Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
Night Shade Books (2006), Hardcover
Description
A guide to concocted diseases, designed and illustrated by John Coulthart. This book features an anthology of slightly morbid, darkly humorous ailments and prognosis by Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Gahan Wilson, Brian Stableford, and Michael Bishop.
User reviews
LibraryThing member shanlon
I love the idea of this book a lot more than I love the book itself. As with any anthology, some parts are better than others, but any part of it can provide a few moments amusement. As a book for dipping into, Guide is wonderful. And there really are some storming ideas in here, as long as you are
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willing to embrace its terrible oddness. Show Less
LibraryThing member PghDragonMan
Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases is not the sort of book that one sits down and reads in a continuous fashion. It is best read in small doses, and is most effective if read while seated on that special chair we all favor for such reading material. In fact,
This affliction is caused by the reader absorbing too many of the chronic contagious catarrhs chronicled by the medical staff in the preparation of the Guide. Obvious symptoms of persons so infected will include an extreme fascination with medical literature pertaining to obscure diseases and the ability to find them rather commonplace and in abundance, to find such diseases on a regular basis and, failing that, treat every subtle rash, congestion and malady as a newly discovered pox that threatens the very existence of mankind. In more advanced cases, the sufferer of Thackery’s Syndrome will have adopted a pseudo-Victorian dialect with overtones of having a quasi-medical background and pronounced use of arcane linguistic phraseology, although it is only in rare cases, that they actually sound like a duck.
Doctors Jeff VanderMeer, Mark Roberts, Neil Gamin and the rest of the contributing staff are to be highly complimented for this collection. Without their collected knowledge, I would have never realized what maladies I am capable of suffer from. Four stars and my highest compliments.
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there should be a warning to the effect that if too much is read at one time, the reader may contract Lambsheadadosis, or what is also commonly known as Thakery’s Syndrome.This affliction is caused by the reader absorbing too many of the chronic contagious catarrhs chronicled by the medical staff in the preparation of the Guide. Obvious symptoms of persons so infected will include an extreme fascination with medical literature pertaining to obscure diseases and the ability to find them rather commonplace and in abundance, to find such diseases on a regular basis and, failing that, treat every subtle rash, congestion and malady as a newly discovered pox that threatens the very existence of mankind. In more advanced cases, the sufferer of Thackery’s Syndrome will have adopted a pseudo-Victorian dialect with overtones of having a quasi-medical background and pronounced use of arcane linguistic phraseology, although it is only in rare cases, that they actually sound like a duck.
Doctors Jeff VanderMeer, Mark Roberts, Neil Gamin and the rest of the contributing staff are to be highly complimented for this collection. Without their collected knowledge, I would have never realized what maladies I am capable of suffer from. Four stars and my highest compliments.
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LibraryThing member selfnoise
An extensive collection of fictional diseases and disorders, each one written by a different author. Some are whimsical, others horrific. Most are a little bit of both. An excellent book to pick up on a rainy afternoon, and it's worth owning just to see the puzzlement on guest's faces as they try
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to figure out just what it is. Show Less
LibraryThing member myfanwy
Because of my natural inclination towards interesting diseases, my brother passed on to me the Thackery Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. Now one should note that this is a fake medical guide. Each diseases (written by an absurdly large collection of great fiction authors
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including Gaiman, Mieville, Moore and others) is given two or three pages to describe symptoms, a case history, epidemiology. The best are the diseases that are contagious simply by reading about them or touching the pages (Printer's Evil). Some are just creepy (Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation which is transmitted by enraging onlookers who then proceed to dismember a victim), and some are simply too close to a real disease (Inverted Drowning Syndrome in which one liquefies is just a little to close to cholera for my tastes). Strangely it satisfied my sick and twisted predilection for horror/fantasy mixed with just the right element of victorianism, epidemiology, and fake scientific jargon. A delight for wierd people like me. Show Less
LibraryThing member GingerbreadMan
From the first time I heard about this book and it’s contributors (Ford, VanderMeer, Gaiman, Bishop, Moore, to name but a few) I knew I had to get my hands on it. Reading China Miéville’s brilliant entry on Buscard’s Murrain (a disease that infects anyone who pronounces it’s true name
Yes, my expectations were kind of through the roof with this one, I’m afraid.
