News Of The Black Feast And Other Random Reviews

This new collection gathers together 45 of Stableford's best critical reviews on works of science fiction, fantasy, horror, decadent literature, and nonfiction books about these topics. His comments are witty, intelligent, and full of insight. Complete with comprehensive index.

Collection of ten comedies in science fiction, fantasy, and horror.

In this new collection of essays, well-known critic Brian Stableford presents twelve pieces on science-fiction and fantasy writers M. P. Shiel, Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Humphry Davy, Robert Hunt, Vernon Lee, J. G. Ballard, James Morrow, Dean Koontz, and Terry Pratchett. Complete with detailed index.

Ten essays on horror fiction, Gothic rock music, science fiction, and fantasy, by a master critic and fiction writer. Complete with index.

In the tradition of the old "Ace Doubles," two-in-one books (flip one over to read the second title)--here is the fourth Wildside Double. "Les Fleurs du Mal: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution," by Brian Stableford. In the year 2550, where premediated murder is supposedly impossible, a serial killer begins attacking very old men with specially bred plants that eat them from the inside out, creating the bizarre "flowers of evil" ("les fleurs du mal"). Biotech artist Oscar Wilde teams with UN detectives Charlotte Holmes and Hal Watson to unravel this futuristic nightmare. A Hugo Award finalist in the Novella category. "The Undead: A Tale of the Biotech Revolution," by Brian Stableford. In the world of the future, the latest rage is the creation of "Undead" personality simulations to place within the tombstones of the recently departed. But when a cluster of new monuments is vandalized, cemetery Chief Security Officer Tann Hicks must find the perpetrators and stop the crimes. Are the sims really dead? As the controversy over the Undead grows, with religious fanatics lining up against right-to-life advocates, Tann finds himself at the center of a growing political and media storm.

The new collection features 14 essays relevant to the Literary Decadence movement, including pieces on: Joris-Karl Huysmans, Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, Aloysius Bertrand, Theophile Gautier, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Edmond de Goncourt, and Anatole France. Complete with bibliography and index.

Well-known critic and novelist Brian Stableford here discusses the writers, editors, and publishers who helped create the modern genre of science fiction: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Camille Flammarion, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, Hugo Gernsback, John W. Campbell Jr., Edward E. "Doc" Smith, Robert A. Heinlein, James Blish, Gregory Benford, and Ian Watson. Complete with bibliography and index.

Long after he was dead, French poet Charles Baudelaire inspired a Decadent Movement in France, which became definitive of fin de siecle sensibility. One of the historical and influential links between Baudelaire and the new Decadents was the Comte de Villiers de l'Isle Adam, who called the first of his own collections of Decadent prose Contes cruels, because they spurned conventional means of attaining literary closure by celebrating 'the irony of fate' -- the capacity that the course of events has for thwarting human ambition in a frankly mocking fashion. "Because it became so firmly linked to the notion of the fin de siecle, the Decadent Movement did not survive the end of the nineteenth century in France and Decadent literature became increasingly unfashionable thereafter -- but it was, by definition, a literary species guaranteed to thrive on its own unfashionability. The stories collected here have been woefully unappreciated, even when they have succeeded in reaching print -- as some have not until now -- but I have never been tempted to abandon the production of such items, and am far fonder of them than I am of many works that proved more economically viable." -- from the author's Introduction. The tales in this collection include: "An Oasis of Horror," "Justice," "The Copper Cauldron," "Nobody Else to Blame," "Heartbeat," "Upon the Gallows-Tree," "The Devil's Men," "The Elixir of Youth," "The Lamia's Soliloquy," "And the Hunter Home from the Hill," "The Riddle of the Sphinx," "My Mother, the Hag," "The Devil's Comedy," and "The Power of Prayer." Never before collected into book form.