The Mammoth Book of Body Horror [Paperback]

25 stories of transformation, mutation and contagion

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.

When you consider just how many of these Mammoth Books are published each year, it really is amazing that the quality of the stories presented in this edition are of such a high standard. It is a testament to both the writers and the editors, that this the latest in the series has such a high standard of writing. The table of contents reads like a dream team of authors. How the editors decided on which six authors names were featured on the front cover I don't know. Seriously I would give my left arm, to interview any of the authors featured here. I'm not sure whether Barbie Wilde or David Moody has my left arm, but if they would like to pass it on to the next author, I would be most grateful.

I normally have two way in which I attack an anthology, the first is to go to my favourite author, and the second is to start at the beginning, I usually do this when there are no authors that I am familiar with. TMBODH, threw a spanner into the working of this process, I just didn't know where to start, other than not starting with Stephen Kings story Survivor Type, hand on heart I have never been a fan of King.

So the honour fell to Barbie Wilde, I had just read one of her stories in another anthology, and I had just finished compiling an interview with her. Barbie's story Polyp, more than lived up to the task. This a wonderfully disgusting story, that manges to both shock, the reader and make them giggle. Barbie has created a brilliant twist on the creature feature genre. I really enjoyed how the tale went from being a very personal story into an apocalyptic cliff hanger. After reading this story which in all reality was chosen at random, I knew this book was going to be great read.

I'm going to skim over most of the first half of the book, the storeis here are all classic of the genre, from John W. Campbell's Who Goes \There? Poe's The Tell Tale Heart, to George Langelaan's The Fly. . With the exception of The Fly, I had read these before, and it was really enjoyable going back and revisiting these landmark stories. There is very little I can say about these stories that hasn't been said before, by people better suited to comment on them. One thing I will say, is having these stories altogether in one volume is brilliant

Of the other stories my personal highlights were Christopher Fowler's The Look, this really was a chilling, and uncomfortable read into the darker side of fashion, and just how far a fashion designer will go to get the look.

Simon Clarke's, The Soaring Dead, reaffirmed my love for his writing, the twist ending of this story about greed, property, and an ancient mysterious plague was brilliant piece of story telling.

Honourable mentions must go to David Moody's Almost Forever, and Black Box, by Gemma Files.

The only story that I felt let down by was James Herbert's Others, it just felt like the someone had taken a couple of chapters out of a novel. It's been many a year since I last read anything by Herbert, so I was a little disappointed by this story. I had hoped it would reignite an urge to read him again.

As for the aforementioned Stephen King story, Survivor Type, I have to confess I rather enjoyed it. In fact it was so good it almost wiped clean practically a lifetimes dislike of his writing.

The Mammoth Book of Body Horror is a must buy for any horror fan. You would be hard pushed to find a more comprehensive, and satisfying anthology of horror stories this year.

Part reprint and part original, this anthology of 'body horror' contains, as the book's tagline says, 25 stories of transformation, mutation and contagion. Relatively new to the scene, husband and wife team Paul Kane and Marie O'Regan are rapidly making a name for themselves as anthologists: since their debut as editors in 2006 they have compiled (either together or alone) five anthologies of short fiction, together with a number of non-fiction volumes. In addition, they've also edited two souvenir programme books for FantasyCon, an annual event run by the British Fantasy Society and which is, to the genres of fantasy and horror, what Eastercon is to science fiction. They're also writers in their own right, with Paul Kane featured in this year's edition of 'Best New Horror'.

This is my fourth Robinson/Mammoth review in a row, all four titles having been bought at the recent FantasyCon event in Brighton this September. So, in an attempt to keep at least one of these reviews down to a manageable length, I'm going to opt to review only those 9 stories published post-2000, of which 7 are original to this anthology. The others range from the mid-1800s (Mary Shelley and Edgar Allan Poe) the `20s (H.P. Lovecraft), the `30s (John W. Campbell's classic novella `Who Goes There?' filmed three times, including by John Carpenter as 'The Thing') , to the `50s ('The Fly' filmed twice). Also included is Stephen King's mesmerising 'Survivor Type' (1982) which, despite the fame he'd already accrued at the time, no one would touch until legendary anthologist Charles L. Grant stepped in. Also included are terrific tales by Clive Barker, Robert Bloch, Ramsey Campbell, James Herbert, Neil Gaiman, Richard Matheson (many of whose tales have been translated to the small and big screen, included 'I Am Legend', filmed three times), and others.

As to the recent stories we have, from 2001, CHRISTOPHER FOWLER's "The Look", a brilliant tale of the ultimate lengths women will go to in the modelling industry.

GRAHAM MASTERTON's "Dog Days" (2009)* is very much in the tradition of 'The Pan Book of Horror Stories', in which tales of comeuppance are rendered in grisly detail. Bob's friend Jack is handsome and everything a woman could want. Despite dating the gorgeous Kylie, Bob's paranoid that if she ever meets Jack she'll leave him. He's right, Kylie falling for him when she sees Jack out on the beach walking his Great Dane. There is death and there is revenge... and something happens to Kylie and the dog.

Also in the great non-subtle tradition of Pan Horror are "Residue" by ALICE HENDERSON (a substance found at an ancient site turns out to be very much alive), "Polyp" by BARBIE WILDE (a crazed tale of sentient bowel cancer) and "Almost Forever" by DAVID MOODY (the tale of a medical scientist who has invented a formula for extending life expectancy).

Lest hysterically fevered in their approach are SIMON CLARK with "The Soaring Dead" (in which a property developer is trying to off-load land where victims of the Black Death plague may have been buried hundreds of years ago) and GEMMA FILES with "Black Box" (a story of the ParaPysch Department and their latest investigation).

Subtle horrors come from AXELLE CAROLYN, whose brief and poignant "Butterfly" tells of the dream-thoughts of a burns victim, and CONRAD WILLIAMS with "Sticky Eye", the story of a man with an unusual case of conjunctivitis, told is chilling paranoid language and tied up with the protagonist's memories of his father and childhood.

Running the gamut of subtle to gross-out horror this solid anthology strikes a nice balance and is definitely worth picking up.

*The copyright states that this is original to the anthology: I can only assume that Mr Masterton was remise to telling the editors otherwise, for it was in fact first published in `Shivers V' (2009) edited by Richard Chizmar, an anthology series from the US specialty imprint Cemetery Dance. However, as this was a small press publication it is already out of print and difficult and expensive to obtain. Its reprint here is welcome.

Firstly I would just like to say my knowledge of horror authors is slim although I have read all of the older 'classic' stories in this mammoth volume. Stopped being a devoted horror reader as i got older and wanted some decent writing rather than just a good hook. I also have to confess im nota Stephen King fan but am going to give him another chance, his story here is quite good.

So the standard of story here goes from the great to the bad, some interesting thought provoking writing and some bad cliche ridden silliness.

On the whole the stories are interesting and it has given me a taste of some well regarded authors whose work I will take a look at.