Underbelly Read online

  “The Accomplice,” Creature Cozies (2005)

  “Beginner’s Luck,” Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Writers (2004)

  “Branded,” Flesh & Blood: Erotic Tales of Crime and Passion (2003)

  “Rio Blanco,” Guns of the West, (2002)

  “Hollywood Spring and Axle,” The Mighty Johns and Other Stories (2002)

  “The Counterfeit Comrade,” Measures of Poison (2002)

  “The Measure,” The Blue and the Grey Undercover: All New Civil War Spy Adventures (2001)

  As editor or coeditor:

  The Cocaine Chronicles (2005)

  Politics Noir (2008)

  The Darker Mask (2008)

  Orange County Noir (2010)

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Influenced by the likes of writer Rod Serling, comic book artists Jack Kirby and Jim Steranko, the records of comedians Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor, enchanted when Shirley Bassey sang “Goldfinger,” and never forgetting those stories his father told of being on the road during the Great Depression, what else could Gary Phillips do but make stuff up? He currently writes a darkly funny webcomic, Bicycle Cop Dave, on www.fourstory.org, ghostwrote an upcoming crime novel with pioneer rapper-actor Ice-T, writes the further adventures of pulp spy character Operator 5 for Moonstone Comics, and has a crime graphic novel forthcoming from DC/Vertigo Comics entitled Cowboys.

  GARY PHILLIPS

  The Jook

  978-1-60486-0405

  $15.95

  Zelmont Raines has slid a long way since his ability to jook, to out maneuver his opponents on the field, made him a Super Bowl—winning wide receiver, earning him lucrative endorsement deals and more than his share of female attention. But Zee hasn’t always been good at saying no, so a series of missteps involving drugs, a paternity suit or two, legal entanglements, shaky investments, and recurring injuries have virtually sidelined his career.

  That is until Los Angeles gets a new pro franchise, the Barons, and Zelmont has one last chance at the big time he dearly misses. Just as it seems he might be getting back in the flow, he’s enraptured by Wilma Wells, the leggy and brainy lawyer for the team—who has a ruthless game plan all her own. And it’s Zelmont who might get jooked.

  Praise:

  “Phillips, author of the acclaimed Ivan Monk series, takes elements of Jim Thompson (the ending), black-exploitation flicks (the profanity-fueled dialogue), and Penthouse magazine (the sex is anatomically correct) to create an over-the-top violent caper in which there is no honor, no respect, no love, and plenty of money. Anyone who liked George Pelecanos’ King Suckerman is going to love this even-grittier take on many of the same themes.”

  —Wes Lukowsky, Booklist

  PM PRESS OUTSPOKEN AUTHORS

  The Lucky Strike

  Kim Stanley Robinson

  978-1-60486-085-6

  $12

  Combining dazzling speculation with a profoundly humanist vision, Kim Stanley Robinson is known as not only the most literary but also the most progressive (read “radical”) of today’s top-rank SF authors. His bestselling “Mars Trilogy” tells the epic story of the future colonization of the red planet, and the revolution that inevitably follows. His latest novel, Galileo’s Dream, is a stunning combination of historical drama and far-flung space opera, in which the ten dimensions of the universe itself are rewoven to ensnare history’s most notorious torturers.

  The Lucky Strike, the classic and controversial story Robinson has chosen for PM’s new Outspoken Authors series, begins on a lonely Pacific island, where a crew of untested men are about to take off in an untried aircraft with a deadly payload that will change our world forever. Until something goes wonderfully wrong.

  Plus: A Sensitive Dependence on Initial Conditions, in which Robinson dramatically deconstructs “alternate history” to explore what might have been if things had gone differently over Hiroshima that day.

  As with all Outspoken Author books, there is a deep interview and autobiography: at length, in-depth, no-holds-barred and all-bets off: an extended tour though the mind and work, the history and politics of our Outspoken Author. Surprises are promised.

