Untitled Booklet—Consists of six bound pages obtained by Dr. Lambshead from a Prague antiquarian bookshop in January 1948, one month before the Czechoslovak coup d’état, donated to him for safekeeping. The booklet appeared to contain a short story in a Central Moravian Czech dialect. Dr. Lambshead, however, was assured the booklet was not what it appeared to be, but an insect able, through mimicry, to imitate any inorganic object placed within a short distance (including its smell). The creature was discovered in one of the “Stránska Skála” Upper Paleolithic caves in the northern outskirts of Brno not long after Professor Svoboda’s archaeological excavations in the summer of 1946. Despite attempting escape many times, the insect was finally secured amongst a collection of obscure short stories by forgotten Czechoslovak writers of early twentieth-century Weird Fiction. The insect (booklet) is presumed dead. (Tony Mileman)
Tartarus Press edition of Jean Lorrain’s Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker. In this instance, the insect documented by Tony Mileman had insinuated itself under the dust jacket and wrapped itself around the pages, replacing the boards and simulating a cloth binding.
Von Slatt Harmonization Device—A system and method for cultural transmission scrambling, patent application number 15/603976. Assignee: Harmonization Incorporated. Summary of the Invention from the patent application: “Very soon, science will confirm that cultural information passes from one entity to another using devices accessed psionically via instructional facilities. It is the object of this device to locate, demodulate, and scramble cultural transmissions passing between hostile social formations. This novel device allows operators to inject false vernacular and traditions into cultural signals as they pass between entities. It can also hijack signals carrying historical intelligence by providing a stronger signal on the same frequency.” (Annalee Newitz)
Wax Phonograph Cylinder, Unlabeled—Object appears to be over a century old, but is still functional. When played, the sound of a percussive instrument, possibly a large tubular drum, can be heard for approximately the first forty seconds of recording time. During this sound, the murmurings of a man’s voice become interpolated with the beat. The syllables are indistinguishable, but as the drumbeat continues, the voice rises until it becomes a series of shouted plosives. At around the four-minute mark, both sounds stop completely and are replaced by a series of high-pitched cries, from which can be gleaned the only coherent word of the entire piece: “Alley-Caster,” or perhaps “Snally-Gaster.” The final sound heard on the recording is an extremely loud screeching whistle, which sounds reptilian in origin. An attached note indicates that Dr. Lambshead acquired the object from a motel-room drawer in Braddock Heights, Maryland. (Michael J. Larson)
Artist and Author Notes
An unprecedented panoramic view of the East End of Lambshead’s cabinet, taken surreptitiously by photographer Bruce Ecker in 1999.
Story Contributors
Kelly Barnhill has had fiction published in Fantasy, Weird Tales, Clockwork Phoenix, and many other publications. Her first novel, The Mostly True Story of Jack—a lyrical fantasy for middle-grade readers—is set for a 2011 release by Little, Brown.
Holly Black is a best-selling author of contemporary fantasy novels for teens and children, including The Spiderwick Chronicles and the Curse Workers series.
S. J. Chambers has had fiction and nonfiction published by Fantasy, the Baltimore Sun’s Read Street Blog, Yankee Pot Roast, and Tor.com. Her most recent projects include The Steampunk Bible, a coffee-table book coauthored with Jeff VanderMeer.
Stepan Chapman is the author of The Troika, which won the Philip K. Dick Award. His short fiction can be found in magazines and anthologies such as Analog, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, Leviathan, Polyphony, and Album Zutique.
Ted Chiang is a multiple award–winning short story writer. His work has won the Nebula, the Hugo, the Locus Award, and others. His latest book is the novella The Lifecycle of Software Objects, published by Subterranean Press in 2010.
Michael Cisco’s novels include The Divinity Student, The Traitor, and, most recently, The Narrator. His stories have appeared in Leviathan 3, Leviathan 4, Lovecraft Unbound, and many other anthologies.
Gio Clairval is an Italian-born speculative fiction writer who commutes between Paris and Lake Como. Several of her translations of iconic stories will appear in The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Fictions from Atlantic in 2011.
Amal El-Mohtar is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Cornwall, England. Her poetry has won the Rhysling Award, and her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Weird Tales, Cabinet des Fées, and Shimmer. She also coedits Goblin Fruit, an online quarterly of fantastical poetry.
Brian Evenson is the author of nine books, most recently the novel Last Days and the short story collection Fugue State. He directs Brown University’s Creative Writing program.
Minister Faust is an Edmontonian writer, high school English teacher, union delegate, broadcaster, community activist, and novelist. His latest book is titled From the Notebooks of Doctor Brain and he is a past finalist for the Philip K. Dick Award.
