Abalone, Arizona, is a sleepy southwestern town whose chief concerns are boredom and surviving the Great Depression that is, until the circus of Dr. Lao arrives and immensely and irrevocably changes the lives of everyone drawn to its tents.
Expecting a sideshow spectacle, the citizens of Abalone instead confront and learn profound lessons from the mythical made real a chimera, a Medusa, a talking sphinx, a sea serpent, witches, the Hound of the Hedges, a werewolf, a mermaid, an ancient god, and the elusive, ever-changing Dr. Lao himself. The circus unfolds, spinning magical, dark strands...

Most people who have heard something of Finney and his revivals do not realize that he experienced a complete overhaul in his relationship with God in the middle of his ministry. He was converted in 1821 and was used in revivals for the next fifty years perhaps more than any man since the times of the apostle Paul. Yet even though thousands were converted in the early years and displayed the remarkable piety, Finney did not see many converts experience the highest privileges that believers can experience through Jesus Christ. He went to Oberlin in the 1830's and while ministering there with...

A dazzling and macabre masterpiece of dark fantasy in the tradition of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes.