The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases - by Kage Baker (Paperback)

About the Book

Offering complete histories, symptom guides, and suggested treatments for rare and fantastical ailments, here is a dose of good humor for every sleep-deprived medical student, overworked physician, hypochondriac, and curious reader.

Book 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.

Review Quotes

"An amazing book ... plays delicious postmodernist games that are sure to delight the discerning (and slightly warped) reader."
--Publishers Weekly

"Lambshead is just what the doctor ordered."
--Village Voice

About the Author

Editor Jeff VanderMeer is the author of two short story collections, City of Saints and Madmen and A Secret Life, and one novel, Veniss Underground. He has also edited anthologies Leviathan 1, 2, and 3, the last a World Fantasy Award winner and Philip K. Dick award finalist.

Mark Roberts runs Chimeric, a graphic design firm, and has been involved in several publishing ventures through the publisher arm of Chimeric. An accomplished illustrator and writer, his work has appeared in Interzone, The Third Alternative, The New York Review of SF, and many others. Along with his co-editor, Jeff VanderMeer, he has been a finalist for the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award for his work on the fake disease guide. He lives in London, England.