Other Edens

S.P. Somtow’s newest collection exploresfive alternate visions of paradise. In "A Different Eden", an old woman in Ephesus is visited by a zealous, conflicted St. Paul, seeking her endorsement for anew religion he’s creating — and forcing her to re-make the painful choices of her young womanhood. "A Lap Dance with the Lobster Lady" thrusts us into an E.C. Comics-like word of love, death, and freakshows. "Vanilla Blood" takes the genre of court transcript to savage and erotic heights as it strips away the respectability of a Southern small town to reveal an orgiastic vampire world seething beneath the surface. Vampires figure in "Beloved Disciple" as well, a story penned for an anthologist who asked Somtow to “offend as many people as possible” — yet in the end provides profoundly religious insights. In the World Fantasy Award-winning story "The Bird Catcher", S. P. Somtow adapts the true story of the Chinese serial killer Si Ui, who lived in a Thai village during the post-war era of military dictatorship in Thailand, into a dark idyll where nothing is as it seems. CONTENTS Ingres' Violin • (2005) • essay by William Hjortsberg 1. A Different Eden • (2005) • novelette 2. A Lap Dance with the Lobster Lady • (1998) • novelette Somtow 3. Vanilla Blood • (2000) • novella 4. The Bird Catcher • (2001) • novelette 5. Beloved Disciple • (1995) • novelette * Cover art by Hieronymus Bosch