Vile Affections

Dust jackets by Ray Troll
Interior illustrations by Vince Locke

About Vile Affections:

In Vile Affections, Caitlín R. Kiernan's seventeenth short fiction collection, the boundaries of desire, fascination, passion, and dread collide. That which is beautiful may easily be profane. Those who love us may devour us alive. A shadow may shine like a supernova. The eye of the beholder is God. In these twenty-two stories, Kiernan's trademark range is on display, taking us from submerged and monster-haunted dreamscapes to quiet bedroom conversation between lovers, from unexpected and uncanny roadkill to an object lesson on the perils of picking up hitchhikers on rainy Appalachian nights. Moving deftly between such disparate genres as cyberpunk, fairy tales, and Southern Gothic, this is Kiernan at their eerie best.

The signed limited edition of Vile Affections will be accompanied by Cambrian Tales, the most significant bonus volume of any Kiernan collection. This exclusive hardcover will include a dust jacket by Ray Troll—the first Kiernan bonus volume to include one—as well as over 170 pages of previously unpublished material.

About Cambrian Tales:

Though Caitlín R. Kiernan spent childhood obsessed with becoming a paleontologist (or maybe a herpetologist, or possibly an ichthyologist), they also began writing fiction as early as age seven and continued to do so through college. Cambrian Tales has been assembled from a few surviving brittle typescripts of these early tales, dating from 1979 to 1991 (all of which are now preserved at Brown University). From junior high and high school attempts at science fiction – "Untitled Space Opera," "Dinosaur Novel Fragment" – to Southern Gothic pieces written in Kiernan's college years – "Bedtime Story," "The Fall" – along with a smattering of non-fiction and poetry – here is a rare peek at the genesis of one of the most accomplished living authors of weird fiction.

Vile Affections Table of Contents:

• Virginia Story
• The Line Between the Devil’s Teeth (Murder Ballad No. 10)
• Day After Tomorrow, the Flood
• A Chance of Frogs on Wednesday
• Iodine and Iron
• Cherry Street Tango, Sweatbox Waltz
• Untitled 41
• Theoretically Forbidden Morphologies (1988)
• King Laugh (Four Scenes)
• The Lady and the Tiger Redux
• Which Describes a Looking-Glass and the Broken Fragments
• Metamorphosis C
• The Last Thing You Should Do
• The Tameness of Wolves
• Untitled 44
• The Surgeon’s Photo
• Wisteria
• Mercy Brown
• The Great Bloody and Bruised Veil of the World
• Untitled Psychiatrist No. 4
• As Water is In Water
• The Green Abyss

Cambrian Tales Table of Contents:

• Author’s Preface
• Untitled Space Opera Fragment (1979)
• Dinosaur Novel Fragment (1979 or 1980)
• “Down in the Basement” (1981)
• Untitled Fantasy 1 (October 26, 1981)
• Untitled Fantasy 2 (1981 or 1982)
• “Sutter’s Mountain” Fragment 1 (1981 or 1982)
• “Sutter’s Mountain” Fragment 2 (1981 or 1982)
• Bedtime Story (1982 or 1983)
• The Burning (1984)
• Another Christmas Carol (1984)
• The Valley of the Shadow (Revisited) (1986)
• The Fall (1986-1987)
• Chevy Swamp (1986-1987)
• Forward for The Leviathans (1988)
• Hadrosaur (1988)
• Untitled Vampire Story (1990 or 1991)

Poems (1981):

• Hitchhiker in South Alabama (Two Quotes)
• The Traveler
• August Rising
• Trade Day
• Untitled
• Untitled 

Trade: Fully cloth bound hardcover

Limited: 600 signed numbered hardcovers with the bonus volume, Cambrian Tales