John Shirley is the author of more than a dozen books including City Come A-Walking, Really Really Really Really Weird Stories (a collection of short fiction), and the newly reissued classic cyberpunk "A Song Called Youth" trilogy-Eclipse, Eclipse Corona, and Eclipse Penumbra. He is the recipient of the Horror Writers Association Bram Stoker Award and the International Horror Guild Award for his collection Black Butterflies. Shirley has fronted punk bands and written lyrics for his own music, as well as for Blue Oyster Cult and other bands. A principal screenwriter for The Crow, Shirley now devotes most of his time to writing for television and film.

The Other End
by John Shirley

Do you ever think that the human world is hopelessly out of balance, blighted, off track, and the only hope is some kind of apocalypse, some sort of end of the world that would allow the human race a new beginning, a fresh start without...ah...certain people?

You know you don't want—and can't believe in—the usual "End Times" scenarios that are predicted and ballyhooed by hysterical, superstitious people.

But when you look around at the world as it stands—you see Darfur, you see Somalia and the Congo, you see the modern slavery of indentured servitude, you see children sold into prostitution, you see millions starving, you see mindless wars, you see people you care about dying of Alzheimer's and children dying of cancer and millions of others trapped in schizophrenia or living lives of media-hypnotized desperation...

You see a planet beset by a loss of biodiversity, a depleted ozone layer, slash-and-burn destruction of rainforests, and the onset of global warming...

And you know that because the population of the Earth is increasing, it's only going to get worse. This can't go on; something has to change.

What if you could change it? What if you could design your own Judgment Day?

What if there were another end rather than one based on childish interpretations of religion, bias, bigotry, exclusion, and cultural narrowness?

What if Judgment Day came for the whole world and offered true justice?

It would be THE OTHER END.

"Veteran horror writer Shirley (Cellars) swaps gory for glory in this inventive if politically heavy-handed left-wing answer to Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins's evangelical Left Behind series. Child slavers, genocidal soldiers and corrupt statesmen have fourth-dimensional visions and abandon their wicked ways in the first part of the novel, narrated by Sacramento Bee reporter Jim Swift and his conspiracy-nut friend, Ed Galivant, in a style oddly reminiscent of C.M. Kornbluth's 'The Silly Season.' Readers of all persuasions will relish the repentance of these universally acknowledged bad guys..."