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Jeremy C. Shipp
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Sheep and Wolves Kindle Edition

by Jeremy C. Shipp (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 18 ratings
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Jeremy Shipp is the master of the mind-bending tale. These stories bewitch and transport the reader. Though you may not know where Shipp will travel next, each story is an unforgettable thrill-ride and you'll be glad you took the trip.

Shipp's novel Vacation established him as one of the foremost authors in the "bizarro fiction" movement. Now he turns his attention to short fiction and literary horror. The themes of alienation and cultural homogenization on a global scale are explored in closer detail. Shipp notes, "This intimacy makes Sheep and Wolves much darker than its predecessor. Because now, the darkness is invading your homes, your dreams, your lives." The author's trademark quirky characters populate an otherwise bleak landscape, this time around facing horrors at home rather than evils abroad.
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  1. Print length
    168 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    July 14, 2009
  5. File size
    448 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
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  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...challenging, unsettling, and deeply meaningful." --The Harrow, Vol. 11, #10

From the Inside Flap

"A stark fever-dream of a book. Shipp's flashbang stories will turn your mind inside-out." --Ronald Damien Malfi, author of Passenger

"Sheep and Wolves is a poster-child for the Bizarro genre: dream-like stories drenched in psychedelic imagery, and enough thematic layers and multiple meanings to keep scholars pontificating for years to come." --Matthew Warner, author of Horror Isn't a 4-Letter Word

"Each word, each sentence, contributes to the final picture with economic precision and sharp bursts of humor. This is a memorable collection, wandering deftly through the gnomic shadowlands of dark fantasy, horror and bizarro." --Andersen Prunty, author of Jack and Mr. Grin

"Shipp adroitly wields a chiaroscuro tone, creating in broad, rich strokes scenes of humor, strangeness and cruelty. " --Garret Cook, author of Murderland Part 1: H8

"If you have read and enjoyed Vacation, it will do your electrodes well to pick up Sheep and Wolves. If, on the other hand, you have procrastinated in picking up last summer's smash hit (again, Vacation), find a copy today! I trust you'll know how to proceed from there." --Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B002HMC9YE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Raw Dog Screaming Press (July 14, 2009)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ July 14, 2009
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 448 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 168 pages
  • Page numbers source ISBN ‏ : ‎ 1933293527
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 18 ratings

About the author

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Jeremy C. Shipp

Jeremy C. Shipp

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Jeremy C. Shipp is the Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-nominated author of The Atrocities, Bedfellow, and Cursed. Their shorter tales have appeared in over 60 publications, including Cemetery Dance, Dark Moon Digest and Apex Magazine. Jeremy lives in Southern California in a moderately haunted Farmhouse. Their twitter handle is @JeremyCShipp.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
18 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Scott Cole
5.0 out of 5 stars Unique
Reviewed in the United States on August 20, 2011
Verified Purchase
These stories are dark, twisted, sometimes playful, and certainly challenging. Shipp definitely has a unique voice, and chances are you won't be able to guess where each tale is taking you. Each story is worthy of a re-read, with rewards you probably didn't notice the first time through. Give this collection a shot.
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Jesse
3.0 out of 5 stars What the hell did I just read?
Reviewed in the United States on July 14, 2013
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A couple of the stories were really good (Camp and Those Below come to mind), but some of the others read like a transcription of someone's fever nightmare and you'll get done with a story and wonder what the hell you just read. Sometimes, you might not even know if the story is over or not. (The kindle formatting could be better.) Also, there's a lot of first-person present tense in here so if that annoys you, you're not going to like this book. I personally find that a chore to read. The writing is solid, and the surreal characters, situations and surroundings well described.
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Galo Romero
4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing, chilling, fascinating...
Reviewed in the United States on May 23, 2009
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What devil slips into our skin and forces us to rip out the entrails of the innocent and serve it up as today's special? Jeremy Shipp knows. It is a rare event to discover a master storyteller who can wield a manipulative power and skillfully render us victim, silent witness, and complicit killer all-at-once while effortlessly leading the reader through a crucible of pain, misery and repulsion like a parent reading a bedtime story to a child. Cannibals, S&M Gods, Sociopaths, Zombies, Mutants and Dark Fantasy Creatures are some of the bizarre inhabitants found in this brilliant, fascinating and entertaining collection of grisly tales. Not for the squeamish. The standout stories are: "Watching", "Baby Edward", "Those Below", "Scratch", "Dog", "Camp", "American Sheep", "Sin Earth" and "Flapjack".
3 people found this helpful
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J. W.
5.0 out of 5 stars As always, stunning and eerie.
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2009
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Like that uneasy feeling you get from watching the man you just impaled on a sharpened end of a shovel handle slide himself off and amble toward you?
You'll love Shipp.

I also recommend his first novel Vacation.
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Betty Dravis
5.0 out of 5 stars ...like a warped twilight zone!
Reviewed in the United States on January 14, 2009
When I first got this book, the cover and the title caught my eye. I like the simple drawings of the wolf and the sheep; unusual but aesthetic with the orange background. I saw that it was a collection of short stories and since I love short stories, I had to have it.

I didn't realize it was "bizarro" fiction until I started reading, and truthfully, the first line of the opening story offended my sensibilities, so I skipped on to the next story. I soon found myself racing from story to story like a person chasing ambulances. It was like being in a warped twilight zone.

As most readers know, bizarro fiction is a contemporary literary genre noted for its focus on "high weirdness." The term was appropriated from popular culture in 2005 by the independent publishing companies Eraserhead Press, Raw Dog Screaming Press, and Afterbirth Books in response to the rising demand for unique and outlandish fiction. If you'd like to know more, click on this link: [...]%20fiction

But getting back to author Jeremy Shipp's book, I read all seventeen of his outlandish tales with my mouth hanging open. They're weird, all right, but also fascinating, fun and extremely imaginative. I dove into that book with both feet...or perhaps I now have six feet or even ten, like some of Shipp's characters. After reading  Sheep and Wolves , I'm inclined to believe that's possible.

These stories are so preposterous, they had me laughing even when Shipp's characters were at their most terrifying. "The Rules" is only two pages long but it's a good example of this. It's a story of the narrator destroying demons, but the way it's written I couldn't tell who was the real demon, the narrator or the ones he's destroying. "Expect a lot of blood," he says, and proceeds to deliver.

One of my favorite stories in the book is "Scratch" which is about a man who has twelve wives all living inside his body and he's trying to teach Sonny how to have a child without a woman...if I say more it will be a spoiler, but I can say it has an outrageously shocking ending. I admit I didn't understand it, but I was certainly entertained...and from what I've learned, that's the prime purpose of this genre. Even Piers Anthony, author of the Xanth series, admits he doesn't understand most of Shipp's writing...and Anthony has one of the weirdest minds in speculative fiction.

And I finally did go back and read that first story; it's about a man who's a paid watcher, and it's my favorite. Don't ask what he's paid to watch; only someone like this author can describe that nightmare.

Some call Shipp crazy, some call him a genius. Each individual reader must decide for himself. I favor the genius category because he has an imagination that just won't quit. His characters are some of the craziest, zaniest I've ever run across in any genre. I wouldn't want to meet any of them in a dark alley...or even in the lobby of the Fairmont. Spooky!

Recommended for adults who find reality boring, people who want to experience something edgy and unique. If you enjoy these stories, you may want to get Shipp's book  Vacation  that was a finalist in the 2008 Wonderland competition. NOT recommended for children or young adults!

Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, January 2009
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okieluvs2laff
3.0 out of 5 stars Sheep and Wolves
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2012
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I purchased this book as a gift for my son. He said he would give it three stars. He said he enjoyed the dark humor. Thank you.
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Jason A. Behrends
5.0 out of 5 stars Bringing the Chill!
Reviewed in the United States on November 27, 2008
"When people say, "Get a life," what they usually mean is, "Drown out the screaming of your heart like I do, then we can be friends." I refuse." from "Nightmare Man"

On the way to park this afternoon I spotted the first glimpse of Autumn. It was a full grown oak with leaves glowing in orange, yellow and red. Soon there will be pumpkins, scarecrows, ghost, goblins, haunted houses, and all of the typical joy mixed with fear that is Fall. There is no better writer to read on a cool autumn evening then California's Jeremy Shipp. Having read his enthralling and disturbing debut novel Vacation, I jumped at the chance to take a sneak peak at his new collection of short stories, Sheep and Wolves. Now I had never read any of Jeremy's short stories, but I knew I had to find the right time and location to read through this collection. The mood had to be just right, and I chose to be alone in a dimly lit room late at night. It seemed right as I tried to let the gruesome images that can seem so foreign yet so captivating.

Jumping right in with the first story "Watching", Jeremy creates worlds that at times seem unreal or unfamiliar, but have a biting sense of reality that really allows the reader to stay engaged. From moving marshmallow peeps to reattaching a little girls severed thumb to clowns and cyborgs, the stories contained in Sheep and Wolves are like a series of car accidents. You know shouldn't be looking, but you can't take your eyes off the pages stained with blood and fingers and all the horror and madness. It's perfect for this time of year even if you are not a fan of the genre. Start a campfire, grab a bag of marshmallow and read lines like; "Now I'm dragging a dead dog by the tail. I'm dragging her toward an apple tree under the full moon, because these are the three ingredients. Dog, apple, moon."
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Top reviews from other countries

joshua rainbird
5.0 out of 5 stars bizarro short fiction at its best
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 7, 2010
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Whilst bizarro fiction has been compared to the impact of a splat of chewing gum hitting a tree, Jeremy C Shipp's variety, by sheer force of its own free will, rescued itself from the underside of a writing desk and cartwheeled into social networking sites. It entices you into the murk of a moderately haunted attic (that is his mind), seduces you with the odd mention of garden gnomes and lances your conscience with a finely sharpened spork.

Sheep and Wolves is his first published collection of short stories.

In worlds where images form in popcorn ceilings and fish fly out of wallpaper dots one could easily feel lost. But Shipp, like a 21st century Dante, leads you gently through his nightmares reminding you that monsters are often more forgiving than the societies that spawn them. It's not that the characters are sick - mind you, some are positively infected - it's that they have insight. Their lives have voids, minor voids, voids that can be filled and sometimes, they are.

Just don't side with the sheep!

So, when you've dodged the Trout and finally landed on Flapjack and that anthropomorphic stick of Juicy Fruit has rammed your head so far down the rabbit hole that you're choking on magma, remember, there may well be bunnies and free hugs waiting for you at the end of the Abyss.

Well... maybe.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Raw
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 26, 2009
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There's a raw, freakish reality and ugly brutality to these stories. This isn't cosy horror. It's like looking at the pictures in a surgical textbook. Good stuff!
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