Jeffrey Ford lives in South Jersey and is a multiple World Fantasy Award winner. His latest novel is The Shadow Year, and his latest collection of stories is The Drowned Life (both from HarperCollins).
Lev Grossman is a journalist for Time magazine and novelist living in New York City. His latest book is The Magicians, and the sequel is expected in 2011.
Will Hindmarch is a writer and graphic designer, with work published in various books, games, and magazines. Some of his work has appeared in The Escapist, Atlanta magazine, Geek Monthly, and Everywhere.
N. K. Jemisin is a Brooklyn-based author. Her short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld, Baen’s Universe, Strange Horizons, Postscripts, Weird Tales, and many others. Her first two novels, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and its sequel, The Broken Kingdoms, have been published by Orbit Books.
Caitlín R. Kiernan was born in Ireland, raised in the southeastern United States, and now lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Her short fiction has been collected in several volumes, most recently A Is for Alien, and she’s published eight novels, including Daughter of Hounds and The Red Tree.
Mur Lafferty is a writer, podcaster, and blogger. She has written for various RPGs, Tor.com, Scrybe Press, Murky Depths, and Hub Magazine.
Jay Lake lives in Portand, Oregon, where he writes, edits, and generally misbehaves. His latest novels are Green and Madness of Flowers.
China Miéville lives and works in London. He is three-time winner of the prestigious Arthur C. Clarke Award. His novel The City & The City recently won the British Science Fiction Award, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the World Fantasy Award, and the Hugo Award. In addition to fiction, he has also contributed his art to this book.
Michael Moorcock is an iconic figure in literature, having written in perhaps every genre as well as published such classics as Mother London. A multiple-award winner, he lives in Texas with his wife, Linda, and several cats.
Alan Moore is an English writer primarily known for his work in graphic novels. Some of his more well-known series include Watchmen, From Hell, V Is for Vendetta, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.
Reza Negarestani is an Iranian writer working in diverse fields of contemporary theory, ancient Greek and contemporary philosophy, and politics. His latest novel is Cyclonopedia: Complicities with Anonymous Materials.
Garth Nix is a best-selling, multiple award–winning Australian writer best known for his young adult fantasy novels. He has also written for RPGs and magazines and journals. His latest book is Lord Sunday.
Naomi Novik is a New York Times best-selling writer. She was awarded the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 2007. Her latest book is Tongues of Serpents.
Helen Oyeyemi is a Nigerian writer living in the United Kingdom. Her latest novel, White Is for Witching, was nominated for the Shirley Jackson award.
Cherie Priest is the author of seven novels pub
lished by Tor and Subterranean Press, including the Nebula Award nominee Boneshaker, Dreadful Skin, and the Eden Moore trilogy. Her short stories and nonfiction articles have appeared in such fine publications as Weird Tales, Subterranean Magazine, Publishers Weekly, and the Stoker-nominated anthology Aegri Somnia published by Apex.
Ekaterina Sedia has published three novels—The Secret History of Moscow, The Alchemy of Stone, and The House of Discarded Dreams. Her short stories have been published in Analog, Baen’s Universe, and Clarkesworld.
Rachel Swirsky has had short fiction appear in venues including Tor.com, Subterranean Magazine, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales, and the Konundrum Engine Literary Review. Her latest book, Through the Drowsy Dark, is a mini-collection of feminist poems and short stories, available from Aqueduct Press.
Carrie Vaughn is the author of the popular urban fantasy Kitty Norville series. She has published over forty short stories in magazines such as Weird Tales, Strange Horizons, Realms of Fantasy, and Asimov’s Science Fiction.
Tad Williams is a best-selling writer who lives in California. His latest book is Shadowheart, the fourth book in his Shadowmarch series.
Charles Yu is an American writer whose first novel, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe, has been added to many year’s best lists for 2010. His short fiction has been published in a number of magazines and literary journals, including Oxford American, The Gettysburg Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, Mississippi Review, and Alaska Quarterly Review.
Artists
Aeron Alfrey creates unique imagery inspired by strange fantasy worlds filled with monsters, magic, and death. His art has been published in numerous books and shown in galleries around the world.
Kristen Alvanson is an American artist based in Malaysia and Iran. She has participated in group/solo shows in New York, Tehran, London, Istanbul, Berlin, Belgium, and Vilnius, including a solo exhibition of her work at Azad Gallery (Tehran) and at the International Roaming Biennial of Tehran.
Greg Broadmore is a New Zealand illustrator, writer, and conceptual designer for Weta Workshop and has designed for the motion pictures District 9, King Kong, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Black Sheep, among many, many others.
John Coulthart is a world-recognized illustrator, graphic designer, and comic artist, who lives in Manchester, England. He has designed and provided art for several classic books, including The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases. Find more of his work at johncoulthart.com.
