World of Hurt
U never told me how u died.
Nearly half his life ago, Andrei spent 38 minutes as a corpse. It’s not a secret that he shares with many people. Especially these last six years, ever since the comforting lie of tunnels and white lights crumbled away to leave him with the memory of what he really found on the other side of death…
Not Hell, but something worse: a Heaven unlike anything he’d ever been taught to expect.
& u havent blown yr brains out yet? Or screamed yr throat raw until they sedated u? Pretty impressive, Andrei. U may B 1 of those that make it.
Now, as Heaven seeks to reclaim him, Andrei awakens to the hidden truths of this world and the next, caught between two unequal sides waging a clandestine war for the soul of the world, in which everything he’s ever taken for granted about good and evil has just been turned upside-down.
Demon est Deus inversus.
When death is no escape, what do you do? Andrei has a fierce need to know, as the clock runs out on the most excruciating moral choice of his life.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
After its initial publication, World of Hurt became the anchor of the omnibus edition, Worlds of Hurt, which collects the complete story cycle.
REVIEWS & ACCOLADES
“Hodge creates a palpable, sometimes overwhelming sense of dread on almost every page … manages to pack volumes of emotion that most novels can’t accomplish with a bloated page count.” — The Horror Channel
“Hodge manages to combine fragility and sheer terror, to erect tender emotions and then rend them from the flesh of his characters.” — The Agony Column
“The plot is clever, and the writing is simply excellent, but World of Hurt’s real power stems from its characters.” — Rue Morgue
“Brian Hodge remains one of the most marvelously irreverent voices in dark fantasy today. World of Hurt is a gritty and welcomed antidote to a thousand rose-colored visions of immortality and afterlife. A thoroughly captivating read!” — Bram Stoker Award-winner Caitlín R. Kiernan
“A nightmarish vision of the sickness and gruesome power of feeling powerless. Hodge gives us two protagonists we care about and keeps us guessing to the end.” — Michael Blumlein, author of The Healer and The Brains of Rats
“Brian Hodge has always been one of those rare writers who can fuse ingenious concepts with exceptionally rich writing, and World of Hurt stands as a testament to his redoubtable skills. This superb novel is everything you’ve heard it is — twisted, frightening, filled with stunning imagery and infused with a courageous gray moral center where the answers are never neat and tidy. Hodge can pack more descriptive power into a single paragraph than most writers can in ten pages. World of Hurt is a masterpiece, pure and simple, and if you value exceptional, exquisite writing as much you do the well-told tale, this novel is a must-have.” — Bram Stoker Award-winner Gary A. Braunbeck