Metal Sushi

"David Conway is the most powerful and distinctive writer of horror fiction since Clive Barker ... " -- Grant Morrison, Arkham Asylum, The Invisibles, The Filth. " -- An authentically Lovecraftian marriage of contemporary science and the cosmic ... " -- Ramsey Campbell. "Metal Sushi drags HP Lovecraft's piscatorial congeries squirming and thrashing into Blade Runner dystopia to tremendous effect ... " -- John Coulthart, World Fantasy Award Winner, Lord Horror, Reverbstorm, Hardcore Horror. "In Metal Sushi Conway treats the unification of Gothic and science fictional impulses as a chimerical marriage with the potential to produce an unprecedented new form ... " Mark P Williams, Gothic Science Fiction: 1980-2010. "Like a hybrid monstrosity spawned from an unholy alliance between William Burroughs, Ignatius Loyola and the Marquis de Sade, David Conway's stories will take you to a dimension of absolute nightmare ... " DM Mitchell, A Serious Life, The Seventh Song of Maldoror

"David Conway is the most powerful and distinctive writer of horror fiction since Clive Barker ... " -- Grant Morrison, Arkham Asylum, The Invisibles, The Filth. "An authentically Lovecraftian marriage of contemporary science and the cosmic ... " -- Ramsey Campbell. "Metal Sushi drags HP Lovecraft's piscatorial congeries squirming and thrashing into Blade Runner dystopia to tremendous effect ... " -- John Coulthart, World Fantasy Award Winner, Lord Horror, Reverbstorm, Hardcore Horror. "In Metal Sushi Conway treats the unification of Gothic and science fictional impulses as a chimerical marriage with the potential to produce an unprecedented new form ... " -- Mark P Williams, Gothic Science Fiction: 1980-2010. "Like a hybrid monstrosity spawned from an unholy alliance between William Burroughs, Ignatius Loyola and the Marquis de Sade, David Conway's stories will take you to a dimension of absolute nightmare ... " -- DM Mitchell, A Serious Life, The Seventh Song of Maldoror.

Gothic fiction's focus on the irrational and supernatural would seem to conflict with science fiction's rational foundations. However, as this novel collection demonstrates, the two categories often intersect in rich and revealing ways. Analyzing a range of works—including literature, film, graphic novels, and trading card games—from the past three decades through the lens of this hybrid genre, this volume examines their engagement with the era's dramatic changes in communication technology, medical science, and personal and global politics.

Shonen Knife-an all-female punk trio from Osaka, Japan-cultivated a global fan base that has included the likes of Nirvana's Kurt Cobain and Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore. Their 1998 album Happy Hour, filled with tunes about delicacies ranging from sushi to banana chips, encapsulates the band's charming fusion of cuteness with punk rock cool. Tracing histories of food and josei rock in Japan, McCorkle Okazaki outlines the ways Shonen Knife has, over the last forty years, consistently used seemingly straightforward songs about food to comment on gender stereotypes in popular culture.

"Every decade or two, a revolutionary idea turns into a revolutionary product that actually does change the way we make our food." -- from the foreword by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt, bestselling author of The Food Lab A simple but transformative product that supercharges your home oven, the Baking Steel offers a whole new way to cook and bake that blows pizza stones and stovetop griddles away. With Baking with Steel, you'll harness this extraordinary tool to bake restaurant-quality baguettes, grill meats a la plancha, and enjoy pizza with a crust and char previously unimaginable outside a professional kitchen. "Baking With Steel is a fantastic companion for anyone with a Baking Steel, as it showcases its range of applications in the kitchen. From producing gorgeously cooked pizzas to perfectly seared steak and ice cream in minutes, Andris Lagsdin once again shows that there are many reasons to love the power of steel."-- Nathan Myhrvold, lead author of the award-winning Modernist Cuisine series

Along with Batman, Spider-Man, and Superman, the Joker stands out as one of the most recognizable comics characters in popular culture. While there has been a great deal of scholarly attention on superheroes, very little has been done to understand supervillains. This is the first academic work to provide a comprehensive study of this villain, illustrating why the Joker appears so relevant to audiences today. Batman’s foe has cropped up in thousands of comics, numerous animated series, and three major blockbuster feature films since 1966. Actually, the Joker debuted in DC comics Batman 1 (1940) as the typical gangster, but the character evolved steadily into one of the most ominous in the history of sequential art. Batman and the Joker almost seemed to define each other as opposites, hero and nemesis, in a kind of psychological duality. Scholars from a wide array of disciplines look at the Joker through the lens of feature films, video games, comics, politics, magic and mysticism, psychology, animation, television, performance studies, and philosophy. As the first volume that examines the Joker as complex cultural and cross-media phenomenon, this collection adds to our understanding of the role comic book and cinematic villains play in the world and the ways various media affect their interpretation. Connecting the Clown Prince of Crime to bodies of thought as divergent as Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche, contributors demonstrate the frightening ways in which we get the monsters we need.

Read La Carmina's posts on the Penguin Blog. A cookbook that thinks outside the bento box and brings the popular Japanese trend of kawaii (all things cute) to the American kitchen. Hello Kitty, Pokémon, Super Mario, Astroboy… American pop culture has been invaded by big-headed, dewy-eyed characters from Japan. The cult of kawaii (ka-why-ee, or all things cute) has spread to every aspect of living—including food. Take Japan’s wackiest new trend: school lunches dolled up as adorable creatures. They’re feasts for the eyes, but their ingredients such as natto and nori don’t exactly sit well with Western stomachs. Cute Yummy Time interprets this Japanese phenomenon for the American palate. Using familiar foods, La Carmina turns mundane meals into adorable sensations. A risotto ball becomes a curious hedgehog; chicken sandwiches are dressed as chicks. Entertaining has never been so endearing with a blue cheese blowfish for a beach party or strawberry lovers in chocolate crepe robes for Valentine’s Day. Each recipe includes step-by-step instructions, illustrations, and eye-popping full-color photos. Watch a Video

How did social, cultural and political events in Britain during the 1990s shape contemporary British Fiction? From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the turn of the millennium, the 1990s witnessed a realignment of global politics. Against the changing international scene, this volume uses events abroad and in Britain to examine and explain the changes taking place in British fiction, including: the celebration of national identities, fuelled by the move toward political devolution in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales; the literary optimism in urban ethnic fictions written by a new generation of authors, born and raised in Britain; the popularity of neo-Victorian fiction. Critical surveys are balanced by in-depth readings of work by the authors who defined the decade, including A.S. Byatt, Hanif Kureishi, Will Self, Caryl Phillips and Irvine Welsh: an approach that illustrates exactly how their key themes and concerns fit within the social and political circumstances of the decade.