Scott Eagle is a professor of painting and drawing at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. His paintings have graced the covers of many books, including City of Saints and Madmen and Secret Life by Jeff VanderMeer. His illustrations have appeared in a number of national magazines.
Vladimir Gvozdariki, a Russian artist who also works under the moniker Gvozd (which means “Iron”), is known for his whimsical and mechanical illustrations and sculptures. His Web museum can be found at gvozdariki.ru.
Yishan Li is a professional manga artist living in Edinburgh, Scotland. She has been published internationally, including in China, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom. Her latest book is The Complete Shojo Art Kit.
Mike Mignola is an artist known for graphic novels such as Hellboy and The Amazing Screw-on Head. He was also the production designer for the Disney feature film Atlantis: The Lost Empire.
Jonathan Nix is an award-winning director, animator, artist, and musician. He lives in Sydney, Australia.
Eric Orchard is an award-winning illustrator and cartoonist living in Canada. He most recently illustrated the children’s book The Terrible, Horrible, Smelly Pirate. His work has been recognized in the Spectrum Annual of Fantastic Art and the Society of Illustrators annual exhibit.
James A. Owen is an American comic book artist, publisher, and writer. He is the author of the popular Chronicles of the Imaginarium Geographica series and the creator of the critically acclaimed Starchild graphic novel series. His most recent book is The Dragon’s Apprentice.
Ron Pippin’s artwork has been shown around the world in solo shows as well as group exhibitions. His art has also been seen in various movies and TV shows such as Spider-Man.
J. K. Potter is an iconic photographer known mostly for his work in the horror, science fiction, and fantasy world, as well as his album/CD covers. He has produced art for many book covers, including the recent Subterranean Press limited editions of Ebb Tide by James Blaylock and Last Call by Tim Powers.
Eric Schaller is an artist, writer, and scientist. His stories have appeared in Postscripts, New Genre, and Nemonymous, and his artwork in The White Buffalo Gazette, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and Jeff VanderMeer’s mosaic novel City of Saints and Madmen.
Ivica Stevanovic is a Serbian artist. He has won several prizes in the fields of design, illustrations, cartoons, and comics. His specialty is graphic novels and art book projects. His latest book is Katil (Bloodthirsty Man) and he also recently contributed to the anthology Steampunk Reloaded.
Jan Svankmajer is a famous Czech surrealist artist and filmmaker. His first feature film in 1987 was Alice, based on Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. His most recent film is the Czech comedy Surviving Life (2010), which he claims will be his last.
Sam Van Olffen is a French artist best known for his surreal depictions of steampunk and/or dieselpunk images. His work has been featured in many books as well as gallery exhibits around the world.
Myrtle von Damitz III is a painter living in New Orleans who sees her work as a form of storytelling. She has had numerous solo exhibits as well as group gallery showings around the country. She is the founder and curator of Babylon Lexicon, an annual exhibition of artists’ books and local independent presses.
Jake von Slatt is a steampunk contraptor and proprietor of the popular Web site The Steampunk Workshop (steampunkworkshop.com); he lives in Boston. He and his projects have been featured in Boing Boing, WIRED, Nature, Newsweek, and the New York Times.
Catalog Contributors
Hugh Alter is currently working on novels that you will recognize as award-winning best-sellers from the future. He is also working on retrieving coins from inside his couch. Charlie Jane Anders blogs at io9.com and organizes the Writers with Drinks reading series. Her work has also appeared at Tor.com and the McSweeney’s Joke Book of Book Jokes. Julie Andrews is a 2007 graduate of the Clarion Writers’ Workshop and is a member of both Broad Universe and The Outer Alliance. Christopher Begley is thirty and lives in Worcester, Massachusetts. This is his first published work. He wouldn’t call his writing Moore-ish or Gaiman-esque but will not stop others from doing so. Jayme Lynn Blaschke writes science fiction, fantasy, and related nonfiction. He has authored a book of genre-themed interviews, titled Voices of Vision: Creators of Science Fiction & Fantasy Speak. Nickolas Brienza is a Seattle resident; all further CV may be confidently extrapolated via the usual statistical methods. Tucker Cummings has been writing strange stories since the day she developed sufficient hand-eye coordination to hold a crayon. Previous microfiction efforts garnered accolades during competitions held by HiLoBrow.com and MassTwitFic. Rikki Ducornet is one of her generation’s best surrealists, with books including The Word Desire and The Fountains of Neptune. She is also the Rikki in the Steely Dan song “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number.” Kaolin Imago Fire is a conglomeration of ideas, side projects, and experiments. He has had short fiction published in Strange Horizons, Crossed Genres, Escape Velocity, and M-Brane SF, among others. Jess Gulbranson, a hyperminimal neoplastic bricoleur from Portland, Oregon, is an author, musician, critic, artist, and family man. He has swell hair. Jennifer Harwood-Smith is a Ph.D. student at Trinity College Dublin. She won the 2006 James White Award and has been published in Interzone magazine. Willow Holser is a twenty-six-year-old daydreamer with delusions of adulthood, gainful employment, and grammatical correctness. However, she does have what has been called a “Quite Suitable Hat.”
