Warren Ellis - Dead Pig Collector

“Hollywood people are stupid,” Mister Sun said, smiling. “I’m done for the day. Time for dinner and a drink.”

“Damn right,” the attendant agreed, opening the lobby door for Mister Sun.

Mister Sun briefly used the hotel’s small business area to shred the screenplay, then repaired to his room. He found an acceptable beer in the minibar and took it out onto his balcony to have with another cigarette or so. The beer was over-cold for his taste, but clean and crisp, and so it would do.

His phone buzzed. Balancing the beer on the balcony rail, he pulled it from his pocket. There was a message in his self-destruct app. A client request, from the Provence region of France. He’d never been there before, and decided it might be an interesting trip, if the client was up to scratch.

Closing the app, he saw the text-message notification and tapped it open. It seemed that, over the course of the day, his girlfriend had decided that he was no good and of no further use. She communicated, in language far clearer than her usual style of discourse, that it was all over and she was done. The messages didn’t read like her speaking at all, until the final word of the final text, which was dogfucker .

Mister Sun wondered if he really believed it was true that the heart is just a pump.

WARREN ELLIS is an author, graphic novelist, columnist, and speaker. His latest novel, Gun Machine , was released in January 2013, and is being developed for television by Chernin Entertainment and FOX.

Crooked Little Vein , his first novel, was described by Joss Whedon as “Funny, inventive, and blithely appalling… Dante on paint fumes.”

His graphic novel RED was made into a successful film starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren, and its sequel film will be released in August 2013. His other graphic novels, including Transmetropolitan , Planetary , Ministry of Space , Global Frequency , Gravel , and Freakangels , have won multiple awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Prize from the Eagle Awards and the NUIG Lit & Deb’s President’s Medal in recognition of support for free speech.

Previously a commentator for Reuters and Wired (UK), he is currently writing a weekly column for Vice .

His first nonfiction book, Spirit Tracks , is due in 2014 from FSG Originals. He lives mostly in Britain.

www.warrenellis.com

@warrenellis

Facebook.com/officialwarrenellis

Gun Machine

Crooked Little Vein

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18 West 18th Street, New York 10011

Copyright © 2013 by Warren Ellis

All rights reserved

First ebook edition: July 2013

E-book ISBN: 978-0-374-71187-0

Author photograph by Ellen Rogers

Cover design by Rodrigo Corral

Cover art by Ben Templesmith

www.fsgoriginals.com