Coming out of RazorBlade Press, Hideous Progeny is one monstrously beautiful anthology that explores the world as it would have been if Dr. Victor Frankenstein's gruesome experiments had not gone awry. Writers such as Tim Lebbon, Peter Crowther, Steven Volk, Steve Rasnic Tem, and Rhys Hughes (to name just a few) each donate a small literary organ to the mix, and everything is skilfully stitched together into a marvellous book by first-time editor Brian Willis.

Cosmetically, the book is a two-face: while cover design by Chris Nurse is nothing short of outstanding, the internal layout is not without blemish. For example, outside margins are too wide, story titles are not always at the same height in the page, and the author's name is italicised in some but not all of the instances. Another gripe I have is that page numbers on the right-hand pages are left-aligned; plus, headers have no indication about the stories presented below them: these will give you a bad time if you want to riffle through the book to look up a specific something. There are a few extra typesetting warts and moles as well, as I noticed some characters showing up in a different size than the rest of the text, uneven spacing between words, typos derived from bad OCR, and so on. I sincerely encourage RazorBlade Press to pay more attention to internal design in the future, and run a few spell checks as well. Still, don't let appearances fool you, because the writing on these pages is top-notch.

In the whole, I was not in the least disappointed by Hideous Progeny while expecting quality work. Many short stories surprised me by their original angles, and all are very well written. The subjects are quite varied too, although some do overlap a little - it seems inevitable given the limitations inherent to their collective premise. I have my favourites, of course: Peter Crowther's piece is shocking yet touching at the same time, and the idea behind "Mad Jack" is a simple but nevertheless brilliant one. "The Banker of Ingolstadt" is perhaps the funniest in the book, and I found Steven Volk's "Blitzenstein" to rank among the best.

Whatever shortcomings the book has, they're quickly overwhelmed by the superb fiction it it, not to mention a downright gorgeous cover. For £6.99, it's well worth getting Hideous Progeny: not only will you be adding a fine specimen of a book to your library, you'll also be helping small press business to thrive. Because I want to see more from RazorBlade Press. Oh yeah.

A man before his time, H. W. Tilman changed the history of mountaineering by creating an ethic of the small, compact team attempting to summit high peaks and sail remote seas.

Many of us have heard the story of Freud writing the mother and telling her, in essence, that there was nothing wrong with her son being homosexual. The story is so unambiguous that we also have wondered what went wrong--with psychology, psychiatry and psychoanalysis--that resulted in homosexuality being directly and indirectly stigmatized for so long by professionals whose fields supposedly were largely influenced by Freud, other schools of psychological theory and thought notwithstanding. At the same time, many of us have concluded that perhaps that question didn't matter so much after the APA removed homosexuality from its list of illnesses nearly 30 years ago and the professional practice of psychoanalysis continued its long-term decline both in absolute terms and relative to other theories and methods.

Now Tim Dean, Christopher Lane and their book's contributors--with findings and interpretations drawn from diverse quarters--bring together gay/lesbian studies and queer theory with psychoanalysis, seriously engaging Foucault; making Lacan, Laplanche and others previously omitted from these interchanges relevant to the issue of psychoanalysis; emphasizing the need to integrate lesbians into debates that were for a long-time primarily about (and often by) gay men; and keeping it all timely and relevant in light of queer theory, AIDS, and other recent developments.

Students of gay/lesbian studies (including GLBT history), queer theory, and/or psychoanalysis obviously will profit greatly from this book. Those with a working knowledge of psychoanalysis will find this book easiest to digest while continuously stimulating; those without that working knowledge will find some parts tougher sledding than others but surely worth the effort. There's something truly thought-provoking just about every time you turn the page. It's surprising that no one had written and/or edited a book like this one before and I'd bet that Dean and Lane put years of thought and planning into this one. We should all be glad they did.

I rented this book from the library not even comprehending what a wonderful marvel, touching book this is. I immediately fell in love with it. Carole Gift Page truly has a gift for writing. I am so into this series that I can't wait to read the rest of the Heartland Memories books.

This book really helps a Christian understand why they still battle with sin after becoming a believer. The author clearly explains how we can be committed to the Lord yet struggle with particular areas of sin. This book is very realistic and encouraging at the same time. We first read it twenty years ago and find the concepts stand the test of time.

As a concerned parent of of two children who love chess this book has been a marvel. It managed to keep them quiet during the holidays and seems to have helped them to win more games. I have used it myself to learn new tips because Lane uses an entertaining style to teach different aspects of the game. There are original puzzles at the end of each chapter, although one is taken from a James Bond movie! I have used the book at chess camp to teach pupils who happily played through the examples. Very good.

Hugh Lane: 1875-1915 by journalist Robert O'Byrne is an impressive, scholarly, in-depth biography of British art dealer and patron Hugh Lane, who earned his way from poverty to fame and respect as a specialist in the great art of the old masters. His work in the creation of public art galleries in South Africa and the Municipal Gallery of Ireland earned him lasting prestige and some controversy, until his unfortunate death on the Lusitania when it was sunk by a Germans in 1915. Hugh Lane: 1875-1915 is the fascinating life-story presentation of a man who lived, worked, and devoted himself to the trading of art.

Before I read this book, I thought that human cloning was a thing of the future, and that human cloning was a fantastic subject that scientists should focuse on. But after reading this book, I discovered several very shocking things- first of all, human cloning is not something of the future, the possibility of cloning a human is with us now. Human cloning will also cause many dillemas, one of these identity crisis between the clone and the actual human. This is a very mind opening book that I recommend to all.

This book is a riot. There are 9 authors from all over the world who write 5 pieces each. I don't think I have ever laughed so much in my entire life. It's wacky, witty, smutty, weird but most of all funny. I highly recommend this publication.

I Shop, Therefore I Am is a Shopping Bag filled with a veritable cornucopia of well-made and carefully placed articles. Exploring the contents of this book-bag takes the reader into its deepest depths, as if into the "fabric" of the bag itself wherein lies the previously taboo realm of compulsive buying, spending, and shopping. For this reason alone the book is singularly important and a "must read" for interested persons from a wide range of perspectives.

I Shop, Therefore I Am is at once thought provoking and behavior challenging. Being part introduction, part overview, and part anthology, the book nonetheless unpacks its material with purposeful movement and in clear and readable language. Indeed, the more one reads, the more one wants to read! Each chapter contains compelling insights, all of which are brilliantly woven together into a single piece in editor April Lane Benson's own concluding essay. Nuances of definition are revealed as writers from behavioral, biological, psychological, social and spiritual disciplines present their understandings of the scope and nature of problems related to money-use, as well as assessment and treatment options.

But Benson does not leave us consumed by the bag! Quite the contrary-in noting that the exchange of money for goods and services can be done as "conscious shopping" she suggests that shopping can be about the "process of search...about being" rather than having or buying. She thus leaves the reader searching for the next book-bag(s?) of goodies, in which one might hope to find essays attending to issues of culture, ethnicity, socio-economic status and downward mobility in relation to "shopping gone bad", as well as a fuller exposition of the reparative use of shopping, or "shopping gone good."

When all is said and done, however, I guarantee - after reading this book you will never shop the same way again!