Rhys Hughes is a writer of absurdist fantasy; he lives in Wales. His most recent book is the novel Twisthorn Bellow, and he contributed to the first Lambshead anthology. Incognitum has long been part of a secret society dedicated to the subversion of reality through the recontextualization of museum exhibits and various other contaminations of meat-minds through subtextual viruses. Paul Kirsch grew up on an unhealthy diet of grilled cheese and ghost stories. He’s been tinkering with a steampunk/fantasy series, and writes book reviews at paul-kirsch.com. He lives in Los Angeles. Michael J. Larson lives in Minneapolis when he’s not on his private dirigible, holding wild midair parties and getting involved in international intrigue. Therese Littleton is a curator and writer who lives in Seattle, Washington. Graham Lowther, born in Vermont, now lives in Maine, where he is building his own house. He has long been a fan of horror and surreal fiction, and sometimes writes it. This is his first appearance in print. Claire Massey lives in Lancashire with her husband and two young sons. Her short stories have been published in a variety of places and she is the founding editor of online magazine New Fairy Tales. Tony Mileman lives and works in the Czech city of Brno. His pleasures include translating Czech supernatural fiction. His previous short fiction has appeared in Nemonymous. Adam Mills lives in a town in the Missouri Ozarks, one you can only see if you pay attention and pass by at the right time of night. He writes coded messages, teaches college English, and lives in a bowling alley. Annalee Newitz is the editor in chief of io9.com. She’s published her work in Wired, the Washington Post, Flurb, and 2600. She used to be a professor who studied monsters. Ignacio Sanz was born in Madrid, Spain, in 1977, and is a sci-fi and fantasy aficionado. Until now, he has written some short pieces, but this is the first time he has competed in an international writing contest. Steven M. Schmidt is a person of no importance whatsoever. He is working to correct this appalling state of affairs but it may take some time. Grant Stone’s stories have appeared in Shimmer, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine, and Semaphore. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand. Which is handy, since that’s where all his stuff is. Norman Taber (aka Dr. Galubrious) teaches graduate studies in ethereal anthropology and at Exeter University in Putney, Vermont. He is the world’s foremost expert on toad-scrapings. Galubrious is represented in the United States by Norman Taber, a professor of design at SUNY Plattsburgh. Brian Thill is the director of the Humanities Core Writing Program at UC Irvine, where he completed his Ph.D. in English. His research focuses include American literature, art, and politics. Nick Tramdack was born in 1985 and grew up in New Jersey. He works in the stacks of a Chicago library, where he has developed a Grendel-like hatred for noise. Nicholas Troy was born in Washington, D.C., grew up a bit in Germany, then grew up some more in Boston. He has always loved stories, and is currently a part of the Illiterati writing group. Tom Underberg lives with his wife and children in an old house. Standing on his roof, you can see Lake Michigan. He has been an economic consultant (excellent), bartender (disastrous), and dishwasher (promising). Horia Ursu is a Romanian publisher, translator, and (sometimes) writer of science fiction and fantasy. He is also senior editor of Galileo, a digest-size F&SF magazine. He lives in Satu Mare with his wife and daughter. William T. Vandemark can be found wandering the backroads of America in a pickup truck. His fiction has appeared in Apex Magazine, InterGalactic Medicine Show, and in several anthologies. Kali Wallace is inconveniently overeducated and underemployed. She lives in Colorado with her family, four cats, and a turtle. Tracie Welser is a speculative fiction writer and instructor of women’s studies. She’s quite fond of owls. In 2010, she was fortunate enough to survive the Clarion West Writers’ Workshop. Amy Willats is originally from California, although she has also been seen in Texas and Maryland. Currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, she tries not to scream uncontrollably, although sometimes she just can’t help herself. Nadine Wilson is a reader of books, scribbler of stories, taker of photographs, mother of one, big sister to many, pet of cats, lover of oddities, seminomadic and vaguely ambitious. She loves the world, even you. Especially you. Ben Woodard recently completed a master’s in philosophy at the European Graduate School. He blogs at naughtthought.wordpress.com, and his first monograph, Slime Dynamics: Generation, Mutation, and the Creep of Life, is forthcoming from Zer0 Books.
The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities Page 35