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The Mammoth Book of Body Horror is a compilation of 25 short stories. Actually, I should rephrase that, 25 mediocore, boring, and downright unreadable short stories. Now don't get me wrong, there were a few gems in there, however the few stories that were bearable were from well known authors suc...
With a name like Mammoth Book of Body Horror, you can reasonably expect a high proportion of gruesome to be contained within - and yes, there is, but where this anthology really excels is the variety of horror tales presented - from classics by Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft to more modern fare from the likes of David Moody, Michael Marshall Smith and Nancy A. Collins.While some of the stories were a bit of a trial to read - John Campbell's Who Goes There runs to an insane leng...
For this, I'm going to go through and give a short review of all 25 stories in this anthology. Short version is it's pretty uneven, with many stories not really falling under the "body horror" category. Some are good, some are forgettable. Let's dive in.Transformation by Mary Shelley: I stopped reading this one after five pages and looked up a plot summary. It's so exposition heavy, with a plot that feels like a novel compressed into 25 pages. Same reason I couldn't finish Frankenstein, her writ...
A mixed bag, as is usually the case with anthologies. The stand-out ones for me were 'Survivor Type' by Stephen King and 'Fruiting Bodies' by Brian Lumley, the rest were so-so and it seemed some of the collection was padded out with a few classics, which I've come across before, except for 'The Fly'. Worth a read for more the more fervent horror fans.
I finished reading The Mammoth Book of Body Horror. This was an excellent anthology filled with many great classics from the genre. .A couple favorites from this book are Region of the Flesh by Richard Christian Matheson and Dog Days by Graham Masterson. Matheson's story is about a man who buys a mattress whose previous owner was a murder victim. The new owner becomes obsessed with the history behind the mattress, reimagining the horrific murder that took place there, driving himself deeper and
One of the best horror anthologies I've ever read, about one of the most intriguing and disgusting subgenres of horror. Body Horror. The betrayal of one's own body... mutating, transforming, sometimes inside, sometimes outside. One of the only anthologies where I said "I'll put it down after this story" and couldn't. A great mix of old and new, there are stories in here from Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Robert Bloch, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Neil Gaiman and...
I love this collection so much, it's one I come back to again and again when I want to be scared.
I re-read a few stories from this collection at least once a year, I'm especially enamored with H.P. Lovecraft's terrifically good fun 'Herbert West - Reanimator'. Some of these stories are well known classics such as 'The Fly' by George Langelaan but thankfully the remainder are set in the modern day. If you're a fan of either the 1950s version or of John Carpenter's unmissable horror masterpiece then you may get a kick out of reading the inspiration for both in John W. Campbell's original stor...
Some great classic stories in here as well as some really good new ones.
«Ужасы тела. Не каких-то там мертвых тел. Ужас в вашем собственном теле. И что-то идет совсем не так… внутри вас. Ваше тело изменило вам – а поскольку это ваше тело, то не получится даже убежать».Слова, которыми Стюарт Гордон – надо ли его представлять? – открывает антологию, неплохо описывают суть представленного в ней направления (пожалуй, рановато называть его жанром). До поры до времени «телесные» ужасы оставались удобным термином, применимым к некоторым образцам хоррора независимо от способ...
As with most story collections this one is a mixed bag. Some of the stories are excellent in here such as the Poe, Lovecraft, Gaimen story as well as a few of the shorter stories, others are dull or cliche, and many lie in between. Even some of the best stories are more of fantasy or Sci-fi stories then horror works, none the less it was a enteraining read and a good overview of the common aspects of this genre of short fiction.
Pretty solid collection. The stand-outs were excellent and there was a nice selection of classic material, some of which I hadn't read before. This is almost like a who's who of horror. However, the editing was very spotty in places (Richard Matheson's story, already not one of his best, is made nearly unreadable by the use of quotation marks in every instance where we should be seeing an apostrophe instead). I encountered less of these issues further into the book. Calling some of these stories...
I loved the assortment of stories. Strange, classic, gross, thought provoking. A must read for the horror lover.
A rather disappointing showing actually. I might be somewhat inured to body horror, seeing as I have yet to see the microwaving baby scene from Victims beaten for most uncomfortable, but there wasn't much in the way of proper scares or discomfort. Some of the stories even had happy endings which was just absurd. There were a few decent stories though, so not a complete wash.
Good collection with a half dozen real gems:Reanimator (H. P. Lovecraft)Who Goes There? (John W. Campbell)The Fly (George Langelaan)Survivor Type (Stephen King)Fruiting Bodies (Brian Lumley)Freaktent (Nancy A. Collins)Others (James Herbert)*Almost Forever (David Moody)Never heard of James Herbert, but I need to read more of his work. Amazing talent. The only short story out of this collection where I hungered for the story to continue.
"Changes" Neil Gaiman"The Look" Christopher Fowler"The Body Politic" Clive Barker"The Fly" George Langelaan...these were the best stories in this anthology (in order of my favorite), otherwise it was kind of disappointing for such an interesting subgenre. This, of course, is just my opinion.They mixed in some classic tales from such founders as Mary Shelley and Edgar Allen Poe (what high schooler hasn't already read "The Tell-Tale Heart"?) but also some work by more contemporary writers such as
I had high hopes for this book, but there were a number of serious things wrong with it. The first 163 pages are encumbered by so-called "classic" body horror. Everyone who buys and reads this book has already read "The Fly," "Who Goes There?", "The Tell-Tale Heart" (body horror?), "Herbert West," etc. They are all good stories but they are basically unnecessary padding in what should be a book of "new" body horror fiction. The second problem with the book is that the rest of the stories are jus...
Good classics, a couple surprises (THE BODY POLITIC by clive barker was the standout), and some reeeeeeeal shitters
It's funny seeing that it took me 3 years to finish this book lol But it's not because it's not a good book. It's just life gets in the way and I have other things I want to do than focusing on reading books in the past years.I'm a huge fan of the body horror genre and have been watching a lot of movies about it. So I'm no stranger with "The Fly" or "Re-animator" titles etc. This book is a great find in the Big Bad Wolf book festival. Everything I wanted in one book. Especially when I'm not able...
I started to read this because of three gentlemen; David Moody, Clive Barker and Neil Gaiman. Most of the anthologies I've read or have tried to read has ended up with a poor or average rating. This one however, gets four stars. There were actually many good short stories in this collection. David Moodys story "Almost forever" is my favorite.