Basically, what the Guide is about is giving the assignment to a horde of writers of speculative fiction to invent imaginary diseases, and a version of the world (with a number of key works, rogue scientists, alliances and enemies) to place them in. The result is possibly one of the weirdest books I’ve read in long time. And there IS brilliance in here. Quite a bit of it, actually. Among the highlights for me are Alan Moore’s Fuseli’s disease (dealing with an infection that takes place entirely in dreams), Lance Olsen’s CHRUDS (in which a patient’s memories are moving further and further back in time) and Shelly Jackson’s Burroughsesque description of the tiny humanoid parasites the Putti – who can be dried and smoked…
But for the last third or so, a definite case of over-satuation occurs for me, and as I’m finishing the book up, with a fictive history of the Guide itself and twelve pages of absurd biographical data, I’m sad to say I’m duty reading a little bit.
So, a tricky one for me to rate, this. Of course, the many short descriptions of the diseases were always going to be an uneven ride, and especially a few sexual ailments of the “arf arf” variety drag the book down a bit. But mostly it’s the feeling of back heaviness and repetition that leave me feeling slightly, slightly disappointed. Then again, I don’t think this book was intended to be read cover to cover as I have. As a book to visit in snippets (say, in the bathroom), leafing back and forth as you want, I would very much recommend it – if you have the stomach for some serious weirdness, that is.
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correctly) in his collection Looking for Jake strengthened my resolve. And once I finally got it, it was in the form of a nice, heavy trade paperback with a beautifully tacky design. I decided to save it for summer.Yes, my expectations were kind of through the roof with this one, I’m afraid.
Basically, what the Guide is about is giving the assignment to a horde of writers of speculative fiction to invent imaginary diseases, and a version of the world (with a number of key works, rogue scientists, alliances and enemies) to place them in. The result is possibly one of the weirdest books I’ve read in long time. And there IS brilliance in here. Quite a bit of it, actually. Among the highlights for me are Alan Moore’s Fuseli’s disease (dealing with an infection that takes place entirely in dreams), Lance Olsen’s CHRUDS (in which a patient’s memories are moving further and further back in time) and Shelly Jackson’s Burroughsesque description of the tiny humanoid parasites the Putti – who can be dried and smoked…
But for the last third or so, a definite case of over-satuation occurs for me, and as I’m finishing the book up, with a fictive history of the Guide itself and twelve pages of absurd biographical data, I’m sad to say I’m duty reading a little bit.
So, a tricky one for me to rate, this. Of course, the many short descriptions of the diseases were always going to be an uneven ride, and especially a few sexual ailments of the “arf arf” variety drag the book down a bit. But mostly it’s the feeling of back heaviness and repetition that leave me feeling slightly, slightly disappointed. Then again, I don’t think this book was intended to be read cover to cover as I have. As a book to visit in snippets (say, in the bathroom), leafing back and forth as you want, I would very much recommend it – if you have the stomach for some serious weirdness, that is.
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LibraryThing member Czrbr
Book Description: San Francisco: Nightshade Book, 2003. First Edition. Hardcover. Fine, new, crisp, unread and immaculate first printing
LibraryThing member Katyas
Book Info: Genre: Medical Guide Satire/Speculative fiction shorts
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: Anyone who likes a laugh
My Thoughts: If you want to know what sort of lunacy to expect from this book, here is just a tiny taste.
Discussing Ballistic Organ Syndrome: “In rare cases, the
Letter to Dr. Wexler, of whom the writers are not fond: “Dear Sir: Kindly send your anthrax-soaked missives elsewhere. And if you want to get serious about contagious letters, then invest in some smallpox like a normal person.” [pg. 286]
There are also a couple cookbooks mentioned that sound interesting: “French Cuisine with Codeine” and “Mousses with Morphine”.
