Darkness Divided by John Shirley (First Edition) [first edition]

Darkness can be divided—it can be split like an atom, and in it can be found a destructive fire—or light. Light, too, can be folded into darkness. The stories brought to light in John Shirley’s stunning DARKNESS DIVIDED -- most of them never before collected, some written especially for this book--are presented in two sections: one featuring stories set in the present, or the past, the other set in myriad futures. These dark tales of new noir, science fiction, fantasy, and crime, demonstrate humankind’s evolution from where we were and where we are, to where we have yet to be. Shadows are a current—a continuity—streaming from "Til Now" into "And Soon." John Shirley incisively explores human nature and the pitch-black streak within the soul that each of us fears. The twenty-two excursions collected here divide the darkness with scalpel-like precision, daring you to peek inside. In these divided shadows, in the shift of diffuse light and occlusion, things move--things that aren’t there. There you will find your own id, the dark side of your own imagination. Read these words, and be forever changed by what you find.