The Reissue of My Bram Stoker Award Finalist Debut Novel, Riding the Centipede, is Out Now!

 What more do I need to say? 

Macabre Ink/Crossroad Press has put together this stellar reissue of my Bram Stoker Award finalist debut novel, Riding the Centipede, that includes fabulous new cover art--I love the original, I love this one as well; I've been lucky with covers, I tell ya--as well as an afterward that features the origins of the story, including the actual page or two seed idea snippet that mutated into the novel. 

Here's what others said about the novel upon release: 

"A master storyteller who infuses his work with a poet's vision and a madman's eerie gaze at horrible things."—Joe Pulver, Shirley Jackson award winning editor and author of A House of Hollow Wounds & Blood Will Have Its Season

 

 

"Even if you set aside the rich beauty of John Claude Smith's descriptions and the dense atmosphere he builds into this tale of horror both cosmic and man made, it's a joy to observe how he brings all of his marvelous and monstrous creatures together. A poetic sensibility and the cynicism of a classic California private eye meld with the spirit of William Burroughs informing/infecting countless details. And over all, Smith extends the deep shadow of something incomprehensible threatening to overtake the boundaries of detective fiction and its implied logic. Beautiful, crazy, poetic, and strange..." --S.P. Miskowski, author of The Worst is Yet to Come & The Skillute Cycle

 

 

“The breadth of his references— from Frida Kahlo to Celtic Frost (Are You Morbid?), Johnny Cash to Lena Olin, from “The Wounded Table” to Marilyn Monroe—sloshes together to concoct a hallucinogenic broth that’s equal parts surreal, horrific, and compelling. This isn’t a brew to be sipped by the easily offended—the folks within Smith’s debut novel are hardscrabble, amoral, desperate druggies (Burroughs’ preferred term over “junkies”) willing to drag themselves through Hubert Selby-esque levels of depravity to attain their mind altering sustenance. The novel immerses the reader in a world where a P.I. hunts down an elusive target, we experience tragic Hollywood scandals, wallow in deep dark secrets, and witness a villain whose reign of chilling brutality brings to mind a mutant cousin of Anton Chigurh. Smith’s prose is gruff noir, never tumbling over into camp, shot through with veins of luminous poetry.”    

Christopher Slatsky, Alectryomancer and Other Weird Tales & The Immeasurable Corpse of Nature

 

 

“Riding the Centipede by John Claude Smith is an impressive, hallucinatory and dynamically written novel that entertains, and provokes depth of thought with visceral prose and poetic hum. More than an ode to the Beat generation, this mythical, psychedelic drug trip mirrors the complexity of unorthodox language, uncommon perspective and nonconforming communicative style made famous by Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, and Charles Bukowski, yet stands on its own with the very heavyweights it pays homage to. Smith masterfully anchors his story in lush description, cleverly crafted analogy and metaphor, and a twisted and darkly imaginative narrative. Highly recommended.” --Taylor Grant, Bram Stoker Award (R) Nominated Author, The Dark at the End of the Tunnel


"Fans of Burroughs and PK Dick will find a lot to like in John Claude Smith. _Riding the Centipede_ is an intense trip into Bizarro Land." --Laird Barron, author of Swift to Chase, The Croning & Not A Speck of Light: Stories

 

 

“RIDING THE CENTIPEDE effects the reader in an almost synesthesia-like fashion. You feel the madness of Marlon Teargarden as you delve into the pages, deeper into the dark frontier. Smith writes in a style that makes the vile seem beautiful. It’s that illusion of beauty, of intimacy, that allows the horrors to flow so easily. And make no mistake, this IS a horror novel – the sights shown within are not for a weak stomach or delicate sensibilities. Burroughs and the beat writers are not the only influences at play here, along with a healthy dose of H.P. Lovecraft and Clive Barker. RIDING THE CENTIPEDE is something unique, insane, and terrifying… something worth seeking out.” --Brian Fatah Steele, author of Hungry Rain & Bleed Away the Sky

 

“RIDING THE CENTIPEDE is an intense, crazy, brilliant and inspired work of imagination. Totally-gonzo-Beat-horror-experimental-noir-bizarro insanity. I give extra credit to artists who capable of doing something nobody else could do, and this is definitely that.” --Michael Griffin, author of The Lure of Devouring Light & The Human Alchemy

Pick up your copy --> HERE <-- today! It's a ride you won't forget!