A New Review of A Hideous Bit of Morbidity

A new review of my Hideous Bit of Morbidity ran in this month's Science Fiction Studies. (Unfortunately, the review won't be available online for some time.) In the three-page review, Amy J. Ransom of Central Michigan University praises my book as "a delightful reference work" that shows off my "sense of humor." Ransom especially praises the breadth of my selections and the cleverness of the "fascinating" illustrations that accompany the text.

Ransom does take issue with a few of my choices, suggesting that I should have included more female voices (which I did strive to do; as Ransom notes, there just aren't that many from the period between 1780-1917, and to inclue every scrap written by a woman just because of the author's gendre would distort the historical record). She also would have preferred a more international focus.

The overwhelmingly positive review concludes with the "hope that a companion volume covering the more recent era will be forthcoming." I wish I could second that notion, but the licensing and reproduction fees for more recent work (pictures alone can run $200-$2,000 a pop) make that project simply impossible without a major publisher's backing. I put together Hideous for about $4 in copying fees and $50 in paper, ink, and postage; to license even a single piece for a modern-era anthology would cost more than my royalties for the entire first run of Hideous!