Body Shocks · Extreme Tales of Body Horror

Bestselling editor Ellen Datlow ( Lovecraft's Monsters ) delivers world-class body horror in all its gruesome, psychological, and shocking glory. Discover—if you dare—shockingly twisted tales of the human body that make The Twilight Zone seem like a children's show. In Body Shocks , you will find twenty-nine chilling tales from storytelling masters including Carmen Maria Machado, Richard Kadrey, Seanan McGuire, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Tananarive Due, Cassandra Khaw, Christopher Fowler, and many more.

The most terrifying thing that you can possibly imagine is your own body in the hands of a monster. Or worse, in the hands of another human being.

In these 29 tales of body horror selected by World Horror Grandmaster Ellen Datlow, you'll find the unthinkable, the shocking, and more: a couture designer preparing for an exquisitely grotesque runway show; a vengeful son seeking the parent who bred him as plasma donor; a celebrity-kink brothel that inflicts plastic surgery on sex workers; and organ-harvesting doctors who dissect a living man without anesthetic.

Table of Contents:

The Travellers Stay by Ray Cluley

Toother by Terry Dowling

Painlessness by Kirstyn McDermott

You Go Where It Takes You by Nathan Ballingrud

A Positive by Kaaron Warren

La Beauté sans verte by Genevieve Valentine

Subsumption by Lucy Taylor

Spar by Kij Johnson

It Was the Heat by Pat Cadigan

Atwater by Cody Goodfellow

The Transfer by Edward Bryant

Welcome to Mengele’s by Simon Bestwick

Black Neurology: A Love Story by Richard Kadrey

Cuckoo by Angela Slatter

Cinereous by Livia Llewellyn

The Truth That Lies Under Skin and Meat by Cassandra Khaw

Natural Skin by Alyssa Wong

The Lake by Tananarive Due

I’m Always Here by Richard Christian Matheson

The Look by Christopher Fowler

The Old Women Who Were Skinned by Carmen Maria Machado

Spores by Seanan McGuire

Sweet Subtleties by Lisa L. Hannett

Elegy For a Suicide by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Skin City by Gemma Files

A True Friend by Brian Evenson

What I Found in the Shed by Tom Johnstone

Fabulous Beasts by Priya Sharma

Tissue Ablation and Variant Regeneration: A Case Report by Michael Blumlein