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Sick: An Anthology of Illness
The publishing world has just received its bill of health, and the prognosis isn't pretty. Literary marauders are rising up from the hazardous material bins labeled Horror, Surrealism, and Science Fiction. Here the pen is not merely mightier than the sword; it is a plague heralding the apocalypse for convention, writing a dirge for complacency. The stories herein explore illness in all its forms: physical, mental, and societal. These sick stories are horrendous, hilarious, and stupefying dissections of creative minds on the scalpel's edge.
nookbook (ebook)
First published November 30, 2003
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About the author
John Edward Lawson
50 books263 followersJohn Edward Lawson is the author of 16 books of fiction and poetry, and numerous chapbooks. Over 500 of his poems, stories, and articles have been published in magazines, anthologies, literary journals, and newspapers worldwide. He has been called “The forgotten black man of horror,” but he also regularly publishes science fiction, bizarro, mystery/thrillers, and literary fiction.
John was a winner of the 2001 Fiction International Emerging Writers Competition; in addition to being a finalist for the Stoker Award (2006, Superior Achievement in Poetry) and the Wonderland Award for Bizarro Fiction (2007, collected fiction), other award nominations include two for the Dwarf Stars Award, the Elgin Award, the Pushcart Prize, two for the Rhysling Award, and honorable mention for the 2015 Wonderland Award.
As an editor John is co-founder of Raw Dog Screaming Press, recognized by the Horror Writers Association in 2019 with their Specialty Press Award. He spent four years as editor-in-chief of The Dream People online literary journal of bizarro fiction and poetry. Other editorial projects include three print anthologies, four e-anthologies, and freelance work for such companies as National Lampoon and Double Dragon Publishing.
You can encounter John traveling the USA for book tours, panel discussions, speaking engagements, and leading workshops for organizations and universities. Topics he specializes in are entrepreneurship, productivity, publishing, writing, and disenfranchised communties in the arts. When he’s not on the road you’ll find John managing Broadkill Writers Resort where he regularly hosts writing retreats and specialized workshops at the beach on Delaware Bay. He is also founder of AllAccessCon, an event organizing company for making virtual and hybrid convention space available to attendees, vendors, and event sponsors.
John currently serves as vice president of Diverse Writers and Artists of Speculative Fiction. Other organizations he is a member of the Horror Writers Association, International Association of Innovation Professionals, Internet Marketers Association, and Nonfiction Authors Association.
Since a young age John has been involved in the visual arts. As a photographer John’s photography has been used as cover art for books, in marketing campaigns, and as home decor. He has also participated in the production of numerous short films, including award winners Party Girl and Uberman: An Experiment in Consciousness. Director Jayson Densman collaborated with John spawning a trilogy of PoVids derived from his poetry. His music project, Rage Inducer, has released seven singles and EPs with several more recorded and ready for distribution.
As a storyteller reviewers have compared John to J. G. Ballard, Clive Barker, Donald Barthelme, Ray Bradbury, William Burroughs, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, R. Crumb, James Herbert, Shaun Hutson, John Irving, Franz Kafka, Sarah Kane, HP Lovecraft, the Marx Brothers, Carlton Mellick III, Monty Python, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Chuck Palahniuk, Johnathan Swift, Walter Tevis, and Kurt Vonnegut. If any of this sounds good to you please consider investigating his books.
John was a winner of the 2001 Fiction International Emerging Writers Competition; in addition to being a finalist for the Stoker Award (2006, Superior Achievement in Poetry) and the Wonderland Award for Bizarro Fiction (2007, collected fiction), other award nominations include two for the Dwarf Stars Award, the Elgin Award, the Pushcart Prize, two for the Rhysling Award, and honorable mention for the 2015 Wonderland Award.
As an editor John is co-founder of Raw Dog Screaming Press, recognized by the Horror Writers Association in 2019 with their Specialty Press Award. He spent four years as editor-in-chief of The Dream People online literary journal of bizarro fiction and poetry. Other editorial projects include three print anthologies, four e-anthologies, and freelance work for such companies as National Lampoon and Double Dragon Publishing.
