<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

John Shirley (February 10, 1953 - ) is an American writer and musician.

Although published as genre, John Shirley's fiction is sui generis. William Gibson has described him as the "closest thing contemporary American fantasy has to a genuine 'outsider artist'." His work is marked by gritty street-punk reality, surrealism, gnostic mysticism, extreme violence, social commentary, rough sexuality, and metaphysical allegory -- sometimes all within the context of one story.

In the late 1970's and 1980's, John Shirley had dual careers as a fiction writer and punk rock musician. William Gibson considers John Shirley "cyberpunk's Patient Zero." In City Come A-Walkin', published four years before Neuromancer, the city of San Francisco is not only the setting but also the protagonist determined to take back its own streets from corruption. The Eclipse (A Song Called Youth) Trilogy -- Eclipse (1985), Eclipse Penumbra (1988), and Eclipse Corona (1990) -- is considered to be a significant cyberpunk work. But other than the sfnal Transmaniacon (1979), his other major novels of the period are difficult to label. Dracula In Love (1979) was nothing like any vampire novel ever written. Although Three-Ring Psychus (1980) is more-or-less science fiction, the novel is a textual attempt at surrealism. The Brigade (1981) concerns a psychokiller and might be termed a thriller. Cellars (1982) is one of the first truly visceral horror novels, pre-dating both Clive Barker and the Splatterpunk movement. In Darkness Waiting (1988) is written within the framework of a horror novel, but transcends formula. Similarly, A Splendid Chaos (1988) uses science fiction as an excuse to write a surrealistic allegory using archetypal characters. Shirley's short work from 1975 through 1988 was collected in Heatseeker (1989). The book was considered (at the time) by Bruce Sterling as Shirley's "most significant and influential work." His punk music career began in Portland where he fronted Sado-Nation and other bands. Living in New York City in the 1980's he was in bands including Obsession and recorded for the Celluloid label. He then moved to France in the late 1980's and worked with European bands.

The early 1990's were dominated by writing for television (VR-5, Poltergeist: The Legacy and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and animated series) and film, most notably The Crow (for which he was first writer). He also recorded the CD Red Star with his band Panther Moderns and wrote lyrics for Blue Öyster Cult's Heaven Forbid (1998) The novel Wetbones, which combines Lovecraftian horror with psychological horror and a theme of addiction, was published in 1991. Silicon Embrace (1996) was termed "at once sly, sad eloquent, gonzo, mystic, surreal, and all-American, mixing the pulpiest Sci-Fi with true literary sophistication" by Faren Miller of Locus. His mastery of the short form was also well established with collections New Noir (1993), The Exploded Heart (1996), Really, Really, Really, Really Weird Stories (1999) and, especially, Black Butterflies (1998) which collected his dark fiction of the previous decade. Black Butterflies received the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement, the International Horror Guild Award, and was named one of the best books of the year by Publishers Weekly.

The acclaimed small press novella Demons (2000) was re-published with second novella "Undercurrents" by Del Rey Books in 2002. He combined elements of SF, horror, and suspense in Crawlers (2003). Another collection, Darkness Divided, was published in 2001. Blue Öyster Cult's Curse Of The Hidden (2001) featured further Shirley lyrics. His nonfiction book, Gurdjieff: An Introduction To His Life And Ideas was published in 2004.

Forthcoming (2006) novel The Other End, in which the "Left Behind" novelists get left behind, is an alternative apocalypse novel. Shirley ends the world as we know it the way he thinks it ought to be ended, much in contrast to the Fundamentalists he is probably hoping to outrage.