Synopses & Reviews
First "published" in 1915, as World War I raged through Europe,
The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases was for thirty years disseminated to doctors around the world in the form of loose-leaf carbon copies and photocopies. In 1945, London's Chatto & Windus published the first formal edition of the guide. Twenty editions later, the guide was discontinued, but continued to be updated by Dr. Lambshead and his colleagues and privately printed by friends. From Freetown to Istanbul, Timbuktu to Ulan Bator, it has proven its worth under less than ideal conditions. When a doctor lost in the Congo rainforests with only a few antibiotics and feral pigmy elephants for company cannot diagnose his odd spinal condition, he reaches for his handy copy of the guide. When a family practice doctor cannot understand why a patient of 30 years with no history of mental defect suddenly begins to mimic inanimate objects, she turns to the reliable
Lambshead Pocket Guide.
Now that the Lambshead Pocket Guide will once again be publicly published, Dr. Lambshead, well over one hundred years of age, has decided to pass the editorship of the guide on to the capable if rather young, in the good doctor's opinion, hands of Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts. Although Dr. Lambshead will continue to monitor the influx of documentation regarding new diseases, he will leave the day-to-day editorial duties to VanderMeer and Roberts, both able doctors in their own right.
Contributors include, Neil Gaiman, Michael Moorcock, Ricki Ducornet, China Miéville, Brendan Connell, and many others.
Review
"What do a passel of brainy, witty SF and dark fantasy writers do to amuse themselves (and, hopefully, us)?....Perfect recreational reading, at least for hypochondriacs, who will bask in the assurance that they don't have, say, 'motile snarcoma,' 'third-eye infection,' or 'Inverted Drowning syndrome.'" Booklist
Review
"An amazing book...sure to delight the discerning (and slightly warped) reader." Publishers Weekly
Synopsis
From Delusions of Universal Grandeur to Twentieth Century Chronoshock, this amusing pocket guide to concocted diseases - designed and illustrated by John Coulthart - features an anthology of slightly morbid, darkly humorous ailments and prognosis srved up by such renowned luminaries as Neil Gaiman, Alan Moore, Michael Moorcock, Gahan Wilson, Brian Stableford, and Michael Bishop.