I will point out that I would not say this book is lavishly illustrated. Each entry generally has only a single illustration; sometimes there is a second at the end of the section. Now, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, which I'll be reading and reviewing next, does have a lot of pictures. But this one, not so much.
Still, if you like a laugh, you'll enjoy the clever way each author creates a “character” for themselves, and the creative uses of real information mixed with their own creations that fill this satirical book. I enjoyed it a lot.
Disclosure: I bought this book for myself. All opinions are my own.
Synopsis: “Imagine if Monty Python wrote the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, and you sort of get the idea. Afraid you’re afflicted with an unknown malady? Finally you have a place to turn!” —Book Sense
You hold in your hands the most complete and official guide to imaginary ailments ever assembled—each disease carefully documented by the most stellar collection of speculative fiction writers ever to play doctor. Detailed within for your reading and diagnostic pleasure are the frightening, ridiculous, and downright absurdly hilarious symptoms, histories, and possible cures to all the ills human flesh isn’t heir to, including Ballistic Organ Disease, Delusions of Universal Grandeur, and Reverse Pinocchio Syndrome.
Lavishly illustrated with cunning examples of everything that can’t go wrong with you, the Lambshead Guide provides a healthy dose of good humor and relief for hypochondriacs, pessimists, and lovers of imaginative fiction everywhere. Even if you don’t have Pentzler’s Lubriciousness or Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation, the cure for whatever seriousness may ail you is in this remarkable collection.
Reading Level: Adult
Recommended for: Anyone who likes a laugh
My Thoughts: If you want to know what sort of lunacy to expect from this book, here is just a tiny taste.
Discussing Ballistic Organ Syndrome: “In rare cases, the
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Ballistitis virus infects the patient's entire body. Eventually, some event causes one or more cells to rupture, after which the patient's body is disrupted in an explosive ejection of all bodily organs. This manifestation of the syndrome frequently occasions the death of the patient; at best, the loss of all bodily organs will cause considerable inconvenience and distress (as set out in Doctor Buckhead Mudthumper's Encyclopedia of Forgotten Oriental Diseases).” [pg. 4]Letter to Dr. Wexler, of whom the writers are not fond: “Dear Sir: Kindly send your anthrax-soaked missives elsewhere. And if you want to get serious about contagious letters, then invest in some smallpox like a normal person.” [pg. 286]
There are also a couple cookbooks mentioned that sound interesting: “French Cuisine with Codeine” and “Mousses with Morphine”.
I will point out that I would not say this book is lavishly illustrated. Each entry generally has only a single illustration; sometimes there is a second at the end of the section. Now, The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, which I'll be reading and reviewing next, does have a lot of pictures. But this one, not so much.
Still, if you like a laugh, you'll enjoy the clever way each author creates a “character” for themselves, and the creative uses of real information mixed with their own creations that fill this satirical book. I enjoyed it a lot.
Disclosure: I bought this book for myself. All opinions are my own.
Synopsis: “Imagine if Monty Python wrote the Mayo Clinic Family Health Book, and you sort of get the idea. Afraid you’re afflicted with an unknown malady? Finally you have a place to turn!” —Book Sense
You hold in your hands the most complete and official guide to imaginary ailments ever assembled—each disease carefully documented by the most stellar collection of speculative fiction writers ever to play doctor. Detailed within for your reading and diagnostic pleasure are the frightening, ridiculous, and downright absurdly hilarious symptoms, histories, and possible cures to all the ills human flesh isn’t heir to, including Ballistic Organ Disease, Delusions of Universal Grandeur, and Reverse Pinocchio Syndrome.
Lavishly illustrated with cunning examples of everything that can’t go wrong with you, the Lambshead Guide provides a healthy dose of good humor and relief for hypochondriacs, pessimists, and lovers of imaginative fiction everywhere. Even if you don’t have Pentzler’s Lubriciousness or Tian Shan-Gobi Assimilation, the cure for whatever seriousness may ail you is in this remarkable collection.
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LibraryThing member BillieBook
This collection is probably only a four-star collection in truth, but I have a thing for books about diseases--be they real or imaginary--so it got a bonus star.