  PM PRESS OUTSPOKEN AUTHORS

  Mammoths of the Great Plains

  Eleanor Arnason

  978-1-60486-075-7

  $12

  When President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark to explore the West, he told them to look especially for mammoths. Jefferson had seen bones and tusks of the great beasts in Virginia, and he suspected—he hoped!—that they might still roam the Great Plains. In Eleanor Arnason’s imaginative alternate history, they do: shaggy herds thunder over the grasslands, living symbols of the oncoming struggle between the Native peoples and the European invaders. And in an unforgettable saga that soars from the badlands of the Dakotas to the icy wastes of Siberia, from the Russian Revolution to the AIM protests of the 1960s, Arnason tells of a modern woman’s struggle to use the weapons of DNA science to fulfill the ancient promises of her Lakota heritage.

  PLUS: “Writing SF During World War III,” and an Outspoken Interview that takes you straight into the heart and mind of one of today’s edgiest and most uncompromising speculative authors.

  Praise:

  “Eleanor Arnason nudges both human and natural history around so gently in this tale that you hardly know you’re not in the world-as-we-know-it until you’re quite at home in a North Dakota where you’ve never been before, listening to your grandmother tell you the world.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

  FRIENDS OF

  PM These are indisputably momentous times—the financial system is melting down globally and the Empire is stumbling. Now more than ever there is a vital need for radical ideas.

  In the three years since its founding—and on a mere shoestring—PM Press has risen to the formidable challenge of publishing and distributing knowledge and entertainment for the struggles ahead. With over 100 releases to date, we have published an impressive and stimulating array of literature, art, music, politics, and culture. Using every available medium, we’ve succeeded in connecting those hungry for ideas and information to those putting them into practice.

  Friends of PM allows you to directly help impact, amplify, and revitalize the discourse and actions of radical writers, filmmakers, and artists. It provides us with a stable foundation from which we can build upon our early successes and provides a much-needed subsidy for the materials that can’t necessarily pay their own way. You can help make that happen — and receive every new title automatically delivered to your door once a month — by joining as a Friend of PM Press. And, we’ll throw in a free T-Shirt when you sign up.

  Here are your options:

  • $25 a month: Get all books and pamphlets plus 50% discount on all webstore purchases.

  • $25 a month: Get all CDs and DVDs plus 50% discount on all webstore purchases.

  • $40 a month: Get all PM Press releases plus 50% discount on all webstore purchases

  • $100 a month: Sustainer. - Everything plus PM merchandise, free downloads, and 50% discount on all webstore purchases.

  For those who can’t afford $25 or more a month, we’re introducing Sustainer Rates at $15, $10 and $5. Sustainers get a free PM Press t-shirt and a 50% discount on all purchases from our website.

  Just go to WWW.PMPRESS.ORG to sign up. Your Visa or Mastercard will be billed once a month, until you tell us to stop. Or until our efforts succeed in bringing the revolution around. Or the financial meltdown of Capital makes plastic redundant. Whichever comes first.financial meltdown of Capital makes plastic redundant. Whichever comes first.

  PM PM PRESS was founded at the end of 2007 by a small collection of folks with decades of publishing, media, and organizing experience. PM Press co-conspirators have published and distributed hundreds of books, pamphlets, CDs, and DVDs. Members of PM have founded enduring book fairs, spearheaded victorious tenant organizing campaigns, and worked closely with bookstores, academic conferences, and e
ven rock bands to deliver political and challenging ideas to all walks of life. We’re old enough to know what we’re doing and young enough to know what’s at stake.

  We seek to create radical and stimulating fiction and NON-FICTION books, pamphlets, t-shirts, visual and audio materials to entertain, educate and inspire you. We aim to distribute these through every available channel with every available technology - whether that means you are seeing anarchist classics at our bookfair stalls; reading our latest vegan cookbook at the café; downloading geeky fiction e-books; or digging new music and timely videos from our website.

  PM Press is always on the lookout for talented and skilled volunteers, artists, activists and writers to work with. If you have a great idea for a project or can contribute in some way, please get in touch.

  PM PRESS

  PO Box 23912

  Oakland CA 94623

  510-658-3906

  www.pmpress.org