Revisiting BONELAND

My novel BONELAND was released as a gorgeous hardcover (and an amazing lettered edition, housed inside a metal box containing a “working” electric chair!) by Bloodletting Press in 2004. The novel has something of a noirish, detective-thriller vibe as it follows crime scene photographer John Board, who works for mysterious extradimensional entities dubbed the Guests, supplying them the images of human violence they thrive on. In this alternate version of Earth, the Guests have gifted humanity with advanced technology derived from insects genetically manipulated from afar. Board’s camera is a living, insect-like organism that he does not like or trust, nor is Board trusted by those — like members of the police — who see him as being in collusion with the alien enties he secretly despises. Meanwhile, other humans, called Mediums, have given themselves over to the Guests more willingly, their bodies inhabited by symbiotic mutant-insect parasites. (I hate when that happens!)

The novel follows Board through various periods of his life, taking him into prison, into Hollywood (er, Boneland), and into his autumn years living inside a sentient, insect-based house, haunted by the nightmare his world has become.

I just discovered online a very nice review written early in the year by L. M. Campbell and featured at the web site Horror Society. In it, Campbell says:

Jeff Thomas reinvents the wheel as his flair for the bizarre manipulates the past to create an earth with a unique iconography; blending history and pop-culture into an exciting pastiche of factual fiction and fictional fact…Continuing his theme of a just man in a wicked epoch of self-fulfillment and debauched morality (Thomas’ Letter From Hades) Thomas spreads his talent over into a dark science fiction piece set on earth in a similar, but foreign dimension…Boneland is another exciting narrative from one man’s perspective as he watches his world change while his ideals remain static. The text is enriched with vibrant prose, entertaining characters and a humorous cross-pollination of events both real and imagined, all staples of Thomas’ wonderful literary acumen.

 You can read the full review here: http://www.horrorsociety.com/2009/02/09/review-boneland/

…and one can order BONELAND here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0972085955/?tag=jeffreythomas-20

I hope you give it a look; it’s one of the pieces I’m most proud of, heavily-researched, very dark, and some of the best writing I believe I’ve done.