LibraryThing member AltheaAnn
A very strange volume… allegedly a guide, as the title states, to bizarre diseases, this book has contributions from some of the top names in the business (Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, China Mieville, Kage Baker, etc), but the entries aren’t really (quite) stories…
Each author has made up a
Entertaining, but a bit repetitive after a while, since there’s no connection between segments, or narrative.
Each author has made up a
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disease, syndrome or ailment, and prepared a short (most are 2-4 pages) entry regarding this ailment, its history and symptoms. The imaginary diseases range from the funny to the truly disturbing and grotesque. Although it purports to be a ‘current’ edition, the aesthetics of the book are definitely 19th-century, and inspiration (and illustrations) are definitely taken from the medical texts of that time.Entertaining, but a bit repetitive after a while, since there’s no connection between segments, or narrative.
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LibraryThing member Mrs_McGreevy
Purporting to be the latest edition of a long-standing medical guide, Lambshead is, in reality, an anthology featuring several of today's best fantasists working at the top of their game. Some entries are humorous, others are serious, but all are enjoyable. There's a sense of fun to this book
Editors VanderMeer and Roberts have assembled a stellar crew of cohorts, and everyone is clearly on the same page. The internal references in the various entries to Dr. Lambshead’s personal history or to a similar reference book by one Dr. Buckhead Mudthumper are remarkably consistent and lend just the right veneer of verisimilitude.
Parody and satire are difficult to get just right -- if the tone isn’t perfect, the piece loses its punch and the humor is lost. What’s terrific about the Guide is a palpable sense of just how much fun the authors and editors were having writing these pieces and putting them together. It could easily have turned into a giant in-joke, or worse, a cliquish “if you were one of us, you’d be howling right now” affair. Miraculously, it’s neither. Instead it’s a fun and funny treat.
I mean, where else are you going to find writers like Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Kage Baker, and China Mieville (not to mention Steve Aylett, Rikki Ducornet, Paul Di Filippo, Cory Doctorow, and about 30 others) all tied up in one tasty package? Where else are you going to find a description of afflictions like Ballistic Organ Syndrome, described as “a sudden, explosive discharge of one or more bodily organs at high velocity?” Or Fuseli’s Disease, where the contagion (which is highly infectious) occurs only in the sufferer’s dreams? Or Monochomitis, which is characterized by “the stark raving abhorrence of color, often accompanied by an intense longing for the way things used to be?”
And Thackery offers up even more treats for the booklover. It’s a gorgeous book. John Coulthart’s cover art is both attractive and appropriate, consisting of a montage of old medical charts and illustrations, medical instruments, and a number of previous covers for past editions of the guide. This meticulous attention to detail is carried through in the internal design and illustrations. Everything is well done, right down to the fabulous endpapers. Even without the cover, the book is gorgeous, and the symbol on the front is a wonderful quiet joke for the conscientious reader.
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide To Eccentric and Discredited Diseases is a shining example of what an anthology should be: a seamless collaboration of inventive minds which comes together in a whole that is significantly greater than it’s individual parts. The fact that it’s also a beautiful piece of art and funny as hell is just gravy.
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that's quite...well...infectious.Editors VanderMeer and Roberts have assembled a stellar crew of cohorts, and everyone is clearly on the same page. The internal references in the various entries to Dr. Lambshead’s personal history or to a similar reference book by one Dr. Buckhead Mudthumper are remarkably consistent and lend just the right veneer of verisimilitude.
Parody and satire are difficult to get just right -- if the tone isn’t perfect, the piece loses its punch and the humor is lost. What’s terrific about the Guide is a palpable sense of just how much fun the authors and editors were having writing these pieces and putting them together. It could easily have turned into a giant in-joke, or worse, a cliquish “if you were one of us, you’d be howling right now” affair. Miraculously, it’s neither. Instead it’s a fun and funny treat.