You can encounter John traveling the USA for book tours, panel discussions, speaking engagements, and leading workshops for organizations and universities. Topics he specializes in are entrepreneurship, productivity, publishing, writing, and disenfranchised communties in the arts. When he’s not on the road you’ll find John managing Broadkill Writers Resort where he regularly hosts writing retreats and specialized workshops at the beach on Delaware Bay. He is also founder of AllAccessCon, an event organizing company for making virtual and hybrid convention space available to attendees, vendors, and event sponsors.
John currently serves as vice president of Diverse Writers and Artists of Speculative Fiction. Other organizations he is a member of the Horror Writers Association, International Association of Innovation Professionals, Internet Marketers Association, and Nonfiction Authors Association.
Since a young age John has been involved in the visual arts. As a photographer John’s photography has been used as cover art for books, in marketing campaigns, and as home decor. He has also participated in the production of numerous short films, including award winners Party Girl and Uberman: An Experiment in Consciousness. Director Jayson Densman collaborated with John spawning a trilogy of PoVids derived from his poetry. His music project, Rage Inducer, has released seven singles and EPs with several more recorded and ready for distribution.
As a storyteller reviewers have compared John to J. G. Ballard, Clive Barker, Donald Barthelme, Ray Bradbury, William Burroughs, Wes Craven, David Cronenberg, R. Crumb, James Herbert, Shaun Hutson, John Irving, Franz Kafka, Sarah Kane, HP Lovecraft, the Marx Brothers, Carlton Mellick III, Monty Python, Vladimir Nabokov, George Orwell, Chuck Palahniuk, Johnathan Swift, Walter Tevis, and Kurt Vonnegut. If any of this sounds good to you please consider investigating his books.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
January 23, 2009
Sick: An Anthology of Illness from Raw Dog Screaming Press promises to explore "illness in all its forms: physical, mental, and societal." The title and back-cover seem to promise a collection of gross-out horror stories. In reality this is a highly uneven collection of surreal and abstract tales which primarily explores mental illness.
The book is divided into three sections, but if there is a theme to each it is beyond me. The book reads more like a challenge between authors, each one attempting to present a main character more fucked-up than the last story. About just as many authors succeed as fail.
"The Christ Machine" by Tim Curran starts off the book with one of the best pieces as he puts an original sci-fi twist to the Chirst mythos. Vincent W. Sakowski gives us two hilarious gross-out tales that will stick in your mind long after you finish. Efrem Emersen has a thoroughly gripping story of disease that turns a young man orange and his attempts to take vengeance on the doctor who diagnosed him. But to get to each of these great stories, you'll have to read many tales that are little more than several pages of insane rambling.
Sick is a hard book to recommend. For every story that reaches surreal greatness there is two that just meander on without a point. There are a lot of great stories and authors in here to discover but you have to wade through muck to get to them.
The book is divided into three sections, but if there is a theme to each it is beyond me. The book reads more like a challenge between authors, each one attempting to present a main character more fucked-up than the last story. About just as many authors succeed as fail.
"The Christ Machine" by Tim Curran starts off the book with one of the best pieces as he puts an original sci-fi twist to the Chirst mythos. Vincent W. Sakowski gives us two hilarious gross-out tales that will stick in your mind long after you finish. Efrem Emersen has a thoroughly gripping story of disease that turns a young man orange and his attempts to take vengeance on the doctor who diagnosed him. But to get to each of these great stories, you'll have to read many tales that are little more than several pages of insane rambling.
Sick is a hard book to recommend. For every story that reaches surreal greatness there is two that just meander on without a point. There are a lot of great stories and authors in here to discover but you have to wade through muck to get to them.
