Objects of Worship - Softcover

Praise for Claude Lalumiere "Lalumiere is a gifted writer, thoroughly in control of his text." --Strange Horizons "Lalumiere is clearly comfortable with the trickier elements of horror and erotica, and knows when to step back at the right moment. Although the Lost Pages world is pure fantasy, it is no fantasy world. He may have found the most compassionate way to depict people on the edge of society, and that is to paint them as being lost to themselves--and to everyone else." --Louise Fabiani, The Montreal Review of Books "Claude Lalumiere reveals the mythology of his world in pieces, often through nested stories. Encounters with the forces of evil are twisted and terrifying, but the battle never overshadows the individual stories; this remains a book about people and the beauty of books. While the narration swings from whimsical and hopeful to violent and despairing, the sense of wonder remains throughout." --NJ.com "Lalumiere's trick is to make the fantastic appear mundane and then to amplify what one may consider mundane to fantastical proportions." --R. Brian Hastie, The Link "Claude Lalumiere's stories are dark, mordant, precisely formed. His first collection is extraordinarily accomplished in its craft and subversive intent." --Lucius Shepard "Claude Lalumiere has a poet's sensibility. He suggests; never overstates. This finely crafted, stylishly dark collection is a vitrine of objets and curios, a specimen cabinet of elegant bizarrerie. I recommend it to all connoisseurs of lyricism and things passing strange." --Richard Calder "Claude Lalumiere's extravagant imagination is matched by only two other qualities: his compassion for his characters, and his sparkling facility with language. His stories resound with the clash of ideas, the music of hearts and the howls of indignation that any sensitive creator emits when confronted with a universe less esthetically pleasing and fair-minded than the ones he daily strives to create." --Paul Di Filippo

Introducing twelve strange, eerie, sensual stories by a bold new voice in weird fiction, with illustrations by Rupert Bottenberg: Capricious gods rule a world of women. Zombies breed human cattle. The son of a superhero must decide between his heritage and his religion. Young lovers worship a primordial spider god. The apocalyptic rebirth of the god of the elephants. Monstrous chimeras roam through a devastated future Earth. A retired fisherman caught in the middle of a conflict between gods and superheroes. Teenagers struggle to survive a surreal ice age...