The book's conceit is that Lambshead has died and a cabinet of "artifacts, curios, and wonders" was discovered in his estate. Famous authors (abetted by artists) relate vignettes and short-stories about these items. For examplle, Cherie Priest details "the clockroach," and China Mieville reveals the "Pulvadmonitor" (and what it has to do with the British Dental Assocation Museum). Other contributors include Michael Moorcock, Ted Chiang, Alan Moore, Caitlin Kiernan, and Tad Williams.
Some of my favorites are the shorter entries in "A Brief Catalog of Items." The names alone are evocative in many cases: "Bullet Menagerie," "The Decanter of Everlasting Sadness," "Mellified Alien," and "The Night Quilt, American."
Plenty of inspiration to be had. Check it out.
6 comments:
Sounds like a good read for when curiosity gets the better of me.
Heh. Nice. :)
I got my copy signed by Ann and Jeff when they were in town for a reading, but I haven't had time to dip into it yet.
We've got this book at my libary & I think I'll be checking it out this week! Thanks for making me aware of this book Trey! Nice work
@Jeremy - It's good stuff, though the sections are longer than in the diseases volume, so it's less amenable to browsing.
@Neeldes - Check it out.
Just picked up a copy of this yesterday in a charity shop.
Two words: Bear Gun!
This is a book of weird, absurd and surreal items.
So I can see using this for games and settings like Over the Edge, Ultraviolet Grasslands, and most especially the crowdsourced hexcrawl Weird Wayfaring which is fully of weird, anachronistic items anyway.
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