Bible Stories for Secular Humanists — S.P. Somtow

Here are eight of World Fantasy Award winner S.P. Somtow's most controversial stories, including three previously uncollected ones. Each deals with a "sacred cow" of the Judaeo-Christian tradition and subjects it to the pitiless scrutiny of historian, mythographer, and fantasist. Violent, sometimes kinky, these stories nevertheless reach surprising epiphanies about faith and redemption. A curiously sympathetic Antichrist hunts down the next messiah with the aid of a unicorn. St Paul ponders about whether, in order to make his miraculous new religion work, he needs to get rid of an inconvenient Jesus. An entertainment mogul in ancient Rome figures out how to cut costs by staging resurrections in the arena. Lot's daughter has managed to survive as a vampire and pours out her heart in an incest survivors' support group.... These aren't the Bible stories you learned in Sunday school - yet they raise many of the questions you may not have dared ask there.Between them the eight stories in this book were nominated for ten awards, including Bram Stokers, International Horror Guild Awards,and an Asimov's Magazine Reader Poll.