Zombies!: An Illustrated History of the Undead by Jovanka Vuckovic (St. Martin’s Press) is a marvelously entertaining overview of the phenomenon, lavishly illustrated with movie stills, movie posters, and book covers. The book starts with the origins of the zombie and mentions zombies in books, graphic novels, and video games, and on film and television and record albums.
V is for Vampire by Adam-Troy Castro, illustrated by Johnny Atomic (HarperCollins) is a sardonic alphabet including X: X Marks the Spot Between the Second and Third Shirt Button (for hitting the vampiric heart). Clever and fun.
The Authentic Animaclass="underline" Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy by Dave Madden (St. Martin’s Press) begins his breezily entertaining book with the story of how the father of modern taxidermy, Carl Akeley, came to his calling — by stuffing a neighbor’s dead canary in 1876. Akeley’s obsession led to his crowning achievement: The Akeley Hall of African Mammals at the American Museum of Natural History.
Jerad Walters’ Centipede Press has been producing fine, (mostly) expensive limited editions since 2001, with Stigmata: An Anthology of Writing and Art its first book. Oversized and gorgeously produced, the book made a splash in the field and was nominated for the World Fantasy Award. Since then, the press has published books of film criticism on Nosferatu, Carrie, The Exorcist, and Videodrome, reissues of classic novels such as King’s Salem’s Lot, Shelley’s Frankenstein, and Wolfe’s The Shadow of the Torturer, A Lovecraft Retrospective: Artists Inspired by H. P. Lovecraft and Knowing Darkness: Artists Inspired by Stephen King plus collections by Wilum Pugmire and Reggie Oliver.
Swallow: Foreign Bodies, Their Ingestion, Inspiration, and the Curious Doctor Who Extracted Them by Mary Cappello (The New Press) is a marvelous ode to Philadelphia’s Mutter Museum and particularly Chevalier Jackson’s cabinet housing the “foreign body” collection. The collection was created by Jackson (who died in 1958) and his colleagues who extracted non-surgically more than two thousand foreign objects from people’s airways and stomachs and then preserved them for the edification of the public. The categories are broken down into thirteen categories including hardware, pins and needles, toys, buttons, and surgical objects. The mind boggles. The book is lovingly and beautifully written — it’s about Jackson himself as much as his life’s work. The book is as riveting as any fiction and is for anyone interested in the uncanny.
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer (HarperCollins) is a charming, sometimes creepy compendium of entries and stories about fictional artifacts and exhibits, with contributions by an array of talented writers and illustrators including Holly Black, Helen Oyeyemi, Alan Moore, Ted Chiang, J. K. Potter, Brian Evenson, John Coulthart, Ted Chiang, Caitlín R. Kiernan, and many others. This delightful book would make the perfect gift at any time of the year.
Floating Worlds: The Letters of Edward Gorey and Peter F. Neumeyer (Pomegranate) is a memoir of the friendship between Gorey and Neumeyer told through their correspondence between 1968–1971. The two collaborated on a number of children’s books. The book is edited by Neumeyer, who also provides the introduction plus photos and reproductions of Gorey’s illustrated envelopes.
Film Noir: The Encyclopedia edited by Alain Silver, Elizabeth Ward, James Ursini, and Robert Porifio (Overlook Duckworth) is an update of a book originally published in the early 1980s. The first two-thirds of the book covers the classic period, the last third the “neo noir period” including such movies as Bladerunner, Chinatown, The Last Seduction, The Silence of the Lambs, and Sin City. Noir fans will enjoy thumbing through the entries.
Peter Pauper Press brought out The Art of War for Zombies: Ancient Secrets of World Domination Apocalypse Edition by Sun-Tzumbie is a cute little pocket guide with illustrations. Also, A Zombie’s Guide to the Holidays by Ruth Cullen, which is even smaller and is a perfect stocking stuffer for the littlest zombie fan in your life.
Spectrum 18: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art, edited by Cathy Fenner and Arnie Fenner (Underwood Books), covers the year 2010 and was juried by six artists and an editor. The book continues to be the showcase for the best in genre art — the sheer variety of style and tone and media and subject matter is impressive. Ralph McQuarrie was honored with the Grand Master Award. Arnie Fenner provides his usual thorough overview of the political and cultural year plus a necrology. A magnificent book to thumb through and enjoy. It’s for anyone interested in art of the fantastic, dark or light.
THE LITTLE GREEN GOD OF AGONY
Stephen King
“I WAS IN AN ACCIDENT,” Newsome said.
Katherine MacDonald, sitting beside the bed and attaching one of the four TENS units to his scrawny thigh just below the basketball shorts he now always wore, did not look up. Her face was carefully blank. She was a piece of human furniture in this big house — in this big bedroom where she now spent most of her working life — and that was the way she liked it. Attracting Mr. Newsome’s attention was usually a bad idea, as any of his employees knew. But her thoughts ran on, just the same. Now you tell them that you actually caused the accident. Because you think taking responsibility makes you look like a hero.
“Actually,” Newsome said, “I caused the accident. Not so tight, Kat, please.”
She could have pointed out, as she did at the start, that the TENS lost their efficacy if they weren’t tight to the outraged nerves they were supposed to soothe, but she was a fast learner. She loosened the Velcro strap a little, thinking: The pilot told you there were thunderstorms in the Omaha area.
“The pilot told me there were thunderstorms in the area,” Newsome continued. The two men listened closely. Jensen had heard it all before, of course, but you always listened closely when the man doing the talking was the sixth-richest man not just in America but in the world. Three of the other five mega-rich guys were dark-complected fellows who wore robes and drove places in armoured Mercedes-Benzes.
She thought: But I told him it was imperative that I make that meeting.
“But I told him it was imperative that I make that meeting,” Newsome carried on.
The man sitting next to Newsome’s personal assistant was the one who interested her — in an anthropological sort of way. His name was Rideout. He was tall and very thin, maybe sixty, wearing plain grey pants and a white shirt buttoned all the way to his scrawny neck, which was red with overshaving. Kat supposed he’d wanted to get a close one before meeting the sixth-richest man in the world. Beneath his chair was the only item he’d carried into this meeting, a long black lunchbox with a curved top meant to hold a Thermos. A workingman’s lunchbox, although what he claimed to be was a minister. So far Rideout hadn’t said a word, but she didn’t need her ears to know what he was. The whiff of charlatan was strong about him. In fifteen years as a nurse specialising in pain patients, she had met her share. At least this one wasn’t wearing any crystals.