I mean, where else are you going to find writers like Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Kage Baker, and China Mieville (not to mention Steve Aylett, Rikki Ducornet, Paul Di Filippo, Cory Doctorow, and about 30 others) all tied up in one tasty package? Where else are you going to find a description of afflictions like Ballistic Organ Syndrome, described as “a sudden, explosive discharge of one or more bodily organs at high velocity?” Or Fuseli’s Disease, where the contagion (which is highly infectious) occurs only in the sufferer’s dreams? Or Monochomitis, which is characterized by “the stark raving abhorrence of color, often accompanied by an intense longing for the way things used to be?”
And Thackery offers up even more treats for the booklover. It’s a gorgeous book. John Coulthart’s cover art is both attractive and appropriate, consisting of a montage of old medical charts and illustrations, medical instruments, and a number of previous covers for past editions of the guide. This meticulous attention to detail is carried through in the internal design and illustrations. Everything is well done, right down to the fabulous endpapers. Even without the cover, the book is gorgeous, and the symbol on the front is a wonderful quiet joke for the conscientious reader.
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide To Eccentric and Discredited Diseases is a shining example of what an anthology should be: a seamless collaboration of inventive minds which comes together in a whole that is significantly greater than it’s individual parts. The fact that it’s also a beautiful piece of art and funny as hell is just gravy.
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LibraryThing member ragwaine
This was a lot of fun. From the entries to the historical review, to the notes on each author. By the time you get to the end you feel like Dr. Gaiman and Dr. Mieville and all the others actually exist (and I guess they do, kinda), but especially Dr. Lambshead. He becomes a legendary figure like
Makes a great bathroom book because the entries are short (mostly). I was sad that half of the pages dis-attached from the binding after reading it for a week or two, hopefully that wasn't something common.
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Allan Quartermaine or Captain Nemo.Makes a great bathroom book because the entries are short (mostly). I was sad that half of the pages dis-attached from the binding after reading it for a week or two, hopefully that wasn't something common.
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LibraryThing member rickklaw
This book is exactly what the title suggests with contributions from Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, China Miéville, Jeffrey Ford, Kage Baker and many others. Where else could you read about post-traumatic placebosis, female hyper-orgasmic epilepsy, or vestigial elongation of the caudal
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vertebrae? Show Less
LibraryThing member cindywho
I got about halfway through and finally asked myself if I was enjoying this book. Sadly - not really, so back to the library it goes... It was just a little too creepy to read the short bits over breakfast - I had expected short stories, but these are encyclopedia entries.
LibraryThing member bragan
The idea behind this is delightfully, deliciously weird. It's a compendium of surreal and impossible diseases, a publishing tradition supposedly started by the colorful (and very fictional) Dr. Thackery T. Lambshead, some of whose exploits are described here, as well. It's got some very talented
Rating: 3/5, and that may be rating it half a star too high, honestly, just because I really did love the concept and really, really wanted to like the results.
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contributors, and you sort of have to admire everybody's deadpan commitment to the gimmick, but overall it's just so much better in concept than in execution. Some of the individual entries are pretty cool, yes, but for the most part it's more of an interesting curiosity than something that's genuinely fun to read, especially as after a while many of the entries start to feel fairly similar. (I mean, it's not that "this is a disease that's transmitted through language, and oh no, by virtue of having read these words, you, dear reader, might now be infected too!" isn't a nice, creepy idea, but it's the kind of nice, creepy idea that immediately suggests itself to multiple people, apparently.) And there's a long section at the end about how these bizarre diseases secretly shaped 20th century history or something, which uses the real deaths of real people, and various tragedies and horrors of recent history, in a way that frankly seems in rather poor taste.Rating: 3/5, and that may be rating it half a star too high, honestly, just because I really did love the concept and really, really wanted to like the results.
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Awards
Hugo Award (Nominee — 2004)
World Fantasy Award (Nominee — Anthology — 2004)
British Fantasy Award (Nominee — Anthology — 2005)
SF Site Editor's Choice (2003)
International Horror Guild Award (Nominee — Anthology — 2003)
Language
Original publication date
2003-10
2003-12-09
Physical description
320 p.; 9.36 inches
ISBN
1892389541 / 9781892389541