The Extra

Shea rules. It's no more complicated than that. Horrific satire that now reads like prophecy. Couldn't put it down. On the hunt for the sequel.......more

Rip-roaring sort-of-dystopian near-future sci-fi that 1) made sense and 2) was a great story. Shea is a screenwriter as well as a sci-fi writer, and you can see that in his meticulously blocked action. It's a lot like Hunger Games for an older audience - in it, reality shows have morphed into "live......more

An expansion of his short story of the same name, THE EXTRA kicks off another 'trilogy', which should make some dollar for Shea - although Lovecraftian themed work is notable, it probably doesn't pay as much as a series. THE EXTRA isn't bad, but it's really not an improvement over the short story. Fo......more

I heard of Shea on the podcast, Supercontext, where the hosts effectively sold him as a hidden gem of genre fiction. That may be true for his more horrific works like The Autopsy (The Autopsy and Other Tales), but that's not what The Extra is. It falls firmly in the well-worn tracks of other "death......more

I've read a few extrapolations of short stories into novels that didn't work - the padding was visible a mile off, punches were pulled at greater length, that sort of thing. Shea's The Extra -and thankfully- is one that does work. This is a near-future action fest set in a Hollywood taken to extremes......more