The Mammoth Book Of Body Horror

A gripping collection which offers for the first time a chronological overview of the popular contemporary sub-genre of body horror, from Edgar Allan Poe to Christopher Fowler, with contributions from leading horror writers, including Stephen King, George Langelaan and Neil Gaiman. The collection includes the stories behind seminal body horror movies, John Carpenter's The Thing, David Cronenberg's The Fly and Stuart Gordon's Re-Animator.

Drawing from horror visionaries such as Clive Barker, David Cronenberg, and Mark Powell, including introspective analysis of films such as 'Tusk,' 'The Fly,' 'Hellraiser,' and 'Eat,' The Body Horror Book is a non-fiction exploration of the monstrous aspect of the human form.By exploring the literary trope of the carnival and the grotesque, and how the state of cultural and political affairs dictate the monsters created within fiction and film, The body Horror Book is designed to educate, terrify, intrigue, and beguile, if you dare to enter the rabbit hole...."Insightful and downright entertaining, e Body Horror Book pierces the tenuous membrane between fiction and reality, exposing the fears we all have in common ... the horrors inflicted on the human body."- Bob Pastorella, reviewer at www.thisishorror.co.uk"If you only have time to read one book... make sure it's this book."- Brendon Meynell, President. Australasian Horror Writers Association Inc."Fascinating and accessible, the Body Horror Book is a strikingly diverse exploration of horror that is interested not simply in getting under your skin, but also in finding out just what you've got hiding under there."- William Tea, Ginger Nuts Of Horror '...a solid and thought-provoking production.'- Tabula Rassa Mag

Trigger Warning; a phrase that informs the reader that what they are about to read is going to be upsetting. Body Horror; torture, transformation, disfigurement. Prepare for the most upsetting, gruesome and unwholesome stories dredged from my minds of today's most promising horror writers. Stories where flesh sloughs off into heaping piles, where tongues leaking puss lick at torn wounds in lust, stories where parasites are the least of anyone's worries. Prepare for tales that made our editors sick and reviewers cringe, but as you read, remember: You've been warned.

How will the King of Vampires adapt to the social and technological changes brought by the twenty-first century? Could the Count's condition be cured by modern medicine? How does the mythology perpetuated by literature and movies affect the existence of a real bloodsucker? What if Dracula found himself ruler of a world controlled by vampires? Or perhaps political and ecological catastrophe will result in the Count's final destruction? This tribute to the world's greatest vampire collects together more than 200,000 words of Dracula fiction by masters of dark fantasy such as: Hugh B. Cave, R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Basil Copper, John Gordon, Brian Hodge, Nancy Holder, Nancy Kilpatrick, Roberta Lannes, Thomas Ligotti, Paul J. McAuley, Nicholas Royle, Guy N. Smith and many more. It also includes a brand new story from Charlaine Harris.

Bringing together the finest names in comic book horror, this volume features nearly 50 comics that caused a furor in the US and sparked legislation to crack down on explicit horror—from the 1940s to the 21st century. Includes names like Steve Niles, Pete Von Sholly, Michael Kaluta, Mike Ploog, Rudy Palais, Rand Holmes, Vincent Locke, Frank Brunner, and many more. Reproduced in black and white for this brand-new collection.

Bestselling editor Ellen Datlow (Darkness, Lovecraft's Monsters) presents body horror at its most wide-ranging and shocking best. Discover twenty-nine intricate, twisted tales of the human body, soul, and psyche, as told by storytelling legends including Carmen Maria Machado, Richard Kadrey, Seanan McGuire, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nathan Ballingrud, Tananarive Due, Cassandra Khaw, Christopher Fowler, and many more.

Sex scandals, some historical but many contemporary, involving political figures, celebrities, movie stars, sports stars, musicians and artists, from Julius Caesar's affair with Cleopatra, which scandalized Rome and may have contributed to his murder, to what exactly IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn did or didn't get up to in that New York hotel room. England's Edward II was put to death by having a red-hot poker shoved up 'those parts in which he had been wont to make his vicious pleasures' and James Dean was known as 'the human ashtray' for the pleasure he took in having cigarettes stubbed out on his body, but from Silvio Berlusconi to Tiger Woods, many have been more focused on pleasure than pain. Even Barack Obama gets a look in - did he have an affair with Vera Baker?

Twenty-seven fantasy tales from Neil Gaiman to George R. R. Martin, plus many more, are collected in this anthology of speculative fiction. The renowned storytellers assembled here will challenge our concept of good and evil and provide us with new ways of seeing right and wrong: even angels can fall and demons will strive for redemption.