January 24, 2013
Now I ask you, with so much going on in the world today and horrors revealed daily on the evening news, is it still possible to shock the apathetic and indifferent? After reading this book all I can sum up is, “Hell Yes”! In fact, let me back up that statement with the admission that I was physically ill not once but twice during my visit into this world. This is not your typical run-of-the-mill scare here kiddies. In an arena created with mayhem and anarchy, Lawson makes sure to not only make you tremble with fear; he’s going to make you beg to be released.
Bringing together a stellar collection of writers to assist him, Lawson annihilates the standard. With thirty-six stories revolving around the abnormal, the insane and the alluringly repugnant, I warn you – you will find no comfort here. Lets start off with the tale that resulted in my illness, A Terrible Thing To Waste, written by Vincent W. Sakowski. A tale about an operation that went south, Sakowski took only two pages to mangle and distort the perception of hospital protocol and induce my lunch to resurface [figuritively].
Some other tales here are Mouthful of Dust, Along Came Auntie Rose, Drainage and Portrait of a Suburb. Adding their own piece of flayed skin to an overpopulated pool of horror, each author and story adds a new perspective. This collection confirms my theory that should horror writers not be permitted to write out their therapy, they might have been highly successful serial killers.
What makes a compilation like this stand out is the distinctive angle of each story. From one tale to the next, you’re never really sure where you’ll end up. From the quietly haunting to the appallingly shocking, this book keeps you on your toes and your mind in chaos.
My rating? I give it a 4 . For the Simple fact that even though I love horror, I like my meals even more. Buy the paperback and save those extra few dollars for some paper bags and a bottle of Pepto Bismol.
-As reviewed for Horror-Web.com
Bringing together a stellar collection of writers to assist him, Lawson annihilates the standard. With thirty-six stories revolving around the abnormal, the insane and the alluringly repugnant, I warn you – you will find no comfort here. Lets start off with the tale that resulted in my illness, A Terrible Thing To Waste, written by Vincent W. Sakowski. A tale about an operation that went south, Sakowski took only two pages to mangle and distort the perception of hospital protocol and induce my lunch to resurface [figuritively].
Some other tales here are Mouthful of Dust, Along Came Auntie Rose, Drainage and Portrait of a Suburb. Adding their own piece of flayed skin to an overpopulated pool of horror, each author and story adds a new perspective. This collection confirms my theory that should horror writers not be permitted to write out their therapy, they might have been highly successful serial killers.
What makes a compilation like this stand out is the distinctive angle of each story. From one tale to the next, you’re never really sure where you’ll end up. From the quietly haunting to the appallingly shocking, this book keeps you on your toes and your mind in chaos.
My rating? I give it a 4 . For the Simple fact that even though I love horror, I like my meals even more. Buy the paperback and save those extra few dollars for some paper bags and a bottle of Pepto Bismol.
-As reviewed for Horror-Web.com
December 23, 2015
This baby has been on my to read list forever! Tonight, I finally finished it and it did not disappoint. There were plenty of typical extreme scenarios but there was a good mix of bizarro as well which is good for me since I dabble in that genre from time to time. Like most books I read, this ain't for everybody so be forewarned this book is not for the faint of heart.
October 25, 2008
Twisted tales about illness - physical, psychological and societal. This anthology runs the gamut from weird to funny to gross.
May 2, 2018
Sick collection
This is a collection about illness and figuratively sick. The details in most of the stories are quite disturbing with a few tales ending abruptly. This is an interesting collection but it's not for everyone. I recommend this to those who are into blood, Gore and sick horror or sci-fi content. I will give the authors this much, book lived up to its title.
This is a collection about illness and figuratively sick. The details in most of the stories are quite disturbing with a few tales ending abruptly. This is an interesting collection but it's not for everyone. I recommend this to those who are into blood, Gore and sick horror or sci-fi content. I will give the authors this much, book lived up to its title.
September 29, 2019
Sick had a lot of hit or miss stories. Some of them were confusing or too short. I enjoyed about half of them. Worth a read.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews