Freak Show [Hardcover]

F. Paul Wilson (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Borderlands Press; First Edition ~1st Printing edition (1992)
• ASIN: B000GKOCDU
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,020,952 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born toward the end of the Jurassic Period and raised in New Jersey where I misspent my youth playing with matches, poring over Uncle Scrooge and E.C. comics, reading Lovecraft, Matheson, Bradbury, and Heinlein, listening to Chuck Berry and Alan Freed, and watching Soupy Sales and horror movies. I sold my first story in the Cretaceous Period and have been writing ever since. (Even that dinosaur-killer asteroid couldn't stop me.)

I've written in just about every genre - science fiction, fantasy, horror, a children's Christmas book (with a monster, of course), medical thrillers, political thrillers, even a religious thriller (long before that DaVinci thing). So far I've got about 33 books and 100 or so short stories under my name in 24 languages.

THE KEEP, THE TOMB, HARBINGERS, and BY THE SWORD all appeared on the New York Times Bestsellers List. WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS won the first Prometheus Award in 1979; THE TOMB received the Porgie Award from The West Coast Review of Books. My novelette "Aftershock" received the 1999 Bram Stoker Award for short fiction. DYDEETOWN WORLD was on the young adult recommended reading lists of the American Library Association and the New York Public Library, among others (God knows why). I received the prestigious Inkpot Award from San Diego ComiCon and the Pioneer Award from the RT Booklovers Convention. I'm listed in the 50th anniversary edition of Who's Who in America. (That plus $3 will buy you a girly coffee at Starbuck's.)

My novel THE KEEP was made into a visually striking but otherwise incomprehensible movie (screenplay and direction by Michael Mann) from Paramount in 1983. My original teleplay "Glim-Glim" first aired on Monsters. An adaptation of my short story "Menage a Trois" was part of the pilot for The Hunger series that debuted on Showtime in July 1997.

And then there's the epic saga of the Repairman Jack film. After 14 years in development hell with half a dozen writers and at least a dozen scripts, THE TOMB is finally moving toward production as "Repairman Jack" from Beacon Films and Touchstone. The plan is to make Jack a franchise character. (Gotta tell you: all the years of this has worn me out.)

I've done a few collaborations too. One with Steve Spruill on NIGHTKILL, and a bunch with Matthew J. Costello. Matt and I did world design, characters, and story arcs for Sci-Fi Channel's FTL NewsFeed, a daily newscast set 150 years in the future. An FTL NewsFeed was the first program broadcast by the new channel when it launched in September 1992. We took over scripting the Newsfeeds (the equivalent of a 4-1/2 hour movie per year) in 1994 and continued until its cancellation in December 1996.

We did script and design for MATHQUEST WITH ALADDIN (Disney Interactive - 1997) with voices by Robin Williams and Jonathan Winters, and the same for The Interactive DARK HALF for Orion Pictures, based on the Stephen King novel, but this project was orphaned when MGM bought Orion. (It's officially vaporware now.) We even wrote a stageplay, "Syzygy," which opened in St. Augustine, Florida, in March, 2000.

I'm tired of talking about myself, so I'll close by saying that I live and work at the Jersey Shore where I'm usually pounding away on a new Repairman Jack novel and haunting eBay for strange clocks and Daddy Warbucks memorabilia. (No, we don't have a cat.)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Seemless anthology of incredible horror, September 17, 2001

By 

Scott Woods (Columbus, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freak Show (Paperback)

An unusual horror anthology, in which an overriding story ties together all the tales within. It's horrific, smart and filled to the gills with great characers.

The book relates the story of a travelling circus and freak show - The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus and Oddity Emporium - that, while entertaining (and grossing-out) folks, seeks out pieces of a mysterious machine that threatens all humanity upon its completion. We're treated to all sorts of weirdos, and they're downright frightening, kids. The fiction treatment of even the common types of freak show participants - the mystic, the fattest man, snake-boy - is chilling.

This is a super-rare paperback book, but if you come across it ANYWHERE, even if you don't like horror, get it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars I truly enjoyed this!, June 23, 1999

By 

Andrea Taylor Simunovich "andie825" (Dublin, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Freak Show (Paperback)

I enjoyed this book because it was facinating the way that F. Paul Wiilson was able to focus so many writers to create separate stories. Yet, the stories come together to create a world within a novel that will haunt me forever. I'll never forget it. I've read the book several times since I originally purchased it a couple of years ago on a whim. I'm sorry that it's out of print, because now I'm afraid to lose my copy. P.S. An aside to Mr. Wilson...even though it might have been a hassle (dealing with all of the egos and personalities necessary to get this done), from my perspective, it was worth it...

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Freakishly fascinating and fantastic, October 21, 2003

By 

Schtinky "Schtinky" (California) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Freak Show (Paperback)

Freak Show is a superbly put together novel, each chapter written by a different author and following a main storyline; like George R. R. Martin's Wild Cards series. F. Paul Wilson has done a brilliant job of editing this strange foray into the world of the Circus Freak.

With authors like himself (F. Paul Wilson), Richard Lee Byers, Dan Simmons, Rex Miller, Nancy Kilpatrick, and many others each dedicating their talents to a single chapter of the Ozymandias Traveling Circus and Oddity Emporium's journey across the US, focusing on a particular freak and his particular talent; the life that pulses through this amazing collection is realistic and...well...freakish.

Year's ago, Oz's father scattered pieces of a peculiar machine all across the countryside just before committing suicide. Now Oz, a freak himself, has gathered those around him who are like him, different in some way or another. Some with green skin, some with wings, or beaks, or fur, or two faces, even enormously fat or with eerily long fingers; they all fit in with Oz and called the Freak Show home. Oz has promised them that their turn in life is coming, when the freaks will become the norm and the normal people will become freaks; all they have to do is gather and assemble the pieces of the machine his father scattered about years ago.

As we cross the country with this Oddity Emporium, the various authors bring us into the lives of these people, sometimes horrifying and sometimes tender; and we learn what it is like to be them, to feel like them, to live like them. I found myself extremely caught up with this band of outcasts, sympathetic for some and not for others, but always compelled to read more and find out what and who Oz really is, and what will happen if his task is completed.

Though I felt the ending was a bit cheesy and fell short of my expectations, it did not do so enough to spoil the overall experience of this book. Not since Dean Koontz's Twilight Eyes have I enjoyed a carnival/circus book so much, and it is too bad the F. Paul Wilson has said he will not edit another compilation such as this. Personally, I think it is his greatest work.