. His seems a hopeless quest. He is fighting not people but inhuman monsters from another universe. They take grotesque physical forms, they recklessly indulge cruel whims-and they are utterly sex-crazed. There's Vivienne-amazingly beautiful-who used to be Joan of Arc. But she has false teeth and she comes, literally, to pieces. Her lover is a snake-like horror whose needle teeth drip aphrodisiac venom. There's Count Igescu, a real live vampire. And these three are surrounded by a crowd of ghastly aliens, grisly characters in a science fiction nightmare. But for Childe there is to be no waking up. It is no bad dream. Though no one else will believe him. he knows this is for real...