"Before Bubba Ho-Tep, there was Bubba and the Cosmic Blood-Suckers."
Subterranean Press is now taking pre-orders for the new Joe R. Lansdale novel BUBBA AND THE COSMIC BLOOD-SUCKERS, a prequel to the author's 1994 novella BUBBA HO-TEP – which, of course, served as the source material for Don Coscarelli's amazing 2002 film of the same name.
In that film,
we find Elvis (Bruce Campbell) as an elderly resident in an East Texas rest home who switched identities with an Elvis impersonator years before his "death", then missed his chance to switch back.
Elvis teams up with Jack (Ossie Davis), a fellow nursing home resident who thinks that he is actually President John F. Kennedy, and the two valiant old codgers sally forth to battle an evil Egyptian entity who has chose their long-term care facility as his happy hunting grounds…
BUBBA AND THE COSMIC BLOOD-SUCKERS will let us know what happened before all that:
Part of a secret government organization designed to protect civilians, Elvis Presley and a handful of hardcore warriors set out to save the world from an invasion of hive-minded, shape-shifting vampire-like creatures from a dark dimension who have taken up residence in a New Orleans junkyard.
Besides Elvis, among these righteous warriors is a hammer-wielding descendent of John Henry of railroad fame, a Blind Man who sees more than those with sight, Jack, a strategic wizard, and Elvis’s right hand man and journal writer, Johnny, all thrown in with Raven (real name Jenny) a female recruit who is also a budding pop star, and like Elvis, high on the charisma chart.
Their leader is none other than Colonel Parker, Elvis’s cutthroat manager, and a warrior himself, directly in contact with President Nixon, or possibly one of his doubles.
It’s an unnerving peek into a secret world, and a possible delusion. It’s what happened before Elvis, aka Sebastian Haff, found himself in an East Texas rest home, mounted on a walker, fighting an Egyptian mummy and worrying about a growth on his pecker.
Strange monsters, wild fights, sex with a beautiful ghost, a drug-induced trip into another dimension, and all manner of mayhem ensue, along with a Mississippi riverboat ride on a giant paddle wheel, and of course, there will be 3D glasses, fried peanut butter and ’nanna sandwiches, and a few hard working zombies.
Bring the kids, but plug their ears and blindfold them. This is one wild and nasty ride to the dark side, but with laughter.
Coscarelli has long been hoping to make a BUBBA HO-TEP sequel/prequel called BUBBA NOSFERATU: CURSE OF THE SHE-VAMPIRES, which would also deal with New Orleans-based vampires. It sounds like Lansdale has taken that concept and spun it off into a very different story than the one Coscarelli came up with.
If you'd like to own a copy of BUBBA AND THE COSMIC BLOOD-SUCKERS, you might want to head over to Subterranean Press and get a copy ordered as soon as possible. The $40 signed hardcover edition is limited to 1500 copies.
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